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ALBERTO EL PATRON VS. RODERICK STRONG AND MORE: 1/31 RING OF HONOR IN DAYTON, OHIO LIVE REPORT

My wife and I attended last nights ROH house show in Dayton, Ohio, out second time seeing ROH at this venue. It drew a good sized crowd, pretty much all the seats were full, and some people were standing along the walls. This is a hard show to rate, it felt unimportant, and was uneven both in match quality and star power.

On the other side of the coin however it had two great matches on it, so on the strength of that I guess I'd give it an upper thumbs in the middle, but I could easily be swayed either way to be honest.

Kevin Kelly did the commentary for the VOD release with a revolving cast of characters in the color position including Truth Martini, Maria Kanellis, and Stokley Hathaway. Kelly also did the commentary alone at times. Scarlett Bordeaux was the ring announcer. No return date was announced.

Preshow match Danny Adams & Paco Gonzalez beat Brandon Espinosa & Kirk Stallion. Espinosa, who has added a lot of bulk to his frame since his OVW days, was far and away the best worker of the bunch here, so he was who got pinned...Heh

1. Will Ferrera beat the Romantic Touch. This was OK. Ferrera won with the Amazing Red version of the Sunset Flip.

2. Michael Elgin beat Chris Dickinson. This turned into a decent match, with Elgin giving Dickinson a lot here. Elgin won with his buckle bomb, followed by the spinning power bomb finisher. Nice showing by Dickinson.

3. Michael Bennett w/Maria Kanellis & Matt Taven vs Tommaso Ciampa had no finish. Bennett has gotten really good at being entertaining and connecting with the crowd. Bennett and Ciampa fought for several minutes, much of it on the floor. The Kingdom decided to just call it a night and leave, but "Warbeard" Hanson came out and prevented that from happening, which led to an immediate tag match. Gee, how novel.....

4, or 3A maybe? Hanson & Tommaso Ciampa beat Michael Bennett & Matt Taven w/Maria Kanellis. Wow! This turned into a really great match. All kinds of hot moves and action galore. The crowd was eating it up. Hanson pinned Taven with a top rope Moonsault.

Following intermission, Kevin Kelly interviewed a guy in the ring who's going to be on the next season of the Amazing Race. The House of Truth came out to confront the guy, leading to....

5. Jay Lethal & Jay Diesel w/Truth Martini beat Cheeseburger & Samson Walker Aka Big Mac w/The Amazing Race dude.

A popcorn match if there ever was one.

6. BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs beat Areoform(Flip Kendrick & Louis Lyndon). Jacobs claimed he wanted a fight, but then took forever getting undressed, taping up etc, only to just poke the dude in the eye once the "fight" finally began. It was quite funny. Things died after that though as this show was rapidly losing momentum. Nobody cared about this match. The Decade won it with the All Seeing Eye.

7. Alberto El Patron beat Roderick Strong by submission. The show momentum bounced right back here, as did the before mentioned star power. In my mind El Patron isn't really a ROH style worker, but man he looked like he fit right in here. He and Strong worked beautifully together, and the crowd came back to life and loved it. Despite them working so well together though, both guys came out of this one nicked up, as it was a rough match. El Patron appeared to go head first to the floor on a Tope, which was scary. He had a little blood coming out of the top of his head after that, but did not appear to be loopy. Strong had a bloody nose and/or mouth going too. Strong also came into this match with his left shoulder heavily taped up, though he ripped the tape off very early in the contest. El Patron got the win with with the cross arm breaker submission, the second time he applied it was the charm. Great match!

Whitmer & Jacobs attacked Strong after the match, but El Patron made the save, and El Patron and Strong then shook hands and hugged happily.

Stokley Hathaway came out with Moose and cut a mediocre promo about wanting the ROH world title for Moose.

8. The Briscoe Brothers beat ACH & Matt Sydal. What an odd choice for a main event. Hathaway stayed out and did color commentary here, and Moose stayed out on the floor. The crowd was totally dead for a long time, I mean there was no real point or issue to this match. Matt Sydal is just not connecting with the crowd, and is not totally back as a worker either. It's kinda sad. Some stuff he did looked great, like the shooting star press, but other stuff he did didn't look so great, and the crowd just isn't into him. The crowd did come to life some down the stretch, and Mark Briscoe pinned ACH to win it, after Jay Briscoe had given ACH the Jay Driller. Moose attacked everyone after the match, and basically destroyed everyone, except ACH, who knocked Moose back with a top rope dropkick, but not down. Pretty bizarre booking here to make the very green Moose look that strong against their world champion, and everyone else, except ACH. I guess Moose is gonna face ACH and maybe get a title match later? I dunno, it left me scratching my head.

Send any feedback to tvd65@hotmail.com

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