Want me to review a couple of the shows you've reviewed? I quite fancy re-watching them anyway.

I'd agree Marufuji wasn't working the same way KENTA was, but then the focus wasn't on him. It looked to me like someone very magnaminously doing a favour for a friend and letting him look like a million bucks, which makes sense since KENTA's the one ROH are most interested in (what with his little tour coming up and all).

That reminds me; are they getting Dragon Gate back in later? They'd be mad not to.

Just read on either the next show or the show after American Dragon VS Sonjay Dutt for the ROH belt this is either gonna be really good or extreemly shite

Hey, if you want to review the new stuff eight months before I get round to it, go ahead. For a board this size it’s amazing the small amount of actual talk about wrestling matches that goes on, so it’s all good.

Yeah, I agree with Marufuji mainly giving KENTA space to work in. People underestimate what a smart worker Marufuji has become.

I’m sure we’ll see continued Dragon Gate involvement in ROH, what with CIMA getting Evans, Sydal, Strong, Aries and Rave over for the Wrestle Jam shows that Dragon gate are producing. The ROH tag belts are even going to be defended in Japan as a result. Of course, we all ready get SHINGO TAKAGI~ on all the shows nowadays.





I’m going to go with ‘suck’, personally. I’m sure AmDrag will have a laugh pulling little bits off Dutt and eating them, and this is the “Cage Of Death” show with the CZW bleachers again, so the heat will be incredible. But come on…Sonjay fucking Dutt? The guy is a supernaturally crappy wrestler, the only enjoyment I get out of watching him is trying to guess exactly when he’ll almost kill himself and his opponent with an arm drag gone wrong. Plus, this isn’t like the Chris Hero match, where it was an outside possibility that Dragon might lose the belt, they’ll have to work damn hard to make anyone believe Dutt has a snowball’s chance in hell.

Still, it’ll be fun to watch Danielson razz the CZW fans again. Anyway, more importantly...



Historically, Nana makes a big deal out of the people he’s bringing in and they turn out to be shit, then one time he swerved everyone by bringing in Abyss. So is this a swerve, or something awesome?

'Fuji also took nine tenths of the offence for his team, while KENTA kicked the crap out of everyone, barring a section of offence that he took. Having re-watched the match I'd say Marufuji and Danielson were the glue holding that match together, since Joe really didn't do that much and KENTA was mostly there to look awesome and kick the crap out of Danielson (and get some shots in on Joe)

I do agree that the previous match was better than it, though. I thought the main event felt too WWE-like, there really wasn't much actual team work going on, whereas the Briscoes/GenNext match felt very distinctly like a tag match... even if Evans utterly fucked up the final move. Thing is, it probably wasn't obvious that he did to the live fans.

Its the ROH debut of Ulf Herman....I have a feeling...

Theres a pretty good match on the ROH Videos site, The Briscoes vs James Keenan and Jason Blade.

Downloadable versions of the free ROH matches and recaps are available at http://www.wrestling-downloads.com/

I just watched Dissension yesterday (actually in two parts over Wednesday and Thursday because i find it hard to watch a full 3 hour block of ROH in one go) and i have to say i was very disapointed in it. Yes even the Styles/Dragon main event that everyone was raving about. Is it me. Am i burnt out from watching so much ROH (all of it) that only stuff truly blinding has any impact on me??? Please tell me that this event was one of the more mediocre ones so i feel a bit better.....

Will i enjoy Unscripted II much before i get back to the good shows that follow?

Don't think it was as good as some stuff later on, but overall you just sound burnt out.

Lantern isn't the only one catching up on reviews. I'll finish off the Best in the World one after this...

ROH: Dragon Gate Challenge - Detroit, MI, 30.3.06

The first part of ROH's Wrestlemania weekend triple shot, the first half hour is a lot of setup for what is to come, with interviews and a couple of short matches.

Continuing from the end of the 'Best in the World' DVD, Prince Nana has to threaten Rave and Shelley with pay cuts to get them to shake hands and go after the tag titles. Then, Lacey wants BJ Whitmer hurt, but she struggles to get through to Jimmy Jacobs due to his drooling. Well, almost. He asks her if she's seen the video from ROHvideos.com (also shown on the 'Best in the World' DVD) but she has no idea. Or does she, as she offers him a reward if he hurts Whitmer, and he chooses the opportunity to massage her feet. Gross, bizarre yet fun all at once.

Colt Cabana vs Homicide

Cabana interrupts Bobby Cruise's show opening, calling out Homicide for their Falls Count Anywhere match. Homicide comes out and they hit the brawling, quickly spilling into the crowd. Back in the ring, Cabana brings a ladder into play, but it backfires on him as Homicide kills him, getting a three count after sandwiching Cabana's head inside the ladder and bashing it together with a chair. Short but intense, and while the commentary proclaims Homicide to have won the feud, leaving Cabana in mental turmoil, that's not exactly likely with two shows in Chicago to come. Props to Julius Smokes screaming "IT'S OVER!" though.

Quick promos with Do Fixer and then Christopher Daniels, who gets criticised for his promos but at least gets over the history between Joe and himself leading into their final scheduled singles match. Daniels also teases the chances of him offering Joe a handshake.

Chad Collyer vs Ricky Reyes

I like this, it's a no frills wrestling match much like Collyer vs Romero (a great opening match in 2004 at one of the Death Before Dishonor 2 shows). Indeed, they have the crowd on it's feet near the end as Collyer's Cloverleaf narly gets the job done, but after that Collyer's attempt at a rollup sees him practically roll himself into Reyes' Dragon Sleeper which gets the submission.

More promos to go with the last lot, as Blood Generation diss Generation Next and Samoa Joe says Daniels will have no choice about shaking Joe's hand, as he'll be choked out on the mat. Nice.

Jimmy Jacobs vs BJ Whitmer

This is where the show really starts to pick up. Jacobs comes out to the music from 'The Ballad of Lacey', which the Detroit crowd understand. During Whitmer's entrance we get clips of Whitmer attacking Jacobs on Fox News that morning, and the breakup of their tag team at 'Dissension'. I like it when they put in clips, for the most part.

A technical style opening lasts no time at all as the match quickly settles into a rhythm of Whitmer destroying Jacobs with his power for the most part, beginning with him catching Jacobs off a pescado and battering him into the barriers at ringside three times. Jacobs keeps himself in things by going after Whitmer's head and neck, presumably to set up Contra Code, starting with a headscissors into the turnbuckle, a slingshot double stomp to the back of the neck from that position followed up by a dropkick sandwiching Whitmer's head into the ring post.

Jacobs on the advantage gets all cocky and starts blowing kisses at Lacey, then promptly continues taking a beating, but kicking out and keeping himself in with a chance with his speed and some rollups. Whitmer meanwhile can certainly give out the punishment, including a vicious snake eyes-german suplex-dragon suplex-powerbomb combo (which Jacobs somehow avoids the powerbomb part of into some rollups) and a frankly evil powerbomb onto the guardrail.

Then comes the big fall.

An unlikely attempt by Jacobs to superplex Whitmer sees Whitmer counter and go for a top rope powerbomb. Except, when he gets onto the top rope and lifts Jacobs, he falls straight to the floor, cracking Jacobs in the powerbomb position, head first across the apron. It's kind of like when La Resistance tried to powerbomb Spike Dudley over the top rope through a table and he fell short, only looking much, much worse.

