ANd here it is, my review of Weekend of Champions night one!

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WEEKEND OF CHAMPIONS - NIGHT ONE

There’s a video recap with the DVD which recaps the end of the 100th show, showing what little of the match was visible with the crappy camerawork on display, then has a great promo by Jim Cornette ripping into Claudio Castagnoli in particular, building up this weekend as the ‘nights when ROH strikes back’. I sense this will go horribly wrong and CZW will have the last laugh yet again. Jimmy Jacobs explains why he lost to Yang; great stuff. Colt Cabana then apologises for sucking so badly against Bryan Danielson. Fair dos. Decent promo.

OMGZ! Lacey threatens to dump Jacobs from Lacey’s Angels if he doesn’t win this weekend! Jacobs is such a sap, but he’s so lovable! Lacey’s a great character, and Jacobs plays off her brilliantly.

Some oddness with Danielson getting a phone call from Allison and saying she won’t be here this weekend. That’s right, Lantern. TWO WHOLE SHOWS WITH NO DANGER. Think it might have been a SHIMMER taping weekend, but I’m not certian. He’s then asked if he wants to ‘do this promo’ and switches into promo mode. Naughty ROH, bad kittens no cookies! Would have been much better to just go into the promo anyway. Promo’s good enough, hits on all the relevant issues. Danielson wants a title, he’s been without one in ROH for ages, and he intends to get even on Claudio Castagnoli for being the man he shook hands with who then betrayed the company. On night two C2 is up against Samoa Joe, poor sod.

1st Match: Colt Cabana vs. Jimmy Jacobs

‘Classic’ Colt is every bit as geeky as Rocky mark one was. How did he ever get over? Jimmy Jacobs rules. I love this guy so much. WIN JIMMY WIN! Sadly, I feel Colt might be on his ‘build myself up’ streak... Homicide, how could you fail us? Colt’s actually a lot of fun, but this pisses me off no end as he’s basically completely no-selling the feud with Homicide. It’s like nothing important happened, when the feud that nearly killed him several times ended just two shows ago. It just feels wrong on every level. And that’s the mark in me speaking, as well as the writer who hates bad plot!

Opens up with some comedy, with Colt making Jacobs look like an idiot (not hard), funny stuff, before settling down into some actual wrestling. I’ve already said Lacey and Jacobs play off each other well, and it really shows in the early going with some clever working around the old ‘enemy threatening the female manager’ spot. Lacey’s her usual harridan self, shouting for Jacobs to hit Colt harder when he gets control of the match. Jacobs likes his double stomps! Hits about five in a row on Colt. Ouch. Then adds ‘the MsChif’ stomps as I call them, as well. Jacobs gets some lovely high flying offence, he’s really very slick when he gets going, while Colt hits his ‘classic’ butt bumps and bionic elbows, as well as trying a disastrously short quebrada that gets him dropkicked in the face in mid-air. Jacobs doesn’t hit his ‘no-hands’ aeroplane headscissors, unfortunately, I really like that move. Also hits a spear right into a rollup, which is an interesting variant on the move which I imagine he plans to do more often. Eventually he goes down to a simple powerbomb, not even worthy of Colt’s finisher. This is a shame, but it’s pretty obvious with the start of the show that if Jacobs wins it’ll be on Night Two.

**1/2


Jim Cornette’s out with Ace Steel, and he has a crutch with him. Obviously this is to set up this evening’s main event. If you’re curious how I’m writing this, I’ve got the writing document open next to my WinDVD window and I’m writing as I watch. Thankfully I’ve done enough writing in my years that I don’t even need to look at the writing screen to type. This is handy to say the least. Hence I can do all the smarky shit without it in any way influencing my enjoyment of the show at all. I’d do a dance smiley but I don’t think this site has any. Cornette lists the injuries the crew’s taken; pretty nasty. Whitmer’s in a bad, bad way apparently. Cornette wants the guys to work together harder than ever, and he’s singling out Colt Cabana. Ace Steel determines that someone’s gonna die. I approve. I likes Ace Steel, even if his match at Supercard was a bit crappy. Great character. Cabana cuts a promo about how cool ROH is, says he isn’t needed anymore, because he’s starting from the very bottom and he’s working his way up. But he’ll still be there to fight CZW if they turn up. Again, Cornette calls out Claudio Castagnoli. This is pretty much the biggest development in the feud so far, so it’s good that they’re giving it proper attention. The main event is going to be Nova-heat, since the magic DVD casing tells me he’s part of the 6 man. God I hope they’ve fixed the camerawork, else this’ll be as bad as the other one. This is a great promo all round. Yay for Cornette.


2nd Match: Irish Airborne vs. Jay Fury and Spud

I hear the ROH fans chanting: “LANTERN’S GONNA HATE THIS! LANTERN’S GONNA HATE THIS!” Well, actually that isn’t true. But we all know what L2 thinks of the Irish Airborne and spotfests. Thankfully, I’m quite partial to a bit of eye candy, and I like the Airborne, so I think I’ll quite like this. The Airborne don’t really have ‘a gimmick’, they’re a pair of high energy young lions (to quote Cornette) who want to prove themselves. They’re also over with the fans already, so they’re on the right track.

Spud and... Dave, I think, open up with a spectacular light heavyweight series, including a deja vu from Spud. Jake and Fury them tag in for a more grounded and technical exchange... no, I’m wrong, THIS is Dave, the blond one’s Jake. Spud and Fury completely fuck up one of the Dragon Gate boy’s spots, that being the 619 around a partner into an opponent’s face. Well, Spud grazes Dave’s head, but the fans notice. The Airborne have some sweet tag team moves including a hideous double spinebuster variant. I like the cut of their jib. Spud gets dominated, he’s small you see ergo he must be dominated. Eventually Spud gets back with a sick DDT from the top rope on Jake. ROH should vary the ‘small guy is fall guy’ methodology more. Strategically it makes good sense to isolate the BIG guy, not the small guy. Logically the big guy is going to do more damage, after all. ANYWAY...

While I’ve been rambling, everyone’s been diving to the outside like madmen, as any ROH match involving multiple opponents demands at least once. Dave gets the best dive with a springboard merosault, or so they call it. I like Jay Fury’s ‘Jaytrix’. Spud hits a Code Red after a couple of nice kicks, then dies to a fucking weird STO-hip-throw-face-slam thing. Airborne win with a Dave double stomp onto the head of Jay Fury who’s on Jake’s shoulders in a fireman carry, who then drops Fury over Dave’s knees on the mat. I think it’d make a better tag finisher if they just tagged a Death Valley Driver on, but I guess the move has been superceded over time. Pity. I think this is going to be Irish Airborne’s tag finisher. Good fun match, inoffensive but not brilliant, not really intended as a show stealer.

**


Super Dragon kills some random guy and throws him to the ringside before wandering off backstage with a chair. ROH backstage boys come after him.

Nigel McGuiness cuts a fucking AWESOME promo, loaded with cockiness and character. He’s got very good facial expressions, which helps a lot.


3rd Match: Delirious vs. Jimmy Rave

Rave comes out sans Nana, with Haze. It’s just occurred to me that there’s no Shelley tonight. The toilet paper shower is still pretty cool, but it’s just not the same without Shelley and Nana there as well. Delirious is so over with the ROH crowd, and quite rightly, too. He picks up a discarded loo roll and runs around with it in his mouth. This guy’s awesome at just making shit up as he goes. Then he suddenly chucks it at Jimmy Rave, which makes Haze very angry. Little ‘DIE, JIMMY DIE” Chant. Delirious just sticks his hand out to be shaken, and Rave is really nervous about shaking hands with him, backs off the second he has, and runs away the moment the bell rings and Delirious goes nuts. As it is specifically brought up that the announcers don’t know why Nana is at ringside, I imagine that this is going to lead somewhere. The Embassy’s internal politics have been a feature of storylines for four or five shows now, so it wouldn’t be a surprise.

