#WatchROH

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: September 20, 2015

Ring of Honor Wrestling is the best wrestling show on TV. Nothing else comes close. Raw is a train wreck every week. Smackdown is the train wreck’s B-show. Lucha Underground started out great, then lost me. TNA is on the verge of losing its second TV deal in 14 months, so that tells you about how good Impact isn’t.

Raw did a 2.42 rating this week. That’s a 2000 WCW number. Fitting, since Sting and ~~The Giant~~ The Big Show main evented. (Yes, I know Paul Wight was in the WWF by then.) I like Sting. He can still go in the ring. But he needed a win of his own in WWE. Not in a Teddy Long Special. I understand that at this point in his career, Sting should be putting over the next group of guys, but if he doesn’t win a match at least every now and then, then when somebody beats him, he’s not beating The Icon, he’s just beating some old guy in face paint.

I’ve talked about the diva “revolution” before, so I’m not going to spend much more time talking about it, especially since Vince obviously thinks so little of it that his top priority for the division was still spiting A.J. Lee, but the title match this past Monday was a joke. That finish sucked the last time they did it, but they did it again anyway. And if Stephanie really cared about the integrity of the divas division, she would have restarted the match and told Nikki that she couldn’t cheat her way into the record book. Instead, she issued the stipulation that if Nikki loses for any reason at Night of Champions, she loses the title. Nikki was thrilled. So the title doesn’t matter, only having it for a long time does.

In ROH, the cream rises to the top. It used to in the WWF, too. It had to. If it didn’t, the fans would turn over to Nitro. Even Vince McMahon was smart enough to see that. But now, there’s no Nitro to turn over to, so Vince can decide what rises to the top. If some cream starts to, more coffee is poured into the cup, and the cream is diluted and stuck between a 90-minute Triple H promo and a god-awful Bellas match.

The New Day is the best thing on Raw right now. WWE can only get someone over as a face when they don’t mean to. The Rusev-Dolph Ziggler-Lana-Summer Rae angle makes me think Vince Russo’s back with the company. The only way any of it makes sense now is if Summer Rae was just using Rusev to make Dolph jealous after Dolph started hanging out with Lana, because Summer Rae wanted to be with Dolph. So Summer Rae’s obviously a heel. Dolph now has to be too, if he’s reciprocating Summer’s feelings for him. Rusev treated Lana like crap, so he’s a heel, unless he apologizes and says he only said what he said about her because he missed her. If a storyline needs a convoluted explanation like that to have it make sense, it sucks.

Kevin Kelly is the best announcer in the world as long as Jim Ross is retired. He always knows what to say or not say. He puts over the match. He adds to the story. Moe, Larry, and Curly on Raw never shut up and often talk about things that have nothing to do with the match. JBL could be very good if not for the knuckleheads WWE saddles him with. He makes good references (that often go way over Michael Cole’s head) and does so with the right amount of smugness. In a good company, he’d be the next Bobby Heenan. In this company, he’s just another talking head. Jerry Lawler has to stop calling himself the King. There’s only one King that does commentary and it’s Steve Corino. Lawler was a goofball in the ’90s, but at least then, he had chemistry with J.R. Then again, Good Ol’ J.R. was the best there ever was or ever will be. I don’t care that wrestling is scripted, Jim Ross has to be on the Mount Rushmore of sports commentary.

That WWE needed to bring back the Dudley Boyz speaks volumes about how bad the tag team division there is. ROH has ReDRagon, The Addiction, War Machine, and the Young Bucks just to name a few. All of those teams are miles better than anyone in WWE outside of the Dudleys and the New Day. I’m a huge fan of War Machine. Two big guys who just beat people up. They’d be the best tag team in the world if the Bucks weren’t. War Machine’s got an awesome theme song, too.

Cheeseburger is more over than 90% of the WWE roster. When he beat Brutal Bob Evans a few weeks ago, the crowd erupted. He’s a great underdog story. He never gives up. That’s the story WWE tries to tell with John Cena: he never gives up. But John Cena’s a 15-time world champion and not an underdog to anyone not named Brock Lesnar.

WWE is a cartoon. TNA is a bad ripoff of a bad cartoon that will soon be off the air.

ROH is wrestling.

#WatchROH

Twitter: @KSchroeder2325

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com