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Ring of Honor & New Japan Pro Wrestling come together this week for their annual North American Tour. It all kicks off with Global Wars, live on PPV and iPPV from Chicago. All eyes are always firmly on ROH during this tour, so they have a chance to create some buzz for themselves.
Jushin Thunder Liger & Cheeseburger vs The Addiction
This will just be fun. Cheeseburger is living the dream. He has somehow managed to nab the legendary Liger as his mentor and here they team up in what I’m sure will be one of the highlights of Cheeseburgers life. It’s always special to see Liger in ROH and always proves to be one of the most popular guys on this tour.
Number One Contenders match for the ROH TV Title: Roderick Strong vs ACH vs Dalton Castle vs Adam Page
After losing the TV title to Tomohiro Ishii in February, Strong has yet to have a one on one rematch. You’d have to imagine Ishii will lose the ROH title before this tour is out, so it’s hard to imagine who might win this. Castle is finally through with Silas Young, so a nice direction for him would be a chase after the title. The same goes for ACH who has been floating around aimlessly, so a title chase might be good for him. Adam Page hasn’t quite got the momentum behind him yet, but a TV title shot might help him with that. This should be an action packed match, as all ROH multi man matches usually are.
The Young Bucks & The Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) vs Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Matt Sydal & KUSHIDA
We have The Motor City Machine Guns, Time Splitters and Love Gun all rolled into one with this dream team. On the Bullet Club side we see the ROH debuts of Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa, the new IWGP Tag champions. Tonga has finally came into his own this year and has been getting a much deserved much. He is still relatively unknown to ROH fans after being a background player in NJPW & BC for so long. Here he has a chance to impress this audience, along with the former Camacho, who is still only new to ROH. It will be interesting to see them involved with six guys that are used to these type of car crash matches with tons of action. This will be crazy.
Tetsuya Naito vs Kyle O’Reilly
If this is given time, this will be the show stealer. These guys met at War of the Worlds last year, but that was a very different Naito. Now the new IWGP champion is raising all sorts of hell in NJPW and has quickly become one of the coolest characters in pro wrestling. Naito will probably be the most over NJPW guy on this tour and he will likely leave a lot of people talking after this one. The should be an outstanding match as the technical expert O’Reilly goes up against the Ingobernable, Naito. A strong showing here will do a lot in raising O’Reilly’s stature in NJPW.
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin vs Kazuchika Okada & Moose
For the first time ever, we will see Tanahashi and Okada bring their legendary rivalry to American soil. This is a really interesting match. Tanahashi & Elgin have become a regular team in NJPW, but Moose & Okada met at the last ROH PPV, with Moose earning the respect of Okada. This is a big opportunity for Moose to impress in the ring with three top NJPW guys. A good showing for Moose here and on the rest of this tour could easily see him grab a spot in this year’s G1 Climax. I’d love to see Moose score the pin in this one.
ROH TV Championship: Tomohiro Ishii vs Bobby Fish
If you have never seen Ishii before, he is easily the wrestler of the year so far in 2016. He has had more amazing matches than anyone and this could be the sleeper match on the card in a first time singles match between these two. Fish could easily take the title here as it’s hard to see Ishii taking the title back to Japan again. Fish has been having some excellent singles matches in ROH this year and Ishii is due that one big blow away match in ROH. He didn’t get to show his best in the three way at the last PPV, as Ishii is a guy that excels in a one on one setting. If this match is laid out like your typical Ishii match, Fish has a chance to look incredible here even in defeat.
ROH World Tag Team Championship: War Machine vs The Briscoes
Believe it or not, The Briscoes haven’t been ROH tag champions in over three years. The story here is they War Machine can’t call themselves the best team in ROH until they beat The Briscoes. These teams had one of the best matches of 2015 late last year in a match that flew under the radar in a house show. I have huge expectations for this. This will be a physical, hard hitting war that wouldn’t be out of place on an All Japan show from the mid 90’s. War Machine should get the win here to continue building them as the team to beat in ROH.
ROH World Championship: Jay Lethal vs Colt Cabana
If you haven’t seen Cabana’s return to ROH in Dallas, stop reading this and go and watch it. It is probably the best non wrestling segment to happen in ROH in years. I went from someone that generally didn’t care about Cabana, to wanting to see him with the title from Lethal. This is one of those matches where all the elements are in place for this to be really special. Cabana is back in ROH after five years. Lethal is the dominant champion running out of challengers, and it takes place in Cabana’s hometown, a city where he has almost reached legendary status. The atmosphere for this one should be electric. Just imagine the scenes if Cabana pulls off the ultimate upset and take the title from Lethal. It’s not out of the realm of possibility and that’s what makes this match must-see.
This show will be live on PPV, on the Fite TV app and at ROHWrestling.com.
The War of the Worlds tour continues through the week with stops in Dearborn on Monday, Toronto on Wednesday and NYC next Saturday. All of those shows have some amazing looking matches too.
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