‘Ring of Honor’ Wrestling Review (July 22nd 2018)
Welcome to this week’s Ring of Honor review, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and we have one of the biggest main events in the history of Ring of Honor, but not for the reasons that you might normally think. Well, like a bug or a slug on a rug with a tug from a jug of glug, we too should make our start like a cart blown apart from a fart from a tart filled with… I can’t think of another word that rhymes… sock it to me Santa, sock it to me all night long!
Match #1: Sumie Sakai beat Hazuki – Women of Honor Championship Match
This was the best title match Sumie has had since winning the title. Hazuki made for a strong contender, although she lacks the notoriety that’s necessary to give to Sakai, as she is in need of a certain appeal as well. The idea here was that these two were brutal to each other, which gave this match a mystique that American wrestling often lacks. Hazuki wrestled in a t-shirt, which is Sting’s old code for “I didn’t get rid of my gorilla gut yet” but I’m not sure if that was Hazuki’s reasoning for wearing one. The action was of a good pace, with nothing ever going too fast to register (not like Tony Stewart’s wedding… he and his wife got married on top of his car while he was at Talladega… no they didn’t). You know, while I write this review, I feel like singing a sooooooonnnnngggggggg… My woman from Tokyo/She looks so good to me… I forgot the lyrics to the rest of the song. Plus, if I were to finish the song then we’d have to pay for it and I’m told Deep Purple expects us to have deep pockets if we intend to use their material. Let’s see them charge us for this: Sumie Sakai beat the life out of Hazuki until she was just Smoke on the Water, while telling her to Hush as she retained her title in her latest attempt at becoming a High-Way Star! Well, we just got charged any-way. Attaca! Attaca! Attaca! If I spelt Attica right then we get financial aid from FEMA, and if I spelt Attica wrong then we have to go on Larry King’s new show and help him spell the word “a”. Any-way, Sakai had a good night and Hazuki wasn’t too far behind.
Match #2: Main Event – Jay Lethal beat Dalton Castle, Matt Taven, and Cody – Four-Way Match for the Ring of Honor World Championship
I’ll cover the action first, then I’ll get into why this match is of importance to Ring of Honor’s history. To start with, Dalton Castle seems to have some lingering injuries, so he has elected to take some time off to heal and repair his body. To that end, it is simply essential to gain a new world champion, at least for the time being. As much as I like Taven, he just isn’t quite ready for this yet and Joe Koff, Ring of Honor’s COO, apparently agrees because he didn’t get booked to win. Cody is an excellent talent, but he does leave some-thing to be desired in the ring. I would enjoy another Cody title run, which we may get as we get closer to the All In event in Chicago this September, of which I plan to write a column about this week. To have Cody, as Ring of Honor World Champion, fight Nick Aldis for the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship in a sold-out main event is a very tantalizing prospect that the Sinclair Broadcast Group should consider for the near future. Before I continue, I plan on writing about the immediate and eventual potential of a revitalized NWA later this week and I will speak about the potential of having Cody as champion, among other things. Finally, we get to Jay, who has been accused of sexual harassment by Taeler Hendrix, specifically that he derailed her career because she wouldn’t sleep with him. Taeler claims she left Ring of Honor when Joe Koff and the management team did nothing about when she relayed this information to them. From that perspective, Jay does not deserve to be champion, because he does not have the attitude of a champion, nor should he be allowed to remain on the roster if the additional accusations from others that he is difficult to work with, as well as sexually abusive to the various women he has trained over the years. From a wrestling perspective, Jay is one of the best candidates to be the champion and the fact that he has this bad personality just brings a storm over all of our heads and… babaloo… we are getting struck by lightning. It’s just a shame that Jay is now in a position to have the title taken away, and rightly so. Now, as far as the action goes, this was fantastic stuff, with lots suspense the whole way through. I really enjoyed the match and I’m glad that it was a success, but I hope that this Jay Lethal controversy is resolved and that he doesn’t do this sex crime crap any-more.
News of the Night:
- The Kingdom defends the Ring of Honor Six-Man Tag Titles against Kenny King, Elisom Isom, and Chuckie T, next week.
- A feud between Gregory Helms and Marty Scurll is being built.
Final Verdict: This was a strong card that had a great main event. I hope the accomplishments of that match are not lost for nothing, where Jay Lethal is concerned, and that it all leads to more focus being put on the bad behavior of those in the wrestling industry who do so with reckless abandon.