Somehow, they both continue. Whitmer gets up first though with obvious ankle pain, and rolls Jacobs into the ring for an unbelievable nearfall. As Whitmer wonders "what the fuck?", Jacobs somehow comes back with the Contra Code, but while he seemingly has the unlikely victory in his grasp, Lacey doesn't want the win, she wants Whitmer destroyed. So, Jacobs has to set Whitmer up for a senton off the top through a table, at which point he gets carried away blowing kisses at Lacey again, and Whitmer revives, taking Jacobs off the top with an overhead belly to belly suplex, then finishing him off with a sick lariat for three.

Thoroughly gripping stuff that, a match that was progressing nicely without the big fall, yet will probably be forgotten with the exception of the fall in the end. Afterwards, Jimmy Jacobs refuses to shake the hand of Whitmer, and the fact that the handshake part of the Code of Honor can still draw crowd heat after 4 years is pretty shocking.

Jimmy Yang vs Ryo Saito

This is the first of three ROH vs Dragon Gate matches on the show. Saito is the Open the Dream Gate champion in Dragon Gate, and from the moment that is mentioned on commentary it makes the outcome more predictable. This match is solid yet unspectacular for the most part, Yang puts in a better performance than most of his 2006 ROH matches, and Saito looks good. The action is pretty much back and forth, Yang hitting his kicks while Saito is more of a suplex based wrestler by the looks of it. At the end, Yang only half connects with Yang Time and Saito kicks out, then Saito wins with a bridging Dragon Suplex called the Premium Bridge.

Jimmy Rave and Alex Shelley vs Bryan Danielson and Delirious

Yet more Jimmy action, this time with Rave. This is moving the Embassy from the Danielson matches (both losing singles title matches) towards getting a Tag Title shot, while Danielson said he can beat both Rave and Shelley with any partner, so Prince Nana chose perennial loser Delirious, who in storyline needs a win on the triple shot or he's dropped from ROH.

The early part of the match is a lot of the usual Delirious comedy shenanigans, which naturally works great with the Embassy to sell it, culminating in Delirious having a go at an aeroplane spin on Rave which Danielson then has to show him how it's done.

The Embassy don't really get any control of the match until about half way, when distractions from Prince Nana and the Haze lead to Danielson getting isolated for a good five minutes, the end result being an unlikely hot tag to Delirious. Delirious cleans house nicely, until the Embassy try to play the numbers game and Danielson comes back leading to a double Cattle Mutilation spot that goes down nicely. Danielson dives onto Rave on the floor from there, though that spells the end for Delirious as another distraction from Nana leads to Shelley pinning him after Sliced Bread #2. Good match, though obviosly not up to Danielson's other recent ROH stuff.

Intermission time, as Colt Cabana tries to cut a promo challenging Homicide in Chicago, but it's abandoned half way through as he tries to get intense and his head spins due to 'concussion'. While I appreciated most of the feud, at this point I'm getting a bit fed up of Cabana in this persona and I hope the blow off to the feud is worthwhile.

From there, the post intermission match is a modified squash they say is taped for ROHvideos.com (though it isn't on there) as Claudio Castagnoli pins Shane Hagadorn with the something or other waterslide, and it turns into an angle as Chris Hero and Necro Butcher come out. Hero runs down his history with Double C, then BJ Whitmer runs in. The CZWers quickly overwhelm Whitmer as Castagnoli watches for a bit, then teases joining in, before making the save (though he only actually lands one blow on Necro before they scarper). So the crowd pop for the save, but Double C didn't really do anything. The plot thickens...

Dragon Kid and Genki Horiguchi vs AJ Styles and Matt Sydal

The Dragon Gate Challenge continues with ROH needing a win to keep the series alive, so again the outcome is pretty predictable. Sydal and Horiguchi start out with some quickfire basics, then Styles tags in for a bit. AJ going against Dragon Kid is what the crowd want to see, and we get it but only for a few moments at that point. There's a great submission/pose double team by the Do FIXER combo, then we get a load more Sydal vs Horiguchi, which is all pretty good stuff. We also get a HAGE chant, which is good.

Then there's a hot tag to Dragon Kid, and after Styles blocks a headscissors in a way that looks so strange the crowd craps on it, we start heading for the finish, with Dragon Kid and Horiguchi hitting dives which results in a not-so-good this is awesome chant. Styles hits his German suplex-front suplex combo on Horiguchi, but turns around into Dragon Kid's Dragonrana for a two count, which annoys me as I mark for that move. He then kicks out of Horiguchi's trademark Backslide From Heaven too, which annoys me even more. Sydal takes out Dragon Kid with a dive with then leaves Styles free to pin Horiguchi after a rollup sequence into a Styles Clash.

Good match, but I would have hoped for more than 12 and a half minutes, and what follows totally eclipses it. I'm not too annoyed with Styles getting his Dragon Gate competition win back after losing to CIMA at Dragon Gate Invasion, but kicking out of two finishers was a bit much.

Blood Generation (CIMA, Naruki Doi, and Masato Yoshino) vs Generation Next (Austin Aries, Roderick Strong and Jack Evans)

I honestly don't think I'm capable of doing this match justice in words, so instead, some highlights:

- The opening section with Roderick Strong vs CIMA is better than any of the previously mentioned CIMA vs Styles match.

- Bloody hell, how fast is Yoshino?

- Gen Next isolate Yoshino for a bit, and look good doing so, very good by US standards but...

- Blood Gen rip the advantage away by isolating Jack Evans, taking things to the next level. Evans may miss his crazy moves as often as he hits them due to the fact they are so OTT, but he also takes beatings like a man, and that combination is compelling viewing, especially in multi mans like this.

- Austin Aries makes the hot tag and everything breaks down into literal total non-stop action as the Dragon Gate guys really shine and Gen Next do really well just to keep up. It's almost as if Blood Gen have an extra man, as they always seem to have three men pulling off triple teams while Gen Next only have one man in the action at once.

-The good thing about the speed of everything, the fans have no time to do anything but gasp, and it's not until the match finishes that we hear "That was awesome" - and for once, they're right.

Oh yeah, Jack Evans takes the pin after CIMA hits him with the Shrine, the same move Finlay is using as a finish on Smackdown, which i thought was kind of weird. Still, great match. I've no idea how I'm going to review the six man Dragon Gate match on Supercard of Honor, as I watched it through once and oh... my... god.

Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels

The pre-match video proclaims this to be the longest running feud in ROH. I guess now Low Ki is gone, that's probably right. Aside from going a bit long and a lack of any footage of their World Title match at Glory By Honor 2, it's an excellent recap of everything from 2002, 2003 and the rekindling of the feud in 2005.

This has all the feel of a big main event, the hype video, and great entrances, as Joe comes out first to 'Mama Said Knock You Out', then Daniels comes out to 'Disposable Teens' but pauses on the rampway and starts taking his Fallen Angel gear off, to reveal the TNA X Title just as the music changes to 'The Champ Is Here'. Naturally, Joe doesn't appreciate this and charges up the aisle, and they brawl around ringside for a bit.

They eventually get into the ring, at which point the bell rings to start the match. This almost feels like something out of Joe's title reign, as the big question is will Daniels finally pin him in a one-on-one match? Joe uses his size to control things, but Daniels gets his fair share of offense, most of which is familiar watching due to the number of matches they've had in ROH, TNA and everywhere else. That doesn't lessen the drama though, as Daniels gets a particularly close nearfall off a Blue Thunder Driver that has the crowd jumping up and down, and near the end he hits a Angels Wings for a close two in a moment right out of the Glory By Honor 2 match. Daniels doesn't complain though, capitalising on Joe being down with three Best Moonsaults Ever for the pinfall.

