ROH TV Recap: Will Ospreay And Marty Scurll Make TV Debuts, Decade Of Excellence Semifinal

By Leon Milici

RING OF HONOR TV EPISODE #279
Taped @ The 2300 Arena In Philadelphia,PA
Airing In Syndication, Comet TV & The Fite TV App

Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness are on commentary, for what is the last set of TV tapings that took place after Final Battle in December. The show is billed as being the US television debuts in ROH for Marty Scurll and Will Ospreay. Both men bookend this show in their respective matches. A video chronicling their invasion into Ring of Honor and their rivalry airs to kick off the show.

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PROVING GROUND MATCH
Ring Of Honor Television Champion "The Villain" Marty Scurll vs. Jonathan Gresham

The Proving Ground concept by ROH has always been one of their best. A great way of labeling a standard non title match and adding consequence to it. Gresham is one of the shortest wrestlers in the industry at only 5'4, but he is one of the best technical wrestlers. An overlooked no frills style wrestler in the mold of Dean Malenko and Bryan Danielson. 'The Villain' has arguably the best entrance/video in the company right now. Scurll has been wrestling for 12 years now and has a great gimmick and style. His whole act is rooted in the concept that the world can't exist or flourish without villains. Kevin Kelly does a great job on commentary selling Scurll's character. There is also a discussion with Kelly and McGuinness, about ROH's future. That while they are in the midst of honoring ROH's past in The Decade of Excellence tournament. Talents like Scurll are a glimpse into the future. How 2017 promises to be the launch of new talents emerging in the company.

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Good storytelling done in this match. Both men adhere to The Code of Honor beforehand. Marty does it in a way where he is not really showing his opponent respect, but greeting his next victim. This is a technical wrestling bout off the bat. A lot of waist lock go behinds and standing switches early. Gresham eventually takes Marty down to the mat, and is in control . The Villain gets frustrated that he is being outwrestled. He starts to play mind games and Gresham plays right into it. The Villain goes to his bag of tricks and uses his unique style of offense to gain the advantage. A nasty style of offense that targets Gresham's nose, eyes and ligaments. It ends with Marty Scurll breaking Gresham's fingers and then applying his cross face chicken wing submission for the victory.

Marty Scurll defeats Jonathan Gresham by submission

- Throughout the show, highlights are shown from WrestleKingdom 11, where Adam Cole defeated Kyle O'Reilly to reclaim The ROH World Championship. In the video below, Adam Cole recaps becoming the first 3 time ROH Champion.

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An update on recent happenings in Ring Of Honor. Where The Young Bucks formally accepted The Broken Hardy's challenge. Both teams will face each other at Supercard Of Honor On April 1st in Florida. The Hardy's recently responded to the official announcement.

Back to ROH TV, A video airs of dueling promos by Jay Lethal and Jay Briscoe. They hype up their semi-final match in The Decade of Excellence tournament. Lethal talks about his quest of becoming ROH champion for a second time. Jay Briscoe questions the qualification of Lethal being in the tournament, by stating that 10 years ago, Lethal was running around pretending to be The Macho Man Randy Savage, while he was actually busting heads in ROH. Briscoe closes the video talking about never beating Lethal one on one. He goes on to promise that he will finally do so in their semi-final match.... The match itself was taped recently in Georgia at Ring of Honor's most recent tapings and will air in the coming weeks. The winner of that match goes on to face the winner of this next semi-final match.

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DECADE OF EXCELLENCE TOURNAMENT
SEMI-FINAL MATCH
Christopher Daniels vs. Chris Sabin

Frankie Kazarian joins the broadcast team on commentary for this one. He does a very good job of selling Daniels push to become ROH Champion. The winner of this tournament will go on to get a shot at The ROH Championship at ROH's 15th Anniversary PPV on March 10th in Vegas. Kazarian goes on to call this, Daniel's last shot at becoming ROH Champ. He has a great line where he says, "That at some point, your memories become more important than your dreams". The idea is that Daniels doesn't want to face that reality yet. Kevin Kelly talks about how the speculation has always been that The ROH Championship was originally created with Christopher Daniels in mind.