Rave continues to run away from Delirious, especially when Delirious backs him into the corner after a lockup and just shouts in his face for a bit. There’s no matches like Delirious matches. There really isn’t. Of course they eventually lock up and get to wrestling, and since they’re both very good wrestlers it’s all good. Naturally Rave eventually gets control and goes after Delirious’ injured hand, apparently cut open on the new ringposts (they have a new ring, don’t you know) during his title match with Bryan Danielson. The posts are jagged on top, you see. Better get a member of the ring crew with a file and sort that out.Rave does lots of stuff focusing on hurting the hand, stomps, slamming it off the mat, etc. etc. Rave rips some of Delirious’ hand tape off and then ues it to tie him to the top rope, but unfortunately it seems he can’t tie a decent knot and it doesn’t stick. So he settles with punching the hand and slamming it off the turnbuckle. The fans start chanting... something. I think it’s nonsense and is thus a pro-Delirious chant. Speaking of which, Delirious sells the hand injury well. Roderick Strong should take note. Rave busts out of Delirious’ comeback by blocking his finisher attempt, and hits some nice offence including his spear and a butterfly lock. Delirious manages to get the cobra stretch on Jimmy Rave, but Daizee Haze breaks it up by distracting the referee with a chair then hitting a top rope splash on Delirious. Then the bell rings, and it turns out to be a draw.

Kind of a ‘hmm’ ending to what was a rather good match. Still, the next one should rock.

***


4th match: Christopher Daniels vs. Nigel McGuiness

Going in, we know two things: 1. Chrissy isn’t going to win, if he did it would mess up the meeting between Guinness and Danielson, which would be stupid since it’s pretty much what Weekend of Champions is about. 2. This is probably going to be very, very good.

For some reason... Nigel McGuinness is carrying an iron emblazoned with the British flag. Why is the pure champion carrying an iron with the British flag on it? I don’t know. This is very very strange. People start chanting ‘NEW CHAMP’, the fools. They should be chanting ‘WHY THE IRON?’. Duelling chants before the bell. There’s a good old code of honour handshake, but Nigel is a right bitch about it, refusing to let go and repeatedly pulling Daniels back chest to chest while trash talking him. Nice. Bit of a shove back and forth, then a Daniels-won shoulderblock sends McGuiness to the outside.

The fans chant ‘TEA AND CRUMPETS’. WTF?

McGuiness pulls off a very clever little trick, catching Daniels in the eye with a quick double poke, then taking him down and covering him repeatedly, pushing him across the ring until he accidentally gets his leg in the ropes, costing him a rope break. McGuiness is forced to get a rope break to escape Daniels’ Koji Clutch some time later. McGuiness gets control again with his cool handstand corner counter, and starts working hardway on Daniels’ arm. But nontheless, when Daniels gets McGuiness in a halfcrab, he forces the Pure Champ to use his second rope break. Still, he doesn’t mind, and goes right back to trying to break Daniels’ arm down into its constituent parts with a weird and wonderful variety of slams, snaps and holds. McGuiness steals American Dragon’s ‘I’ve got ‘til FIVE, referee’ spot, and the fans get it. A little heat, but it’s neither good nor bad. Daniels gets his second wind and a burst of offence, but can’t put McGuiness away. McGuiness goes for the corner handstand as a counter, but gets slapped in the chest and death valley drivered for a hot near fall. Hey, I’m watching a DVD on DVD! How clever. Daniels goes for the BME, but misses, lands on his feet, manages to come out of the exchange on top for a near fall, then goes for a seated cobra clutch that the announcers call... a shinimaki, or something. This, remarkably, forces the champ to use his third and final rope break. Daniels, meanwhile, is still on one. McGuiness does a couple of his big momentum building spots, including a little run up to the second turnbuckle into a charging clothesline, and his weird back bouncey thing off the second rope. You know what I mean. He beat Claudio Castagnoli with it. Doesn’t here.

McGuiness goes for the Tower of London, but Daniels gets out and reapplies the shinimaki thing. McGuiness grabs the ropes but it doesn’t matter. However, he uses them to build up momentum and throws both of them outside the ring to break the submission. At this point, it’s looking like Daniels has the distinct advantage, but McGuiness ambushes him when he goes to get in the ring and hits a bunch of european uppercuts. They get close to a 20 count, and McGuiness suddenly grabs a female photographer at ringside and pushes her into Daniels to distract him long enough for the countout win. Gets a rousing ‘THIS IS BULLSHIT’ chant for his efforts. Interesting way to lead into Danielson vs. McGuiness...

***1/2


Backstage, Danielson’s with Prazac, and of course he defends his position as the best wrestler in the world. Samoa Joe comes over to be all menacing at Danielson, building up to their inevitable title match. It’s hard to believe that Danielson can stop Joe, but I hope so.


5th match: Bryan Danielson vs. Jimmy Yang

Since when did Jimmy Yang deserve a title shot? I’ve seen him win ONE match in seven shows. I don’t even think he’s listed in the top 5 anymore. While the idea of the top 5 is great, I’m still unsure of what it actually means or how one earns a place in it. Cabana shot to no. 1 after the great feat of winning one fucking match, after Homicide had beaten him about nine times in a row and got nothing, Jimmy Yang’s in a title match despite doing nothing but lose... there’s no logic behind it if you look at the results of the shows. That isn’t good. Anyway...

We all know how this is going to end. Yang’s a bowling pin for Danielson, nothing more, but we all know Danielson’s going to make him look good on the way to getting beaten. Tonight, Danielson’s ‘the best wrestler these pricks have ever seen’, and you know the fans believe it. Apparently Jimmy Yang saves his white jacket for special occasions only, such as Wrestlemania 20, his debut match in ROH, and so on. Nice touch. Kind of thing commentators are needed for.

Yang controls the early going, and bails out to the floor after losing out on a moonsault exchange and taking a chop to the chest that yet again lights him up like Christmas. Danielson’s chest worries me. It seems unhealthily thin, and an infection waiting to happen. If Danielson was to get seriously injured or come down with a bad infection it would be very, very bad for ROH.

Danielson does a weird dragon sleeper variant, leaning forward to link his hands behind his back, but Yang fires back with the martial arts stuff, which appears to officially be his gimmick. Then Yang again CANNONS himself into the ring post. He really DOES like that spot! Danielson takes total control, working Yang over in all the good old ways and with his usual mix of new fine detail work and signature submission spots.

Yang goes for a big dive, namely the space flying tiger drop, but he goes for the handspring WAY too late, recovers very nicely and goes for a baseball dropkick into corkscrew moonsault. It didn’t really look like a mistake, more like Yang expected Danielson to move and changed up at the last second. Back in the ring, Yang hits a sick looking spinning wheel kick and goes for Yang Time, but Danielson dodges and applies Cattle Mutilation for a near win. He hits the belly to back suplex for a near fall, and now he’s into desperation covers. Yang has never looked this good before. Admittedly he is ‘on’ tonight, but it’s certainly not a coincidence. Yang hits a neckbreaker from the top for a great near fall, leading into a great sequence of strikes back and forth, ending with Danielson blocking a standing moonsault attempt and dragging Yang off into the crossface chickenwing to choke him out for the win. Great match. Bryan shakes hands after the match. No hard feelings here, seemingly.

****


6th Match: Aries/Strong vs. Joe/Sydal

As you can see, Generation Next consists of Aries and Strong, and two other losers who exist to either get beaten by them or take the fall for them in trios. I think Gen Next’s official break up will be good for Jack Evans at least, as he won’t be in the position of taking all their losses for the team. On the other hand, this could result in this team never losing ever, which good wear thin really fast. They’re just not as rivetting as Bryan Danielson is. Sydal continues his campaign of failing to take the tag team titles from his partners by going with someone he’s never worked with before. Yes, I’m sure he has a much better chance than he did those times with AJ.

Major league ‘JOE’ chanting. Not much duelling here, Austin Aries isn’t as popular as Joe. Nobody is in ROH. Prediction: Sydal takes most of the offence for his team.

