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Decent crowd around 600. This was ROH's debut in Kalamazoo. The show was held in the Wing Stadium Annex. Lots of families and lots of casual fans that were not 100% sure of the ROH style. No return date was announced.
Pre Show:
Jay Diesel defeated somebody whose name I didn't catch. This was a 2 minute squash match. Diesel looked good, but extremely short.
Main show:
Scarlett Bordeaux, wearing a very short mini skirt, was the ring announcer.
Kevin Kelly and Veda Scott announced the first three matches. Steve Corino replaced Scott for the last three.
Nigel Mcguinness began the show by announcing that Mark Briscoe would be unable to wrestle tonight after contracting poison ivy while hunting. This brought out Adam Cole, who ran down the Briscoes until Mark came out and chased Cole to the back. Mark had his arms and legs taped up covering his rash.
As Nigel was preparing to announce the replacement, Tommaso Ciampa came out and pleaded to be placed in the match. Nigel agreed, giving Ciampa a stern warning that he was on probation. The fact that the crowd in Kalamazoo was pretty new to ROH hurt this segment as many didn't know who Ciampa was or understand why he was on probation.
Match 1: BJ Whitmer defeated Will Ferrera.
OK Match with the story being that Ferrera was the underdog that wouldn't give up.
Match 2: TD Thomas defeated Owen ?. This was a great match and I feel bad for not catching Owen's last name because he could be a regular in ROH. Extremely hard hitting match. Good back and forth. One scary bump with Owen hitting his head hard on the ROH barricade. Thomas won with a kick to the head.
Match 3: Christopher Daniels defeated Cedrick Alexander.
Another good match that fell slightly short of my expectations. A little bit longer of a match that lost some of the crowd. Daniels won with the Best Moonsault Ever. After the match, Daniels put over Alexander as the future of ROH.
Match 4: Jimmy Jacobs defeated Frankie Kazarian.
Jacobs is billed from Grand Rapids, but went to school in Kalamazoo, so this was a homecoming for Jacobs and you could tell that he was excited to be wrestling in his hometown. This was a straight forward wrestling match that I was a little disappointed with. No big spots and Jacobs showed very few heel antics. The match was just there. After the match, Jacobs pointed out his parents in the crowd and talked about how he watched his first show at Wing Stadium and now he was wrestling in the same building.
Match 5: Matt Taven defeated Romantic Touch with a Frog Splash.
Very few knew that Taven had turned heel. Taven played to the crowd well. Taven was hitting on Scarlett throughout the match. Not sure if this was part of an angle or just something that was improved during the match.
Match 6: Jay Briscoe, Jay Lethal, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O'Reilly defeated Adam Cole, ACH, Rodrick Strong, and Tomasso Ciampa in the Champions Vs. All Stars Elimination Main Event. Briscoe was the sole survivor.
Great match that went close to 60 minutes. Definitely worth checking out.
Jay Lethal was eliminated about 30 seconds into the match by ACH. The match started with everybody tagging themselves into the match. Lethal did that to Briscoe, Briscoe then tagged himself into the match. Lethal argued with Briscoe and ACH rolled him up from behind. Shocking early elimination.
The match up continued for a bout 30 minutes with no eliminations. Some great brawling on the floor during this time.
Second elimination was when Tomasso Ciampa was DQ'd for hitting Kyle O'reilly with the tag belt. However, he never hit him. With action going on outside of the ring, Fish threw the tag belt into the ring. Ciampa picked it up, O'reilly acted like he had been hit. Todd Sinclair turned around, saw Ciampa with the belt and called for the DQ. This led to Ciampa hitting everybody with the tag belt. Nigel came in to the ring to stop him and was almost hit by Ciampa. Ciampa kept his cool and his job and left. Great sequence.
Third elimination was Kyle O'Reilly by Rodrick Strong with the Double Knee Back Breaker.
Seconds after that, Strong was eliminated by a Bobby Fish roll up.
A few minutes after that, Fish was eliminated by an ACH 450 Splash.
Things settled down again for a few minutes with the story being that Adam Cole was trying to get ACH to cheat, but ACH refused to do so. Around the 45 minute mark, there was a great spot where ACH and Briscoe were battling on the turnbuckle when Adam Cole came and pushed both men. ACH fell through the time keepers table. While the officials checked on ACH, Mark Briscoe came out and the Briscoes hit the Doomsday clothesline to eliminate Adam Cole. Mark had a sweatshirt on covering up any rash he may or may not have had due to poison ivy.
It came down to Jay Briscoe vs. ACH. They wrestled for a few minutes with Briscoe challenging ACH to Man Up and fight him. Briscoe won with the Jay Driller around the 55 minute mark.
This was a great match with a great showing by ACH. As Briscoe and ACH embraced after the match, Jay Lethal and Truth Martini attacked Briscoe beating the champion down to end the night.
Overall, a very good to great night of wrestling. Well worth watching on VOD or DVD.
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