QUICK RESULTS:
*TNT Championship: Sammy Guevara over Scorpio Sky (champion) in 12:46
*ROH Championship: Jonathan Gresham (champion) over Dalton Castle 10:33
*AEW Women’s Championship: Thunder Rosa (champion) over Nyla Rose in 14:11
Announcers: Excalibur, Taz, Tony Schiavone
SCORPIO SKY VS SAMMY GUEVARA FOR THE TNT CHAMPIONSHIP
Tay Conti is out with Guevara while Dan Lambert is in Sky’s corner wearing the other TNT championship.
There were dueling chants of “Let’s Go, Sammy; Sammy sucks.”
After a leapfrog, dropkick, and kip-up by Guevara, Sky was sent to the floor and Guevara received boos following the kip-up.
Sky hit a TKO on the edge of the apron as they went to picture-in-picture with both men on the floor. Sky worked on Guevara’s back inside the ring with multiple backbreakers that led to a chant of “one more time”, which Sky proceeded to deliver.
Guevara fought back after catching Sky with a standing Spanish Fly, he climbed to the top when Ethan Page ran down and pulled Sky to the floor. Conti yelled at Page, which distracted him as Guevara hit a shooting star press to Page & Sky on the floor. Page was bleeding after this.
Guevara went for a double springboard cutter but slipped on the second jump and the announcers acknowledged the slip.
Conti assisted Guevara by knocking Sky’s hands off the middle rope leading to Paige VanZant running down and fighting with Conti.
Behind the referee’s back, Guevara hit a low blow and the GTH and pinned Sky, ending his title reign and 402-day unbeaten streak.
WINNER: Sammy Guevara in 12 minutes and 46 seconds
The announcers explained Guevara was playing “fire with fire” and resorting to the tactics his opponents were using.
Guevara and Conti made out on the ramp to celebrate.
While Guevara worked as the babyface throughout the match, it was a heel reaction he received and the ending signaled that’s the direction they are taking his character and is probably the best call rather than fighting this reaction the two are receiving.
This is Guevara’s third time as TNT champion.
JONATHAN GRESHAM VS DALTON CASTLE FOR THE ROH CHAMPIONSHIP
Bobby Cruise was the ring announcer. Castle came out with The Boys.
This is essentially a cold match that had no promotion beyond the match announcement this past Wednesday.
Excalibur mentioned Gresham has defended the ROH title fifteen times since winning it from Jay Lethal at Final Battle last December.
Castle did his sequence of gut wrenches before dropping Gresham to the mat.
Gresham controlled Castle’s arm with various applications of the hammerlock. Castle recovered on the floor and moved out of the way of a pescado and caught Gresham with a spinning head scissors off the apron.
Castle attempted the Bang-a-Rang and Gresham held onto the rope, Castle tried it a second time and it was countered with a roll-up with the two trading pin attempts back-and-forth and rolling all across the ring.
The pace quickened, Gresham stomped the foot and applied the Octopus, and secured the submission after going down to the mat with the hold locked.
WINNER: Jonathan Gresham in 10 minutes and 33 seconds
It was a nice match that didn’t come across as very heated in the building, which is what you get with a cold build.
The two shook hands and were interrupted by Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, and Satnam Singh.
Singh lifted and dropped The Boys on the floor, he caught Castle and sent him into the steps and entered the ring to TOWER over Gresham. This distraction led to Lethal hitting Lethal Injection on Gresham. The attack continued until Lee Moriarty ran down and was pressed into the air by Singh.
Matt Sydal was out on crutches. Singh broke the crutch and Lethal & Dutt attacked Sydal. As Singh went to powerbomb Sydal, Samoa Joe came out wielding a pipe
Joe cleared the ring and the focus of the ending was an inevitable showdown between Joe and Singh.
Joe and Gresham held their respective ROH titles in the air.
Announced for Dynamite next week in Pittsburgh:
*Coffin Match: Darby Allin vs. Andrade El Idolo
*Owen Hart Foundation Qualifier: Jungle Boy vs. Kyle O’Reilly
*Owen Hart Foundation Qualifier: Dr. Britt Baker vs. Danielle Kamela
*Wardlow vs. The Butcher
*CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes
*Hook vs. TBA
*Tony Khan’s big announcement
For Rampage:
*TBS Championship: Jade Cargill (champion) vs. Marina Shafir
*Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia
THUNDER ROSA VS NYLA ROSE FOR THE AEW WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP
The two brawled on the floor at the beginning, Thunder Rosa hit a missile dropkick when they re-entered and got a one-count.
Rosa was caught coming off the apron and hit with an apron bomb.
Rosa fought back using a tilt-a-whirl into a side Russian leg sweep and applied a crossface to Rose. Rose was out of the submission and regained control.
Rosa hit a Stunner and the audience was behind her and sent her to the floor with a sliding dropkick. Rosa climbed to the top and hit a tornillo to the floor.
Rose draped Rosa on the top rope but missed the leg drop off the top. Rose caught her coming off the top, went for the Beast Bomb and it was countered with a Code Red by Rosa for a two-count.
Rose hit a Falcon Arrow and placed Rosa on the edge of the apron and missed with a senton off the turnbuckle to the edge.
After a huracanrana, Rosa hooked the legs and pinned her.
WINNER: Thunder Rosa in 14 minutes and 11 seconds
Thunder Rosa felt popular among those in the building and rallied behind her down the stretch. It was a fine main event that became too reliant on pin attempts near the end that didn’t increase the drama of the match. Thunder Rosa tried some new offensive maneuvers in the match and played the undersized babyface well, overcoming Rose in the end.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This was a fine hour of wrestling but I cannot recommend anything that one must go out of their way to see.
Of the AEW programming this week, nothing on this show was at the level of the majority of the matches on Dynamite and nothing was close to the Texas Death Match on Rampage.
This felt like a contractually-obligated hour of television that did feature one title change, so there was a takeaway from the program but well below the standard of a usual AEW “big show” on television.
With so much professional wrestling programming at your disposal, if a promotion is asking you for an additional hour of your time it has to be meaningful and I cannot say this crossed the threshold of being a meaningful addition to your weekly consumption.
I do hope these quarterly specials find a greater value and purpose because I struggle to see what it is after the first two have been presented as add-ons to Dynamite and Rampage rather than standing on their own as a Clash of the Champions or Saturday Night’s Main Event type of special.
