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The pre-show started with Cody and the Young Bucks putting the audience over, firing T-shirts into the crowd, and introducing Road Warrior Animal for a brief cameo. The audio/video quality on WGN wasn’t very good. The stage was pretty small and the entrance ramp was elevated above the crowd. The main commentary team consisted of Don Callis, Ian Riccaboni, and Excalibur (one of the promoters of PWG, who wore a mask for the entire show.)
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The Briscoes beat SoCal Uncensored in a decent opening match.
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Pro Wrestling Tees, which was sponsoring the pre-show, ran some pretty funny commercials featuring Joey Ryan and Cody’s dog Pharaoh, a Siberian husky.
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Dalton Castle was on guest commentary for the Over Budget Battle Royale, which Flip Gordon won by eliminating Bubba Ray Dudley. Flip had been in a masked luchador costume and was out of the ring for most of the match, getting a surprise win after Bubba thought he’d won by eliminating Tommy Dreamer. Hurricane Helms made a surprise appearance in the match. Billy Gunn and his son Austin, who looks almost like him, did surprisingly well.
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A young African-American woman whose name I don’t recall sang the national anthem to open the show proper. Justin Roberts, formerly lead announcer on Raw, was on ring announcer duty. Once it was on PPV, the A/V quality was a lot better, WWE-level at least.
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Matt Cross (Son of Havoc) beat MJF in an unannounced opening match. Nothing special, but pretty good nonetheless.
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Christopher Daniels beat Stephen Amell, who’s definitely become a much better wrestler since his appearance at Summerslam 2015. Jerry Lynn was the guest referee for this match. At one point, he pulled both men into the ring after a table spot in order to prevent a double countout, then peeled off his referee shirt and got into a brief brawl with Daniels.
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Tessa Blanchard won a fatal four-way against Madison Rayne, Chelsea Green, and Britt Baker (who you may recall as Daniel Bryan’s physical therapist/mistress from an ill-conceived 2014 storyline) by pinning Green off a DDT. Tenille Dashwood (Emma) and Mandy Leon were on guest commentary. The finish was a bit out of nowhere, but the match was fun.
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Cody Rhodes beat Nick Aldis for the NWA championship. Timmy Baltimore, who Riccaboni said had called Cody’s first ever pro match, was on guest commentary. Earl Hebner was the guest referee, and made it a no countout/no DQ match just before the bell rang. Cody was accompanied to the ring by Brandi (who was wearing a very revealing outfit consisting of little more than a bra and panties made out of silver glitter), Pharaoh, Diamond Dallas Page, Tommy Dreamer, and GLACIER (of all people), while Aldis was accompanied by Jeff Jarrett and Shawn Daivari. At one point, Cody was apparently knocked out after getting thrown into the announce table and Hebner threw up the X. DDP and Daivari brawled while this was going on until Cody recovered. Cody bladed at some point in the match and had a crimson mask, and there was blood all over the mat. There was some pretty good drama mid-match with Cody putting Aldis in a figure-four, and Aldis subsequently escaping and putting Cody in a sharpshooter. At one point, Brandi got involved in the match, and covered Cody when Aldis went for an elbow drop, taking the blow for him. Cody eventually comboed a Disaster Kick into a Crossrhodes, and shortly after countered a sunset flip to make the pin.
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Hangman Page defeated Joey Janela in a street fight. The match was preceded by a vignette from Being the Elite where Page had attempted to prove that Joey Ryan’s penis is fake, only to discover during a match that it was very real, and his subsequently breaking into Ryan’s hotel room at night and beating him to death with the telephone. (Commentary played this completely straight, I should mention.) Janela’s girlfriend, Penelope Ford, got involved in the match at one point, taking a superkick from Page. Page got the win with a piledriver off the top of a ladder and through a table, which is one of the most impressive and most terrifying spots I’ve ever seen. After the match, the lights dimmed, a Celtic chant started, and about half a dozen men in penis costumes marched to the ring with the newly resurrected Joey Ryan, a la Undertaker in 1994. Ryan would then KO the stunned and terrified Page with a Youporn-Plex and stuck his crotch-lollipop in his mouth. This was the big comedy segment of the show and it was pretty hilarious.
