5. IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada Vs. Dalton Castle: A funny thing happened on the way to a classic match. Fans popped like crazy for Okada and Castle, but seemed to care less about the superb mat wrestling on display. On a night when ROH techs finally addressed the sound problems that plagued their last few PPVs, they had to have a crowd that was more into cool ring entrances and high spots than psychology and matwork. Not helping matters was that the live crowd clearly believed Castle had no chance of winning against Okada. Too bad, because the match itself was a real treat. This was the best PPV showcase for Castle so far. He held his own against one of the greatest wrestlers in the world today and perhaps of all time, matching him move for move with skill and agility. I wonder if the flamboyant Lanny Poffoesque gimmick makes people forget just how skilled a wrestler Castle really is. To his credit, Okada gave Castle plenty of offense and allowed Castle to look like a million bucks even in losing. I can think of a few big names in other promotions who wouldn’t have given their opponents the spotlight to shine, especially one oversized, egotistical and extremely brutish Beast. Castle even had a big moment when he finished off Okada with the Bang-A-Rang but he couldn’t score the pin since the Rainmaker craftily rolled out of the ring before the cover. Eventually, Okada finished off Castle with a Tombstone piledriver and the Rainmaker for the pin. Perhaps the year’s most underrated match, judging from the live crowd reaction and the lack of love for the match amid fans online. ******
6. ROH TV Champion Bobby Fish Vs. Mark Briscoe: After several years establishing himself as a tag team specialist, Fish is really hitting his stride as a singles performer. This was his best TV title defense to date on live PPV. While Jay Briscoe is rightly acclaimed as a great singles talent, his brother Mark seldom ever receives the same acclaim. Mark Briscoe deserves major props for how good he is in singles action too. Briscoe eschewed his usual brawling style for a more technical mat game and to everyone’s surprise, it really worked. I thought it was some of the best mat wrestling of the entire weekend, although the live crowd became extremely fickle with the match, particularly the slower pace and the lack of daredevil high spots. Sometimes I wonder about the wrestling fans. Not every match has to consist of daredevil high spots! Sheesh. After a long, evenly matched bout, Fish scored the pin with a Falcon Arrow, retaining his TV title. Both men deserved better than the audience they managed to get here. Don’t be fooled by the people saying that something was missing in this match. It was as near-perfect as a TV title match can get. Perhaps this match will look better with age and gain a reappraisal from those currently underrating it. ***** 7. ROH World Tag Team Champions The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) Vs. Tetsuya Naito & EVIL Vs. Michael Elgin & Hiroshi Tanahashi: Many fans believed that this was the match of the night, but I found it disappointing both in execution and given the talent involved. For starters, how come War Machine were not included considering that they have unfinished business with all three teams in this match? I wonder if they’ll be the next disgruntled employees to leave ROH over the recent penchant of pushing New Japan talent ahead of homegrown ROH stars. Not to mention that these three-way tag team title matches are starting to get really old and predictable. I’m also fed up with the same boring finish of every Addiction title defense: Daniels and Kazarian cheat their way to a win or loss. I expect this kind of laziness from Vince McMahon’s WWE, not ROH. The live fans were happy since it eschewed mat wrestling for high spots, but at the expense of psychology and pacing. Compared to the tag team title match at NXT Takeover Brooklyn the following evening, this match was amateur night, which is sad and depressing considering all six men are amongst the best wrestlers in the world. Not helping matters was Matt Taven’s color commentary, which set new standards for grating obnoxiousness. The finish was acclaimed as clever, but it was just more of the same. Just as Elgin and Tanahashi had the match won, Daniels and Kazarian’s Japanese lackey Kamaitachi distracted the referee. This allowed Daniels and Kazarian to whack everyone with belt shots to the head. Yawn. Tanahashi managed to regain the advantage and finished off EVIL with the High Fly Low off the top rope. Daniels stole a tag by tapping Tanahashi’s boot, shoved Tanahashi out of the way and stole the pin by covering EVIL. The heel champs cheat their way to victory yet again. Double yawn. Can’t these guys win clean for once? Repetitive booking like this is what ruined Charlotte’s heel run as Divas/Women’s Champion this year on main roster WWE; must ROH resort to the same lazy booking? Taven announced after the match ended that he would be reviving The Kingdom, most likely after the next PPV in September, All Star Extravaganza. I imagine this will lead to an Addiction/Kingdom six-man feud for Final Battle, but that’s just a guess at this point. **3/4 8. ROH World Heavyweight Champion Jay Lethal Vs. Adam Cole: Between his record-setting TV title reign and his year-plus World title reign, Lethal has been some form of ROH singles champion since April 2014. Contrast that to WWE, where championships change hands more often than some people change their socks. Lethal has proven himself to be a top-tier championship caliber wrestler over the last two years. We’ve seen him go from hated heel to respected face in the span of his ROH World title reign. We’ve seen one incredible match after another. Tonight was no different. This was the grudge match everyone was waiting for after Cole and the Bullet Club attacked Lethal during his World title defense against Colt Cabana at May’s Global Wars PPV. Cole has kept making himself a very painful thorn in Lethal’s sign, even shaving off the champ’s cornrows in the aftermath of a locker room brawl on the most recent TV episodes. So the story was simple: Lethal was so hot to get his revenge that he might make a mistake that would cost him the title. After making a royal mess out of a grudge match earlier in the card, I was glad to see that ROH booking didn’t do the same with the main event. There was simply no time to waste, so they just got right to it, beating the living crap out of each other in true grudge match style. It was a more violent match than one would expect from Lethal, but it made sense given the story of ultimate revenge. The tables came out early but Lethal struggled to even find one as the ring crew thoughtlessly swept the party streamers that have become an ROH tradition to shower foreign talent and top-tier talent with under the ring apron instead of picking it up off camera. The tables were covered in streamer and Lethal was visibly irritated. Anyway, streamers proved to not be the only major error as Cole managed to roll off a table, causing Lethal to crash right through it during a Macho Man Flying Elbow Drop attempt. Lethal wound up being busted open by jagged table pieces, bleeding profusely. Lethal also went to the suicide tope one time too many, crashing rib-first into the guardrail during his sixth tope attempt. If this was WWE, the match would have been stopped dead both times, but since this was ROH, the match continued on. Perhaps because it was violent as hell, the live crowd was completely into Lethal/Cole. The rabid crowd noise helped this match greatly when watching it on TV, adding intense heat. There was simply no room for let up as the match was simply intense action from start-to-finish. Lethal seemingly put away his rival for good with the Lethal Injection but Cole incredibly kicked out. Cole seemingly finished off his prey with the Canadian Destroyer but Lethal kicked out. Lethal went once more for the Lethal Injection but Cole countered with a shining wizard and the knee to the gut for the 1-2-3. Cole becomes the third man in ROH history to win the ROH World Championship twice, following Austin Aries and Jay Briscoe. Cole didn’t have much time to celebrate his historic moment as Kyle O’Reilly, a recent victim of Cole and the Bullet Club, beat the crap out of the new champion with a clothesline and a stiff Brainbuster that would make Aries proud. I assumed that this was to establish O’Reilly was Cole’s first major challenger on PPV, but judging from the TV taping results, it looks like Michael Elgin will be getting that title shot instead at All Star Extravaganza. In a way, it makes sense since Elgin defeated Cole for the ROH World title on the premiere live PPV, Best in the World 2014, but if that was the direction they were heading in, why not have Elgin lay out Cole? This is the kind of thinking you’d expect from McMahon’s main roster WWE, not ROH. Sigh. ******+++
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