A lot of fans are pissed at ROH right now...

[jmt225]

Across the IWC, anyway.

Last night they had their annual Final Battle show, and the reviews thus far have been horrendous, mainly because of the main event. Apparently, during the biggest blizzard of the year so far in New York, ROH decided to send fans home on a one-hour draw, where pretty much I read that nothing occurred except for Aries running in and out of the ring, more or less.

I keep reading the booking made no sense; that last night the most logical step was for Tyler Black to finally take the belt off of Aries, after he's been chasing it for so long now. And for the final show of the year to end like that, after an hour of nothing basically... people are not happy, to say the least.

Also, the Briscoes winning the tag titles last night have a lot of people shaking their heads, since they could get called up to WWE anytime now. So, that's another odd thing that happened last night.

Moreover, Teddy Hart made his return to Ring of Honor last night as well. And while I personally don't mind the guy at all, most ROH fans absolutely despise him, so that's just another thing to add on top of this.

There were some positives from last night's show, however. Apparently Kingston vs. Hero was fantastic (when isn't it fantastic whenever those two meet though), and people were pleased to see a Kings of Wrestling Reunion, too. Also, it was announced that Kendrick was returning soon, so of course people are pumped about that.

At the end of the day though, I see a lot of people bitching and moaning about ROH, and saying this show will be the final nail in the coffin for the company. Was it really that bad? For those who watched the pay-per-view or were even in attendence, was it? And for those who haven't, after reading my statements, does it seem to you that people are overreacting, or do they have a right to be pissed?

 

[X]

The reason everyone is so pissed is pretty simple---Aries and Black can't go 60 minutes, and to ask them to is a recipe for disaster. I read a review of this show early this morning and actually it sounded pretty positive outside of the main event though. From what I read the first half of the show was very good, but the second half was bad.

I like Tyler Black, I really do, I think he gets too much shit that he doesn't deserve, but you can't rely on the guy to have the crowd in his hands for 60 minutes. Aries I have more confidence in, but when I read the review of that match it was torn to shreds. The reviewer mentioned if the match had been half the amount of time, it would have been great.

I don't know, I'll have to wait until I can watch Final Battle for myself but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a terrible show. Frankly ROH has been getting progressively worse and worse with each passing month this year, in no small part due to the exodus of their last big stars in Danielson and Nigel. That promotion just is NOT the same without Gabe there. Honestly I'd suggest not even wasting your time with Final Battle 2009 and just buy any of the first few Dragon Gate USA PPV's instead, they've all been great.

This isn't the end of the line for ROH, definitely not, but it doesn't help matters any.

 

[Azamuth]

Ok, I was there last night and I have to say, the show was almost great, it was great to see Jack and Rocky back in the ROH ring. I had never seen Teddy Hart but he put on a good show, I dont want to judge him something I havent seen so I cannot hate the guy. I was there in an "American Wolves" shirt and they lost to a team that I dont like at ALL but thats not important. What killed it was the TERRIBLE match Tyler Black had with A Double. I really enjoy both of these guys work but it was failure in its purest form.

The match went the full 1 hr and the beginning of the match was cat and mouse and we all booed. We got so bored with the match we started yelling at the ref. Chants of "fuck John Cena" rang out in the arena, when they finally brawled outside and made their way to the back we screamed "Dont Come Back!". We groaned when they beat the 20 count. When Sinclair told Austin he wouldnt DQ him we started yelling "hit the ref!" we groaned at every 2 count and fans began to leave early.

Then, it looked like we were going to kill someone (people tossed stuff in the ring by this point) and the call was made for the Briscoes and Kings of Wrestling to come out and brawl to take our minds off what we have just watched for an hour and it really didnt help at all. Then, one of the Briscoes (I dunno which) made a speech about if we didnt appreciate that match we werent true wrestling fans. So... we all clapped at him and continued out. After that Tyler Black got on the mic and apologized for not getting the job done after all his tries and said "maybe next time" thats when we promptly yelled back "NO!"