Starts out with Sydal and Strong. Typical slick wrestling, nothing high impact. Joe enters against Strong and starts avoiding Strong’s chop.Joe takes control on Austin the moment Austin gets in, and starts powering through everything directed his way. Austin pulls his handstand dropkick escape from a front headlock rather than his usual headscissors, but it really doesn’t slow Joe down for more than a second. Sydal gets tagged back in for a brief spell of ground based strikes. Cool moment where Sydal splays Austin’s arms out so he can’t defend himself after tagging in Joe, and he shouts ‘OH SHIT!’ when he looks up and sees Joe about to stomp on him. Austin continues to get worked over by Joe with high impact offence and a lot of strikes.Proper duelling chans when Joe’s been killing Aries for ags. Finally a kick to the head gives Austin the chacnce to tag toutl, while of course Joe tags too Sydal. O fcourse, he has no part to play in Strong’s backbreaker-assistant offence. In a stunning turn, eventually Sydal starts getting obliterated by the champs, while Samoa Joe keeps comig in to break up submissions or pins to kick people in the head or whatever. Yay for Austin Aries’ ‘slow motion’ knee drop. Not flashy but the fans love it nonetheless. Joe tags in, and pretty much no-sells an attempt to counter his standing senton. Does a couple of impact moves on Austin, then tags out to Sydal again. On the outside, Strong drives Joe into ringpost and barricade, then goes in after Sydal. Sydal hits some decent stuff on both of them, then gets murdered by a sick diving kick to the face. They then hit him with a double backbreaker and a brainbuster/chest chop combo for hot near falls. Joe returns to the action and catches Aries with a diamond cutter off a dive to earn a nova hot near fall from Sydan’s standing moonsault. The fans chant ‘THAT WAS THREE’. Joe tries the muscle buster on Strong, but Aries breaks it up and Strong hits a VERY scrappy fireman carry gutbuster, Austin dives on Joe to put him out while they do the full nelson backbreaker/450 to finish the match. Short of Joe actually taking no offence, they couldn’t possibly have protected him any more. I think he sold about two things in the whole proceedings. Hot end sequence, but not half as awesome as the fans seemed to think it was.

Generation Next need a nemesis team, one which looks like it’s going to beat them. Bryan Danielson’s long reign is working because the majority of his opponents are made to look like threats and there’s this hint of doubt that he’ll be able to win. Gen Next are REALLY losing this feel. I wish they’d make their minds up and either book them in legitimate squashes all the time, or actually give them some competition. We’ll see how the Briscoes do, and how Jimmy Rave and Shelley do on Night Two.

**1/2


Joe cuts a brief promo in the ring about wanting to beat someone to death, then calls out CZW. Necro Butcher, Super Dragon and someone I don’t know come out, I guess it must be Nate Webb since he’s listed on the DVD back. This brings out Ace Steele and Adam Pearce, and there’s a bit of a fight on. Colt Cabana comes out as well. Joe and Butcher go backstage, and presumably Claudio and Castagnoli take out Joe, as he never returns. LAAAAAAME. CC/Dragon/Webb/Butcher dominate for a few secs until Whitmer comes in with a chair and crushes everyone with a chair. Whitmer’s in a neck brace, so I guess he wasn’t hurt as bad as first made out. I’m amazed. CC takes off the brace and works the neck, OH, there’s Pearce. Who the hell was the other guy, then? Maybe that was Colt. Nate turns around from fighting Pearce to be fighting 4 on 1, gets hammered a bit then backdropped out of the ring. Fans chant ‘ROH’ a lot. Brawl continues, the fans are invited to get a little low-level participation by Colt and co, holding chairs up for heads to get slammed in them and in Colt’s case getting someone to throw a chair on Necro. Ace Steele fights Super Dragon, Whitmer fights CC. Camerawork is a little better than the last one, thankfully. I don’t get why Colt Cabana isn’t listed on the back of the DVD; he gets the most screen time in this match, I think. Certainly enough to be a noticeable part of the match. In the ring, Whitmer slaps the shit out of CC’s chest, then gets thrown outside and takes a tope. Unsurprisingly CC takes a bunch of nasty offence, and equally unsurprisingly Super Dragon deals it out. Eventually Whitmer and Dragon face each other again and start hurting one another. Ace Steele fights with Necro on his level, with guard rail fun and chair shots. Dragon hits a huge senton on Whitmer, but he kicks out. CZW are the ones getting the near falls in this match. But who’ll get the one that counts? I’m still expecting CZW. Dragon goes for another Psycho Driver on Whitmer off the apron, but Colt saves him and unfortunately fails to put Dragon through the table. Instead Castagnoli runs in and european uppercuts him when he tries and asai moonsault, sending Colt through it instead. Ace Steele gets taken out by Necro, Whitmer and Dragon try to kill Whitmer with a stomp off the top on a chair, but Steele saves him and hip tosses CC over the ropes to the outside. Steele and Necro go out and back into the crowd. Craziness all round. Steele suplexes Butcher off some seats onto the concrete. OUCH. Back in the ring, Claudio and Super Dragon 2 on 1 Whitmer. We know he’s fucked this time. Colt tries to save, but fails, and BJ gets killed by a top rope double stomp onto the chair off the top. Claudio then adds a muscle buster for a laugh to give CZW the win. Again.

Ha. Knew it. Good stuff. I am beginning to wonder when ROH is going to achieve much in this feud. So far they’ve been getting complete owned on their TV, though I hear that they massacred CZW on their show immediately after Arena Warfare.

***1/2

Whitmer does another stretcher job post match. Not surprising. Is he dead? Who knows? Since they stretcher him out on a table rather than an actual stretcher, I’m willing to say the answer’s ‘no’. Steele and Colt look really pissed off about the outcome, unsurprisingly. Whitmer’s role as ROH represtative is an interesting way to push him, it’s certainly effective. Unless I’m mistaken, Jummy Rave is one of the people coming out to check on him. Steele and Pearce finish the show with some very angriness at the camera. There will not be a third time, says they. Well; we’ll find out in a few shows’ time, won’t we? For now, this first night of the weekend is... OVER.

P.s. Whitmer’s wrestling S.D. on the next night, so my prediction is that his head survived the stomping.

ROH – Supercard Of Honour

Fuck me! How long?!

Cornette cuts a backstage promo, suspending Low-Ki permanently for knocking his tooth out. That’s one storyline tied up in a really…lame way.

A hype video for Dragon/Strong is up next, very nice it is too. ROH must have someone knew doing these things I would think. We then get some quite bizarre footage of Hero messing with fans backstage. This DVD really didn’t need all this padding, you know…

The show kicks off with Jim Cornette in the ring, doing what he does best, getting the crowd fucking mental for the show. Man, he’s even made TNA look interesting over the last couple of weeks. He hypes up two hardcore wrestlers he found in Chicago, then brings out what I’m pretty sure was Dunn and Marcos under hoods. Joe and Whitmer proceed to destroy them to an enormous reaction. I’m guessing this crowd is going to be white hot for the rest of the night.

Flash Flanagan Vs Ricky Reyes Vs Shane Hagadorn Vs Delirious

Noooo, four way matches with no reason are the pits. Holy fuck, is that Flash Flanagan? Indy-rific. Hagadorn has cool entrance music, a beer belly and rubbish tattoos. If he could work they’d be the ingredients to make a wrestler I’d really want to watch. Delirious is godly over at the moment, the fans are really getting behind his last chance saloon angle. And Reyes is solid.
It’s a four way, so the wrestling is kept to a minimum lest it interfere with the spots. The main point of this match is to let Delirious do his crazy thing and frustrate the other four guys, which is actually pretty entertaining to watch. However, Delirious still can’t catch a break, as he gets choked out by chunky boy Reyes and subjected to a post match beat down. Reyes says he just a gimmick and doesn’t belong in ROH…Shhhh, dude.
Pretty much a nothing match to advance the Delirious storyline. Needed more Flash.

Wow. Collyer and Steel promos, that’s a surprise. Both pretty good as well.