Another good match from these two. They have such a long history of working together in ROH and obviously TNA. Sabin takes control early by using his usual high risk offense. He takes the action to the outside and hits a running senton off the apron and onto Daniels at ringside. Eventually Sabin is outsmarted by Daniels and his risk taking backfires. Sabin ends up crashing into the steel barricade at ringside. Daniels takes control of the match for the next few minutes. Sabin eventually battles back, hits a succession of high impact moves and gets a near fall on Daniels. The next few minutes are evenly contested. Daniels hits a springboard splash on Sabin and transitions into the Koji Clutch submission. Sabin breaks the hold by getting to the ropes, and the pace of the match picks up for the final sequence. Sabin springs off the ropes and hits a Tornado DDT on Daniels for a near fall. Both men end up standing toe to toe and exchanging several strikes on each other. Daniels wins the exchange by hitting a samoan drop on Sabin. He then goes for The "Best Moonsault Ever". Sabin is able to avoid the move but gets knocked down. Daniels then goes for it again and this time connects with The BME and pins Chris Sabin.

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Christopher Daniels defeats Chris Sabin by pinfall to advance to the finals of The Decade of Excellence Tournament

After the match. Daniels reaches over to a dejected Chris Sabin on the mat. He lifts him up, shakes his hand and salutes him in the ring.

Highlights are now shown from last week's angle and match between Cody Rhodes and Steve Corino. What follows is then a video where Corino is with his "Dark Army" of Kevin Sullivan, BJ Whitmer and Punishment Martinez. All 4 men are standing in front of an open fire. They talk about Corino finally accepting his role within the family. How he offered to sacrifice Cody or his brother last week. The video ends with Kevin Sullivan tasking Corino with "getting the golden one". Not sure where this is headed if it's even headed anywhere now with Corino in The WWE. Golden One sounds like a Goldust reference. I don't see it going anywhere.... As for Cody, "The American Nightmare" Cody is firmly entrenched as a member of The Bullet Club. He will be teaming with Adam Cole against The Addiction at The Honor Reigns Supreme show in Dallas, Texas on February 4th. In the video below, The Addiction addresses The Bullet Club. Kazarian talks about not getting sued by The WWE for using Cody's last name.

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RING OF HONOR TV MAIN EVENT
Will Ospreay vs. Kushida vs. Dragon Lee

An exciting match wrestled at a break neck pace by all 3 men. Great opening sequence with each man showing off the art of evasion. The sequence ends with a standoff. As seen in the video below.

This is followed by a lot of quick strikes by all 3 men. Will Ospreay is temporarily knocked to the outside of the ring. Dragon Lee and Kushida go one on one for a bit. Ospreay rejoins the action and all 3 end up taking the action to the outside. Ospreay hits a running handspring moonsault over the top rope on Kushida. Dragon Lee then leaps over the top onto both men. Just picture perfect aerial moves by all 3 of them throughout this match. More aerial theatrics on the outside when Ospreay attempts a running shooting star press off of the ring apron, and lands on his feet. The action heads back inside. Dragon Lee takes control. He throws Kushida into Ospreay and takes him out. He then hits a delayed vertical suplex/tiger driver on Kushida. This leads to a near fall. Lee ends up hitting a leaping double foot stomp on Kushida for another near fall. Dragon then hits a beautiful dead lift german suplex into a bridge on Kushida. Ospreay is back in and breaks up the pin attempt with a shooting star press.

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All 3 men are down. When they get back to their feet. Dragon Lee comes up from behind Ospreay and hits a reverse rana on him. Kushida hits a tilt a whirl shoulder breaker on Lee. He then applies the hoverboard lock submission on him. Ospreay breaks up the submission hold with a mid air corkscrew splash. Will Ospreay is actually bleeding from his ear from all of his crazy landings. He now attempts a springboard "Os-Cutter" but gets caught by Kushida in the hoverboard lock. Ospreay rolls out of it but Kushida hits him with a great looking Fishermen's DDT to get the pinfall victory.

Kushida defeats Will Ospreay & Dragon Lee

An exciting 3-Way match that seemed like it was too short. Fun to watch nonetheless. Kevin Kelly on commentary harps on the fact that Kushida has had Will Ospreay's number. Setting up future matches between the two.

The show concludes with the closing moments of The WrestleKingdom 11 match between Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly. After it's shown. Kevin Kelly hypes up next week's show with Adam Cole as the now 3 time ROH Champion.

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