I do feel like a ass for being mean to a wrestler I really like but a whole hour was really too much for them to be briefly wrestling every here and there. We were also a little annoyed that Necro Butcher couldnt make it and the snowstorm was coming down hard. If I had to do it again I might have just left. So after a match full of wishing death on Sinclair, telling him he has the physique of a snowman, throwing things, booing and making asshole comments I dont recommend anybody watch that match. Oh, Tyler got booed when he hit the cattle mutilation lol.

So... in short, we didnt like it because it was done so poorly. All the other matches had action or at least a spot to pick us up. The title match had no spots, little wrestling, a boring brawling and Section B bitching about either not being able to see or wanting wrestlers thrown into their section. But if you STILL want to see this match, enjoy us yelling "End the Match!"

 

[TellMeWhy]

Final Battle 2009 sucked. The first half of the show was good but the second half of the show was shit. The production was shit, the audio was shit, the presentation was shit, the atmosphere sucked, the crowd was dead for some of the matches and in all it left a bad taste in my mouth. Watching that show gave me a whole new appreciation for mainstream pro wrestling. What type of wrestling companies shows an old match between 2 former stars no longer in your company on an intermission in the middle of a "live PPV". And bad enough, the audio and production sucked on that match too. Never again! Until ROH gets to a certain level of mainstream, I won't waste my time on none of their shows or "ppvs". The Hdnet shows is as far as I'll go with them because at least those weekly shows make them look like a million bucks. ROH is just a complete minor league without the fanciness of hdnet behind them. I'm sorry but they suck. No way are they in the same league as a TNA yet alone WWE.

 

[RVDgurl]

I haven't seen Final Battle yet, so I can't offer a solid opinion on my thoughts of the show. I have several reviews, mostly from people on the ROH forum. According to reviews it seems as though the show overall wasn't bad. I heard that the Briscoes v. American Wolves was a great match. Hero v. Kingston was supposedly the highlight of the night, which is surprising considering that as a general rule the New York fans hate Eddie Kingston. I also heard that people marked out for the return of the Kings of Wrestling and Larry Sweeney.

As far as the Aries v. Black match is concerned, I have yet to hear anything good. I have a difficult time believing that any Austin Aries match could be this bad. I just can't wrap my head around that. I also have a hard time believing that "everyone" thinks that Aries should have dropped the belt to Black that night. Aries is the first 2 time ROH champion and has only held the belt for a few months. ROH has always taken great pride in long title reigns and being able to avoid transition champions. I would have been furious had Aries dropped the belt in such short time. Black will be ROH champion some day, but the time for him is not right now. With that being said, I am a little baffled by the decision to work this match to a 60 minute draw. I can only assume that ROH was trying to recapture the magic of Joe v. Punk. I just don't think Black is on the that level yet to work that type of match.

While it sounds like Final Battle '09 was nothing to write home about, I don't think it's a crisis. ROH had talent that were not able to show up due to the huge snowstorm that occured that day; they had some talent show up in the middle of the show who were incorporated at the last minute simply because they were advertised to be on the card; and ROH tried their hand at broadcasting the show over the internet for the first time. Obviously there are going to be kinks to work out with that. ROH will move on. It will be ok.

 

[RawIsRamsey]

Teddy and Evans actually got a tremendous reaction, which was weird given Teddy's hated past.

The show was actually bordering on great...until the main event.

Aries can NOT go the distance...sure, he has the cardio, but he doesn't have the ring psychology to pull off an hour long match (just watch the match he did with Danielson that lasted like an hour and a half...AmDrag carried his ass). Punk/Joe went an hour and was FANTASTIC, and it had two guys who are (arguably) less likely to go for an hour compared to Black and Aries.

The match was just shit and had no flow, using ring outs and pointless rest spots when they should have just fired on all cylinders for 20 minutes and sent the crowd home happy with a Tyler Black win/heel turn (EVERYONE who wins the belt goes heel nowadays in RoH...it's like a requirement).

 

[ROHDude]

Steen & Generico vs. The Young Bucks was the best match at Final Battle, and it also set up the best heel turn. It's nothing to go out of your way to see, but if you do decide to watch FB, this match and aftermath should be the only reason.

