This was for Lethal’s ROH World Championship.
Jay Lethal is a very inconsistent worker (unless you count his constant inconsistency as being consistent), but he occasionally delivers a performance that makes you wonder how high his ceiling might be in the right circumstances. His performance against AJ Styles at Final Battle 2015 was one such performance, and he had another one right here against Lio Rush.
Lethal perfectly balanced not treating Lio Rush like a genuine threat while simultaneously avoiding treating the match like a joke. This set an appropriate and compelling tone. Combining that with a fantastic performance from Rush, and we got a genuine treat of a match.
The key to the in-ring action was that they timed Rush’s comebacks really well. Rush progressively got more and more offense in until it seemed like he had a legitimate chance to win.
Rush’s resilience was not just kept to the physical action though; he also refused to put up with Lethal’s shit and endeared himself to the crowd as a result. This was hopefully a career-making performance for him (in the sense that he should receive a major ROH push and then get signed to NXT).
The end came with Rush going for the One-Man Spanish Fly only for Lethal to reverse it into a diving cutter. It was significant because Lethal could not connect on the Lethal Injection earlier. Lethal then finally connected on it after that and won cleanly. Great match.
There was of course an issue with the match because it is ROH, and they are the new TNA. Taeler Hendrix tried to distract Rush at one point. She did this by trying to seduce him. This was not in the comedic vein of Maria, but it was a seduction attempt nonetheless. Rush resisted the urge to kiss someone (we could only assume he barely knows) while in the middle of his job. To make sure though that nobody doubted his masculinity and sexual desires, he slapped Taeler on the ass. This shit is fucking dumb, tired, and insidious. Get this shit out of my fucking wrestling. It did not *ruin* the match for me, but I really did not like it. (****)
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