As Daniels celebrates, the commentary speculates as to whether Daniels will finally shake Joe's hand, only for Chris Hero and Necro Butcher to once again jump into the ring. Daniels stares them down, but Allison Danger begs and pleads until he leaves the ring. Hero calls out anyone, and Joe rolls back into the ring, and they brawl with Joe taking charge until Necro joins in, when BJ Whitmer comes back out and creams Necro with a brutal chairshot. The CZWers retreat again, and Joe gets on the mic to say they've finally got the attantion of ROH's big guns, and the fans go home happy to Joe's ROH battle cry.

Good main event, not the best match on the show but one of Daniels and Joe's better matches and a good conclusion to the show.

July 3rd: On August 5th in Edison, NJ KENTA will really get to test Richards. It will be KENTA vs. Davey Richards. The newcomer Richards has already proved himself against Jimmy Rave. On August 5th he will be faced with the biggest match of his life.

Courtesy of ROh newswire.

This match is going to be off the charts in insanity. Davey Richards is getting the superstar treatment in ROh are deservedly so.

This is the same show as Joe challenging Danielson for the title. Wow.

I got weekend of Champions today, I've only watched the CZW stuff and a few other matches and I'll just give these small thoughts with a proper review later.

The 6 man war on night one is really bad. The 100th show brawl is amazing but this one sucks ass mainly because Ace Steel, Colt Cabana, Claudio Castagnoli, Nate Webb and BJ Whitmer aren't good brawlers or strong enough to carry this match without Joe. Pearce isn't in it for too long either so the only guy who really looks good in this is Necro.

I really have to point out though that Ace Steel is really fucking crap. The guy looks like a clueless retard. His screams make him looks like a lunatic (and not in a good way), his chairshots look like they hurt as much as RVDs forearms and his brawling and look are just really pathetic.

Though I have to point out that the Super Dragon/BJ match from night two is fucking awesome and they really tell a good story with Dragon in his great ULTRA-PRICK~ mode and BJ playing the underdog great. Dragon also sells the ending incredibly well like he is actually dead.

does anyone have a list of all roh shows up to show 100?

thanks for anyone who replies.

Get them off here:

http://www.rohwrestling.com/pastresults.asp

2 days ago I saw the Lance Storm show, yesterday I saw the 100th show. I thought it was very good. I had some things to say about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5wANl2QSR4

Please stop it, it's really really embarrassing.

Jesus christ, Oliver, I agree with JLM.

Is Oliver working us all.

Please Oliver, please stop shooting.

He's like a psychotic, wrestling version of Tim Westwood.

The milestone series (And my big catch up) continues with -

ROH – Dragon Gate Challenge

Yeah! This is the stuff we’ve been waiting for folks! Blood Generation! Ryo! GENKI!!! Oh, and Dragon Kid.

Good promos from the Embassy and Lacey and Jacobs kick off the show. Man, I love the goofy, emo kid Jimmy Jacobs. He’s so lame that when Lacey offers him a “reward” if he beats Whitmer tonight, he asks if he can rub her feet. Cool segment.

Colt Cabana Vs Homicide

This feud has been running and running, but it really picked up steam with the Ghetto Fight at the Fourth Anniversary Show. Here, we don’t get much of a match, some fairly unremarkable brawling for about five minutes until Homicide just crushes Cabana’s head in a ladder. Err, ouch. That’s all folks.

Goofy, GOOFY Do Fixer promo. Goofy I says. Still liked it more than the Daniels promo that follows it, although he wins by default by having Alison Danger by his side.

Chad Collyer Vs Ricky Reyes

Hey! I like both these guys a lot more than most, I feel. This match was really good too. Nothing outlandish or mind blowing, but it’s the second match on the card (The first, really) so the need for apron Canadian Destroyers is minimal. Both guys bring a tough, realistic ground game and nice strikes, Collyer chucks around some flawless German Suplexes and Reyes uses MMA style moves that A – look like he knows how to use and B – look like they hurt; TAKE NOTE, TONY MAMELUKE! The sequence where Collyer gets put in a number of choke type holds before reversing them into the cloverleaf is fantastic, as is the ending exchange of bridge pin into Dragon Sleeper that gets the tap out win for Reyes. Good stuff.

CIMA doesn’t speak English…Much. How come he cuts a better promo than 99% of workers on the US Indy scene then? Joe’s an exception, very underrated talker.

Jimmy Jacobs Vs BJ Whitmer

Hillbilly Je-Huss explodes! Wait a goddamn second, how was this so good? Far better than it had any right to be. Jacobs came out to his sleazy song he wrote about Lacey, playing the whiny college boy with a crush, and took a man sized beating for it. This included three HBK turnbuckle bumps into the guardrails, a spine fusing selection of Suplexes and getting kicked in the face a lot. Whitmer just poured it on, taking advantage of his new found popularity with the live fans, and of Jacobs’ willingness to die.
And die he almost did. In one of the most terrifying blown spots ever, Whitmer slips off the top rope in mid Superbomb and falls to the outside, Jacobs’ head hits the top rope and the apron on the way down. It’s fucking insane to watch. It also adds to the story of the match in a weird way, when Jimmy looks to have come back from his near death experience to win the match, only to be told by his harridan manager to inflict more damage instead, you really hate the cow. Sure enough, Jacobs’ arsing around leads to him eating a huge Top Rope Belly To Belly and a sick lariat to the face for the pin. A really close and entertaining match in spite of the enormous botch, in fact it’s better for it.

Jimmy Yang Vs Ryo Saito

It’s Ryo! Much love from me as always, for the lad who went from goofy bicycle job boy to goofy promotion MVP. Still, this match fell below my expectations, which is only fair considering how the previous bout had exceeded them.
I think the problem with this was neither guy feeling comfortable with what kind of match they should be having. This was presented as the least of the Dragon Gate series, so it couldn’t be a huge deal, yet it was obviously meant to be important. Ryo in particular is a bit stuck here. He’s had some insanely good, epic, main event singles matches. And he’s good enough to do throw away singles encounters. But I doubt he’s had more than a handful of mid card singles matches in his career, and he was instead stranded between the two worlds.
Still, nothing offensive in this match, both guys trade the meaty strikes, get all their trademarks in and take it to the mat a little. Ryo does his best to fire up, but the crowd came to see Kido do the Christo, not get behind a guy in cycle shorts they’ve never seen before.
I was pleased to see Saito got the win with an ultra swank Premium Bridge – officially the coolest Suplex variant in the world right now. Shiny.

Alex Shelley and Jimmy Rave Vs Brian Danielson and Delirious

After AmDrag beat both Embassy members in singles matches, he challenged them to a tag where they could pick his opponent, so confident was he. They choose Delirious, who has never scored a direct win in his entire ROH career and is living on borrowed time.
The Embassy come out to their usual beloved entrance. Some guy in the front row has a Ghana flag, so they boys stop and salute it. When the toilet paper comes in this time, Rave and Shelley crouch in the ring like Marines under fire in a Vietnam movie. Laugh.
Delirious starts off as his usual self. He’s sporadically very entertaining, is Delirious, but I find him a bit limited and weary after in a longer match. After much running from the psychotic Delirious and being tortured by the sadistic Dragon (There’s a really wince inducing bit where he stands on Shelley’s arm at a weird angle as Alex squeals “Jiiiimmmmmyyyy”) the match settles down into a Southern tag. Surprisingly, Danielson takes the majority of heat, but he’s still awesome at it because he’s Brian Fucking Danielson and this is his year of being awesome in ROH. He and Delirious don’t do quite as much ‘odd couple’ type work as I thought they might, in fact putting in some nice team moves, such as duelling Cattle Mutilations. One nice spot involved Delirious trying to get on AmDrag’s good side by doing a short Aeroplane Spin, only for Danielson to get in and do an enormous one on Rave, a move he hasn’t busted out in ages. He didn’t do his Rip Rogers dizzy sell for it though, which was a shame.
It’s a nice little match this, nothing blow away and very basic, but the respectively sleazy/heelish/dickish/insane antics of the participants keeps your attention. Shelley picks up the win by fouling Delirious and hitting the Shiranui while Rave spears Danielson, setting them up for a run at the tag champs, and leaving Delirious little time to get a win before he’s gone…

Claudio Castagnoli Vs Shane Hagadorn

Hagadorn is the heel out of the last class of ROH students. He also comes out to some nifty music – Alice In Chains own all. Claudio counters with a Queen/Peter Gabriel mash up and the shiniest jacket you ever did see.
This is one of them “Showcase” matches they have on the website, so it’s kept pretty basic. Hagadorn does a pretty effective heel thing, helped by his very un-ROH look and body. They do a bit of comedy based around Shane not being able to nip up, Claudio eats some generic heel offence, then makes a comeback with his uppercuts and the Something I Never Quite Make Out Water Slide for the pin. Fairly uninteresting squash.

