Ring of Honor – August 7, 2019: Under A New Format
IMG Credit: Ring of Honor Wrestling
Ring of Honor
Date: August 7, 2019
Location: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, New York
Commentators: Ian Riccaboni, Colt Cabana, Alex Shelley
Hosts: Ian Riccaboni, Quinn McKay
This seems to be a special episode with footage from Manhattan Mayhem. That means a World Title match between Matt Taven and Jay Lethal. They have some chemistry together so we could be in for a good match between the two of them. I’m not sure what else we’ll be seeing, but it could be all over the place. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
Opening sequence.
Here’s World Champion Matt Taven, in a Red Sox jersey, to open things up and for some reason we skip his walk down the aisle. Taven talks about how he won the title the last time he was in this city and tonight, he’s going to finish this rivalry with Jay Lethal. Kenny King came out and says he wants in this match and Taven would be happy to beat him as well. King approved but Lethal came out to start the brawl over how unfair this is.
Ian and Quinn McKay welcome us to the show and say the format is changing around here. If that means less of a time lapse, I’m all for it.
Lethal talks about how cool it was to ride to Madison Square Garden but then the ride back was the worst ever. He lost the title but didn’t get pinned or submit. His mindset upon coming back to New York: don’t leave without the title. This has aired before.
Taven is tired of people doubting him so tonight he’ll prove himself, again.
Clip of the Briscoes vs. the Guerrillas of Destiny at War of the Worlds with the Guerrillas stealing the Tag Team Titles.
Clip of the Briscoes winning the titles back at Manhattan Mayhem. The Guerrillas attacked the Briscoes after a match the next night, setting up one more match.
The Guerrillas talked about how the Briscoes don’t know who they are and they’re not waiting to get the titles back.
The rubber match, a Ladder War, will take place at Summer Supercard in Toronto.
Video on Rush vs. Dalton Castle III at Summer Spectacular. Castle wore a mask at Manhattan Mayhem and jumped Rush from the crowd, including giving him the Bull’s Horns.
Castle, who insists on being listed as Quinn’s FAVORITE guest, isn’t worried about karma coming back on him because he’s not afraid of Rush. He dances a lot and says it’s street pretzel time.
The next night in Massachusetts, Castle hit Rush low for the DQ. The rematch is in Toronto.
Rush was ticked off and promised violence in Toronto because it’s a No DQ match.
We get clips of Silas Young vs. Josh Woods vs. Tracy Williams vs. Shane Taylor in a Proving Ground match. Williams won by pinning Young (thanks to a Woods low blow), earning himself a TV Title shot at Summer Supercard. Williams and Taylor yelled at each other post match with Williams spitting on a handshake offer.
Williams talks about being the best technical wrestler in the world. He won tonight but didn’t beat Taylor, so he’ll take the title in Toronto. That spit on his hand just lit a fire underneath him.
Taylor thinks Williams is here because he can’t go anywhere else and that’s not cool. He wants Williams’ family to be there to see Williams let them down again.
Young waits for Woods outside and says Woods is learning, but he should have won. Woods has more to learn.
Ring of Honor World Title: Matt Taven vs. Jay Lethal vs. Kenny King
Taven is defending and it’s one fall to a finish. The champ bails straight to the floor to start, where he can trip Lethal to the floor for the brawl. King dives onto both of them and takes Lethal back inside for a hard clothesline. Taven comes back in for a discus lariat for two on King before throwing Lethal outside and hitting a DDT for the same.
Back from a break with a three way fight until King gets kicked in the head, only to come back with a double closeups for the triple knockdown. Lethal and King head outside so Taven hits a suicide dive onto both of them, followed by a no hands dive onto just King. Lethal is back in for a suicide dive to Taven, followed by two to King. Dang man what did King do to them?
Back in and Taven gets smart by going after King’s knee and putting on a Figure Four. Lethal tries to make the save with Hail To The King but King turns the hold over to make Lethal miss. With that broken, Lethal grabs a Crossface on Taven but King makes another save. King’s double springboard Blockbuster gets two on each of them. The Royal Flush is countered into a small package to give Taven two and the Lethal Injection gives Lethal the same on the champ. King is back up with a Lethal Injection and Royal Flush to Lethal but Taven hits the Climax and steals the pin on Lethal to retain at 13:03.
Rating: B. Good match here, as Taven can have a solid performance, though that all falls by the wayside as soon as he gets on a microphone. The addition of King didn’t do much here, unless they’re setting up a Lethal heel turn down the line as he can be annoyed at not getting his fair rematch. This was about as good as it could be with Taven and King involved so we can call this a nice surprise.
We run down the Summer Supercard lineup to end the show.
Overall Rating: B. Oh I like this new format a lot. The main events have been a lot better as of late but I really didn’t need to sit through a bunch of lower to midcard matches to get to those main events. They’re much better off by having the hype packages to the Honor Club shows and then a featured match a week. ROH TV has never been anything important so scrapping the weekly format is the right call. Much better way to go here and it’s almost a relief in a way.
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