09th Oct2018

‘Ring of Honor’ Wrestling Review (Oct 7th 2018)

by Nathan Favel

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Welcome to this week’s Ring of Honor review, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and we have the hero versus the villain in a classic case of tying the damsel in distress to the rail-road tracks and leaving her to die. Wait… no it’s just a wrestling match. That works, too.

Match #1: Coast 2 Coast beat The Kingdom – Tag Team Match

My Take: 2.5/5 

The wrestling here was good, but this match just didn’t get to the next level, for what-ever reason. These two teams have lots of chemistry together, so that had nothing to do with why this match couldn’t go beyond just going from move to move with solid logic holding it together. Perhaps it’s the way Ring of Honor presents matches, because this match was clearly meant to be a big encounter, but always just felt like dark match that snuck its way onto television. Keep in mind, the wrestling fluid and fast, but just couldn’t become any-thing more than the sum of its parts. This was like watching Wayne’s World 2, which was a good movie, but just couldn’t be as good as the original picture. As matches go, this had all the right ingredients, but just couldn’t get the recipe right… just like Stevie Wonder when he made brownies with broccoli in the middle.

Match #2: Shane “Hurricane” Helms beat Marty Scurll

My Take: 3/5

This now makes these two guys 1-1 with one another. The action was good but felt a bit stunted, for what-ever reason. By the way, I’m not implying that the action wasn’t dangerous of frenetic enough or any-thing like that, but it just didn’t become as intense as it should have been. Much of this match felt too mechanical, but would have definitely done well on a good night of Monday Night Nitro in 1996 World Championship Wrestling. It’s nice to see Helms back in the mix, as he always got a bad rub in the WWE, even when things seemed to go better for him. Scurll was focusing more on his character here, which isn’t a bad way to go, but can be a crutch that allows you to forget to put more energy into your holds, because you can just sell the wrestling with talking instead of selling it with your body language. Chris Jericho does that a lot, but is such a nut that he can get away with jaw-jacking like that to the crowd and just talk them into believing what he is doing. Scurll isn’t quite as good as Jericho, but is getting closer and closer to that level of skill all the time. Helms is a great person to pair with Scurll, as the former has a similar wrestling technique to the latter, so he can help keep Scurll going down the path he’s on, rather than becoming like so many of his peers who prefer the dangers of the X-Division style. Over-all, this match was a good, if simple, bout that sets us up for a rubber match at some point.

Match #3: (Main Event) Cheeseburger beat Will Ferrara – Fight Without Honor Match

My Take: 3/5

This was a fine brawl that was, presumably, the end to the feud between these two athletes, which has been going on for a year. This match… was groovy, baby! The match was a tense brawl that ended a bit too early for it to become more than just a satisfying end to a good feud. This whole thing was like an Andy Warhol painting of Lethal Weapon that he stopped working on so he could give himself that goofy hair-cut. It’s transcendental! Ferrara may not be the next big star, at least not any-time soon, but he makes for a fine opponent for big stars and might just be on his way to working with the those people if he can keep impressing like he did here. Cheeseburger is still a hard sell as being worthy of holding a championship, but he is popular and sells like crazy, so he has definitely earned a place on important wrestling cards. The right guy won in a good match that might just lead to better things for both in the near future.

Final Verdict: 2.5/5

This was a solid night that didn’t go for the gold, but earned the bronze, in style. Even if tonight wasn’t the biggest in Ring of Honor history, it was a satisfying card that ended one rivalry while continuing a few more.

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