Post match, Hero and Butcher jump the rail and Hero takes about ten minutes to ask Claudio to reconsider his part in the war. Claudio teases a turn but instead aids BJ Whitmer in running them off. This segment was worth it just for Necro jumping on Hero’s back like an excitable child when he was trying to cut the promo.

Genki Horiguchi and Dragon Kid Vs AJ Styles and Matt Sydal

Do Fixer go to war with Team Civil Partnership in a clash of the sublime and the ridiculous. The ROH crowd are mental for Kid and his high spots from the off, but Genki soon wins them over with his own nutty moves, including a rare sighting of his surf pose.
Here’s what I don’t get about AJ and Sydal. There supposed to be a mentor/student team, the announcers put them over as such and Sydal cements it by talking to AJ like a kid helping his Dad mend the car in a American fifties public information film. So why can’t they work like that? It just doesn’t come across in the matches at all, the only thing to remind you your not watching Styles team with Chris Daniels is Matt’s hideous ring gear.
Genki and Sydal take it to the mat early on, and AJ muscles Dragon Kid a little, but this was all about the sprint. AJ and Kido manage to blow the Déjà vu horribly and Genki doesn’t have the room to hit the Tope Toubida as beautifully as we know he can, both very disappointing.
AJ actually looked way more awkward than Sydal here, which is…worrying I guess. Sydal has plenty of flashy spots, but in a sprint he’s too vanilla to give a damn about even if he has got mad air time on his standing moonsault. At least when he’s getting beat down and fighting back you have a reason to take a bit of an interest.
Still, this is about as good as a match with Kido and AJ Styles in was ever going to be, and we soon had the dreaded ‘this is awesome’ chant ringing around the building. Genki was awesome as always, with his surly facials and odd selling, he got a few big moves and near falls in as well. Aside from the headscissors misadventure, Dragon Kid hit all his spots pretty well, including a bone crunching Moonsault into the guardrail and a Dragon Rana that brought the house down. If Genki would’ve got the pin off that on AJ I would’ve grinned like a loon for a week. Alas, it was not to be and instead we see AJ Styles kick out of the Godly backslide then pin Genki with a Styles Clash, making me die a little inside. Not bad for a Do Fixer carry job.

Blood Generation Vs Generation Next

This was nuts! A proper Dragon Gate sprint match that worked really well and blew the minds of the crowd. I was pleased to see Blood Generation not shaking hands, but not so pleased to see how much time in the ring Jack Evans got. Seriously, he looked half a step off on everything, blowing a ridiculous climbing Rana in the early going and compensating by hitting a springboard 450 to the outside. Strong and Aries look so better without him.
Roderick and CIMA do a surprisingly good matwork exchange to kick off, I guess the eight zillion matches Rodders had with AmDrag over the last year have filtered into his brain somehow. He even did Genki’s surfing leglock, weirdly. They really built up how dangerous his chops were throughout the match, in fact he has loads of spots built around chops now that get a better reaction than half of the backbreaker malarkey used to.
Aries looked great in this match, he really oozes personality as the grumpy leader of the elite team in the company. Considering he has quite a bag of flashy moves in his arsenal, the fact his ‘slow motion’ leg drop gets one of the biggest pops shows he has a bit of the Dragon Gate about him himself.
Luckily for us, Evans spends the majority of the match getting stretched and beaten by Blood Gen, taking all the punishment and heeling that we’ve seen them dish out so many times to other guys with homosexual, dance based gimmicks. It’s amazing how much better Doi and Yoshino look compared to this time last year, Doi in particular looks almost ready to be the man in Dragon Gate. I got a particular kick out of seeing him splatter Evans with the Dai Bosou! in the corner.
Eventually, Evan’s gets the hot tag follow a moonsault and a half back elbow (Or some such nonsense) and from then it’s just ON. Everyone goes fucking crazy killing each other with all kinds of shit. I don’t do play by play, but one spot sequence was just brilliant – Aries goes for a kick from the apron, CIMA catches his leg and Dragon Screws it, leaving him set up sitting on the second rope, facing the ring. The whip Evans into the opposite corner, hit a running move each on him, then Doi and Yoshino set him up on their shoulders. CIMA hits a top rope double stomp on Evans, into a forward roll towards the corner where he spikes Aries with a lungblower off the second. Awesome.
It clips along at a hellish pace, with the crowd getting so excited they occasionally forget to chant how awesome it is, until CIMA spike Evans with a nasty looking Schwein for the three count. Hey, CIMA pinned Evans, that heals my AJ/Genki wounds a little, at least. Also, Blood Generation didn’t shake hands. Take that, honour.
Lovely match this, really well put together, and with the exception of Jack, well executed as well. Would not have looked out of place on a Dragon Gate PPV.

Really nice video package for Joe/Daniels follows. They should do more things like that.

Christopher Daniels Vs Samoa Joe

Man, this was more than a little disappointing. Joe is one of around four opponents in all of wrestling that can make Chris Daniels a really interesting worker to me (By the way, AJ and Jerry Lynn are not two of the others) so I was looking forward to this quite a bit. And what they produced, whilst not actively bad, was nowhere near the level of their two singles matches in TNA this year.
And they started so well, Daniels coming out to his normal music, then as he opens his robe to reveal the TNA X Division Belt he had won for Joe the week before¸ the music shifts to Joe’s old “The Champ Is Here” theme. From then on, it’s a brawl on the outside and the passion and anger normally missing from Christopher Daniels seems to be showing up in spades.
However, it soon settles down, and then settles down a bit more. Their PPV match in TNA was built around Daniels trying to avoid Joe punching his eggshell skull in, and the awesome TV match they’d go on to have was built around Daniels trying desperately to finish Joe before he bled to death. Here, the urgency of the performances is missing, and at a more sedate pace the annoying tendencies of Chris Daniels tend to shine through. So, a rather passionless display of forearms and heel kicks follows.
Still, Joe looks as intent on killing Daniels as ever, and they do play off the previous encounters between the two. Maybe it’s the fact they have to wrestle twice more in two days, maybe it’s having to follow the awesome six man, but this match never reaches that next level of excitement. Still, I liked the finish, with Joe kicking out of the Angel’s Wings, Daniels make sure with three BME to finally get a singles win over Joe in ROH.

Post match, more Necro and Hero action as Daniels takes a powder allowing them to beat down Joe. This brings out Whitmer who literally shatters a chair over their heads. Joe cuts a brilliantly incendiary promo to close out the show. And a pretty good show at that – worth it just for the six man, the rest of the card is at worst watchable, with some great highlights thrown in.

Finally got round to watching Supercard of Honor.