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It was somewhere around this point that #AllIn became the top worldwide-trending hashtag on Twitter, which the commentators mentioned often enough that I began to suspect someone had let Michael Cole into the production truck. 
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Jay Lethal pinned Flip Gordon to retain the ROH world title. Flip was accompanied by Brandi Rhodes, who had switched to a WWII-esque Army pinup girl look. Lethal was accompanied by “The Genius” Leapin’ Lanny Poffo and entered the ring to “Pomp and Circumstance” wearing Macho Man Randy Savage’s ring gear, including a jacket that Riccaboni said Savage had worn in his WCW debut. Flip Gordon “Hulked up” at one point and did Hulk Hogan’s signature Five Moves of Doom - finger-wag, three chops to the chest, Irish whip, big boot, and leg drop. Lethal won with a Lethal Injection. After the match, Bubba Ray stormed out and attack both men and Lanny Poffo. Colt Cabana ran out to make the save, and he, Flip, and Lethal triple-powerbombed Bubba Ray through a table.
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Kenny Omega beat Pentagon Jr. with a One-Winged Angel after surviving multiple finishers. After the match, the lights went out for a few seconds, and when they came up Pentagon Jr. had been replaced by someone else wearing his costume and makeup, who started attacking Kenny. After hitting Kenny with a Codebreaker, the imposter unmasked to reveal that he was in fact Chris Jericho (!), who then seemingly challenged Kenny to a title-for-title match on Jericho’s upcoming cruise-ship-wrestling-tour (because this is 2018 and that’s a thing) before leaving the ring and attacking Don Callis on his way out of the arena.
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Kazuchika Okada beat Marty Scurll with two Rainmaker clotheslines. Tiger Hattori was guest referee for this match, and took a bump at one point, during which Scurll used the opportunity to beat up Okada with his umbrella. Okada’s hair is now dyed bright red, a sharp contrast to the blonde coloring he had as IWGP heavyweight champion.
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In the main event trios match, the Golden Elite defeated the team of Rey Mysterio Jr., Fenix, and Bandido, with Matt Jackson getting the pin on Bandido off a Meltzer driver. (Logically, Cody/Aldis ought to have been the main event, but I guess Cody must’ve thought it’d seem egotistical to put himself over in a main event world championship match.) Rey came out in a Wolverine costume and the crowd went crazy and got on their feet when he got tagged into the match, hitting a 619 on Ibushi at one point. There was a pretty impressive spot where Nick Jackson got a running start down the ramp and elbow-dropped all three of his opponents on top of a pile of Okada bucks (which were still strewn everywhere after the previous match), and Bandido at one point countered an attempted triple-powerbomb with a triple-hurricanrana. The show went off the air less than ten seconds after the pinfall, which I don’t think was planned.
Overall? FIVE STARS. Every single match was exciting and interesting. There wasn’t a single dud or disappointing finish, every single match ended clean and told a story from beginning to end. Cody winning the same title his dad won 40 years ago was definitely the “WrestleMania moment” of the night. It’s the highest-profile NWA title match there’s been in decades, and it’s definitely a major stepping stone in Billy Corgan’s attempt to resurrect the brand. The production style was very similar to a New Japan show, with little downtime between matches and minimalist promos, interviews, and backstage segments. There were very few technical glitches, notwithstanding a 5-second video blackout midway through the show and some difficulties getting the audio levels right during the pre-show.
I really hope this becomes an annual event at the very least. Potentially, this could even be the beginning of a new boom period for the NWA, with multiple small-time promotions airing shows that feature the best non-WWE talent the world of wrestling has to offer. The show is available for replay on NJPWWorld and Honor Club (ROH’s streaming service), and I encourage you to watch it if you’re subscribed to either of those.