Ring of Honor Review - July 13, 2016

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Donovan Dijak def. Jason Kincaid

When the commentators mentioned that Kincaid had taken part in the Top Prospect Tournament earlier this year, I couldn't recall him at all. That said, he had a much more impressive outing here than Dijak did, and that's saying something because Dijak is a hell of an athlete for a guy his size. There were a few sloppy spots here and there, but by and large, this was a very fun match and a breakout performance for Kincard, looking strong even in defeat. I'd love to see him brought back sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, Dijak feels directionless right now, which is a shame considering how much potential he has.


​World Tag Team Champions The Addiction def. Silas Young and Beer City Bruiser

Young and Bruiser were the last team I expected to receive the next shot at the World Tag Team Championship, buy hey, I'm not complaining. Sure, the match had a heel vs. heel dynamic, but they managed to make it work, mostly because both duos are extremely entertaining together. If Young and Bruiser had teamed more consistently, perhaps I would have seen them as bigger threats to capture the straps here. I thoroughly enjoyed Young's feud with ACH, so I hope that isn't over despite their lack of interaction on this show.

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ROH World Television Champion Bobby Fish Hosted 'The Fish Tank' with IWGP Tag Team Champion Mark Briscoe and ACH; Briscoe def. ACH in a No. 1 Contender's Match For the ROH World Television Championship

The talking segment featuring the three men before the bout was solid and made the subsequent match more meaningful for me. Going into this episode, it came across like a random match featuring two wrestlers who just so happened to win at Best in the World. But hearing from Briscoe and ACH definitely got me invested in who would win, and ACH was able to showcase the mic skills no one knew he had. The match itself was very well-wrestled and received pretty good time. Personally, I would have rather seen ACH go after the gold simply because he would have been a fresh face in the title scene, but Briscoe wasn't a bad choice, either.


Overall Show

Thankfully, ROH returned to airing first-run content only three weeks removed from the Best in the World pay-per-view. Typically, it's longer than that, so that was a pleasant surprise. This wasn't the most exciting hour of ROH TV, but each match had something to offer and the wrestling on the whole was excellent as usual. They did a great job of hyping next week's main event of Roderick Strong vs. Dalton Castle as well as Jay Lethal vs. Kyle O'Reilly for the ROH World Championship in two weeks, two bouts I am very much looking forward to.