The Dragongate match is mental. I'm not convinced it's one of the best matches ever as others have said but its pretty much must see stuff. Absolutely insane. A lot of people said that these guys would put on many similar matches in Japan and this match only got hype because it occurred on US soil. Can those guys PLEASE recommend me some shows with similar quality matches because I'd love to see more of these guys. I've only seen one Dragongate show (Which I recieved when a tape trader got my order wrong) I'm keen for some advice on really good shows or big events.

I enjoyed Danielson vs Strong but I actually felt I enjoyed the matches with Shelley and Rave more.

Overall a very good card. Well worth a look but it's loooong!

http://ukff.com/index.php?showtopic=49584 < Plenty of DragonGate news, reviews and opinions in there. The thread has been going for almost two years now.

http://dragongate.puroresufan.com is the site for news, results, sometimes opinions and also very helpful biographies and other info. The only DG resource you really need. Apologies if it's down or something at the moment, I can't go there as I'm avoiding spoilers!

For more DF/BloodGen matches you absolutely need Dragongate Infinity #23 (7/3 - 7/12)
. Infinity is the monthly TV show, this one is from July 2005, and Summer of 2005 was all about DF vs BloodGen.

http://ukff.com/index.php?showtopic=49584&st=450# < Thoughts on it there, though it's a bit rambly and spoilery if you want to see the matches without preconceptions.

The September 2005 PPV is a strong card from top to bottom

You could also do with: Dragon Gate LIVE Gaora TV 12/26/05 and December PPV

The first is a one-off live show featuring the quarter finals of Dragon Gate's "King of gate" tournament which is somewhat similar to King of the ring, though in DG terms more prestigious. The idea is that the winner becomes the promotion's top dog, and a title shot etc. usually follows.

The second show is the Pay Per view from December 05, with the two semi-finals from that tournament and the final as the main event. There's also a typically insane battle royal and some decent enough multiman tag matches.

The February 06 PPV is good, the January PPV's second half is excellent. After that I can't really recommend anything because I'm waiting on an order that should be here any day now.

There aren't many offensively bad shows, and I'm sure a lot of what I consider run of the mill in terms of six man tags would be a lot better if you've never seen it before or don't follow the storylines, but the stuff I recommend there is stuff that stands out to someone like me who watches every single show and is all jaded and smarky.

Cheers for that. Seems like a few really good starting points.

I only just heard that ROH have got Davey Richards facing KENTA coming up. That should be well sweet! It's guaranteed to be the first ROH match I've downloaded in a looooong time!

Man, there’s some good stuff come out of the H this year you might want to check out…I guess I sort of admire your bizarre loyalty though.

I have to get round to seeing Richard’s soon. After all they hype, if he’s shit, I’ll be very disappointed.

If you like wrestlers who are super intense and kick people really hard then you'll like Davey.

Or you can just watch this music video I made of him:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cOl5ZDQMN4U&...avey%20richards

Yeah, I saw that a while ago. It's nice work from you, but I try not to judge wrestlers based on music videos because my name isn't Dan Edler

Everything I hear about Davey makes him out to be the kind of wrestler I'd really enjoy. All his matches have got good reviews. No-one has had a bad word to say about him. So if he's bad now, I'll be horribly upset.

Intensity Personified? I think Kenta Kobashi has a teensy weensy edge on Davey in that regard. He's got the moves, though. Should do some cool stuff in ROH.

He's a horrible choice to face KENTA, though. If KENTA is on a ROH show it should be near-marquee. I can't imagine Davey will be catapulted up that high that quickly.

ROH appear to have big plans for Davey. They've already had him beat Jimmy Rave twice, gone toe-to-toe with Joe, has match with AJ pretty soon and now the Kenta match is supposed to put him even higher.

I don't know how his ROH matches have been but reports have been VERY positive.

I've finally finished off my review of 'Best in the World' from page 13 after 4 weeks. Here's the main event review, to save you going back:



My Dragon Gate Challenge review is right at the bottom of page 14, and I've watched Supercard of Honor, but there's so much on there I really can't be bothered to review it. I don't think I could do justice to Do Fixer vs Blood Gen anyway. I have the last two matches of Better Than Our Best to watch, then that'll be next review.

I can’t believe your not reviewing ‘Supercard’ because it’s too long! For shame Gadget, for shame…It is a bit long though, I watched up to Ace Steel/Chad Collyer last night and I still have three quarters of the show to go.

The best bit of the post match at “Best Of The World” was KENTA telling the crowd he’ll see them again soon, then pissing off Joe when he gets in his face by saying “I don’t understand English” and walking away. What a dickhead.

Absolutely. KENTA is the man. I hope he beats Joe when they face each other. I've just got the very last match of Supercard to review then it'll be complete, and I'll start on the Weekend of Champions after that.

You missing out "Better Than Our Best" then?

I can see ROH using the KENTA match to really push Davey up the card.

Didn't Matt Hardy beat some top ROH guys before getting beaten by Roderick Strong? I can see them doing very similar thing with KENTA. He can't go through ROH beating everyone including the champion for his whole ROH run can he?
Admittedly it seems more likely that Joe or Danielson will end his run but who knows?

It's not just the length of the show that's the exact problem, it takes me hours to get my thoughts out sometimes, and with the insanity of the Do Fixer/Blood Gen six man, and a 55 minute title match, it'd take me about a week of just typing and I don't even do play by play.

I guess I could do this:

ROH Supercard of Honor - 31st March 2006

Ricky Reyes vs Delirious vs Flash Flanagan vs Shane Hagadorn - reasonable Four Corner Survival considering the lack of names.

Jimmy Rave and Alex Shelley vs Jimmy Yang and Claudio Castagnoli - a bit thrown together, but it has Rave and Shelley in it, so thumbs up.

First Blood: Ace Steel vs Chad Collyer - wouldn't exist if Ace wasn't from Chicago.

AJ Styles and Matt Sydal vs Austin Aries and Jack Evans - good for what it is but overshadowed by...

Blood Generation vs Do Fixer - unbelieveable, a whole lot more than a bunch of insane spots, too.

Six Woman Mayhem - not as good as the four way in NYC two shows before, and the crowd doesn't care for it much.

Homicide vs Mitch Franklin leading into Homicide vs Colt Cabana then Adam Pearce vs Necro Butcher - I'm starting to lose track of exactly what happens on which show in these brawling segments.

Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels vs Jimmy Jacobs - The usual from Joe and Daniels, with Jacobs there to take punishment and push his new emo character which lightens the mood.

Bryan Danielson vs Roderick Strong - it's long, and didn't hold my attention like the first two matches between them, but it's still very good.

Overall, it's a long show, but if you watch it in pieces the highlights are more than worth the money.

There.

KENTA = international superstar

Davey = newbie

KENTA losing to Dave Richards doesn't strike me as sensible booking. The most likely scenario is him getting massacred by Joe. If he faces B.D., obviously he'll lose there, too.


And no, I won't be reviewing Better than our Best. I've already seen it. I want to watch my new stuff, dammit!

Seems like Austin Aries, minus the dodgy facial fuzz, more height, and a balanced centre of gravity.

He looks a bit like Aries but doesn't particularly wrestle like him...at all.

And here's my FULL review of Supercard of Honour.

------------------------

Apparently Low Ki is gone from ROH forever. They’d be dumb to mean it. Cornette does a nice promo about it, though, blaming Ki for bloodying his mouth and costing him his tooth in the aftermath of the Arena Warfare riot (pretty sure it was Arena Warfare).

Nice little vid recap of Danielson/Strong, despite a bloody tedious near-minute of constant chop shots. Yeah, we know, they chop each other a lot. Danielson’s facials on some of these are great, though, and the bit where he just keeps spitting in Strong’s face is great.

