ROH Supercard of Honor XI Review

Hello Misfits! It’s the Wrestling Classic here with my first ever Ring of Honor review. Yes, I am reviewing ROH’s Supercard of Honor XI. I’ve spoke about it time and time again on my podcasts, live streams and social media that I am a longtime supporter of Ring of Honor. I’m going to briefly talk about it on here too. Woohoo!
I’ve watched ROH on and off since the early 2000’s as it would come on TV here in Canada on Saturday mornings following the cartoons I’d wake up early to watch. Now being the obsessive wrestling fanatic that I was, if there was wrestling on TV…I was going to watch it. WCW and ECW were no longer around and TNA at the time was difficult to watch because it was a PPV only program at the time. I’ll admit, the fact that I was waking up to watch Saturday morning cartoons tells you I was pretty young at this point and the biggest company in the business was the WWE. So when I watched ROH, I considered it to be a poorly produced show compared to the global giant that was the WWE. However, it was still wrestling and I loved it. I would see familiar faces show up throughout the years such as Mick Foley and Ricky Steamboat which would instantly catch my intrigue. I also witnessed so many future mega stars during their early days without realizing it. For example, I remember the Saturday morning eating corn pops watching a young Bryan Danielson vs. a young CM Punk with Ricky Steamboat as the referee and thinking nothing of it besides it was more wrestling. I continued to follow and watch ROH off and on for years. The introduction of DVR made it a lot easier for to keep up with it the past four five years.
Although, I have a ton of episodes to catch up on I’m very well up to date on whats going on in ROH. This is also one of their more popular shows because it takes place on Wrestelmania. I’ve talked about how the city that hosts Wrestlemania Weekend every year becomes a hotbed for professional wrestling in general. It doesn’t only bring fans from all around world to the city but wrestlers and a majority of independent companies come to town as well. These independent companies, popular or not tries booking a show in that city during that weekend hoping to gain exposure to their company and talent. They also have better chances of booking more popular talent because they’ll be in town for other shows and usually are willing to take more random bookings. Ring of Honor already being a popular and established company with popular stars always draws in a good crowd with a great card. I was there last year for the ROH show in Dallas, (damn, I didn’t even review that show but most likely better that I didn’t since I was drinking beer) so I know the atmosphere and how much fun it is to be there.
Moving forward, the buzz around this years event was great. Mainly because The Hardy’s faced the Young Bucks in a ladder match the night before they returned to WWE as a surprise at Wrestlemania. Therefore, a few nights back when I couldn’t sleep, I decided to pull out the old trusty credit card and order Supercard of Honor XI from ROH’s website. I enjoyed the show A LOT and wanted to talk about it so I decided to write a review. Lets get to it.
Damn this was a long intro LOL.

Ring Of Honor presents “Supercard of Honor XI” from the Lakeland Centre (Jenkins Arena) in Lakeland, Florida on April 1st, 2017.

– Colt Cabana, Kevin Kelly and Ian Riccobani are on commentary. There was no sound at first and I was immediately disappointed with the money I spent to order this show. A few moments ago it eventually all got fixed and didn’t get faulty again throughout the show.

ROH Television Championship
“The Villian” Marty Scurll (C) def. Adam Cole
in 13:01 by pinfall
I am a huge fan of both of these guys. I would go as far to say that they are two of my top five favourite independent wrestlers today. I’m a character guy. I appreciate a good character and personality in wrestling. These guys won’t be doing flippy shit or a billion high spots, but they portray their characters so well that they are over and you don’t really care to see any of that other stuff. The characters sell you on the match and the antics of their characters make the match more than enjoyable…oh and of course they’re both great wrestlers. This was a tremendous match, worked in front of a hot crowd with some excellent near finishes. Scurll has been really great for ROH, especially as of late, delivering great matches with Dijak, Rush and now Cole. The “botched” tombstone spot played well, because commentary used it, claiming that Cole was too overconfident and should have covered and gone for the win. With reports that Cole is about to exit, him putting over Scurll like this was the best use of him. I really enjoyed this match and thought it was a great way to open the show to get the fans excited. I might be a little bias because these are two of my favourite independent wrestlers today.
Rating – ***3/4

Silas Young & Beer City Bruiser def. The Kingdom (Matt Taven & Vinny Marseglia) w/ TK O’Ryan
in 06:57 by pinfall
There was some sort of backstage segment before this match but I was a bit zoned out. That pretty much how I was for most of this match but when I did tune in the match was pretty good and they played off the current storylines really well. I’m a fan of the guys involved in this match especially Taven and Young so I had some investment in this match. The finish was hilarious to me with the use of a lit cigar. The fact that Silas makes the pinfall while smoking the cigar was just quality stuff.
Rating – **

