Ring of Honor Review - May 16, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Kelly Klein def. Madison Rayne

Once again, I'm happy the women are slowly but surely being integrated into the weekly televised ROH shows now that they have their own title to fight for, but it will take time for fans to get into the matches more, because they were fairly quiet for this encounter between Klein and Rayne. It was well-wrestled and all, but you could hear crickets throughout, which was a shame.

The Motor City Machine Guns def. The Dawgs

Before the bout, the Guns teased splitting up because they accomplished their goal of capturing the ROH World Tag Team Championship last year. Thankfully, they didn't go through with the breakup, as I feared would be the case during their match with The Dawgs. It was a nice little match for what it was and the right team went over, though I am curious what's next for Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin.

Facade def. Eli Isom by Disqualification

Despite not being familiar with him or his work prior to this, Facade definitely impressed me here. He had the crowd behind him due to being the hometown boy, but his in-ring offense was also impressive and he showed tons of promise. Bully Ray crashing the contest was unfortunate, but it did lead to Cheeseburger standing up to him and Joe Koff subsequently firing him as the ROH Enforcer. Bully then claimed he was "unretired," begging the question of why he even bothered to retire from the ring in the first place.

The Young Bucks def. ROH World Tag Team Champions The Brisoces by Disqualification

The Briscoes and the Bucks have always worked well together, and as expected, this was another exceptional outing from them. The crowd was engaged in the exciting action and made this a hot main event. I wasn't thrilled with the non-finish, but it did keep the feud alive and fuel tensions between Bullet Club and The Briscoes. It was interesting Cody ended up attempting to make the save for the Bucks afterward but not Marty Scurll, who was nowhere to be seen. But Bullet Club is fine, right?

Overall Show

Bullet Club continue to be the central focus of ROH TV right now, so if you're a fan of the faction (like I am), then you're probably digging everything they're doing, but if not, perhaps the programming ROH is producing at the moment isn't for you. Nonetheless, this was a solid show with an above-average main event and some storyline advancement. Next week's episode will feature Bullet Club vs. So Cal Uncensored and Jay Lethal vs. Punishment Martinez.