PPV PRIMER – ROH BEST IN THE WORLD (6/29/2018): Castle vs. Cody vs. Scurll for the ROH World Title, Briscoes vs. Young Bucks for tag titles

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It’s been nearly three months since the last official Ring Of Honor pay-per-view, Supercard Of Honor. We’ve had a number of Honor Club live events since then including the NJPW co-branded War Of The Worlds tour and the Honor United UK Tour. This year’s Best In The World follows in that tradition with a number of guest stars from New Japan and Stardom and even Impact Wrestling’s world champion.

At Best In The World 2017 Cody defeated Christopher Daniels to capture the ROH world title for the first time while The Young Bucks retained their tag titles against Best Friends and War Machine in a three-way tornado tag. One year later and the Bullet Club crew are still top of the card, competing for the same titles, while Daniels and Best Friends aren’t booked at all and Hanson & Rowe are off winning enhancement matches in NXT.

1. Kenny King vs. Austin Aries

In 2010 Austin Aries dubbed himself “the greatest manager that ever lived” and began managing The All-Night Express (Rhett Titus & Kenny King) in addition to wrestling full-time for ROH. Aries and King have been friends ever since. This past March at the 16^th Anniversary PPV King retained the TV title against Silas Young. After the match Aries walked out into an ROH arena for the first time in two and a half years. The collector of belts pointed out that in his six years in ROH he won the world title twice and the tag titles once (with Roderick Strong) but never held the television gold.

Nearly three months passed before Aries finally got the shot he wanted at the TV title on June 3 television. By that point Silas Young had taken the title back from King. In the TV main event Beer City Bruiser attempted to get involved on Young’s behalf but King ran down and fought him off. As Young looked to hit Aries with the title belt, King stole it away and clocked Young instead, giving Aries the win. That is until a second referee emerged from the back and overturned the results, awarding Young the win by disqualification. Aries’ response was to kick both referee Todd Sinclair and friend Kenny King between the legs before making King tap to Last Chancery.

Prediction: The 16^th Anniversary PPV was also the last time King has won a singles match. Meanwhile Aries is currently the top champion in the #3 wrestling promotion in America. Aries hits a low blow behind the referee’s back and King taps out to Last Chancery again.

2. Flip Gordon vs. Bully Ray

Bully Ray made his ROH debut in March 2017 as a babyface, aligning with The Briscoes. Their tenure as a trio continued through to the fall, picking up a six-man title reign along the way, before The Briscoes turned on Ray. This led to Ray’s retirement match at Final Battle in December where he and Tommy Dreamer lost to The Briscoes in a street fight. Doctors had previously told Ray that he couldn’t wrestle anymore and he took that last, final match against their orders to go out on a high note. Following his retirement ROH COO Joe Koff appointed Ray as the new authority figure or “enforcer” of the promotion. Ray’s time as Enforcer saw him make rash, biased decisions. The saying that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” was proven weekly. However it wasn’t until Supercard Of Honor in April that he officially went too far, turning heel and attacking Cheeseburger. Koff subsequently stripped him of the Enforcer role but apparently is fine with Ray competing full-time again as a wrestler, despite doctors telling him eight months ago that he shouldn’t. Ray’s role these days is to hate on the millennials. First it was Cheeseburger. Then it was The Boys. Now it’s Flip Gordon.

Prediction: Ray has had five matches since coming out of retirement. Two of those were tag matches where he mostly just riled up the crowd for Punishment Martinez and Shane Taylor. Two of those were against Cheeseburger and went less than five minutes with Ray just tossing Burger around the ring. The last was a handicap match against The Boys, which was essentially the same as the Burger bouts. Does he have legitimate injuries where he shouldn’t be wrestling? Was that all just a fabrication to sell the feud with the Briscoes? Can he wrestle a real match still? I don’t know but this should answer those questions once and for all. If we can get the Bully Ray of 2013 TNA this could be a fun match of clashing styles. If we get the Ray of the past few months expect a lot of him stalling at ringside, insulting the fans, and a couple low blows. Regardless I think the outcome is the same. Gordon wins with the Star-Spangled Stunner.