World 6-Man Tag Team Championship
Bully Ray & The Briscoes (C) def. The Bullet Club (Hangman Page & The Guerrillas of Destiny)
in 13:31 by pinfall
The video package before the match was really well done and if you weren’t following ROH regularly this did a great job to catch you up. There is  background with Briscoes and The Bullet Club overall and an even a more interesting story with the history between Bully Ray and the Guerrillas of Destiny. Basically, the Guerrillas of Destiny trained at the Dudley’s wrestling school which meant that they were Bully Ray’s students and they also heavily emphasized the fact that they were the sons of the legendary Haku. It actually added another great dynamic to their story. This match was exactly what you wanted it to be. It started off hot and never slowed down. It had some moments where things slowed down like the brief promo mid match when Bully Ray got face to face with the Guerrillas of Destiny. Other than that the match was nothing but a chaotic brawl. The crowd was into the match the entire time and really helped with the atmosphere making noise and what not. The finish came with a double doomsday device and a three man 3D. I’ve always been a huge supporter of the Briscoes but I think this really made me realize how much I enjoy the Guerrillas of Destiny. 
Rating – ***

– The show opened a video package hyping up tonights show and all of its biggest matches. The pyro and ballyhoo go off.

Texas Bullrope Match
Jay Lethal def. Cody Rhodes
in 17:26 by pinfall
I think to really appreciate this match you have to be a fan of old school wrasslin. I’m talking about those territorial days where hot rivalries would end with a match such as this for their blow off. This rivalry goes back to when Cody Rhodes (just referred to as Cody though due to WWE owning the name Rhodes even though Colt by accidentally said Cody Rhodes) made his debut in ROH, where following his match against Lethal he kicked him in the nuts and turned heel. This match was supposed to be the blow off of their feud. They even threw it back with their outfits of being similar to the ones Dusty Rhodes and Terry Funk wore in their rivalry. For example, Rhodes shirt said “Lethal sucks eggs.” The match started off slow but then picked up mid way through. It was truly your old school wrasslin match. This was great, they played to the stipulation well and worked a nice hate filled battle with Lethal finally getting revenge and bating Cody in the match that Cody picked. It was a nice mix of old school and new school wrestling. To me, this is the first “great” Cody match I have seen since his WWE departure. It told a story and there was drama but there went any floppy shit or high spots besides the one table spot. They made use of the cow bell and used it as a weapon when necessary. Following the match Rhodes showed signs of being humbled and gave Lethal the cowbell as he won the match and this was his way to show his respect. If you’re an old school wrestling fan, this might be your favourite match on the card and I don’t blame you. I really, really, really, really enjoyed it.
Rating – ****

Three-Way Tag Match
Motor City Machine Guns def. Cheeseburger & Will Ferrara and The Rebellion (Rhett Titus & Shane Taylor)
in 09:24 by pinfall
This was a fun match that I actually wasn’t aware of. I later found out it was a late addition and even taped before the actual live show took off but sneakily added into the VOD version of the show. I always enjoy seeing the MCMG, as I think Sabin and Shelly are both awesome and deserve so much more in their careers. Cheeseburger is the man. Ferrara isn’t bad and I have no opinion towards The Rebellion. This match was very entertaining and there were some cool spots of course. I always find it fascinating when Cheeseburger gets a strong sequence of offence because it’s usually comedic and entertaining. For example, it had me laughing inside when Cheeseburger was taking everyone out with palm strikes. The Guns picked up the win after hitting Burger with “Made in Detroit.” Following the match the Rebellion attacks the MCMG. Pretty good match for something that was randomly put on here.
Rating – ***

Punishment Martinez def. Kazarian
in 06:03 by pinfall
This was more of a story about how Punishment Martinez couldnt be taken down or kept down. Kaz would hard and fast with his offence trying to take down this monster. When it seemed like Kaz was starting to ware Martinez down Adam Page came out to distract Kazarian, allowing Martinez to hit the sitout chokeslam for the win. The run in makes sense, since Kazarian had turned on Bullet Club when he aided Daniels in winning the ROH title. Also, Martinez has been impressing as of late and should have won. They need to be elevate him as main even threat in this period of time where it feels like ROH is losing a lot of their main event stars. Pretty good for the time given.
Rating – **1/2

Bobby Fish Returns
Bobby Fish makes a surprise appearance. Fish says he’s not done with ROH, and says he has a list of guys he has issues with, and Jay Lethal is on the top of that list. He’s still upset about the loss at the 15th anniversary PPV. Silas Young arrives and is not pleased that Fish is whining about losing to Lethal and Young is sick of hearing about Lethal. Fish doesn’t give a shit about what he has to say. This somehow leads to a match.

