I'm
always a fan of new ideas regarding no.1 contender matches, especially when they are both simple and unique. This week
on ROH TV, we saw the introduction of 'Blind Destiny', with all the
matches taking place on the one night.
Now
granted, this Blind Destiny thing is fairly predictable. It was
obvious who was going to win their qualifying matches, and it's
obvious that Davey is going to successfully defend his World Title at
Showdown in the Sun. But, predictable isn't always bad. In fact, if
it makes sense and in the end is exciting, then I'm all for it.
The show
kicked off with an OK match between Kenny King and Jay
Lethal. It took a while for them to get into it, as both men seemed
slower than usual, but overall delivered enough choice moments to
make this a passable contest. Would you expect better from the both
of them? Yes. But maybe that's just the case of both men taking it
easy for TV. I'm not saying that's a reasonable excuse, just an
excuse.
Things
picked up a bit more however when the fun bout between Steen and Cole
came on shortly after. The match was face paced from the moment the
bell rang, with Adam Cole doing some nice aerial moves and kick,
while Steen delivered some bad ass signature moves and hard chops.
Where King and Lethal failed to get going, Cole and Steen never
slowed down.
Lastly,
we saw Kyle O'Reilly take on Michael Elgin. While on paper this is a
great match, I think it really failed to deliver anything this week.
Straight from the off we saw Kyle and Elgin exchange blows as if they
have been competing for over 20 minutes. Instead of any chain
wrestling or mat work in the early stages of the match, it was
nothing but shot after shot after shot. Davey Richards tried his best
to bring some excitement into the match and to be honest, the crowd
seemed to enjoy it, but for me it was a let down.
Of
course their were some nice spots throughout, and both men worked
hard to put on a good match, but I just felt that they structured it
wrong. While O'Reilly should have tried to ground his opponent,
instead we saw him stand toe-to-toe with him and take part in a slug
fest. Maybe I'm being too harsh on them, but when you pick something
out like that it's hard to get into it.
Stray Observations:
- Roderick Strong was awful in that 'Inside Ring of Honor' segment. Worst I've seen from him in a while.
- Steen's DDT through the ropes was just awesome. Eat your heart out Randy Orton, eat your heart out.
- With Davey likely winning his match at Showdown in the Sun, that'll make it two title shots that Elgin now has. One from winning his Blind Destiny match, and the other from winning Survival of the Fittest last year.
- I thought the show flowed very nicely this week. The 'Inside Ring of Honor' segment was relatively short and did a good job of hyping up Showdown in the Sun, while the extra match on the card pushed away all those ROHwrestling.com adverts.
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