ROH Survival of the Fittest 2016 Night Two

San Antonio Shrine Auditorium – San Antonio, TX – Friday, 11/4/16

Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino are on commentary.

~Results and Star Ratings~

1. Pre-Show Match: Will Ferrara & Cheeseburger defeat Scorpio Sky & Andy Dalton at 7:43. **½
2. Caprice Coleman, Kenny King & Rhett Titus defeat Misterioso Jr. & The Tempura Boyz (Sho & Yo) in a six-man tag team match at 7:59. **½
3. Silas Young defeats Mark Briscoe at 8:54. **¾
4. Hangman Page defeats Donovan Dijak at 12:07. ***¾
5. Colt Cabana defeats Chris Sabin (w/ Alex Shelley) at 9:31. ***
6. Keith Lee & Shane Taylor defeat War Machine (Ray Rowe & Hanson) at 20:58 in a No Rules Match. ****
7. Kyle O’Reilly defeats Frankie Kazarian at 15:06. ***¼
8. Jay Briscoe defeats Christopher Daniels at 14:58. ***
9. ROH World Television Champion Bobby Fish defeats Dalton Castle, Damian Martinez, Jax Dane, Lio Rush, and The Panther at 29:57 in the Survival of the Fittest tournament finals. ****
   1. Castle eliminates Panther at 12:36
   2. Martinez eliminates Castle at 14:22
   3. Rush eliminates Dane at 17:53
   4. Rush eliminates Martinez at 20:07

JZ Says

The pre-show match was solid enough, and the crowd loved it when Cheeseburger hit Sky with the Shotei palm strike to get the win. A six-man tag then opened the show proper, and that was also just okay. The Rebellion looked good as a trio, and more or less squashed their opponents. I have no qualms about a strong midcard heel stable, and that seems to be what they were going for here. Silas Young and Mark Briscoe had a match similar to every match Mark Briscoe has ever had as a singles guy since SBG took over. It was fine.

Page and Dijak kicked the show up a bit, wrestling with more urgency than anyone before them on the show thus far. They had a fast-paced, hard-hitting match that ended with Page hitting the Rite of Passage to get the pin. Page was really starting to come into his own here, though it was a bit of a bummer to see Dijak go 0-2 on the weekend. Cabana and Sabin had a spirited little match that ended with some Cabana cheating, as he was trying to get his new heel character over. Cabana is a hard guy to boo, and he’s literally told me straight up he hates people like me (people who review wrestling online), so that’s really saying something. After the match, The Rebellion storms out and attacks both Machine Guns, as well as Donovan Dijak when he tries to come to the save. Coleman, Titus, and King leave everyone laid out.

The No Rules tag match between War Machine and the Pretty Boy Killers was a pretty wild deal. They brawled all over the arena, breaking tables and using anything not nailed down as a weapon. Late in the match, Kevin Kelly tries to bail from the announce table when things get to close, and Hanson inadvertently take him out with a suicide dive! Lee and Taylor picked up the win when Taylor smashed Rowe with a Spirit Bomb through a table to get the pin. The match was way better than I was anticipating it would be, with all four guys going all-out for 20 minutes and just wrecking each other.

O’Reilly and Kazarian had a solid singles match, and O’Reilly getting the clean win was definitely the right call since he was on his way to a title match with Adam Cole at Final Battle 2016. They worked a lot on the mat, using holds and counters until O’Reilly finished things off with a Brainbuster. That gave him victories over both members of The Addiction on successive nights. Christopher Daniels also lost his singles match, a solid bout against Jay Briscoe. Jay got the win after a Jay Driller. Kind of neat to see two guys from ROH’s first show fighting in 2016, but not very exciting.

The main event was very good, though short of the classic status that past Survival of the Fittest matches have attained. Lio Rush looked great coming out of this, eliminating the much larger Dane and Martinez, before succumbing to a heel hook from Fish.

Two four-star matches and another one that nearly got there make this an easy show to recommend.