For this match I selected the birthday boy himself in Matt Cross. Both of these men are still very present in the wrestling world; one is a big name in Lucha Underground and the other is one half of The Addiction. Looking at the ring I would say that this match is from 2004-2006 which means this was in Daniels first of three runs with Ring of Honor.
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Recently news came out that Nigel McGuiness had "resigned" from his position as matchmaker with Ring of Honor due recent issues with talent like those members of the Bullet Club in Ring of Honor. The story also mentioned that Nigel would be done with ROH and leaving the company after a 5 year stay in ROH. However, the move of ousting Nigel as matchmaker was only done due to Steve Corino likely heading for the door in the near future and ROH needing someone to replace him at the broadcast position with Kevin Kelly. Though no confirmation has been given as of this writing that this is what will happen it seems very likely that if Steve does leave that Nigel will join Kevin at the announce table once more.

As of a few days ago Nigel has actually been announced as the newest member of the WWE announce team as he will be joining the company to help with the commentary for the upcoming WWE United Kingdom tournament that will be taking place on January 12 and 13 next year. So now it is official Nigel has left Ring of Honor and finally made it to the WWE sadly as an announcer and not an active competitor. Though he and Kevin had great chemistry together their first time around and I would've loved to see them together again I'm actually very happy for Nigel and excited to hear he has finally made it to the WWE.

According to recent news stories December 31, will be a huge day for Ring of Honor as far as contracts go because a variety of contracts are set to expire on that day. The contracts set to expire include War Machine, Jay Lethal, BJ Whitmer, Steve Corino, Bobby Curise, Kyle O' Reilly, and Bobby Fish.

​At this point Kyle and Jay Lethal are both expected to sign back with the company this is especially the case following Kyle's title win at Final Battle two weeks ago. Which is extremely benefical for the company as they have really built both of these men up from the bottom to become two of the most known talents outside of the WWE right now. Also without ROH it's fair to think Kyle wouldn't have become a familar face in New Japan like he and Bobby Fish have become. These two are the embodiment of ROH talent because of how much they display their loyalty to ROH.

​Right now Steve Corino is set to walk away from the company as he has signed with WWE to begin down in the Performance Center as a trainer. His deal has yet to expire with ROH so if for some reason his WWE deal falls through for some reason it is still possible for to re-sign with ROH. This is also the hidden meaning behind the reason for another decision that has been made recently by ROH managment. Ask for the Young Bucks who also had contract set to expire offically resigned with ROH recently garnering around a 6 figured contact with NJPW & ROH keeping them out of WWE for now and will allow the Hardy Boys and the Bucks to create something special next year on a large scale for the first time.

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Note:
​If you don't know anything about the Hardy's vs Young Bucks match rumors feel free to do a little bit of research as Matt Hardy appeared at Final Battle in video form. This could lead to a fantastic co-promotion opportunity for both ROH & TNA with a match between the Hardy's and Bucks so stay tuned to see when that match would be happening and anymore information about a possible co-promotion opportunity between the two companies.

I mentioned this earlier in the week when I wrot the State of ROH Address (which can be found here) and  I will mention it again. There are very few things that ROH is better at then building new talent and one of those names that they built from the ground up is Adam Cole. I remember back in around 2008 or 2009 when Adam was feuding with Sami Callihan over the CZW Junior heavyweight title. Now 7-8 years later Adam is on the very short list of talents to have held the Ring of Honor World title on two occasions and at 27 years old his future is still very bright:

The series continues with another company and that company is Ring of Honor this after our visits to the WWE and TNA Wrestling in recent weeks. Like I mentioned earlier I will be hitting up all of the companies that I feel like talking about which companies I have an opinion on which only leaves Global Force Wrestling. But for right now I will be focusing on ROH like I did with TNA and WWE before this so that means I will be picking one positive and one negative about Ring of Honor.

The one thing I think that ROH is doing right is their ability to develop new talent from the ground up like they have done and continue to do now. They started with names like Bryan Danielson, Low-Ki, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, The Briscoes and many other names over the course of the 14 year life span of the company. Nowadays you don't have look to far to see why they will always be one step ahead of their competition and just look at Final Battle to see exactly what I mean. The main event of Final Battle this year was Adam Cole vs Kyle O' Reilly for the Ring of Honor World Title and they are two names that the company built from the tag team division. Plus with names like Donovan Dijak, Lio Rush, Will Ferrera and others. Also it's worth noting their working agreement with New Japan, the prospect of a developing women's division, and the yearly Top Prospect tournament.

​Though what I think that the company is doing wrong is more opinion based than noticeable traits of the company. See a lot of people eiher really enjoy ROH or really don't like the style the company promotes, because it makes wrestling seem to "worked." I am right in the middle on the scale as I don't hate ROH, but my love for the company has changed over the years. The reason for this change is simiply put because they over use false finishes to the point that they lose meaning it's like no moves are protected like they should be. I know that other companies are guilty of this but I feel like it's a major problem for Ring of Honor, but there are other major problem for companies like TNA and WWE. But the amount of moves that I saw on Final Battle alone that should've been the end of the match and wasn't made me rethink the style ROH promotes. I really liked the calm finish that we saw for the World title match and TV title match as well, but to be fair the falsh finishes were really damaging to the matches. How they can control this problem is by lightening up on the false finishes and not allowing every match to prompt a "This is Awesome" chant, because not all their matches should prompt a chant like that.