3. Jay Lethal vs. Kushida

Since losing the world title to Adam Cole in August 2016 Jay Lethal has self-admittedly been a bit directionless. He’s always near the top of the card and treated as one of the name players in ROH (I compare his role to that of John Cena’s in WWE) but when the big events roll around he often ends up in fun, competitive matches with little consequences. For the past two years he’s stressed that he wants to be world champion again. It’s gotten to the point where Caprice Coleman, on Coleman’s Pulpit”, laughed about it and asked if that’s his 2019 goal too? The short answer is yes. On May 6 TV Lethal cut a promo saying that management wants him to rack up some more wins before getting another title shot so he proposed the idea of going back and beating everyone with recent victories over him. Punishment Martinez, Mark Briscoe, Matt Taven, and Chuckie T have been avenged so far.

Lethal and Kushida first met for the ROH television title in May 2014 with Lethal getting the victory. They next met in May 2017 with Kushida getting the win. This is the rubber match and the next stop on Lethal’s road to redemption.

Prediction: Lethal wins with the Lethal Injection.

4. Sumie Sakai, Tenille Dashwood, Jenny Rose, & Mayu Iwatani vs. Kelly Klein & Oedo Tai

At Supercard Of Honor Sumie Sakai, the first woman to win a match in ROH history way back in June 2002, defeated Kelly Klein in the finals of a tournament to crown the first Women Of Honor Champion. On May 27 Sakai defended the title successfully in England, officially turning the belt into the WOH World Championship. She and Dashwood are good friends and have been teaming lately with no issues between them. Jenny Rose and Sakai’s friendship became a little rocky over the past few months but they appear to be back on the same page. Mayu Iwatani is the wildcard here. She has held every title in Stardom and was one of the standouts of the WOH tournament before falling to Klein in the semifinals.

On the other side of the ring we have Klein teaming with three members of the Stardom faction Oedo Tai. Klein is the top heel in the Women Of Honor division and has been on a roll lately, defeating long-time rival Deonna Purrazzo in what may end up being Purrazzo’s final ROH match. Oedo Tai is represented here by the current World Of Stardom Champion Kagetsu along with Hana Kimura and Hazuki. Sakai eliminated both Kagetsu and Kimura from the WOH tournament while Iwatani eliminated Hazuki.

Prediction: Sakai has the best singles record of anyone in ROH in 2018 at 7-0. She’s also the only champion not defending their title on this show. It would seem that this match has been set up to establish her next challenger. As good as Sakai vs. Iwatani would be I can’t see any of the Stardom women sticking around long enough for a full feud. Oedo Tai pull some shenanigans and Klein steals a pinfall on the champ.

5. Punishment Martinez vs. Adam Page (street fight for the ROH World Television Championship)

At Bound By Honor on April 27 Cody defeated Punishment Martinez in singles action. The next night Martinez was scheduled to face Cody’s buddy Adam Page but instead Martinez attacked him with a steel chair during Page’s entrance and chokeslammed him through the timekeeper’s table. May 11 at War Of The Worlds Martinez looked to use a steel chair again in his singles match against Jay White only for Page to run to ringside and stop him, providing the opening for White to pick up the win.

June 16’s State Of The Art show was headlined by Martinez and Page competing in six-man mayhem along with Cheeseburger, Jonathan Gresham, Scorpio Sky, and TV champion Silas Young. Page looked to have the victory in hand following a Rite Of Passage to Burger, only for Martinez to hit a curb stomp on Page and a chokeslam to Burger for the win. As a result Martinez got a singles match for the TV title on the spot against Young, which he won with a South Of Heaven chokeslam. It’s Martinez’s first taste of gold in ROH. This past week on television both men were involved in a six-man tag along with the Young Bucks and the Briscoes. Page ended up powerbombing Martinez through the timekeeper’s table in a callback to how this feud first began two months ago.

