#WatchROH – Aired 17 & 24 March 2012

They showed Adam Cole pinning Davey Richards. Richards shakes Cole & Eddie Edward’s hands. Kyle O’Reilly refuses to shake. Kevin Steen is going to be Davey Richards personal nightmare until he gets a match against him for the ROH Title. Adam Cole comes out for March Mayhem Eight Man Tournament. Cole had a backstage promo. He’s mad at O’Reilly for not respecting him. He’s going to make O’Reilly respect him. Chris Silvio is his opponent. I’m ready for a squash match. Oh my lord, Kevin Kelly compares Silvio to Jesse Ventura & “Superstar” Billy Graham. I just vomited on my lap top. Kyle O’Reilly does his best to make the announce booth sound even worse. Cole wins a Florida Key which is a criss cross dragon suplex. Not an impressive outing. O’Reilly stormed out of the booth for storyline reasons but it should have been because it was a poorly executed match. O’Reilly challenges Cole to a match at Showdown in the Sun. Cole accepts.

They recap Jimmy Jacobs vs Kevin Steen. Hilarious that Jacobs is rehabbing from being evil in ROH & being evil in PWO. Kelly gets to interview Kevin Steen. He is carrying a tennis racket that has Davey Richards on it. Steen talks about destiny. He’s just as boring as Alberto Del Rio. He will be ROH Champion despite Jim Cornette‘s attempts to kept him away from the title.  Cornette shows up. Cornette tells him that his opponent for Friday night for Showdown in the Sun. El Generico is his opponent. Steen said he won’t be dumb enough to get himself suspended by using the pile driver.

Lance Storm cuts a promo from his gym. He said he isn’t out of shape and will be ready for him. He said Mike Bennett doesn’t have the passion to be in wrestling. They try to make the promo more interesting by shooting him from multiple camera angles. It doesn’t work. Davey Richards knows how tough his three man match will be against Eddie Edwards & Roderick Strong. If he wins that, he takes on Michael Elgin. Richards said if he gets out of that weekend with the title, he’ll have earned it. DemBoys said everyone in this match hates each other. The chicken shit is going to hit the fan in Florida. Charlie Haas tells the Briscoes that they’re dumb. It’s a grudge match so when this match is over, their feud is.

Evidently everyone pays in and wins a pot of money for the March Mayhem. Four matches lead to a four way match. Winner of the four way wins the cash. They love having money on everyone’s mind. We get replay of Jay Lethal versus Tomasso Ciampa. The match went to the time limit. Ciampa attacked Lethal and stole the TV belt. Roderick Strong with Truth Martini takes on Jay Lethal in the first four way match. Counting in English reminded Kevin Kelly of El Generico’s return. I think he’s locked up worst announcer in wrestling with tonight’s showing. Congratulations on unseating Mike Tenay’s several year reign. They go to commercial before much has happened.

Truth Martini helped out so that Strong took over during the break. A drop toe hold is a wrestler’s wrestler type of move according to Nigel McGuinness. Hello Raven! Strong gets a near fall off of a Falcon Arrow. Been a good match up to this point. Strong starts pounding away. Lethal turns it around with a reverse hand spring elbow. Martini distraction, Strong’s legs on the ropes, Lethal still kicks out. Todd Richards had an easy view of it. Lethal Combination. Michael Elgin interferes while Martini distracts. Strong runs into Elgin after Lethal dodges. Lethal rolls him up for the win.

We had replay of the above match. Jim Cornette brings out Roderick Strong with Truth Martini & Michael Elgin. Eddie Edwards comes out second. The champ Davey Richards comes out last. They do a decent job of having circle of criticism. Roderick Strong asks Michael Elgin if he will give him his blind destiny match in case he losses the three way match. Jay Lethal  comes out to stake his claim on the ROH Title. Kevin Steen shows up. He continues to show more confidence in his mic skills than he should have. Steen says he wants Edwards to win so he can get a title shot. If Edwards doesn’t win, Steen will find a way to get a title shot. Oh, I’m supposed to drive to Dayton for ROH. I’ll remind you again, come to the big city, not the small one. You got smart enough to go to Cincy. Come to Cbus.

The World’s Greatest Tag Team wonders why Cornette is still mad at them. Charlie Haas talked about the Briscoes. Shelton Benjamin makes fun of Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander. Coleman & Alexander say they won’t be a warm up match. They’re going to the top. At least they admitted their athletes trying to entertain, not entertainers trying to be athletic. The promo quality in general makes that statement quite easily. Benjamin fought Coleman. Haas & Alexander come in fresh at the same time. Double suicide dive gives Alexander & Coleman the upper hand. Benjamin turns it around with a clothesline from the apron. They’re giving this match a commercial break.

Benjamin was in control. Haas hung Alexander out to dry on the guard rail. Haas with Eric’s favorite abdominal stretch. Alexander reversed t but Haas got a tag to Benjamin. Coleman gets the hot tag. He cleared out both of them. Coleman got a pair of two counts. A double super kick was still only worth a two count. Coleman with a head scissors take over of Haas who was perched on the top rope. Impressive. The Briscoes nail Haas with a chair to the face while the ref was distracted. Coleman pins Haas for the win.

Haas is still down in the ring. Benjamin yells about not bringing chairs into a match. Kevin Kelly goes to the ring to check on Haas. Is he a doctor too? I wonder if he’s as bad a doctor as he is an announcer? I’d say yes. We get replay of El Generico coming back to take on Kevin Steen. We get a replay of Lance Storm’s from last week. He looks to be in great shape for his age. Mike Bennett matches Maria Kanellis. Bennett says that Storm is just jealous. Bennett is going to lay him out. I hope so. No reason for a retied wrestler to win a match. We get replay of Kyle O’Reilly challenging Adam Cole.

They explain March Mayhem again. I’m typing less since I explained the replays and rules above. Michael Elgin comes out with Truth Martini. The announcers mention that Truth & Roderick Strong blame Elgin for Strong’s loss the week before. He is taking on Adam Cole. We get the pleasure of Kyle O’Reilly making the announce booth stink twice. Like it needs drug down with Kevin Kelly at the helm. Cole gets the early jump using his speed. Elgin German Suplexed Cole into the top turn buckle. Kevin Kelly asks O’Reilly a question then interrupts O’Reilly to send us to break. How have I not tossed my MAC thru my TV?

O’Reilly can’t articulate why he’s really mad at Eddie Edwards & Cole. Nigel tries to save him by saying sometimes you don’t want to talk about it because you use it as motivation. What an awful announce crew. Cole turns it back around with his speed. Cole slammed Elgin’s head off the ring apron as he leaped to the outside. Black Hole Slam by Elgin only gets a two count. Nigel explained how you can take a monster shot then return fire. Roderick Strong held Cole initially, he got away and Strong kicked Elgin. Cole pins Elgin.

Outside of the announcing, the worst thing about these shows is that the development of these feuds didn’t really happen. They had promos ripping on each other but that was it. They also only left themselves three weeks to hype the Showdown in the Sun which hindered the development too. Starting the March Madness matches only helped to confuse the situation. Why does everything have to be a tournament in this league? Elgin won a strongest man or survival of the strongest recently. Dear lord. This league is a mess. -Kevin

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