Ring of Honor television from Philadelphia featured storylines with one partnership ending and the beginning of the end for another. In doing so, the House of Truth loses a member while elsewhere The Kingdom begins to crumble. Staying with the theme of partnerships, teams were a main focus of the show as reDRagon and the Young Bucks both issues challenges. Tag team champions War Machine hunt their prey. The main event also features tags but only in form of tagging out of a four corners survival match with Jay Briscoe vs. Matt Sydal vs. Moose vs. Dalton Castle.
The show opened with tag teams focused on the nightlife.
All Night Express (Kenny King & Rhett Titus) beat Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero & Trent Baretta)
King shined in the opening moments then he and Titus starting doing double teams moves. The action spilled to the outside where Romero jumped off the apron with a flying knee. ANX jumped Rocky at ringside and rammed him into the guardrail. Baretta made the save with a corkscrew moonsault off the guardrail.
Back in the ring, Baretta went to the top rope only for Titus to cut him off before a commercial. After the break, ANX got heat on Baretta until a hot tag to Romero. He cleaned house and they transitioned into the finish.
Roppongi Vice was double teaming Titus. King tagged in but Baretta & Romero were unaware a tag was made. They executed their Strong Zero finisher on Titus and Baretta covered him. The referee would not count as Titus was not the legal man. In the meantime, King slid in the ring and rolled up Baretta with a schoolboy to score the pinfall.
The mistake of one team cost them a match and the next segment delt with someone calling out a team for previous mistakes.
Enter The Kingdom with Adam Cole in the lead. Matt Taven was on crutches due to his injury. Seemingly ignoring the rest of the group, Cole sauntered down the aisle to the ring leaving them behind on the ramp. Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis stayed behind to help the injured Taven down the ramp and into the ring.
As security surrounded the ring, Cole said they were there to protect against Kyle O’Reilly, whom Cole labeled as a coward despite Cole himself being the one protected by bodyguards. Cole brought up his win over O’Reilly at Final Battle. The crowd chanted “on the ropes” at Cole since he cheated to win in that match on the PPV.
With his back to the group, Cole talked about some in The Kingdom like himself winning at Final Battle while others in the group were losers, referring to Bennett and Taven losing the tag team titles. Cole said they “dropped the ball” and he was about to explain to them on how to win back the titles when reDRagon interrupted his instructions. O’Reilly was seething and aggressively paced around rinsgide. Bobby Fish was calmer and spoke.
“Right now if this pitbull gets loose, man, you don’t live to see tomorrow,” Fish said when describing O’Reilly.
Fish challenged The Kingdom to a match. Matchmaker Nigel McGuiness, who was ringside doing commentary with Kevin Kelly, booked the match for next week. However, Young Bucks entered the scene to lobby for their own match against The Kingdom.
“If anybody is going to take out these Bullet Club marks,” Matt Jackson said, “it’s going to be us!”
He petitioned Nigel for a match. Nigel asked the audience their opinion and the crowd of course cheered for the Bucks. He wanted to do what the fans wanted yet noted he already booked a match. So, he added Young Bucks as a third team to the tag match airing next week and made it a Philly street fight.
Later in the show, a backstage promo from reDRagon hyped the three-way street fight. A fired up O’Reilly said he was from the mean streets of Delta, British Columbia. O’Reilly went on to say he came from a broken home (meaning literally). He said his mom and dad were alright but a tree crashed through their house. O’Reilly wanted revenge on that tree. He said Mike Bennett would be that tree and they would chop him down. Fish added The Kingdom had no idea what was coming next week.
Tag team champions War Machine (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) beat House of Truth (Donovan Dijak & Joey “Diesel” Daddiego with Truth Martini)
War Machine pummeled Daddiego at the start. Dijak got in some offense early on and did a corkscrew plancha from the top turnbuckle to the floor. Martini slid Dijak the Book of Truth to use as a weapon but Dijak kicked it away.
As Martini bickered with Dijak about him desecrating the book, Daddiego tagged himself in to get pummeled some more. War Machine began to squash them and Dijak attempted a last ditch effort to no avail. War Machine executed their Fallout finisher and Hanson covered Dijak for the pin.
Following a commercial break, the House of Truth remained in the ring. Martini chastised Dijak for losing. He also brought up him not helping Jay Lethal in his main event title defense at Final Battle. He noted Lethal did not need the help but claimed Dijak should have been there to offer help.
Martini slapped Dijak in the face. The crowd chanted it was weak. As Martini kept cutting a promo on him, Dijak grabbed him by the lapels. Daddiego jumped in and attacked Dijak. He applied a head and arm choke only as Truth scremed to never touch him again. Dijak countered and lifted Daddiego up in the torture rack. Dijak delivered his All Seeing Eye finisher and left Daddiego laying.
Martini bailed out of the ring and told Dijak he was fired from the House of Truth. The crowd chanted for Dijak as he stood defiant in the ring. Prince Nana, who gave Dijak a mysterious envelope weeks ago on TV, appeared at ringside and looked on approvingly.
Dalton Castle (with The Boys) won a four corners survival match over Matt Sydal & Jay Briscoe & Moose (with Stokley Hathaway)
This was an eclectic mix of participants bringing a variety of styles to the four-way match. Anyone could tag in at any time. Likewise, lucha tag rules were in effect meaning if a participant left the ring then someone could get in the ring to replace that person without a tag.
Castle was quite over with the crowd. They teased Briscoe and Moose squaring off but held off on delivering that until later in the match. Dalton did some matrix moves and strutted around Jay. As he stopped to pose, Jay booted him in the face.
Eventually, Briscoe and Moose squared off and had a slugfest. Castle got two nearfalls on Moose. With three of them brawling at ringside, Sydal dived off the top turnbuckle with a moonsault to the floor. Stokely stole the fans from The Boys and began fanning Moose. The Boys snatched them away from him.
In the closing moments, Sydal got a nearfall on Moose with a hurricanrana. Briscoe got a nearfall on Sydal after a ratchet neckbreaker. Moose speared Briscoe. Castle hit Moose with a missile dropkick off the top. Sydal countered Castle’s attempt at the Bang-o-Rang and Dalton took a reverse hurricanrana from Sydal.
For the finish, Sydal climbed the turnbuckles and The Boys caused a distraction by fanning him when he went for a shooting star. Sydal landed on his feet. Castle then delivered the Bang-o-Rang and covered him for the pin.
