By Jason Powell

ROH Wrestling on SBG affiliates
Aired on November 12
Taped in Louisville, Ky.

[Q1] The show opened with a recap of the Proving Ground tag match main event from last week, followed by The Briscoes coming out to taunt Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas... The opening video aired...

Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness introduced the show and hyped The American Wolves vs. Michael Elgin and Roderick Strong...

1. The Young Bucks beat The Bravado Brothers in 6:10. The Bucks shook hands with each other rather than shake the hands of their opponents. Kelly joked that the Bravado's are their grandmother's favorite team, and said one of them was voted sixth man of the year by his high school basketball team. In the end, The Bucks hit the More Bang For Your Buck finisher and got the clean win.

Powell's POV: The Bucks were positioned as guys who have no respect for authority in a heelish way. Meanwhile, the Bravado's were treated like heel scrubs. Who were fans supposed to cheer for? The fans cheered for the Bucks' crowd pleasing finisher. Perhaps they are hoping that the fans will choose to cheer for the Bucks because they are anti-authority.

Backstage, Kevin Kelly interviewed The Briscoes regarding the Final Battle pay-per-view... [C]

[Q2] Kevin Kelly introduced Haas and Benjamin for an in-ring interview. They addressed their Final Battle match with The Briscoes. Eventually, the All Night Express interrupted the interview. They claimed to be the hottest team in ROH and told the champs not to sleep on them... [C]

Powell's POV: Flat segment. ANX basically claimed that Haas and Benjamin have been ducking them, which doesn't make any sense given that they lost a No. 1 contenders match to The Briscoes. I really enjoy ANX, but it was sad to see their attempts to play to the crowd bomb so badly.

Kevin Kelly hosted the Inside ROH feature that focussed on Kevin Steen. Kelly recapped Steen's history involving El Generico, Steve Corino, Jim Cornette, etc...

Powell's POV: This video feature was long overdue. They were trying to say that Jim Cornette wouldn't let anyone mention his name, but that just prevented them from showing the television audience the background of the ongoing story.

The segment continued with sitdown interviews with Jay Lethal and then Mike Bennett and Bob Evans promoting the Lethal vs. Bennett pay-per-view match... [C]

Powell's POV: Bob Evans is the most low budget looking character on pro wrestling television. It doesn't even mesh with the elitist Prodigy character that Bennett is playing.

[Q3] The announcers were talking at the desk when Steve Corino interrupted them over the house mic. He apologized and said he's an evil person. He said Jim Cornette won't return his calls. He said there is a monster (Steen) among them. He said he knows how to fix the problem, and asked Cornette for five minutes of his time...

The announcers set up a video that recapped the recent issues between the American Wolves and The House of Truth... Ring introductions for the main event tag match took place...

Backstage, Jim Cornette interviewed Eddie Edwards regarding Final Battle. Edwards delivered a brief and generic promo to hype the pay-per-view...

2. Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards defeated Roderick Strong and Michael Elgin (w/Truth Martini) in 16:00. The announcers correctly predicted that there would not be a handshake between the teams. The heels attacked the Wolves to start the match and they quickly settled into back and forth action.

[Q4] There was a wicked spot at 7:30 where Strong suplexed Edwards on the ring apron. [C] The heels were working over Edwards after the break. He eventually made the hot tag and Richards performed a double missile dropkick on the heels.

Later, all four men squared off in the ring and exchanged shots. The Wolves got the better of the exchange. Edwards double stomped Elgin, and Richards did the same. Richards went for a cover, but Strong broke up the pin. The Wolves took turns blasting Elgin with kicks, but he kicked out of a pin attempt.

Richards applied the ankle lock on Elgin while Strong and Edwards fought on the floor. Elgin flipped out of it and knocked Richards down. Elgin powerbombed Richards for a two count. Truth and the referee bickered. Elgin actually had Richards pinned, so the bickering backfired.

Edwards applied a new submission hold on Elgin, but the bickering between the ref and Truth continued at ringside. Richards recovered and pinned Elgin, and the ref returned to the ring to make the count. The announcers put over that Edwards used a hold they had never seen before, and Richards looked baffled while standing inside the ring..

Powell's POV: A technically solid match, but the fans who had been chanting it was awesome were not all that responsive to the finish. The story is that Edwards has a mystery trainer, so that's where the new submission hold comes into play. Overall, another typical ROH show. They are telling logical stories, but there continue to be major issues with production and lighting, and it's not helping the talent look like stars to the viewing audience. Furthermore, there wasn't a real hook for next week's television show.

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