Tomasso Ciampa goes one on one with Matt Taven to open the show. Jay Lethal comes to ringside during the match and watches on as Tomasso destroys Taven on the outside of the ring. Taven counters and gains the momentary upper hand on Ciampa. Ciampa is able to kick out of a huge frog splash by Taven. Taven gets pissed. Ciampa eventually wins the match with project Ciampa. Ciampa and Lethal taunt one another after the match.
^Like most matches on ROH, this was something you would expect to see on a pay per view event. These two destroyed themselves to make this match entertaining. Taven’s high flying style is always fun to watch anyway, but working with a talent like Ciampa made the match even better. It also worked really well for enhancing the rivalry between Lethal and Ciampa by making Ciampa act like even more of a jerk when brutalizing Taven. Their match at Border Wars is going to be one you don’t want to miss.
The Young Bucks have a backstage altercation with TJ Perkins.
^I haven’t seen a backstage segment like this before from ROH. I wonder what they’ll do with it.
Mike Mondo goes one on one with TJ Perkins. The Young Bucks gets involved and distract Perkins. Mondo hits the double arm DDT from the middle rope for the three count. The trio attacks Perkins after the match until the All Night Express comes to the ring and makes the save.
^Mondo and Perkins worked a great matchup here. Mondo is an interesting character to me; he adheres to the code of honor, but then he acts like a complete jerk about it. I think I like the fact that I can’t figure the guy out. Regardless of that, these two gave an impressive showing and their styles really molded well together. I’m guessing you’ll see maybe a six man tag at Border Wars between Perkins and the All Night Express taking on The Young Bucks and Mondo. Just speculating, but I could be wrong.
Kevin Steen w/Jimmy Jacobs goes one on one with Kyle O’Reilly. Steen destroys O’Reilly and wins the match using the F5. He and Jacobs attack O’Reilly afterwards until Davey Richards comes out to make the save. Richards cuts a promo promising to take Steen out at Border Wars.
^So O’Reilly took on the role of being a heel, but now he gets destroyed by the top heel in the company? However you want to make this seem logical, it really doesn’t matter. This match was designed to put Steen over as the dominant heel that’s about to take the World Title. I’m excited to see the match at Border Wars, as it’s another contest that will heavily contend for match of the year in 2012.
ROH delivers us another solid show this week. I enjoyed it as much as any other. They promoted the Border Wars ppv well between the matches, and I expect the event to be incredible. I’ll actually have predictions for Border Wars up sometime this week along with predictions for TNA’s Sacrifice ppv event. The columns will have Mike Lightning’s predictions as well. Until next time, you’ve been ThunderStruck!
