Ring of Honor Review - November 16, 2016

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Team CMLL def. The Addiction and Kamaitachi in a ROH Six-Man Tag Team Championship Tournament Round 1 Match

I wasn't familiar with any of the three members of Team CMLL, but they did make for a fun trio and worked well with The Addiction and Kamaitachi. There wasn't anything about their characters that stood out, but at least they are skilled wrestlers. I was surprised to see them advance simply because The Addiction and Kamaitachi have been an established trio for months now, but I guess ROH really wants to push their partnership with CMLL. That said, it's still too soon for them to be splitting up, but we'll see where this leads.


The Cabinet Addressed the Audience

I'm not even sure if I can call Kenny King, Rhett Titus and Caprice Coleman The Cabinet anymore simply because they mocked the name and ROH for giving it to them. They also sounded off on how underutilized they are in the company, so this was supposed to come off like a shoot. I really don't care too much for the trio, but if nothing else, they're thankfully ditching the awful Cabinet moniker it seems, which is perfect timing now that the election is over in the United States.

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Shane Taylor and Keith Lee def. Colt Cabana and Dalton Castle

The more I see of Taylor and Lee, the more they impress me. I just can't get over what they can do for guys their size. Castle and Cabana have nice chemistry with each other as well, so I thoroughly enjoyed this match and as I've always said, ROH hands down has the best tag team division of any wrestling promotion right now. Taylor and Lee should be going after the tag titles at some point, so this was a logical win for them. Meanwhile, Cabana and Castle teased tension at the end, and I'm interested to see if Cabana ultimately goes heel and how he would fare in that role.


ROH World Television Champion Bobby Fish def. Hangman Page

Page's pre-match attack on Fish definitely did a lot to help him get his heat back following his loss to Kyle O'Reilly at All Star Extravaganza while also establishing Fish as a babyface once and for all. Sure, he tapped out clean to Fish here, but only after dominating him for a majority of the match, so I don't think he lost anything in defeat. I really liked the post-match staredown between Adam Cole and his upcoming challengers O'Reilly and Jay Lethal. as well.


Overall Show

ROH TV has been very storyline-driven since the Lowell tapings, which has been a refreshing change of pace. At the same time, there is plenty of excellent wrestling as there was on this show and the build for Final Battle has been fantastic. There's quite a few matches on that card that I'm looking forward to, and with a few weeks left until the event, here's hoping ROH can finish strong with the hype for it.