I haven't had time to watch the main event yet. From what I hear it doesn't make sense. Tyler has had plenty of opportunities to win the title, and many times the fans thought he finally was going to. So now a year after Final Battle 08' where Aries beat Black and turned heel, Black is set to face Aries once again, but this time for the title. Again, I have not seen the main event yet, but from what I hear the first 20 minutes of the match was a whole lot of nothing. Does that make sense? Black should want to kill Aries and the biggest ROH show of the year? This match should of only been 20-30 minutes long. Black should of been going at this 100 mph. Immediately the fans knew it was going to go 60 minutes after those first 20 went by. They didn't try to "hide it". It was clear as day it was going to be 60 minutes and I guess the fans sh*t on the match the rest of the time.

Anyway, in the end I actually couldn't careless. I wish I could change my name on here because since Adam Pearce took over I have lost just about all my interest in ROH. The man can't do anything right, the one babyface he built up to beat Aries can't beat him and instead killed his own character, and the only members of the roster that got themselves over this year were the Wolves, and that has nothing to do with Pearce. The Wolves got over by putting on great matches.

 

[Greenlight13]

I watched the entire show and I think it was sort of beyond their control. Firstly they don't control the weather. Secondly they can't help it if Evans and Hart got there late and decided to go over on their time allocation. It lengthened an already long show and made the 60-minute match more boring for the live crowd.

The first few matches were all good and the crowd were into them. The winners made sense, it was good stuff. Steen turning on Generico was gold, giving the Briscoes back the belts was... I dunno, they're fan favourites so it isn't a bad move, and having Kings of Wrestling reunite was a legit mark out moment.

The main event was a bit doomed before it even began. The fans wanted to get out of there because of the weather. They'd been sitting there for too long because of delayed flights and things going too long.

As for the match itself? I think announcing 30 minutes expired, 40 minutes expired, 45 minutes expired etc hurt it big time. I've never seen a company announce anything other than 5 minutes or 1 minute remaining, so it gave away that they were going to a draw or close to it. Going an hour organically is one thing, but to tell the audience "you're going to see a 60 minute match" puts huge pressure on the performers. Aries has wrestled 72 minutes before so there's no issues with him.

The problem is the longer Tyler goes in a match, the more his shortcomings are exposed. He is physically gifted enough to do anything in the ring, but he still doesn't quite know how to control a match. He can take a beating and do the hot comeback, but that doesn't work for 60 minutes. Whenever he has control of a match he can be seen to just be walking around the ring not quite sure what to do next. When he was a heel that was fine, you can just stomp them and do rest holds, but as a face you need to do more. In fact I think he was a better tweener generally. Wrestling heel matches with Jacobs and face matches solo made him a more interesting character. Now he's being Captain Face and mugging to the crowd and wrestling the same match every night and NY fans get bored quicker than most.

You could hear fans shouting "You'll never be CM Punk" so many times he turned and said "No, I'm Tyler f**king Black". Another fan chanted "He's the John Cena of this company" which... is a point I actually made a few months ago but it seemed so much harsher hearing it from someone else. He is that in the sense that he used to be good but then intentionally limited himself in order to be a superman face.

Aries stalling for so long was drawing heat for a while but I think he went too far with it. I believed his arm injury and thought he was stalling because he was hurt and I marked when he revealed he was faking but after that it just fell victim to Tyler not knowing how to behave when in control and the time keeper telling us every ten minutes how long was left.

The problem it creates is the crowd are going to hate on 8th Anniversary show's main event from bell to bell. You can't give a crowd a match they hate and then return 3 months later to try again. You just can't. They could potentially have an amazing match (they've had some really good ones in the past) but the crowd are going to be fundamentally against it from the start.

