ROH HITS & MISSES (5/22): Pure Title Tournament hype with Athena and Serena Deeb, Shafir vs. Laynie Luck, Blake Christian vs. Cringo Loco, Atlantis Jr. & Neon & Fuego vs. Volador Jr. & Barbaro Cavernario & Hechicero

Athena announces Billie Starkz will enter the ROH Women’s Pure Title tournament: HIT

She establishes how much the Pure title means by forcing Billie to study and prepare for this tournament. Having someone like Athena put over this tournament is a great step towards drawing interest to the new title, which is the most important thing that needs to happen leading up to the first champion being crowned as it gives fans a reason to care and truly invest.

Also, the name drop of past Pure champions and ROH greats Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson was a nice touch. I will add though, that there is a part of me that wonders if this is setting up Billie vs Athena down the line for the World title, as I really don’t see Billie winning the Pure Title Tournament as it almost seems like too perfect of a fit for Deeb as I’ll mention later on in the article.

In addition to that, the promo itself to me seems a bit to be hinting at tension, which of course we’ve seen between Athena and her minions several times during her reign. There’s also the question of, if not Billie, who can credibly defeat Athena for the title that is on the current roster? This promo provokes more questions than answers, and in this case that’s not a bad thing at all from my perspective.

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Marina Shafir vs. Laynie Luck:  HIT

Shafir used the handshake to start the match to pull into an arm bar attempt and take control early. The pin sequence into an attempt at ground control was nice by Shafir, too. I’ll give this a HIT as Shafir won as she needed to and the match didn’t drone on longer than it needed to in my opinion. Not a terrible opener, though the crowd didn’t seem as into it as would be ideal for an opening match. The match mostly did what it needed to do though.

Blake Christian vs. Gringo Loco: HIT

Okay. This was one of the better TV matches I’ve seen this year from ROH. It did the most important things for a TV match to me: got the crowd invested, kept the crowd invested, and built momentum for the rest of the matches following. The crowd was firmly behind Loco and when combined with solid heel work by Christian it made this match a major HIT for me. Blake Christian continues his undefeated run in ROH this year, and I would love to see him challenge Bandido in the near future as he’s a top prospect in my opinion long term. He definitely has areas to improve, but he’s still relatively young at only 27 and has improved dramatically over the last couple years.

Allysin Kay vs. Queen Aminata: HIT

The early element of Allysin Kay adapting to the pure ruleset and using two of her rope breaks early as well as being admonished for close fists was a nice touch by commentary and reminded new viewers of some of the differences in Pure rules. As this was a rare instance of an episode being streamed live on YouTube due to the show being on Friday this week, the mentions of those differences is a huge benefit to newer viewers who may not have seen a Pure match before. Good match overall and great dynamic contrast between the two.

Serena Deeb promo about Pure Title tournament: HIT

This really made the Women’s Pure Title seem like a priority and like it means everything to her, which is a huge deal for a newly established title such as this. Not to mention, there are so many interesting directions the creative team could take the Professor character in the Pure division as an expert in wrestling. She gives me flashbacks to the same mindset Nigel had as men’s Pure champion back in 2005-6, in terms of knowing the Pure rules and how best to exploit them.

Atlantis Jr. & Neon & Fuego vs. Volador Jr. & Barbaro Cavernario & Hechicero: HIT

This had some really cool spots but could’ve used 5-10 more minutes. Overall a good enough main event, for a good show. This was one of the best shows of the year so far to me, and one can only hope momentum can build from here as we move towards crowing the first ever ROH Women’s Pure Champion this summer.