Ring of Honor/NJPW "War of the Worlds Tour 2016: Dearborn"
May 9th, 2016
From the Ford Community Center in Dearborn, Michigan
Commentators: Kevin Kelly and BJ Whitmer
Tonight the stars of Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling collide in the first night of their annual springtime joint shows.
The Bullet Club and their newest member Adam Cole come out. They promise more chaos tonight and attempt to attack Bobby Cruise. The Briscoes, the Motor City Machine Guns and Adam Page come out and after some back and forth the main event for the show is set: the Bullet Club verses Ring of Honor: the Briscoes, the Motor City Machine Guns and Adam Page.
Silas Young & the Beer City Bruiser vs. ACH & Matt Sydal
This wasn't a bad match. It was very quick and I think could’ve been much more memorable with more time given.
Winners: ACH & Matt Sydal
Afterwards ACH asks the crowd to cheer for his partner Matt Sydal. He thanks him for helping him so much over the last year. He says he’s going “on his own now”. I guess this was the amicable end of the partnership.
Cheeseburger t-shirt ad. I loved that ad.
Lio Rush vs. Roderick Strong
This was a vicious beating from a very angry Roderick Strong, who was supposed to have faced Jushin Thunder Liger at this show. But Liger suffered a concussion in a match the previous night. Lio got a bit of offence in but to no avail.
Winner: Roderick Strong
Afterwards Liger comes out to get Roderick to lay off his beating on Lio.
Jushin Thunder Liger joins the commentary team.
For the Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championships
Kazuchika Okada & Gedo vs. War Machine (champions)
SIX.
FUCKING.
STARS.
Winners: War Machine
After the match the Addiction comes out and accuses War Machine of being terrible champions because they've never beaten them. They challenge them to defend their titles against them the coming Saturday in New York. War Machine wants the match later tonight.
Dalton Castle w/the Boys vs. Kushida
This was actually a really good match. One of the better Dalton Castle matches. Kushida is becoming one of my favourites.
Winner: Kushida
Jushin Thunder Liger exits commentary and Nigel McGuinness joins them.
All Night Express vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin
This wasn't too bad but nothing memorable really.
Winners: Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin
Moose w/Stokely Hathaway vs. Tomohiro Iishi
This started a little slow and I was prepared to call it "a disappointment", but once they started really taking it to one another it was pretty good. I think if they’d have been allowed they would’ve beaten each other with even more severity.
Winner: Tomohiro Iishi
Nigel McGuinness is called backstage and has to leave the commentary booth.
For the Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championships
The Addiction vs. War Machine (champions)
Since I was at the show two days after this show the outcome of this match wasn't a surprise to me. It was a decent match. The Addiction is in their element in this role and they should never break up or change.
Winners: the Addiction (new Ring of Honor World Tag Team Champions)
Kenny Omega t-shirt ad. I really wanted that one Kenny Omega shirt that Ring of Honor had on their website for about three weeks. It was impossible to find even three months later.
Nigel McGuinness re-joins the commentary both and informs everyone that the Bullet Club have made some ridiculous demand that some "Superkick counter" be put up tonight.
reDRagon vs. Tetsuya Naito & Jay Lethal w/Taeler Hendrix’s breasts
This was a solid good match. Once the teams found their groove it got really good.
Winners: reDRagon
Afterwards the partnership between Naito and Jay Lethal frays.
Motor City Machine Guns t-shirt ad.
The teams come out for the main event but Adam Page is nowhere to be seen. The Bullet Club laugh that he got invited to an early Superkick Party. Chaos ensues and Colt Cabana comes out to even the odds in Ring of Honors favour.
The Bullet Club (the Young Bucks, Adam Cole and the Guerrillas of Destiny) vs. Team RoH (the Briscoes, Colt Cabana and the Motor City Machine Guns)
This was as chaotic as you'd expect. I bet it was fun to be in the crowd. On DVD it was entertaining but really not worth going out of your way for. It fell apart (even more than it had already fallen apart) at the end when Adam Page came out and turned his back on Team RoH; aligning himself with the Bullet Club.
Winners: the Bullet Club
After the match the Bullet Club continues the beating on Team RoH and Adam Page hangs Chris Sabin from the ring.
A very flat ending for a Ring of Honor show.
This was a pretty decent show that’s worth grabbing if you can find it during one of their crazy sales. A lot of the matches showed potential but just never “got there”, as is the case with these cross promotion shows. Except the opening match, which just didn’t have enough time to get off its feet.
It was a pretty important show for the current landscape (October 2017) of Ring of Honor. Adam Cole obviously spent the rest of his run in Ring of Honor as a member of the Bullet Club and Adam Page is still a member. I personally never liked Adam Cole in the Bullet Club and I’d kind of forgotten about it until I watched this show. But it was strange to me how much different the storyline seemed to be playing out a year and a half ago. It seemed like another “invading faction” angle at the time. But here we are now and they’re still there, they’ve got the World Heavyweight Championship belt…but they’re really just “there”. There hasn’t been that big payoff, that big “Ring of Honor verses Bullet Club” battle or angle. I guess it played out for a while at the time of this show but what I mean is it looked like it was going the way of an nWo or WCW Invasion. The faction will be five should it still be around in May 2018 and I think it’s run its course.
Jushin Thunder Liger was both terrible and incredible on commentary. He added nothing, barely said anything and probably didn’t understand most of what was being said but I could’ve listened to him all night.
DVD bonus features:
Will Ferrara vs. Kamaitachi
Two week ago I was live at a Ring of Honor show and Will Ferrara was wearing white trunks, and he sharted. He's a joke character now (although the shartting that night wasn't part of the gimmick) but I don't think I'll eve be able to watch one of his matches with a straight face again.
Winner: Kamaitachi
Some guy called Matt Sells comes out during intermission and calls Dearborn Michigan’s own Rhino out. This was some local political crap. Rhino comes out and Gores him. He then lays approves of this violence...I wonder if he won?
Kevin Kelly and BJ Whitmer recap the show.
Do you like old people porn? Because I just put enough to fill an old folks home in the wrestling section!