 

[ImpactPlayer27]

Having watched the event, I can tell you that while I was left pissed off, the weather was a factor and you can't hold ROH accountable for that because that was beyond their power. I happen to like the Briscoes so I didn't mind them winning the belts back from the Wolves. Jack Evans and Teddy Hart I figured would be awesome and I was right because those two are phenomenal talents. Eddie Kingston and Chris Hero also didn't disappoint. I loved that match and it was by far my favorite. And that piledriver that Kingston took on the barricade by Hero, I'm amazed he's even walking. And while I was stunned by the heel turn of Kevin Steen, I kinda expected it would happen some time down the road. But the match with the Young Bucks was awesome. Was surprised by the reunion of the Kings of Wrestling and more so by the return of Larry Sweeney. Cause I gotta admit, I missed Sweeney being Hero's manager. I feel his presence is better then Hagadorne. Now to the main event. I was expecting a great match from two great wrestlers. I was wanting to see Tyler Black become world champ. I was expecting a great match that followed a great match between Hart and Evans. Now here's my question. Why didn't I see it? Instead, you have the two duking it out for an hour, you have Aries trying to get intentionally disqualified and even trying to run away which when you have the fans chanting "We Want Wrestling" and "This is Bullsh#t", that should be a dead giveaway that what you're trying to do to put this match over is not working so KNOCK IT OFF!!! And if that didn't get the point across, then the chants of "Don't Come Back" should've been. And what they're doing now with the rematch between Aries and Black, and the stipulation by Cornette, I look at it like ROH realizes that with the booking of that match, they screwed up and this rematch which I hope will be the match we want to see between Aries and Black, is there way of making up for it . And I think after watching ROH that it is exactly what they'll do. Either Austin Aries will remain champ, or we will finally see Tyler Black rise up which I'm hoping for because the first match I ever watched in ROH was with him and I knew that this guy was a tremendous talent and was the next big thing in ROH. They need to put somebody to that level now that Nigel and Danielson are gone. I think Roderick Strong is ready and some others as well but I say that if ROH wants to do the right thing, don't have another match like that again. If it's gonna be an hour, make it a good one like mentioned earlier in this threat with Aries/Danielson and Punk/Joe. But also, if ROH wants to do the right thing, let Tyler Black win the belt.

 

[Trill Co$by]

I'm sorry to say this, but the ROH fans today, are not the same ones that started watching.. apparently.

Simply because, I saw the match between Aries and Black, and I thought the ending was an awesome ending. How does that not make Aries look even more heel and like the next Ric Flair? Aries kept avoiding any contact with Black as much as he could because he knows that Black very well could be the man to take his title, but Aries just will not let that happen. He's too smart of a champion to let something like that happen.

Anyway, as huge fan, I'm so annoyed that the Briscoes got the titles back. As it's been said before, they could get the call up to WWE anytime soon. And the fact that Briscoes should be ROH champs for a long while but could get cut short thanks to WWE is really a ball buster.

 

[ImpactPlayer27]

I'm not looking to start an argument but a good ending? You're serious? When has there ever been a good PPV main event that ended in either a draw, double DQ, Double count out, or any other way then a pinfall or submission? Somebody can point that out to me, I'll apologize and withdrawal my comment. But seriously, You can't end an event like that. Ever. And as for the Briscoes and the possibility of WWE signing them, well maybe thats why they reunited Claudio and Hero. Maybe they'll be the ones to take the belts from the Briscoes.

With regards to the next match between Aries and Black, Black needs to win or else any momentum for his push goes out the window.

 

[Shadowmancer]

Broadways have a place in wrestling and they can be pulled off brilliantly. CM Punk Vs. Samoa Joe I & II come to mind for when a draw has been a good ending to a main event. Broadways are also the bread an butter of bookers that have little options at the point in time of the decision and have to extend a storyline enough to make it through to a position where there are more options available. With the case of the RoH thing I would say that it was a matter of necessity due to the fact that there was a blizzard going on and the original plan had to be changed for whatever reason.

 

[Syd Liberty]

I'd say honestly, if people weren't concerned about going home they'd have gotten over the match really quick. It could've used a bit more action, but the story was solid enough, and most smart marks will shit a brick over an hour draw no matter what, it makes them feel like the people in the real are talented.

 

[ImpactPlayer27]

The other thing to keep in mind is that to have an hour long match and half of it is the Heel trying to get out of the ring or run away or get disqualified AFTER you have a match the caliber of Jack Evans vs Teddy Hart, and that match was awesome, you don't have an hour long dragging match like that, after a match with the pace of Evans vs Hart. Thats another part in how that main event suffered