Bobby Fish def. Silas Young
 in 02:25 by DQ
This wasn’t really a match but much more a brawl. There we a couple of ref bumps and it took Silas shoving a ref when he tried taking a chair away from him to end the match with Fish winning by DQ. This easily could have been something they could have done for ROH on TV but I guess it gave this live crowd the opportunity to see Fish. It did however slow down the show. Everything was going fast paced and great and just seemed to slow down here.
Rating – N/A

Volador Jr & Will Ospreay def. Dragon Lee & Jay White
in 13:54 by pinfall
This was a lot of flips and fast paced action. This was exactly what it was supposed to be and what it needed to be; advertised as an international showcase. This was supposed to be four guys, doing wildly athletic things and making the crowd happy and they did exactly that. Not all wrestling is the same, and no one wanted these guys to grab a hold and work a body part, I loved it for what it was supposed to be and for what it was. Is it exactly my favourite style of wrestling, absolutely not but I do enjoy it. It brought the pace back up from slowing down with the Fish/Young segment. I’m very aware of Osprey and White but no so much with Volador Jr and Dragon Lee were fairly new to me. I really enjoyed this match for what it was and what it portrayed on this card, but I wouldn’t be able to watch an entire card with this style of wrestling. I loved the spanish fly spot because I think that is such a unique move in wrestling. The match ended with a Super Rana, but damn this was one of those matches you might want to watch twice just incase you missed something.
Rating – ***3/4

ROH World Championship
Christopher Daniels (C) def. Dalton Castle
in 15:43 by pinfall
I’m a huge fan of both guys but I just couldn’t get into this match. It was a very basic World Championship match but I understand that its easy to look that way with the two matches it was sandwiched between. It started off as your basic technical wrestling match. There was the usual comedy spots with Dalton’s boys with Daniels. The match went back and forth from that point forward at a very methodical pace. The finish came when Castle hits bangarang for the near fall. Daniels then hit the STO and rolled into the koji clutch again, Castle powered to his feet and fought off Angel’s wings, Daniels fought off the German and picked up the win with a cradle. There was no real drama and the crowd didn’t even bite when Castle hit the banagrang; no one bought he could win. Very disappointing; it never felt like an important, or big time title match, it was just a match where the championship was on the line for the sake of it being on the line on this important show. The highlight in this entire part of the show was when Rhodes came out afterwords and attacked the champion and his opponent. Rhodes hit Daniels with the crossrhodes before raising the championship and Kazarian making the save.
Rating – **1/2

Ladder Match
ROH Tag Team Championship
The Young Bucks def. The Hardy Boyz
in 25:25 by retrieving the tag team title belts
This match…wow. I was really looking forward to this match because everyone who watched this event was shocked that The Hardy’s returned the following night at Wrestlemania after going through this match the night before. It made me really want to watch this match to see the chaos the Hardy’s went through before returning to the WWE on their biggest show of the year. There are little things about the Bucks that remind you of The Hardys from their younger days. Also, many people would consider The Hardy’s a part of the equation that made the ladder match famous with their daredevil antics and the involvement of tables and chairs. The Hardys short ROH run was fucking great. They had a very good match at Manhattan Mayhem with the Bucks, a good TV match with the Briscoes on ROH TV, the awesome street fight with the Bucks and Roppongi Vice, helping to draw this huge crowd in Florida. Finally, this one last time, taking a trip in the wayback machine to recapture some of their old magic in the ladder match. There were super kicks, 450 splashes, twist of fates and a lot of table bumps. I did notice watching this besides the rare one or two, the Bucks took most of the major table bumps but it makes complete sense since they are younger and more capable of doing so in this day and age. Near the end I found it hilarious how fast the four would get back up after getting completely demolished or going through a table but it’s something that really doesn’t effect the match because you’re so sucked in by the drama. . This had all of the wild and crazy spots you’d hope for, some great drama and the Hardys pulling off another big time performance, and the Bucks doing everything in their power to help them do so. This was four guys, killing themselves for 25-minutes to steal the show, and possibly the weekend. There were some spots during this match that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before. One that really stands out was when Nick was bumped out of the ring but instead of crashing tot the outside he somehow managed to turn it into a 450 splash out of nowhere. Post match, Matt Hardy says the Bucks are the greatest tag team that they have ever faced. Matt doesn’t know how much longer that they can do this, but with the Bucks around, tag team wrestling is safe, and he offers a handshake. They all shake and hug. Jeff then said that they would fade away and classify themselves as obsolete. Looking at it now, it’s almost like Jeff was hinting that they were obsolete on the independent scene as well as their current “broken” gimmick being obsolete and that they were heading home back to the WWE.
Rating – ****3/4

Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed this show and only felt they’re were only one or two periods during this show where I was zoned out or just disinterested. ROH had the biggest crowd they’ve ever had and they delivered. When it comes to Ring Of Honor I’ve never had issues with their in ring wrestling. That aspect of their product is nearly perfect majority of the time. I usually have issues with their ability to tell compelling storylines or progress them on their weekly television shows. However, their special events always deliver and the angles they actually do run really play off well during these shows. The way the Lethal/Rhodes and the Bucks/Hardy’s storylines ended tonight made this event feel real special. I obviously enjoyed Scurll and Cole being huge fans of them. A lot of the other matches were fun too. There were a few things this show could have done without but overall this show was worth watching and money well spent. I’m very off and on with my ROH watching but I’m more than happy I watched this event. It delivered.
Final Rating – 8/10

What were your final thoughts on ROH Supercard of Honor XI? What final grade would you give the event? Where would you rate it on a scale of ten? Do you agree with my review? Leave your comments, opinions and thoughts below in the comments section.