Ring Of Honor will present “All Star Extravaganza” this coming Friday live on pay-per-view from Lowell, Massachusetts. Ring Of Honor’s shows are always filled with guys from New Japan Pro Wrestling, and this show will be no different. But for the first time on a ROH PPV, a CMLL star is added to the card. CMLL had always had a relationship with New Japan, with the companies doing a joint “Fantastica Mania” tour in Japan during January and New Japan sending out talent to Mexico to learn the lucha libre style. CMLL has already sent Stuka Jr. to ROH and will include a six-man tag team in their 8-team six-man tournament to decide the first-ever ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Titles. For this show, CMLL is sending Dragon Lee and his opponent in his first ROH match, Kamaitachi, tore down the house together in their matches in Japan and Mexico.
The main event will feature an ROH vs. New Japan matchup with ROH World Champion and leader of the Bullet Club in ROH, Adam Cole defending his title against New Japan Intercontinental and CMLL International Elite Champion Michael Elgin. There has been very little build-up for this other than the Bullet Club (minus Adam Cole) attacking Elgin in Japan and Elgin battling Cole in tag matches. The Bullet Club has been on such a roll lately that even a strong competitor like Elgin looks to have no chance at winning this match. Also it has been stated by another ROH World Title contender and Adam Cole’s biggest and longest-term rival, Kyle O’Reilly, that O’Reilly would do anything to make sure Cole wins the match because he wants to be the one to pin Cole for the title.
The ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Tournament gets underway at All-Star Extravaganza with the IWGP Tag Team Champions, the Briscoes teaming up with their partner from New Japan that they won the IWGP NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Titles with, Toru Yano, who in his own right is one-half of the GHC Tag Team Champions in Pro Wrestling NOAH in Japan taking on Kushida, ACH, and Jay White. The Briscoes and Toru Yano have to be the odds-on favorite due to them having previous teaming experience.
ROH’s Television Title is on the line in a very intriguing matchup. The champion, Bobby Fish has been on the roll of his career since the start of 2016, beating New Japan’s Tomohiro Ishii, who was the first contracted New Japan star to win gold in ROH, for the ROH TV title at Global Wars in May. His opponent is someone that myself and obviously, ROH have been very high on for a while. Donovan Dijak was the winner of the 2015 Ring of Honor Top Prospect tournament and has been getting better all the time. He’s already had a great match with then-ROH World Champion Jay Lethal and won a four-corners match at Death Before Dishonor to win the right to face Fish for the TV Title. I’m extremely biased towards Dijak and think that he could really be and do something with the title, but Fish has been on such a great run that maybe right now shouldn’t be the time for a change.
The most intriguing match of the night features 2 men who have been on top of both Ring Of Honor and New Japan this year and are looking for their road to redemption. Jay Lethal had a historic ROH World title reign, lasting over 400 days from June 2015 until August 2016. He beat everybody on the roster, some even twice, until he lost cleanly to Adam Cole at Death Before Dishonor. Tetsuya Naito is the leader of “Los Ingobernables de Japon” and reached the top of the New Japan chain by upsetting Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight title in April. He only held the title for 2 months and only defended the title once, so his imminent title hopes rest on this match as well. Lethal challenged Naito to the match after Naito had walked out on Lethal during their match with the Bullet Club.
All Star Extravaganza will be ROH putting their best foot forward with something for everybody from the lucha libre style to Japan’s hard hitting strong-style and the typical Ring Of Honor style. This will not be one you should miss, either live, on pay-per-view this coming Friday at 9 EST, or on the New Japan World streaming service.
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