Chris Hero is talking at people in his monotone. Does a decent job, one woman takes a swing at him so he’s certainly good at irritating people.

Cima’s Engrish is considerably worse than KENTA’s (that cheeky minx telling Joe he doesn’t understand ), but at least he makes the effort. Dragon Gate is cutting edge. No fucking shit it is! I’ve already seen this DVD once so I know how awesome that match is going to be. Can’t wait.

Mmmmm, top 5 recap. Why is Yang in it? I thought you were supposed to win matches to get in the top 5? That said, Colt Cabana goes from unlisted to no. 1 as a result of winning a single match with Homicide, so what do I know? You’d have thought that Homicide absolutely CREAMING him for about six months would put Homicide up in the rankings, if that logic follows through. Strong looks about fifteen in his Top 5 pic. The more I see of him the more I realise how lucky he is to be in a tag team with Austin Aries.

And we are......... NOT LIVE from Chicago because we’re watching this on DVD! The fans aren’t happy that Colt can’t wrestle. Fuck knows why, or maybe they’re as enthusiastic about watching Homicide maul him as I am. Oh, wait, he’s a hometown hero. Still a loser.

Cornette’s out to cut another bile-ridden, homophobic anti-CZW promo, though he opens it up putting the promotion over in a fantastic way. “Self-mutilating stupid stinkin’ cretins” is without doubt his best line. It’s when he gets the two ‘hard-core wrestlers’ in the ring that it all goes down hill. He closes this out with another strong bit, and I realise that this is the kind of thing that should make us, as wrestling fans, accept our position as the retards of the entertainment world, because stuff like this proves we deserve it. The tragedy is that if you take out the shitty jokes this promo was fucking awesome. With them in it comes across as petty and hateful, not in a way that helps the feud but in a generally small-minded and bigoted way. Seriously, try and mentally edit out every reference to homosexuality in this promo (I’d estimate about 1/3rd), and tell me if it doesn’t run a million times better in your head.

Out come Joe and Pearce. Fake wrestlers die. The end.

1st Match: Shane Hagadorn vs. Flash Flanagan vs. Delirious vs. Ricky Reyes

Delirious is over. Shane is not. Reyes is over. Flanagan is not. Julius Smokes could get anyone over. For some reason, I believe him when he keeps saying ‘we’re the best in the world’. I guess it’s the fact you can tell he believes it, or at least he sounds like he believes it. Delirious is a fucking genius, running around like a batshit crack addict, grabbing people’s hats and tossing them into the air as high as he can... you know, for all people say ‘if blah blah wrestler blah touched me I’d knock their heads blah’, not one person in the audience seemed to care. Delirious lets them feel a little bit more like part of the show here, and I think fans appreciate that. Or maybe I’m too naive, and all fans really want is to be half as over as the wrestlers.

Flash and Reyes wrestle, then Delirious performs the most unique pin break in history by not touching anyone and just running laps around the ring, distracting the participants. Delirious is possibly more awesome than ever here, acting so utterly loopy that he really doesn’t seem to have a clue what’s going on, but there’s some brilliant comedy in here until ALL THREE of the other participants (all heels) get pissed off with him and attack him as one. Delirious gets a slight “Please don’t tap” chant when Reyes gets the sleeper, and Reyes gets some major heat for winning.

Reyes then cuts a promo on Delirious while beating him up even more, setting up their match the next night. Smokes as a great rant at a fan here.

**1/2



Video for Chad Collyer/Ace Steel. Ace bled A LOT in that build up match. I like Ace Steel. Anyone who willing calls himself an ‘angry troll (pronounced ‘trole’)’ gets my respect. Don’t like Collyer much. Ace puts this match over really very well.


2nd Match: Jimmy Rave/Alex Shelley vs. Yang/Claudio Castagnoli

Daizee Haze adds more than you’d think to the Embassy. Proof that women valets have a definite place. She just fits the whole look and feel, and she’s actually a much better heel than a face, IMO. I still don’t really gel with her in SHIMMER. The fans are brandishing the toilet paper on the way to the ring... sweet bit as they go around the ringpost and you can clearly hear Alex say “Jimmy I see a lot of toilet paper” with this look on his face that suggests he really quite enjoys this whole business. He then goes on to prove it by hilariously SELLING every time he gets hit by a loo roll, including taking a back bump when one hits him in the head and acting like he’s taken a heart punch when he gets hit in the chest. These guys have one of the most entertaining entrances ever, and it’s entirely because the group throw themselves into it completely. Best of all, you can tell (certainly in Shelley’s case) that they’re having a ball on the way.

Jimmy Yang does look fucking cool. Totally Andy Lau circa Matrix. Performances only so-so, though. You can’t get away with that in ROH, at least not very often. I know everyone has their favourites, but for me Alex Shelley is by far and away the best member of the Embassy. Everything he does looks so natural, he’s such a good wrestler and he just seems to gel perfectly with whoever he’s in the ring with. Here, while Claudio’s doing his stupid comedy Alex just has this ‘whatever’ look on his face, like he knows he’s getting the piss taken out of him and he doesn’t appreciate it.

The match itself’s a mix of silly, homosexual-themed comedy (which makes sense if you take one look at the Embassy, Shelley in particular), Castagnoli’s always silly ‘HEY’ spots, and some pretty good wrestling. As a result it sticks out brightly on a card full of good to great matches with people mostly trying to impress by doing the best looking moves or having the best matches: No problem with that, but sorry, Danielson’s already won unless you’re truly inspired (Hi, Cima and co.). These guys here just go out to entertain, and it works wonders. Once they’ve finished having a laugh, they settle down and also have an excellent tag match as well. On any other card it would be a crime for them to be booked so low down, as it is there’s lots of good to come!

Yang seems to really like the ring post/shoulder block spot. Embassy eventually win with a random Rave rollup on Claudio.

***



Here comes Chris Hero! He cuts a promo. He is angry at Claudio. He shouldn’t try to say his full name as part of a promo; it’s too long. He eventually gets ejected by students.



3rd match: Ace Steel vs Chad Collyer First Blood

Ace Steel is fucking awesome here. Collyer less so. Ace running about ranting ‘You’re a dead man!’ gets this over very well, very quickly. That’s how you put over hate. Unfortunately the match doesn’t quite add up. Bit of chair duelling, some moves on barricades, brawling, but the energy isn’t there. It would have been better hardcore, so they could just go all out on each other a la Homicide/Cabana a few DVDs down the line.

Match is average, really. Slow in places, bit boring. Ace Steel gets the win with one motherfucker of a chair shot. Then does it again for value.

*1/2



4th match: AJ Styles and Matt Sydal vs. Austin Aries and Jack Evans

Jack does his little breakdance thing that everyone loves. Yay. Entrances over, down to the wrestling. Jack definitely knows how to work the crowd with his mannerisms and attitude, ad I’ve always been impressed with that much.

