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We're back! Let's get into the latest episode of Ring of Honor television!
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Kevin Kelly and Mr. Wrestling III welcome us to the hour-long, seven-team tag gauntlet! This should be great, so let's GET DOWN TO IT.
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Tag Team Gauntlet Match: Roppongi Vice (Trent? & Rocky Romero) def. The Young Bucks, ReDRagon, Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara, The House of Truth (Joey Daddiago & Chris LeRusso), Tough Guy Inc. ("Brutal" Bob Evans & "Tough" Tim Hughes) and The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian)
The first team out is reDRagon, the team with the dumb mid-word caps stylization that I have never once gotten correct on the first attempt. The second team is Caprice Coleman & Will Ferrara, so it's pretty clear which team will be the first to be eliminated.
Kelly explains the rules, which probably don't need to be explained. An upper-left-corner graphic helpfully(?) denotes "Match #[x] of #6" between falls, which contains at least one hashtag too many. Since this entire episode is one long match, I'll be doing a more bullet-point-type set of observations than I normally have in these recaps.
Coleman has a pretty hilarious version of an STO where he just piefaces a dude to the ground while sweeping the lef. That's the main takeaway from the first fall, really. Ferrara (who got a bloody mouth during the match) taps out to a knee bar in under 10 minutes, so yep.
The House of Truth is the third team in the gauntlet. Truth Martini introduces Joey "Who's Your Daddy" Daddiago and "The Heir Apparent," Chris LeRusso, who is a "martial arts expert" and "a lawyer." Martini says this is LeRusso's audition for the HoT. The extent of the crowd's reaction to LeRusso is one guy loudly asking, "Who is that?" He has sort of a thick Pinky Sanchez thing going on.
Boy, the ROH tag team division sure SEEMS deep until you have to fill out a seven-team non-champs gauntlet with teams like Coleman & Ferrara and Daddiago & LeRusso.
About seven minutes or so into the second match, Martini gives LeRusso the thumbs down and Daddiago leaves him stranded. O'Reilly gives LeRusso some typical O'Reilly strikes and sinks in a guillotine for the submission.
Now BUSINESS IS ABOUT TO PICK UP as the Young Bucks head to the ring, clad in their SWANK original tiger-striped pants with the fluorescent green tassels on the boots. The instant the Bucks' music hits, the crowd finally wakes up ... and so do I.
An emphatic SUCK IT results in some punching to start and superkicks are grabbed and reversed into stereo ankle locks, which is fun. The Bucks take over with a twin dive. Things break down rather quickly, as the ref stops enforcing tags and legal men at random. Back from commercial break, things settle in, as reDRagon works over Matt Jackson for a while. Matt hits a top-rope twisting Blockbuster and makes the hot TOO SWEET to Nick, who cleans house.
After some more back-and-forth, O'Reilly's attempted rebound lariat runs into a stereo superkick and More Bang For Your Buck makes it academic, as reDRagon takes a powder and the Bucks advance. The next team is the powerhouse tandem of "Brutal" Bob Evans and "Tough" Tim Hughes.
The match abruptly enters the comedy portion, as Evans and Hughes run into immediate superkicks. Hughes gets frustrated and sends the Bucks some SUCK ITs of his own. The highlight here is Evans trying his own Superkick Party. It doesn't go well.
Superkick party.. sort of. #watchROH pic.twitter.com/hKkINGA3u0
— DTAM (@DeathToAllMarks) March 13, 2016
A rope-hung swanton gets the pin on Hughes, which brings out The Addiction. Daniels and Kazarian opt to jump the Bucks from behind rather than come down the ramp, because they're crafty veterans. Unfortunately, their crafty veteranness only gets them so far. Daniels' attempt at Angel's Wings gets interrupted by a superkick and Nick rolls up Daniels to advance.
The Addiction hits Celebrity Rehab on the Bucks before Roppongi Vice comes to the ring. Rather than getting a chance to pick the bones of the Bucks, they instead go after the Addiction. Daniels and Kazarian finally get taken to the back by security and we're down to Bucks vs. RPG.
This actually ends up being the best part of the gauntlet (as it probably should). For whatever reason, nothing was really clicking until these last two teams got in together. Some incredibly close nearfalls faked me and everyone else in the arena out several times and both parties hit some massive double-team moves.
Trent? makes a blind tag as the Bucks go for More Bang For Your Buck on Romero, allowing RPG Vice to hit the Strong Zero for the upset pin. Romero celebrates by singing his theme song into Kelly's headset as Mr. Wrestling 3 grooves along.
What we learned: Well, we have new challengers to War Machine's tag titles! We also have some intrigue between Roppongi Vice and the Addiction, as well as between the Bucks and the Addiction. We've also got Truth Martini still searching for someone to replace Donovan Dijak in the House of Truth. So a lot of things managed to get furthered here, even with just one match!
NEXT WEEK: some New Japan stars are in the house!
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That's it for this week. You can watch ROH's weekly television on Comet or in syndication on Sinclair stations, or with a Ringside Membership on ROHwrestling.com.