Alex Shelley and Jimmy Rave Vs Jimmy Yang and Claudio Castagnoli

Embassy Blah blah blah, great heel heat blah blah blah, underrated workers yada yada yada…I say it all the time in these reviews. The Embassy are fucking great. All of them. But especially Alex Shelley.
Man, I can’t believe I used to be so high on Jimmy Yang. He’s been pretty awful for a few shows now. Maybe he already knew he’d be back in the E soon and took his foot off the gas, but he’s just not the same guy who came into ROH with two screamers against Gibson and Strong. Now he’s kind of blown up all the time, does the same spots in the same order and looks entirely non-motivated.
Hey! It’s Claudio. I like Claudio, he does cool moves, wears nice jackets and has a Continental sense of humour that involves grabbing guys asses a lot. Fly that flag for Europe, my brother. So yeah, he does a whole sequence involving grabbing the Embassy’s respective asses as they run the ropes and gets face heat for it. Genius. He also chucks stiff uppercuts around (Euro-stiff) and says Hey! a lot, which is the shortest catchphrase to get over since, um, Ho! I guess. But that was more Hooooooo! so Claudio wins.
Another basic Southern tag match for the Embassy, which works well with their dynamic – they have a lot of heat, cheating seconds, they both bump like mothers and Shelley has a lot of stuff that cuts guys off well. Their timing gets better all the time as well. They also have no shame; they do the age old spot where one heel collapses on all fours and his partner falls to his knees as if giving him man love, with the added twist of Shelley grabbing a big, passionate handful of Rave’s conditioned hair. I was expecting to see a reach around next.
So Yang gets a lot of heat for most of this, including redeeming some of his torpid offence by taking a huge shoulder posting and selling a guard rail whip by landing in the third row. He eventually gets the hot tag after a very watchable sequence of being tortured by the heels.
The weird thing about this is Rave going over clean. Racking my brains, I don’t remember the last time Rave went over clean on anyone other than Pelle Primeau, so I guess the fact he rolled up Claudio should tell us a lot about where he’s going in the CZW storyline. Decent match, get it for all the ass grabbing.

Post match, Hero yells at Claudio from the crowd and throws some chairs. This feud needs matches!

Ace Steel Vs Chad Collyer

This whole thing is just too fucking bizarre. Steel was only ever over when teaming with Punk or Cabana (Despite being a pretty decent wrestler himself) Collyer was over for about two weeks when he, Walters and Stryker were the in thing. So how come they get a pro-longed feud, let alone one with a blow off match on the big show…Which is First Blood no less! Just fucking weird. Still, it sets Ace up to drop into the CZW feud, which might lead to him coming out the other side as a big name. Maybe.
Still, the one person who really enjoyed this was me, because I have a soft spot for both guys. The live fans really didn’t care much. Neither guy put a foot wrong, they showed plenty of character, hit everything right, took the bumps they needed to…But the fans had little reason to care. Strange one, that.

Matt Sydal and AJ Styles Vs Austin Aries and Jack Evans

I liked this way more than I thought I was going to. While I think Aries is one of the coolest guys on the Indies at the moment, none of the other three do much for me at all. I guess my low expectations helped, but it was an enjoyable match in parts. Much better than the Evans/Strong Vs Briscoes match that got so much hype.
The exchanges between Sydal and Aries are brilliant here, loads better than their singles match early this year. They were all based around Sydal doing Aries type moves to punk him out, Aries doing them harder to say ‘stop that’, as well as doing some Sydal type things and some new things he made up, just to show him who the Daddy in Generation Next still is.
The downside of this match is Evans having to be on offence for a long time, whiffing kicks and doing double stomps in Air Max trainers…Still, if the only other option is watching AJ on offence…It’s amazing how much heat Styles has lost in ROH. I’d say it was the TNA factor, but Chris Daniels is still hugely over, the ROH fans are just sick of Euroboy. Guys like Aries are much more popular now, as shown by Aries getting more reaction for his silly pendulum elbow than AJ does for anything. Aries also elbows Sydal right in the face on a hot tag and breaks his nose in one go, almost making AJ Junior cry. I laughed, I admit it.
The ending to this match was pretty spectacular, I watched it a couple of times and it’s cool as fuck. Aries has Sydal sat up top and is trying to get him position for something, while this is going on, Evans goes for a Sasuke Special into a Rana on AJ, gets caught, and splattered on the wooden floor with a Styles Clash. Fuck. Here’s the really cool part – AJ rolls him in the ring and at that precise second Aries hits his Best Tope On America, diving over Evans’ prone body in the ring to take out AJ. However, this leaves Sydal free to hit a gorgeous Shooting Star Press on the still two dimensional form of Jack Evans for the pin. Wowsers.
Post match, AJ lovingly dabs at the blood on Matt’s face with a towel. There’s only so many gay jokes I can make in one review without looking like I’ve got even more to hide than Mr Styles, you know....

Blood Generation Vs Do Fixer

Ehhh, it was OK. I kid, I kid. It was good, very good in fact. Pretty far away from being the best match ever, but very good none the less.
It’s hard to know what to say about this, since it’s the most talked about match of the year so far and so much has been written about it by a wide variety of people. I kind of feel I’m contributing nothing, you know? So I’ll keep it relatively brief.
To get the unpleasantness out of the way first, “Please don’t stop” is just about the worst thing ever.
Kid actually looked pretty good here, I guess due to the great reaction he was getting as a result of appearing in front of fans who haven’t seen the same routine out of him eight million times already. Genki had the best moment of the match for me, after hitting the Beach Break and delaying the cover while the other team members were restrained – The most effective near fall without a ridiculous kick out in the match (Since when did Kid kick out of a Schwein?!?!) Although my personal favourite moment had to be a bunch of fans trying to start a “This Is Awesome” chant then being struck dumb by Yoshino doing a dropkick that was, you guessed it, actually awesome. I think that proves it – if you’re really into it, you shouldn’t have time to chant.
I haven’t got any complaints about the match at all really, I like all six guys to some degree and everyone did well – nothing blown, nothing whiffed, the trademarked insane pace and some great heeling for Blood Gen. It’s interesting, the fans didn’t seem interested in the characters at all, but the non-fan I watched the match with was getting annoyed with Blood Gen’s bullying of Genki and was really pleased when ‘the little fella’ got to win at the end. I guess you can ruin wrestling for yourself.
So yeah, to keep in short, a very good example of the Dragon Gate sprint style of wrestling, helped, and hindered by the peculiar make up of the crowd. It’ll probably go on my Match Of The Year shortlist (Metaphorically, there’s no actual list) but in the scope of the history of Dragon Gate, there’s lots of stuff out there that tops this.

Mischief Vs Alison Danger Vs Cheerleader Melissa Vs Rain Vs Daizee Haze Vs Lacey

It’s a six way, which means heavy on the spots, light on the wrestling and a short review from me. I understand why they wanted this match – it gets six SHIMMER workers and there characters introduced to the crowd and allows them all to hit there big ammunition, but I would’ve preferred something like a six man tag. Although I guess it’s pretty hard to follow the one we’ve just watched. As far as the match goes, everyone hits there stuff well, no-one screws up badly and there’s some nice moments – such as the wacky five way submission, and Melissa repeating that hideous moment from SHIMMER Volume 1 where she made Mischief kick herself in the head. Being as a lot of the ladies got good reactions this weekend, it’d be nice to see some more conventional SHIMMER matches on ROH shows down the line.

Homicide Vs Mitch Franklin

The commentators inform us that Homicide is wrestling the rather Gnome like Franklin as a replacement for the injured Cabana. Short squash, the only thing worth mentioning is Homicide missing a Diving Headbutt when the fans chant for Cabana and distract him. Nelson goes over with the Cop Killer.

But concussion or not, Cabana will not be denied! He’s grown a serious beard, you know. So we get…

Homicide Vs Colt Cabana

After all! This follows the pattern of there recent matches. Cabana is fiery to start with, getting the best of a brawl on the outside with some weapons thrown in. They’ve done this so many time now, they’ve settled into a nice rhythm with the wild fighting side of things. As with all their matches, it comes down to Colt looking in a strong position before interference allows Homicide to get back in, and then it’s just an arse kicking from then on. Here, Cabana gets his skull caved in with some sickening chair shots, takes a disgusting DDT on a ladder set up on it’s edge, then gets sandwiched in the ladder and crushed to death. Almost. The escalation of violence in this feud was quite shocking, Christ knows what tomorrows match will be like.

Anyway, this all leads into yet another Hero/Necro Butcher run in, and another Necro/Pearce brawl involving much face punching a throwing of chairs. This time it ends up with Pearce put through a table at ringside, and brings Jim Cornette out to take a baseball bat to the Butcher and Samoa Joe taking out Hero with an Enziguri before Whitmer cleans his clock with a chair shot. Again, all fair stuff, but it’s far past time we see an actual match.

