Ring of Honor Review - January 11, 2017

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jay Briscoe def. BJ Whitmer in a Decade of Excellece Tournament Round 1 Match

Is it just me or have The Briscoes felt directionless since Jay lost the ROH World Championship back in the summer of 2015? They float from feud to feud, which is fine because they're established acts, but I'd be surprised if either of them came out on top in this tournament. The match was hardly anything special, but at least the right guy went over and Whitmer was knocked out of the brackets early on. Whatever the act of him, Kevin Sullivan and Punisher Martinez is supposed to be just isn't clicking for me.

Silas Young and Beer City Bruiser def. Jon Silver and Alex Reynolds

We haven't seen Young and Bruiser team up in so long on ROH TV that I assumed they went their separate ways. Thus, I'm glad they're still together because I like their old school gimmick. Silver and Reynolds scored more offense than I thought they would, but it was a fun match while it lasted. I was actually really looking forward to Bull James (formerly Bull Dempsey in NXT) joining Young and Bruiser because he would be a perfect fit for them, but perhaps they want to make Bruiser a babyface from the get-go. If that's the case, I don't know how well that will work because the crowd barely reacted to the beatdown he received at the hands of the heels.

ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champions The Kingdom def. Joey Daddiego, Will Ferrara and Cheeseburger (Non-title)

Personally, I like The Kingdom and the presentation of the trio on the whole. They're excellent wrestlers to boot, so although this was a brief showcase match, they shined in the small amount of time they were allotted. I don't mind the idea of a World Six-Man Tag Team Championship because of the depth ROH's tag team division has, but I'm curious what tandem will be first to challenge them for the titles.

ROH World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks Addressed TNA World Tag Team Champion "Broken" Matt Hardy

I wish this had aired this earlier because there was a ton of buzz coming out of the Final Battle pay-per-view in regards to what would happen between The Young Bucks and The Broken Hardyz. This promo didn't give fans an indication as to when the match might happen (WrestleMania weekend has been rumored), but the Bucks hitting a superkick on Vanguard 1 was a cute little bit that the crowd ate up.

Chris Sabin def. Colt Cabana in a decade of Excellence Tournament Round 1 Match

Cabana could be a tremendous heel if he was given the creative freedom to be. It's not that they're limiting him, but we have hardly heard from him since he turned heel two months ago, so it's no surprise he isn't generating much heat at this point. This didn't come across like a true main event match whatsoever, especially since it was so short. It was a decent match and I'm glad Sabin advanced, but it felt more like an opener than a match you would close the show with.

Overall Show

Usually, ROH TV features at least one or two blowaway matches that I recommend fans go out of their way to watch, but none of the matches on this show stood out to me in a major way. The Young Bucks' segment was enjoyable, but not even that promo was all that newsworthy. If nothing else, they moved the Decade of Excellence tourney along nicely, Bull James made his ROH TV debut, and The Kingdom looked good in victory, so it was successful in accomplishing a few different things.