Ring of Honor Review - September 21, 2016

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Bullet Club def. The Cabinet

I'll never understand why The Bullet Club are booked like babyfaces in matches such as this yet they're supposed to be the top heel faction of the promotion. Are certain members faces and others are heels? At any rate, it was a well-wrestled match but it didn't seem to serve a purpose. I assume this was merely a preview of what to expect when these trios eventually clash over the newly created Six-Man Tag Team Championship. On a side note, how are The Cabinet on ROH TV more regularly than anyone else yet they aren't the least bit entertaining?​


Keith Lee and Shane Taylor def. Ricardo Rojas and Ken Phoenix

I typically don't like to compare companies, but Lee and Taylor arrived on the ROH scene around the same time The Authors of Pain debuted in NXT. They were erriely similar to me back then, but now, Lee and Taylor are light-years ahead of The Authors of Pain. And they don't even have WWE Hall of Famer Paul Ellering as their manager! Lee and Taylor are not only extremely dominant in the ring, they've evolved as characters and fans have an incentive to get invested in them, and that's what I liked about the subsequent match.

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War Machine vs. Keith Lee and Shane Taylor Ended in a No Contest

While I wasn't digging this feud at first, I've really grown to enjoy it lately, especially with the history between Ray Rowe and Taylor being played up before the bout. The added intensity made this match all the more meaningful, and the exciting in-ring action spoke for itself. I was curious as to why they were holding this match so close to All Star Extravaganza, but the non-finish allows them to do a blow-off match of some sort at the event if this wasn't designed to write Rowe out of storylines.


ROH World Tag Team Champions ​The Addiction and Kamatachi def. Kazuchika Okada and Roppongi Vice

Similar to the opener, there wasn't a real reason why this match happened, but from an in-ring standpoint, it was a treat. The Addiction and Kamatachi have been a fun trio for as long as they have been together and of course you can always count on Okada and RPV for an above-average matchup. The final few minutes were fast-paced and entertaining and I'm glad the heels went over for once. I couldn't tell you a single time in recent memory of a match Okada had in ROH that he didn't lose.


Overall Show

The opening tag team match had me worried that this entire show would be total filler (which I would have been disappointed in given the build to the pending pay-per-view has been strong thus far), and although the main event didn't wasn't anything of storyline significance, it gave the tag champs a major victory. Meanwhile, the angle between War Machine and Taylor and Lee was well furthered and definitely the highlight of the show for me.