Samoa Joe Vs Christopher Daniels Vs Jimmy Jacobs

Fun little three way, this. And far better than the Joe/Daniels match the night before. While it was never really explained adequately why Jacobs was added to the match, both Joe and Daniels are characters that benefit from having someone to chuck around and bully. And that’s pretty much what Jacobs exists for. So a lot of stuff based around Jacobs being tiny and painfully out of his depth, such as Daniels trying to take Joe down with forearms, not getting anywhere, and launching Jimmy at him instead, only for Jacobs to bounce off. Also, a nice spot I’ve never seen before as Daniels used one arm to Reverse DDT Joe while simultaneously slamming Jacobs on top of him with a Uranage using the other arm. Flossy.
Jacobs annoying emo-kid character is really catching on in ROH, and his dynamic with Lacey is great. The crowd really seem to be into the whole ‘good, but misguided wrestler, mistreated by evil manager thing’, probably because we all know what fools those she-devils can make of us…Sorry, I’m bitter. When Jacobs looks like he’s going to pull off an upset, the crowd are crazy for him. Not bad for a kid who was told not to give up his day job by Bobby Heenan…Match ended with the inevitable choking out of Jimmy Jacobs.

Roderick Strong Vs Bryan Danielson

Yeah! This was damn good fun. 56 minutes that just flew by, due to some superb pacing that I’m going to attribute directly to Danielson, because 2006 is his year to run around being fucking awesome.
Lots of good stuff going on here. I love how they’ve built Strong’s chops up to be something seriously dangerous, I mean, it’s chops, everyone on the Indies does far too many of them, but Roderick Strong chopping someone has been injected with so much meaning now, it’s brilliant. Most of it’s down to Danielson and his scary pale skin that falls off in big clumps whenever Rodders slaps it. The teasing of this, with Danielson taking increasingly irritating breaks whenever he gets hit, builds towards an awesome reaction when Strong finally gets a bunch in one go. In the last third of the match it all comes back to haunt him however, as he aims a chop at AmDrag on the outside but instead smacks the fuck out of the ringpost with a hideously loud snap, causing an audible “Ugghhhh!” from both the live fans and me on my sofa. This allows Danielson to indulge in some British style hand work, and lets him get away with screaming “TAP TO A WRSITLOCK!” which is just genius. Another, Danielson Is A Dick moment occurs when a fan shouts “Bob Backlund!” at him, leading him to pick up Strong, give him an atomic drop and answer in a surly fashion- “Bob Backlund, eh?”
There’s a lot of solid limb work throughout the match, which no doubt highly excited those odd fellows who make such a big deal of body part psychology. Danielson goes after Roderick’s knee with his usual casual sadism, and sure enough, Strong’s deadly backbreakers are less effective as a result. That doesn’t stop him busting more of them out in this match than he has in ages, but be fair to the guy, he had an hour to fill up.
The first three quarters of this match were worked at a deliberate pace, but it was never dull. The personality of the champion and the crowd’s interest in the challenger kept them going, even after a fucking five hour long show. Then, in the last quarter we go into a red hot closing sequence as the crowd will Strong onto the upset. Danielson launches himself into the crowd as he’s been fond of doing recently, getting over his real sense of urgency to get the match finished and never have to be disfigured by karate chops again.
I got a real kick out of the finish, despite only running three such finishes in four years, ROH is kind of associated with one hour draws, and to end the match with a roll up on 56 minutes adds to Danielson’s title reign, he’s had really short matches and really long matches now, and a lot of them have had lightning finishes. Hopefully this will educate the fans into getting excited for flash pins and submissions at all points in title matches.
When I think about this match in the context of Danielson’s other title defences, it doesn’t match up to a lot of them, or even to the previous match with Strong. The fact that it’s still very, very good just shows what an amazing body of work AmDrag is assembling this year, and this is a worthy addition to it. When the compilation of American Dragon ROH title matches gets made, it’ll be fucking essential stuff.

So, this show is a marathon. You’ll feel like you’ve watched three shows. But it’s mainly good, some of the best stuff ROH have done all year, and it’s got a few absolute crackers involved. Top drawer.

That's the best review of DF vs BG I've seen so far, and I've read way too many of them.

It was a DF vs BG sprint that was made both better and worse by the different setting.

WEEKEND OF CHAMPIONS NIGHT TWO

Jimmy Jacobs has his LAST chance to win a match, or he loses Lacey! He looks like he might CRY! WIN, JIMMY, WIN!

Austin Aries cuts a promo, while Wodewick Strong stands by him trying to look like... something. Yeah, Gen Next would be the best in the world; if YOU weren’t in it, Wodewick. Actually no, they are extremely good. But I find Wodewick wearing very thin on me. He looks so... young. Aries looks great with his satan beard, Wodewick looks soooo bland, and his voice is fucking awful. Stop talking. Please. Shut up. Just stand there and rub your hands like some kind of obsessed clean freak. And it’s over.

Again there’s a video recap on the DVD, covering what happened at the 100th Show. It’s the same as the one on Night One, so basically there’s no point in watching it since you’re a muppet if you just buy night two.

Ring announcer announces that because of the previous night Danielson and McGuinness will be facing each other. Shock. Horror. Gasp. Whitmer interrupts this to get angry about CZW trying to kill him again. He calls out CZW, but Cornette and Pearce are out to try and insert some sanity and point out he’s half-dead. Sound’s a bit crap unfortunately, so it’s hard to follow what Cornette says. In short: “Don’t be a ‘tard, rest for a while, this fight isn’t going to be over in one night. We appreciate you being a straight up guy.” Awwww, bless. Cornette then cuts a brilliant promo about how shit WWE is and how it made him hate wrestling, and how ROH made him love wrestling again. I didn’t know Bobby Heenan was J.C.s childhood idol. He says he very much appreciates the respect he receives from the fans, and essentially puts over that ROH is at war not just with CZW but with every promotion out there who puts forth bad shows and crap Hardcore wrestling. Maybe Cornette’s got past the bad homophobic promos. I hope so, because this is great. Pearce becomes deputy Commissioner while J.C. is out of action for his knee surgery. Adam then cuts a pretty decent promo of his own. He’s cool. In case you didn’t know, he’s turned face . Still, the harmonics of the arena fuck over audibility and in the late bit of his promo he sounds like Delirious. Cornette has another go at Claudio Castagnoli. He’s gonna get killed by Joe later on...

AND OUT COMES NATE WEBB! Ambushes Pearce and goes after Cornette, but Ace Steele chases him off before he can do anything else. However, Pearce I think gets busted open again. As you can see, ROH is REALLY doing a good job of hitting back so far .

1st Match: Colt Cabana and Conrad Kennedy III vs. Irish Airborne

I still don’t like Colt Cabana. Conrad looks a little bit... strange. Very subdued. Doesn’t seem to appreciate being utterly ignored in favour of Cabana. Big ‘IRISH AIRBORNE’ chant. They’re nicely over. More Colt comedy wrestling, centred around how good he is at headlocks until Jake Christ hits a very unusual springboard side headlock. Colt tags in his partner with his foot, who then puts a headlock on Jake, who breaks free and uses another springboard side headlock to take control and get Irish Airborne in the fight. I wish they’d stop bringing up the feud with Homicide. It only gets more annoying as Colt continues to wrestle like a fool. Colt starts calling shots from the corner, and CKIII goes along with his requests. Dave Christ gets tagged in and performs a standing moonsault across half the ring onto their opponents, shortly followed by a second one, quebrada style. Stereo hurracanranas lead to a couple of unique dives, including a springboard elbow drop to the outside. That’s new. It looked like he slipped for a second, but after rewinding it was clearly deliberate. Another ‘IRISH AIRBORNE’ chant. CKIII fights free of their tag finisher, then hits a really weird move which is kind of a super swinging neckbreaker, except onto the knee. You really need to see it to understand it. Unfortunately it’s on the illegal man, and they take CKIII down with their unique spinebuster and an inverted powerslam off the top, which looked awesome. Sadly, not to be for the boys, ‘cause CKIII wasn’t legal, either, and Colt wraps it up with his powerbomb. Okay, nothing offensive in it.