Prediction: Page will be television champion one day, possibly this year, but not here. Martinez just won the title and Page left him laying the last time they met. Page will put up a hell of a fight and refuse to stay down, to Martinez’s consternation, but a South Of Heaven chokeslam onto a pile of chairs finally leaves Page unable to kick out from the three count.

6. The Kingdom vs. Los Ingobernables de Japón (ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship)

Matt Taven was out with a knee injury when ROH announced the introduction of new six-man titles in the fall of 2016. Before he’d been put on the shelf the first iteration of The Kingdom had fallen apart. Mike Bennett and Maria had left ROH for TNA and Taven turned on Adam Cole, leading to Cole joining Bullet Club. Taven returned to television that September and announced a new Kingdom would compete in the six-man tournament, facing Cole & The Young Bucks in the first round. Enter the debuting TK O’Ryan and Vinny Marseglia. Taven’s new Kingdom would end up defeating Bullet Club, Team CMLL, and Jay White, Kushida, & Lio Rush to win the tournament and become the inaugural six-man champions. They held the titles until April when O’Ryan went down with an injury ahead of a scheduled title defense. With Silas Young given permission to fill in for O’Ryan the team of Young, Taven, and Marseglia would lose the six-man titles to Bully Ray & The Briscoes.

The Kingdom would spend the better part of the next 13 months proclaiming there was a “Kingdom conspiracy” and pointing out that their trio never actually lost the titles. Fast-forward to May 9 and War Of The Worlds. Taven was scheduled to challenge Dalton Castle for the world title only to have Castle pulled from the lineup at the last minute due to injuries. Instead The Kingdom were booked into an impromptu match against SoCal Uncensored for the six-man titles, which they would win in a surprise upset.

Of course none of this has anything to do with L.I.J. They’re simply in this match because The Kingdom needed to defend against someone and there weren’t any other viable teams around. Bushi, Evil, and Sanada have made a fair number of appearances for ROH lately, mostly in losses to Bullet Club. They’ve done nothing in storyline to earn a title match here.

Prediction: L.I.J. are around often enough and the six-man titles are low enough on the totem pole that a title change here wouldn’t be totally impractical. Taven’s band of misfits are better with gold, though. It hides some of their flaws and gives Taven the Miz-like opportunities to gloat over small victories and scamper away from big problems. Expect The Horror King to find out what EVIL truly is, Sanada to knock out TKO, and Taven to pin Bushi.

7. The Briscoes vs. The Young Bucks (ROH World Tag Team Championship)

The Briscoes and The Young Bucks met for the first time on ROH television on November 2, 2009 in a match that ended in a no contest when the Bucks were attacked by The Dark City Fight Club. Since then they have faced each other eleven more times in ROH in traditional two-on-two tags: the Briscoes with 6 wins, the Bucks with 5. The Bucks have the best record of any ROH act in 2018 at 12-0. The Briscoes are third (behind Sumie Sakai) at 13-1. That one loss is the purposeful disqualification they took on May 13 television when it looked like the Bucks might take their tag titles in the main event.

The Briscoes have been the best, most consistent heels in ROH this year. They make no effort to get cheered and will turn on the fans in an instant if they try to support them. They went on a tear through the tag division in the early months that left us wondering who was left that could be perceived as an actual credible threat to them. Enter the new IWGP Tag Team Champions, Nick and Matt, arguably the top two wrestlers in all of ROH in June 2018.

Prediction: The Briscoes have been great in this run and could definitely walk away with the titles here following some sort of tainted victory like a chair shot or a low blow. Coast 2 Coast were picking up significant wins before they disappeared and Beer City Bruiser & Brian Milonas could easily pivot into a babyface role for a feud with the Briscoes if so desired. But All In is coming. We only have one match announced so far for that huge show but we do know that the Bucks will be wrestling in the main event. How can we resist them walking in with an IWGP tag belt over one shoulder and an ROH tag belt over the other? Mark takes a Meltzer Driver and the Bucks are four-time ROH World Tag Team Champions.