Now, I like my spot matches when they’re done right. This one’s definitely done right. Some nice ground stuff based on Sydal/Evans’ athleticism, building up to a little sequence based on being unable to knock Sydal off his feet until he IS knocked off his feet, when Sydal tags out and Styles bitch slaps Evans, ‘cause he wants Aries... who is much more over than him. Styles promptly tags out and Sydal’s in for the fun. Aries generically bitch slaps him, Sydal gets some good moves in, though. Some fun with the handstand leg scissors counters, and Aries owns Sydal again. Great sequence between Aries and Styles when he comes in, and the duelling chants kick in. I don’t mind, personally, because it’s pretty clear that both men have their fans in the crowd, and for once it seems they’re genuniely split. Not too long before Sydal’s in. Sydal has the sweetest standing moonsault I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately he lands on the knees and gets panel beaten. Evans seems to concentrate on having the most unique moveset he can, which is just fine by me because he has some beautiful stuff. Unfortunately I don’t think he uses it well. A standing Phoenix Splash you would think would be a tag team finisher, not a random move to bust out. But I guess he doesn’t do any damage, since he does 450s all the time and his partner in this match still uses it as a believable finisher. I love Austin Aries’ Powerdrive Elbow. A genuinely different approach to an elbow drop instead of the legion of ‘funny walk’ variants. Sydal gets back in with a sick german suplex, and Evans promptly gets hammered with one of the sickest military press spinebusters I’ve ever seen. Styles hits him with a move that wouldn’t have looked out of place in GOLDBERG’s moveset. Just great stuff. Evans takes offence incredibly well. Evans makes the hot tag in a unique and stylish way (it’s SO much better when they don’t do the crappy ‘crawl to the corner’ spot), and we’re into a hot closing stretch full of good stuff, ending with Evans doing a Sasuke special on AJ, only to get pancaked with a Styles Clash onto the concrete. Austin suicide dives as AJ tosses Evans in, allowing Sydal to hit the winning shooting star press. Good stuff. I think Evans might have broken Sydal’s nose, as well, as it’s pissing blood by the end of this match, about as bad as Austin Aries’ a few shows later. I love the crucifix bomb.

Aries sells Jack’s Clash on the floor brilliantly, he looks like he doesn’t know what to do, and genuinely worried for a few seconds. Sydal can be heard asking for a towel for his nose post-match. He looks like he’s in a lot of pain. Ouch.

***1/2


Daniels does an interview. Pretty good one, about whether he’ll shake someone’s hand or not. Good stuff, well delivered.



Blood Generation vs. Do Fixer

Oh. My. God. This match is so much awesome it’s hard to put it across like it deserves. It’s so hard to pick out any particular good bits and nearly impossible to do play-by-play (the announcers are a step behind. Joey Styles on this match would have been hilarious). The first time when Yoshino runs the ropes and you HEAR the rope as he hits it due to the speed he’s going is pretty impressive on its own, but the exchanges are just so crisp and quick with so many moves of little and large variety that I find it hard to believe that anyone who disagrees with the star rating won’t at least enjoy it.

Ends with an INSANE closing stretch that has been raved about plenty in this thread already. Just watch this fucking match. Doi’s senton in the corner looks fucking sick. As do almost all of Blood Generations triple teams. They alone are worth watching this match for. Ironically, the end is barely a minute away from the point where the match has earned a heartfelt ‘PLEASE DON’T STOP’ from the crowd.

Post match, CIMA pisses off his partners by shaking hands with the Do Fixer guys.

*****


Nigel McGuinness cuts a pretty cool promo hyping himself as the ‘true’ world champion because he, like, defends his title all over the world. Makes sense to me. Of course this feeds into the McGuinness/Danielson match that occurs four shows later, but WE didn’t know that at the time, did we?



Lacey vs. Daizee Haze vs. Allison Danger vs. MsChif vs. Rain vs. Cheerleader Melissa

It’s a SHIMMER invitational, and the girls are really fired up for this one, probably their biggest stage ever. Great to see them getting exposure. Lacey is Lacey, as always. I am of the opinion that she’s frighteningly overrated, but that’s me. Rain does the same gimmick without being so annoyingly over the top. Ah, MsChif, my tormentor. Looking fine and scary as always. Then there’s Daizee Haze, peculiar because she’s a heel in ROH while being an uber face in SHIMMER. Cheerleader Melissa’s her usual Stew-baiting self, just walking to the ring and looking professional. And finally Alison Danger to completely send Leicester mad.

This starts out awkward, with a series of nonsensical rollups (which should logically be broken up in split seconds since all 6 women are in the ring), but calms down into a decent SHIMMER-style match, though I don’t think these women are used to having so many bodies in the ring at once. They distinctly ‘ROH-up’ their usual antics, going for some super-ridiculous spots including the most complicated submission spot I’ve ever seen. MsChif gets some wonderful action, mostly interacting with Cheerleader Melissa, while Alison Danger and Daizee Haze both pull some good stuff as well. Best of all, Melissa gets the green mist from MsChif after doing the inverted cloverleaf kick-in-the-head spot (which MsChif has confided over her yahoogroup is the most painful situation she’s ever been in in a wrestling ring. Funny that! SIDE NOTE: @ Stew), and MsChif eventually wraps things up with a well-taken Desecrator on Rain. Lots of good stuff in here, though not as good as it could have been. They impressed the Chicago crowd, certainly, and I hope a few people in there were wise enough to pick up some SHIMMER DVDs to see the women in their own element. Ironically, ROH isn’t so good for them; it’s actually too flashy.

***


Homicide vs. Mitch Franklin

Yeah. Not really. Homicide kills the little bitch in amusing style before Colt Cabana comes out and the actual match happens.

Homicide vs. Colt Cabana

Jesus Colt’s annoying. I SO wish Homicide would finish him off properly. Colt’s all fired up, with his flying butt attacks and grimaces. This match is kinda... lame. Until Homicide takes over and proceeds to MURDER Colt Cabana in the way that has proven so entertaining throughout this feud. Julius Smokes throws a bunch of good punches, while Homicide prepares to murderise Colt with a ladder again. A DDT on the edge of the latter kills him. Repeated shots to the ladder with a chair with Colt’s head and shoulders trapped in it adds to the death. Short and fun. Julius Smokes calls somebody ‘Mr. Potato Head’ which automatically earns this match a snowflake. I fucking love Julius Smokes. The Rottweilers should be so much bigger than they are.

**


Hero and Necro charge the ring, Hero cuts the usual promo, and violence ensues. Brawling in the ring and around, with Necro taking on Adam Pearce. Necro Butcher completely no-sells about fifteen successive chair shots during the crowd brawl. Yay for no-selling. Hero gets involved, allowing Necro to side russian legsweep Pearce through a table off the apron. Hero tries to escape when Joe gets involved, but Whitmer leads him into a Pearce chairshot. He then takes a Whitmer shot to finish this section of the war.


Samoa Joe/Daniels/Jacobs

Another part of the Joe/Daniels series. Jacobs is in there... because, really. Wonder if he’ll ever get to win a match with his current gimmick? In some ways it’s good this way, though, as it gets over how much of a hapless loser he is. The previous night, Daniels beat Joe, so obviously Joe is looking forward to killing him. Lacey tries to pump Jacobs up, being her usual bitchy, using self. She’s a good manager. Again, way better than most in WWE. How come the Indies book women so much better than WWE? No Danger with Daniels, I imagine because she’s cooling off from her match earlier in the evening. Starts off with Jacobs being ignored in amusing fashion, until he grabs his opponents’ attention by literally jumping on their feet. I like Jacobs. But there’s no doubt what’s going to happen here. Lots of good stuff and more hilarity from Jacobs/Lacey, with the amusing spot of her getting knocked off the apron by him, only for him to be all apologetic while she’s screaming at him “GET... BACK... IN... THE RING!” And the bloody muppet just stands around looking mortified at her. Brilliant stuff. Meanwhile Daniels and Joe kill each other in said ring. In the end Joe makes Jacobs tap in the rear naked choke. No surprise.

***

Bryan Danielson vs. Roderick Strong

Roderick is incredibly bland. I’ve realised this after seeing other matches involving him. He’s a good wrestler, but that’s it. Hopefully he’ll go the way of Danielson and get some character. As it is I get the impression Strong is carried by his partner (who is far more entertaining) and in this match is totally carried by Danielson, who gives the match all of its character and drama. I haven’t seen the previous two encounters between these two, so I don’t know how well they build on previous matches.