**


2nd Match: Delirious vs. Chris Sabin

Well, Delirious is going over here. Or at least I’d hope so, since Sabin’s Mr. X Division and Delirious is super over in ROH. No ‘hail Sabin’ music here, but a couple of guys in the crowd say it as he’s slapping hands. This should be pretty good, I think. Unfortunately, they start a ‘LET’S GO SABIN’ chant instead of ‘HAIL SABIN’ which would be far more interesting. Didn’t realise he was former ROH, so outcome not so certain. Still reckon Delirious is going over comfortably. Especially since I know Delirious has a title match two shows down the line. How the hell he earns a title shot so quickly I don’t know, after being beaten by Danielson ‘just because’ recently. Some great stuff here, with Delirious being lots of fun as always, some very intricate ground work and technical plays, with, naturally, some cool high flying as well. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: There are no matches like Delirious matches. He’s so unique and cool; a great catch for ROH. They want to book him as much as they possibly can. I think the fans chant ‘BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH’ for Delirious, though I’m not sure...This referee is a berk. Delirious counters Cradle Shock with a sunset flip for a near fall, but Sabin’s right back in control with a nasty running kick to the face in the corner. Delirious’ rather nasty looking Shadows Over Hell gets a hot near fall, then there’s a lengthy sequence of finisher fakes, with both men countering repeatedly until Delirious finally locks in the Cobra Stretch for the win. This was great, and well worth the watching. Looks like Delirious is getting pushed properly now.

Post match Delirious hugs a fan at ringside holding a ‘Delirious is my dad’ sign, which Delirious puts in his mouth for a bit.

***1/2



3rd Match: Yang vs. Trik Davis vs. Jay Fury vs. Flash Flan. vs. Spud vs. Jacobs

It’s Jacobs’ last chance, if he loses he’s gone from Lacey’s Angels, and he’s without his beloved. Could he survive without her? I’m not sure. WIN, JACOBS, WIN! He’s weird; he’s still a kind of heel, but he’s so lovable now that it’s hard to think of him as one. Trik Davis is new to me, probably usual ROH fare with some pretty moves (guess), Spud’s kind of over and has cool entrance music. He’s got a decent look, too. Jay Fury looks ‘ard. He wouldn’t look out of place in the Rottweilers, though I think he might be the wrong ethnicity. Aren’t the Rottweilers all latin American? Flash Flanagan walks to the ring looking mean. I’ll bet he’s working heel. Out comes Jacobs. I love his entrance so very, very much, and the fans dig it, too. The fans actually sing along with some of the lyrics. This was a very successful gimmick attempt. Finally there’s Yang, he always looks cool with nu-triad look, his music’s nice, and he’s a decent enough worker. Flash won’t shake hands with anybody, but everyone else happily shakes hands. Yup, Flash is working heel. COME ON, JACOBS!

Jacobs suffers a major league embarassment on the first couple of moves when he does a leapfrog and manages to rip a hole in the crotch of his tights. Could be intentional, though. Lacey, of course, is disgusted. Trik Davis proves to be exactly what I expected. Typical ROH job-boy; some pretty stuff, but nothing special. Jacobs is tagged out by Yang, and gets pissed at him, starts slapping him across the face, so Yang, ever the unflappable cool machine, rupes his trousers off when he turns around. Yeah, the trouser split was intentional. Nice four-man spot with Spud, Flash, Jay Fury and Yang, before Yang blocks the jaytrix/enzifuri combo and hits a nice kick, followed by a punch and asai moonsault to the outside after being back bodydropped to the apron. REALLY slick stuff here. Yang’s on a real ‘on’ night here. Jay Fury hits a diving spinning thing to the outside that I have no idea how to how to name. Trik goes for a dive, but the trouserless Jacobs nails a spear for a flash near fall. Spud dives to the outside after putting Jacobs down, somehow Flash Flanagan has busted his nose up. Jacobs gets hurracanranaed from the top rope to the outside onto all the other guys by Trik Davis; nice. I liked that. I’m really enjoying this. Back in the ring there’s a bunch of missed splashes from the top, including a merosault and a Yang Time attempt. Finally Jacobs blocks an attempt by Yang to catch him on the way down with a spinning wheel kick only to walk into a superkick. Man this is great. This is EXACTLY what such a match should be. Chaotic, spectacular, and action-packed. Way better than the usual attempt. Jay jaytrix’s out of a spinning Spudline, and nails the enzifury. Trik gets a near fall on Flanagan, Jacobs hits a lovely combo of elbows into a Contra Code effort, but Trik gets a near fall on Jacobs. Jackobs stops him following up, goes up after him, then hits a top rope Contra Code on him to finally take the win! YAY!

Lacey is stunned by the outcome. “I can’t believe you won, you never win. I don’t know what’s going here. Pull your pants on!” she cries at ringside, but unfortunately the words are kinda killed by the camera because you can tell she wants to smile. It’s funny; Jacobs ignores the code of honour by leaving immediately and flipping everyone off but nobody cares. Flash does it and gets some heel heat. Jacobs is so over. YAY FOR JACOBS! Still no ‘no-hands’ headscissors, though. Nonetheless, I loved this.

***

4th match: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Samoa Joe

Claudio is seen up in the stands, and introduces himself despite a loud ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP’ chant and an equally loud ‘JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU’ chant. He’s heeling it up all the way here, and it works wonders. He’s way better at this than Chris Hero already. He challenges Joe to ‘just wrestle’ him, going hold for hold. Unsurprisingly, he’s more than happy to meet that challenge, and out he comes. I’m pretty sure that Joe switches languages while talking to Claudio (at the same time mocking him for his accent). Is Joe bi-lingual? I didn’t know. I don’t usually like Joe’s mic work, but this is actually very good. Joe swears he’ll wrestle and when the fans start a thunderous ‘JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU’, Joe shushes them and tells them to switch, so they start chanting ‘JOE’S GONNA WRESTLE YOU’, which I personally found very funny. Claudio then comes down from the stands, walks up the aisle, and does his entrance. Now, the fans constantly proclaiming ‘HEY’ as he goes by pisses him off. Sensible psychology from Claudio. He’s a good heel. Follows the code of honour, and Joe nearly crushes his hand in the shake. There’s this weird angle where Joe looks really short in comparison to Claudio. Then they get to wrestling. Interesting, of course, because Claudio insists on wrestling, when CZW/ROH has been all brutality and brawling up to now.

Opening section has some play around some nice tecnical sequences with Joe ending by doing something horrible, like grabbing him by the nose or sticking his hands in his mouth and clawing. Nasty looking stuff. Joe no-sells a european uppercut and proceeds to kick his head in. Proof positive that monsters ALWAYS get over in wrestling. A series of Joe european uppercuts are punctuated by ‘HEY’s from the crowd. Claudio starts trying to crawl out of the ring to escape from the very match he asked for, but Joe puts his foot on his leg to stop him. This isn’t the Joe demolition we were expecting, but it’s a demolition of a different sort. Claudio manages to hit a move before Joe counters, and this is the general flow of the match. Joe massacres and out-wrestles, Claudio hits a move, Joe counters the next one and goes back on offence. Claudio finally pokes him in the eye and hits a neckbreaker, then celebrates like he’s done something massive, finally giving him some sustained offence after about ten minutes. It’s not long before Joe’s back in with his snap powerslam into powerbomb/STF combo. Claudio hits about ten successive european uppercuts, but two big slaps from Joe knock Claudio right back down. He goes for the muscle buster, but here come Nate Webb and Necro. We all know Joe was gonna win. Essentially a squash, though an entertaining one. From the way Joe has been booked, I’m willing to say that there’s a written in part of the agreement between the companies that Joe be booked like God at all times.

**

Out come Pearce and Steele, and they’re going at Webb and Butcher respectively. Steele is as cool as ever. Oh, and angry. Pearce is wearing a bloodied head bandage, showing that he was ‘re-busted’ earlier in the evening. This is a great way to get Steele over properly, and I think he deserves it. He’s at least got intensity going for him, and he’s well suited to these violent brawls. Intensity’s more than a lot of ROH wrestlers have. Pearce hits a horrible looking release dragon suplex on Nate Webb in the ring into the buckles. OUCH. Necro, of course, does nought but brawling. Webb takes a piledriver on the wooden boards. In the ring, Necro goes to powerbomb steel onto a pair of chairs, but Pearce blocks, Ace turns the chairs around so they’re pressed back to back instead of seat to seat, and they powerbomb him onto them with Ace’s cry of ‘HE’S GONNA DIE!’ Webb nearly gets inverted piledriven from the top rope by Ace, but Super Dragon’s in to save the day and proceeds to help Webb fight Steele and Pearce. Doesn’t help Webb, who still gets killed by a powerbomb onto a chair. Whitmer hits the ring to go after Dragon despite Cornette’s earlier orders, and I have the feeling this isn’t going to go well, either. Steele, Webb and Pearce vanish through the crowd, and we see Steele walking along with a pair of chairs in hand, chasing Webb out onto the street. Meanwhile, it’s just Whitmer and Dragon in the ring...