8. Dalton Castle (w/The Boys) vs. Cody (w/Brandi Rhodes & Burnard The Business Bear) vs. Marty Scurll (ROH World Championship)

Cody has the best men’s record in ROH in 2018 at 11-1. Scurll is second at 7-1 and Castle (6-1) is tied for third with Lethal (12-2). I love a promotion where win/loss records matter.

At this very show one year ago Cody defeated Christopher Daniels to capture the world title for the first time. Scurll challenged Kushida that night in an attempt to regain the television title he lost and Castle and his Boys defeated Bully Ray & The Briscoes to win the six-man titles. Cody would hold the world title until December when he lost the belt to Castle at Final Battle. He never got a rematch. Castle has since defended successfully against Martinez, Bruiser, Beretta, Lethal, Gordon, Evil, and Scurll himself but his reign has also been plagued by accumulating injuries and a broken hand (due to the actions of Scurll at Supercard Of Honor). His tenure as champion has also failed to be the main event showcase that one might expect. This is in part due to his injuries, in part due to how much attention the Cody-Kenny Omega feud received going into Supercard, and in part due to Bullet Club in general. The Club seem to main event television almost every week as well as the Honor Club live events and more people are buzzing about All In these days than they are Dalton Castle, ROH World Champion.

At Masters Of The Craft on April 15 Scurll won a four-way elimination Defy Or Deny match also involving Martinez and Bruiser by last eliminating Castle with a roll-up. As a result he earned a future world title shot. With Cody and Scurll both owed title matches some bickering began to erupt between them as to who would get to be the one to challenge Castle at Best In The World. On May 20 television Cody made the official announcement that it would be him. That week’s show ended with Scurll accidentally hitting Cody with his umbrella off of a swing aimed at Christopher Daniels. The following week Castle leaned into obvious expectations and suggested they just make it a triple threat.

Since then Scurll has hit Cody with his umbrella by accident again and Cody has accidentally nailed Scurll with his Beautiful Disaster kick. Neither man have really interacted with the champion at all and the Bullet Club tension seems almost to exist in a different narrative than that of Castle as the banged up champion who refuses to admit to himself how injured he actually is and remains defiant that he is still the champion and will continue to be so after Friday.

The question for two months now has been which Bullet Club member will leave the show with the gold. Will it be Cody, starting a second reign as champion, and heading toward All In for a title vs. title match against NWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis? Will it be the massively popular Scurll picking up ROH’s top title for the first time and cementing his status as a main eventer? Certainly Castle won’t retain. There’s no way. Right?

Prediction: Some have described Castle’s title reign as lacklustre. Other, perhaps crueler, individuals have written it off as a total flop and said he was never anything more than a midcard player to begin with. Both Castle and Cody have acknowledged these very criticisms on ROH television. Despite it almost being a handicap match, despite a noted accumulation of war injuries plaguing him, if Castle were to lose the title here it would put an end to his reign and all but confirm what the critics have said. In order to salvage Castle’s title reign, prove that he is a main eventer, and prove that he does have what it take to be the top guy in the promotion he must retain. Defeating two Bullet Club members and two of the most popular guys in ROH in one match is a start.

Burnard and Brandi interfere but The Boys take care of them. Castle ends up down at ringside. Cody looks for CrossRhodes but Scurll counters into the chicken-wing. Scurll has Cody down on the mat in the center of the ring. Just as Cody looks like he’s going to tap Castle returns to the ring and throws himself on top of both men, pinning Scurll’s shoulders to the mat for the one, two, three. Cody taps at four.

Up next it’s Honor For All on July 20 in Nashville, Tennessee. Let’s go with Matt Taven finally getting his world title shot against Dalton Castle, Jay Lethal vs. Silas Young on the road to redemption, and Marty & Flip vs. O’Ryan & Marseglia.

Find Harley on Twitter @talkinghonor and listen to he and Emily Fear discuss all things ROH every Tuesday on the PWTorch Livecast “Talking Honor.” (CLICK HERE or search “pwtorch” in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app).