There’s a lot of play around the ridiculous strength of Roderick’s chops here, as after the first ones there shortly comes a long break where Danielson just stalks around the ring looking pissed off with a massive handprint on his chest. There’s a brilliant spot where Danielson bridges up off the ground while supporting Roderick’s entire weight. Very impressive. The chop-based early structure works very well, actually, with plays on early dominance being punctuated by a chop every time. Essentially, Roderick’s slightly ahead. Danielson, naturally, starts working over Roderick’s chopping hand.

Danielson walks to the back after a fan pisses him off, which unfortunately results in Roderick Strong picking up the mic. He sounds really, really lame. This man should never be allowed to speak ever again. He has a crappy voice.

Once they’re in the match’s prime body they’re both equal, with Danielson probably getting slightly more offense mixed in with long periods where they just exchange little flurries of stuff before one or other counters and takes brief control. Danielson free-standing on the side of Roderick Strong’s head is nasty to look at. On rewatching, it becomes really obvious how heavily Danielson is carrying this match. Strong’s selling is awful, Danielson’s is brilliant. Unless Strong is either in or in the period immediately after a submission hold he shows no sign of inconvenience at all. It’s like after an extended period of work on his knee, Roderick manages to kick Danielson off a boston crab, then immediately pops up to do a flash counter into cattle mutilation.

Some twat tries to start a ‘JOE, JOE, JOE’ chant, and it delights me to hear the entire arena turn on them with a ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP’ chant. Good stuff. I know the ROH fans get bad press on this forum, but they at least have respect for the wrestlers, in the majority.

Tragically, the announcers talking about how Strong’s knee is giving him problems only underlines the fact that he’s quite happily toddling along after Danielson at ringside to chop his chest open. Oops. Roderick chops the steel ring post and Danielson then does a rather innovative move which looks hideous to further damage it, which is sold nicely. Yay. Back in the ring, Danielson cries out “TAP OUT TO A WRISTLOCK, RODERICK! TAP OUT TO A WRISTLOCK!” Which is ace. Danielson hits a nice dive into the crowd a little bit later, too. He also hits a beautiful missile dropkick directly into a nip up.

Sadly, the commentary lets things down here. You can tell what Prazak’s aiming for, but it has little to do with the match in front of us. He wonders if Danielson’s dive is ‘out of desperation’ and points out that Danielson has ‘neutralized the chop and the knees to take out the backbreakers, but Strong has not been defeated’ and ponders if ‘this is Strong’s night, he will not go down’... except it’s obvious that Bryan isn’t even close to entering his endgame yet. He’s tried Cattle Mutilation once up to this point, and it wasn’t a serious effort. He’s gone for few covers, and has quite clearly just been methodically taking Strong apart. Prazak’s calling the endgame of a match... when the endgame’s about ten minutes away. I don’t normally pick apart commentary et al, but this is the second time I’ve watched the match and I tend to become more analytical on a rewatching; and this just really jarred for me.

Thankfully, when the match gets going again, Strong remembers the knee work for a second or two, selling it after doing his signature fireman’s carry to lungblower. I think it’s called a lungblower. Nothing comes of said remembrance, however, as Strong immediately goes into fast runs off the ropes into hard kicks to the face. Word to the wise: Bad knees do not for fast running make. Stuff happens, we reach the endgame, it is all good, and Danielson eventually puts the talented but colourless muppet away with a clever counter to his finisher. Bloody good main event, but Strong dragged it down a little. 56 minutes is a long time, and in fairness they both pull it off well. Danielson feints not shaking Strong’s hand, fetching some crowd heat, before finally shaking and getting his time in the glory light while Strong plays dead and staggers out. Funnily, he’s suddenly developed a limp, which just feels really odd since he wasn’t doing that while his leg was getting dropkicked on a regular basis during the match.

****

Couple of interviews at the end. One from Lance Storm where he says he’s got more for Danielson than Strong (HINT: He’s wrong), decent enough. Brief one from Dave Prazak, I think, talking to that gibbering loser Colt Cabana. Yes, Colt, we know the feud’s got to end. I am merely saddened that it doesn’t end with your head on a spike.

And that concludes this rather exhaustive review of Supercard of Honour. It’s brilliant. Buy it. There. Simple sum up.

You see, that's why I didn't do a proper review of Supercard of Honor, that much typing would have taken me 3 and a half days with no sleep...

Hmm, I'm currently getting back into ROH after neglecting it for about a year. I've just ordered about 10 ROH DVD's after some recommendations from Gadgetboy.

A few questions,

When did the ROH/CZW feud start and has it finished yet?

Where is the cheapest but most up-to-date place to order their events? I'm using A-Merchandise but they're about 6 months behind.

Danielson sent out an open challenge to anyone in wrestling to come and fight him for the title. Chris Hero took that opportunity and the first in-ring match in the feud took place at Hell Freezes Over in January (although many words were exchanged in the two/three weeks before this). The feud may end tonight with the Cage of Death match at Death Before Dishonor 4, but I don't think it's finished yet (since a match at the Liverpool show is advertsised at ROH vs. CZW).



All the UK suppliers will stay 6 months behind so as not to harm the sales from ROH directly. You'll have to order from Ring of Honor themselves for the newer stuff. The service from ROHwrestling.com is fantastic however and i've haven't been stung by customs once.

Thanks, [Nothing].

I've really let myself get behind on ROH just now...

If it's not too much trouble, can someone answer a few more questions for me?

What are the other current feuds just now apart from the one [nothing] answered?

What are the current top factions/tag teams?

I checked OWW but it doesn't look as if it has updated as far as the face/heel division goes, and it has all the members, whether they are in the faction or tag team anymore, pretty confusing...

Thanks.

Colt Cabana/Homicide finished a couple of shows ago, there's a building feud between the Brisco Brothers and Aries/Strong, but the Briscos are only sporadically booked so its building really slowly, McGuinness and Danielson have an issue with each other, but really that's it. Almost all 'in company' feuds are taking a backseat to ROH/CZW, which typically takes up every or almost every non-wrestling segment on the show. There was a brief Reyes/Delirious feud, and there's an ongoing Aries/Reyes feud, but it isn't really worked with most of the time. Of course there's the slow burn of Danielson vs. Samoa Joe, too.

Top faction is definitely The Embassy, since Generation Next no longer exist. Not that many factions in ROH, either.

Aries/Strong are unquestionably the top team. They've been sold as utterly unbeatable, which in my opinion is coming back to hurt them because it's making their matches somewhat uninteresting. After them there's the Rottweilers, but they've been mostly in singles competition so haven't teamed much. The Embassy of Rave and Shelley are, again, probably the second best team for results and title matches.

Eddie Kingston in ROH makes me happy.

Apparently, post match, Homicide told Cornette that in return for aiding team ROH, he wanted another match with Corino, a title shot and Low-Ki reinstated. Cornette refused and he and Pearce turned heel, beating down Homicide.

Also Cornette continued tarnishing his good promos with homophobic insults by calling Homicide "Homocide".

Seriously, Cornette is one of the best promo guys out there but this hwole CZW/ROH fued he just uses constant gay jokes which makes him come across as a idiotic red-neck bigot.

Yes, yes it does. Interesting that they're turning Low-Ki's 'life suspension' into an actual angle. And Jim Cornette turning heel? Can't see that lasting. But hmm... That sounds like one hell of a match and a damn good card.

My review of Weekend of Champions Night one should be up later today.