5th Match: Whitmer vs. Dragon

Starts off with brawling, which Dragon wins after some very hard elbow strikes. Takes Whitmer down on the outside with a diving rope senton thing. Tope atomico? Dragon then nails Whitmer with a chair. I’ll be honest, I’m stunned that Whitmer HAS avoided injury ater both the Psycho Driver and the chair stomps. Dragon clearly knows how to do those ludicrous moves ‘safely’, if such a word can be used for it. Dragon continues to work on Whitmer with chairs. A double stomp on Whitmer’s neck gets the announcers riled up. Curb Stomp on the chair, face first, kills Whitmer. See, I knew this wasn’t going to work out well. Nonetheless, Whitmer kicks out of Dragon’s one finger pin; I love Dragon’s mask. He sets Whitmer up for another super double stomp onto the head, but Whitmer gets a burst of life. Tries the top rope exploder suplex, Dragon fights off and goes for the senton, but lands on Whitmer’s knees. Exploder suplex (must be Whitmer’s finisher) gets a HOT near fall. Whitmer brings a table into play. Tries to Exploder him over the ropes through the table, but Dragon neckbreakers him over the knee. Lots of play around the table, but nobody goes through and Dragon gets a near fall after a springboard spinning wheek kick to the back of Whitmer’s head. Gets a top rope spinning powerbomb on Whitmer for another close near fall. Okay, I was wrong, this might turn out okay for Whitmer in the end. I thought it was over after the Curb Stomp. Dragon brings another table into play. Oh dear. They have a mad spot planned... The tables get set up diagonally from the ring. This could be nasty.

Dragon goes for a top TURNBUCKLE Psycho Driver, but it’s Akiyama time, and Whitmer puts Super Dragon (and himself) through the tables with a top turnbuckle Exploder. Nice. Whitmer, however, is clearly suffering post-landing. Looks like his neck landed on a bit of the frame, and his back is lacerated. This is good, in a way, because it actually makes the tables look a lot more dangerous. Dragon doesn’t kick out when he’s rolled back in. A very satisfying conclusion, and ROH finally gets one up on CZW.

***

Whitmer asks for the trash to be taken out. Super Dragon continues to sell the Exploder like it killed him, totally dead weighting as Ace and Pearce dump him over the guard rail and drag him away. Quality. They take Super Dragon outside and just leave him on the sidewalk. There’s a cop out front.

Prazak is backstage with The Embassy and asks about Prince Nana. Apparently he’s in Ghana, starting the party because he knows the gang are gonna win. Daizee Haze is there, though. It’s not the same without Nana, though. I guess that shows how good he is, because I never really noticed what he put into The Embassy until it was gone. I feel so under-appreciative.


6th Match: Christopher Daniels vs. Generation Next’s bitch

Seriously, HOW many times has Matt Sydal been beaten by his teammates now? It’s got to be getting into double figures. Daniels follows the code of honour again. Good lord. Will wonders never cease? Unfortunately, it seems Sydal fucks his leg up on a simple Daniels leg trip. But it might just be an angle. He limps at first, then stops, does a handspring without any faltering. Nah, I think its worked. Daniels takes control early, working Sydal over with simple holds and moves. Sydal gets control by sweeping Daniels’ legs out while he’s climbing the turnbuckles and dropkicks him to the outside. Nasty. Sydal hits some good stuff while he’s in charge, but the fans are ominously silent for a few stretches. Sydal’s not so good on offence. Duelling chants break out, and I sense Lantern going into a rage. Daniels takes control again, and gets a brilliant near fall from a B.M.E. near the end. Back and forth over a turnbuckle situation, until Sydal wins by charging and shining wizarding Daniels off to the floor, following up with a moonsault. This is, as the fans are keen tell us, Awesome. Sydal tries a series of packages and rollups for near falls (very different to ‘the indy series’ pin sequence), then nails a great diving DDT off the top for a great near fall. Sydal blocks the arabian press with his knees, then hits his great frog standing moonsault. Goes for his weird driver move, but Daniels blocks and knocks him off, blocks a headscissor attempt, and instantly counters with Last Rites for the finish out of nowhere. Great match. Much better than I expected. It’s a ‘flashy Indy match’ great, though, so bear that in mind. I’m rating it based on what I think of it and also how I think it measures up to others of its ilk.

****


7th match: Nigel McGuiness vs. Bryan Danielson

Something’s up. There HAS to be a reason that this isn’t the main event. My guess would be CZW interference, or McGuiness going for a countout win again. Why the fuck’s he got that IRON? This should be amazing. My bet is on CZW interference. Fought under Pure Rules, so I’m looking forward to this a lot. Nonetheless, a missed opportunity. This is title vs. title. Since it’s under Pure rules, I’d have thought it makes most sense to have a match for the Pure title (with Guiness winning), then one for Danielson’s title (Danielson’s winning), and THEN a title vs. title match. But that’s just my feelings, and I’m not a booker.

Rather aggressive handshake between them to kick off. Don’t like each other much. Nigel’s huge in comparison to Danielson. This starts off slick, and doesn’t stop. Nothing flashy, just believable, clever technical wrestling, with all kinds of wonderful counters and reversals, showing how well matched the two of them are with Danielson maybe marginally ahead, getting a lengthy edge with a cravatte front headlock, both standing and on the ground. McGuiness can’t find a way to break it, and is tempted sorely to use a rope break. He finally breaks free with a forearm, but it just results in a harder one right back, and straight back into the cravatte. In the end, even despite Danielson’s taunts, McGuiness does in fact use a rope break, much to his irritation.

McGuiness then hits back sharply with some aggro, forcing Danielson into the corner, then punching him in the face (behind ref’s back) to get Danielson to punch him, get seen, and eventually lose a rope break due to this. McGuiness then takes over by working over Danielson’s arm. Eventually he uses a version of Danielson’s own elbows stoppage finisher to force him to use his second rope break.

McGuiness continues to dominate, there’s a bit where you can see them spot talking to each other (can’t hear it, though, that’s traditionally a WWE mistake), but Danielson’s momentary break doesn’t last long, and McGuiness takes him down, after a dropkick, with an armbar. It’s all looking grim for the World champ, as even when he escapes a long armbar for a second he’s rolled right through into a headlock/hammerlock combo. He still refuses to use the ropes to escape, though, and manages to roll McGuiness into his signature cocky surfboard, only to find his worked over arm too weak to do it. He falls back onto his favourite standby; the double stomp on the back of the knees. But yet again, McGuiness gets back on the arm. At this point, McGuiness looks like he has it sorted. Unfortunately, Danielson hits back with a release german suplex to get back into it.

Dragon gets back into control, hits his big diving headbutt, then locks on the chickenwing, forcing Nigel to use a rope break to escape from Danielson’s deadly primary finisher. He starts slapping Danielson about, but it’s pretty obvious that Danielson’s arm is fucked. McGuiness uses a handstand in the corner - dropkick to take Danielson down, then hits the Tower of London out of nowhere (NOT a move I thought you could deliver quickly), and Danielson is forced to use his third and final rope break.

McGuiness has one break left. Danielson has none. The champ is in dire straights indeed...

After some wrangling and blocking, McGuiness goes for the Tower of London to win, but Danielson manages to lock on Cattle Mutilation, and forces McGuiness to use his last rope break. The field is even. The announcers mention that if Danielson is caught using another closed fist he will be disqualified. Oh dear. I’m getting a bad feeling about this...

McGuiness suplexes Danielson outside the ring, and they’re both dead. This has been the rocks so far. McGuiness cleans up a table to use to choke Danielson on the floor, then runs into ring at the 17 count, hoping that the choke will have kept him down - nope! Danielson’s in at 19. The fans are all behind him now, McGuiness is unhappy. Prazak comes out with the very odd comment of ‘we are over 22 minutes in, so we have to start thinking of a 60 minute draw between these two men’ ... ... um... why?

