TORONTO – PCO became a big crowd favorite at ROH’s War of the Worlds when he came close to defeating Matt Taven, the current ROH world champion. However, members of the Kingdom interfered to cause PCO the ROH world championship.
PCO versus Matt Taven for the ROH world championship stole the show. It was incredible to watch PCO live given all the big bumps he took during the match. PCO told Taven to dive onto him and Taven refused, which caused many boos from the fans. PCO dragged Taven outside of the ring and chokeslammed Taven onto the ring apron followed by PCO returning to the ring to dive to the outside onto Taven. When PCO returned to his feet, he was busted open and the crowd chanted “ECW.” Taven delivered a sunset flip powerbomb to the outside of the ring, which resulted in a sick, loud thud from PCO’s body. Fans rose to their feet and chanted “Holy S–t!”. O’Ryan handed Taven a spike and nailed PCO while the referee’s back was turned. Taven pined PCO to pick up the win.
After the match a dazed PCO went into the crowd but ROH staff had to guide PCO out of the crowd and to rampway.
ROH War of the Worlds: Toronto kicked off with The Bullet Club and Young Lions.
The Bullet Club (Guerrillas of Destiny and Hikuleo) defeated The Young Lions (Alex Coughlin and Karl Fredricks and Clark Connor). This was a slower match with a limited move set from the Young Lions. There were a few awkward moments in the match with the Young Lions out of position. Overall, it was a good opening match. The finish came when Connors unloaded a flurry of strikes to take Hikuleo down. However, Hikuleo make a comeback with a powerslam followed by a double choke slam to win the match.
Silas Young was disqualified in his match against Yuji Nagata.
The Toronto crowd erupted when Nagata came to the ring. Young threw a chair at Nagata and fell to the mat as if he’s been hit. Nagata placed the chair around his head and fell down. The referee saw the chair and disqualified Young.
Evil and Sanada were definitely the fan favorites in their match against The Kingdom, TK O’Ryan and Vinny Marseglia. Sanada attempted to apply the paradise lock during the match many times. Sanada applied the Skull End submission followed by the Magic Killer with Evil’s help for the win. The crowd did not seem to care during the early stages of the Rush vs. PJ Black match. However, as the match progressed the Toronto fans became louder. Rush delivered a dropkick that nearly knocked Black out of the ring and pinned Black to win the match.
Dalton Castle came out with a microphone and thanked the Canadian fans for coming out on a school night. He talked about how he feels better now without the boys in his life.
The Briscoes beat Lifeblood (Tracy Williams and Mark Haskins). This was a hard hitting match as one would expect with the Briscoes involved. The Briscoes delivered the Doomsday Device and Mark Briscoe covered Tracy Williams for the win.
Women of Honor Champion Kelly Klein made her way to the ring and reminded the crowd that she always claimed to be a fighting champion. She issued an open challenge, “I want the best that Toronto has to offer.” Allure (Angelina Love, Mandy Leon, and Velvet Sky) made their way to the ring with Angelina Love saying that she is from Toronto. However, Love stated that she no longer lives in Canada and refused to fight Klein in Canada. Klein pulled Love into the ring by her hair and pummeled her.
Satoshi Kojima and Jay Lethal displayed nice mat wrestling to start off their match. Lethal worked over Kojima’s leg during the early stages of the match. Kojima made a come back with fast chops. The Toronto crowd was split between Kojima and Lethal. Lethal attempted the Lethal Injection but Kojima reversed it into the Koji Cutter. Lethal was able to get to his feet to hit the Lethal Injection for the win.
Shane Taylor became the new ROH television champion when he won the four corners survival match with Jeff Cobb, Hirooki Goto and Brody King. Taylor and Cobb brawled on the outside of the ring immediately after the bell rang. Cobb was very smooth to watch in person, especially when he hit a standing moonsault on Brody King. Taylor delivered a reverse piledriver on King for the win via pin fall.
Don Davies is a life-long wrestling fan of 30 years that has enjoyed many eras from multiple promotions around the world.
