Ring of Honor Review - March 16, 2016

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Roppongi Vice def. The Young Bucks, The Addiction, Brutal Bob Evans & Tim Hughes, reDRAGON, Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara, and Joey Daddiego & Chris Larusso in a No. 1 Contender's Gauntlet Match for the ROH World Tag Team Championship

As the last match at the end of a long set of tapings, I wasn't shocked to see the crowd sitting on their hands, and it's also hard to blame them when very few of the falls actually meant something. The first two falls with reDRAGON quickly running through Coleman and Ferrara as well as Daddiego and Larusso were inconsequential and their eventual encounter with the Bucks wasn't what it could have been. The Bucks entering when they did definitely brought the crowd back to life, but their match with The Addiction was short-lived. Hopefully that's a sign they're about to feud with each other given their attack on them that cost the Bucks the final fall. I thoroughly enjoy Roppongi Vice as a tandem and they're fresh faces in the ROH World Tag Team Championship picture, but they're never given any mic time or an opportunity to develop their characters because they're mainly a New Japan Pro Wrestling act, so will casual viewers care about them when they go up against War Machine?


Overall Show

I like the concept of having one match take up an entire hour of television when it's done sparingly, but this was an obvious case of ROH trying to kill television time weeks removed from their pay-per-view that they have yet to follow up on. Next week will be a fresh batch of tapings featuring the talent of NJPW, so that should be exciting. In regards to this show, ROH has a stacked tag team division, so I was disappointed not all of their biggest tandems (The Briscoes, All Night Express, etc) were involved. A fine Gauntlet match, but totally missable with the exception of the final few minutes.

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