Stuff happens, backslides and lariats and roaring elbows and McGuiness’ rope rebound thing into lariat ahoy-hoy, and Danielson rolls him through into Cattle Mutilation! He can’t rope break, but he can slowly, meticulously drag himself all the way out of the ring, threatening submission over and over again, working the fans up into a frenzy, until he finally slides out to the floor, escaping the Cattle Mutilation. What can he possibly do to recover from the damage, though? Danielson follows him out with a tope, and they’re both down. Can McGuinness pull off what he did with Daniels the previous evening? Nope. Chucked into the crowd, he ends up taking a springboard dive from Danielson... only McGuiness has a chair in the way! McGuinness is going to make it into the ring, Danielson’s vaguely moving. The ref’s at 18... McGuinness wins! McGuinness wins by count out!

However, the referee 180s and as the announcer declares a new World Champ, the ref says that only the PURE title can change hands through count out. What a load of bollocks. Not quite a Dusty finish, but they totally 180ed on what they were offering. I guess I’m right; McGuiness will surely get a straight World Title shot now... or... thunderous ‘FIVE MORE MINUTES’ chant. Danielson’s well up for it. McGuiness seems less keen, and in fact refuses, satisfying himself with his victory. Danielson’s been beaten in a singles match, and he’s not happy about it.

Okay, my suspicions were all off. I’m happy my cynicism was disappointed.

****1/2

Feud video for GenNEXT vs. The Embassy. It’s kinda crap, though, and just basically says: They’ve wrestled a few times. It doesn’t even indicate which team or persons won the previous matches, so there’s not even an indication of which team has the edge coming into this match, in terms of win/loss record. So it’s... uh... utterly pointless. Oops.


8th Match: Aries/Strong vs. Rave/Shelley

Again; NO NANA! What a pity. But Daizee Haze is there, and she looks good. She says stuff at the camera, but sadly we can’t hear. As always Alex is the best at the toilet paper shower. I think he provokes someone into nailing him right in the head, and promptly acts like he’s been shot. Unfortunately it happens off-camera! Fools! This happened at Supercard of Honour, too, despite the fact Shelley is the only one who really changes his act up each time.

I so want The Embassy to win here. I know it isn’t going to happen, but I want it to happen. If nothing else it might make that cocky shit Strong cry. He’d make a much better heel than face. There’s something about him that I find generically objectionable. Still, the fans love him, and a duelling chant starts out... between Aries and Strong supporters. Shelley has a little chat with the camera about how childish the toilet paper showers are, which gets a counter comment from Aries about TNA fans.

I’m now officially mystified by this as the main event. The whole title of ‘Weekend of Champions’ is clearly angled towards the Danielson/McGuiness match.

The Embassy are total pricks at Strong for a while, until the chops get laid in on Rave and everything breaks down. Embassy get wiped out on the side by stereo dives to the outside. Shelley actually sells Aries’ chops better than Rave sells Strong’s, by screaming like he’s been hit with a sledgehammer. Didn’t realise that Alex Shelley was originally in GenNEXT. Strong has a word or two with Haze, but she isn’t impressed. I’m not surprised, either, he has an incredibly unthreatening voice.

Rave takes a brutal double team from GenNEXT, as well as the powerdrive elbow, before Aries tries to chop, realises he sucks, then tags in Rod to do it. However, this inspires him to try again, and does a little homage to baseball after a great buildup to an overhand chop. Welcome to why Austin Aries is the heart of GenNEXT. However, this gives Haze a chance to run in and low blow Aries, which Shelley follows up with by simply grabbing his crotch and grinning like an idiot at the fans. He then continues the groin ofence, before pretending to tag so Rave can attack Aries. Shelly also mocks Strong across the ring, which I greatly approve of, and when he’s tagged in he takes this a step higher with the kind of cockiness that would make even the great KENTA think: “My, what a cock”. Except in Japanese, obviously.

A repeatedly frustrated Strong eventually runs in and chops Rave across the back, sending him scurrying over to tag in Shelley again. Haze assists on an abdominal stretch while Rave gets Rodders to try and get into the match again, because he’s a total gimp. Embassy domination continues, hurting Aries a lot, setting Strong up for his super aggro save. Shelley puts Aries in a Steiner Recliner, Rave distracts the ref, and Haze comes in for a dropkick, but both Shelley and Aries duck. However, it looks like Haze lands on Shelley a bit awkwardly. Aries makes the tag, though, and Strong proceeds to kill The Embassy. Kicks, backbreakers, chops, Gibson Driver, we know how this goes. The double backbreaker and chop/brainbuster gets a near fall, Shelley breaks, Rodders tries the half nelson but it’s blocked, blocked again and countered into an Air Raid Crash. Aries goes for the roll, but Shelley blocks and The Embassy hit a cool spear/clothesline combo. Rave hits Ghanarea, and it’s a near-fall (that’s a lovely move). Shelley tries Sliced Bread, takes an inverted piledriver. End of match. Usual way.

Nice stuff, but pretty much lacking significant drama and not booked very well. Horrible choice for the main event.

***

I say it again; this is getting boring. These titles are suffering from total fucking inertia. The World Title is still invigorated by Danielson’s amazing performances, and the Pure Title is defended only semi-regularly, so it remains significant. The ROH tag titles feel stagnant, not like the crappy WWE title, that’s much worse. The problem here is that there’s no credible challengers. They’ve MASSACRED everyone. No wonder they didn’t put any effort into the feud video; it’s irrelevant.

Final segment backstage between Danielson and McGuinness, with McGuiness coming out on top after Delirious has a go at Danielson for... something.



I am now convinced; GenNEXT MUST lose the tag titles to keep this ‘division’ alive. It’s stupid as it is. They’ve ANNIHILATED every team in the company. Someone needs to beat them. I HOPE it’s the Briscoes, but as the BBs are booked really sporadically (they appeared on neither of these two shows) I really can’t see them being given the titles since they won’t be there to defend them. I can’t think of ANY team that has been put over strongly enough to make an even remotely credible threat to Aries/Strong. In ROH, without such an intense feud structure as WWE to provide reasons to believe one team can win, that’s a fatal flaw. All we’ve got is the strength of the wrestlers’ in-ring performances, most of the time. Gah. We’ll see.

Im glad Roderick String getting recognition at last in ROH, he been underated for too long.

The latest Online show is up on ROHVideos.com, with loads of clips from the Cage Of Death. It looks awesome, especially Ace Steel going old school with the cowbell~!

Just watched Better than our Best. Really awesome show, probably better than Supercard.

The opening sixman mayhem was pretty much standard for a scramble style match and pretty forgettable.

Delirious vs Reyes was a fun little match with Delirous' ROH career at stake. It was fun but not much more.

Now the goodness begins...

Yossino & The Embassy vs Do Fixer was incredible fun. Yossino got a good toilet papering with the Embassy and really got into the heel spirit of the embassy. Throwing a toilet roll in Ryo Satos face at the start was great. So much fun with a big sprint finish. Quality

AJ Styles vs Christopher Daniels vs Jimmy Yang vs Samoa Joe. Joe, AJ and Daniels know each other inside out by now. Some of the closing exchanges were really impressive. Jimmy Yang didn't really add anything to the match but it was still very good and was a rare fourway that actually had meaning.

Afterwards Joe had a verbal confrontation with Danielson. Joe was in super intense mode while Danielson was in full on prick mood. Can't wait for these guys to finally match up as this was building very nicely.

Blood Generation vs Generation Next.
Better still that the lasty tag match. Aries busted his nose pretty bad and CIMA and Doi were not afraid to expliot it.

Danielson vs Lance Storm
Storm looked pretty sharp and had plenty of support. Danielson really turned up the arse-holery to fire the atmosphere up. The match was very much what you'd expect with really solid mat work from both guys. Danielson's title defences are now completely unmissable. Just an epic series of matches in his reign as champion. The end of the match featured the lamest most cringeworth ROH chant of ALL TIME. 'Less is more, less is more'...Weak....

Homicide vs Colt Cabana
The voilence of this fued meant that this match was always going to be a huge hardcore blow-off. There were some really nice references to the previous beatings Homicide had given Cabana with the various weapons that came into play. I still preffered the Streetfight from Death Before Dishonour 2 but this was pretty good. I enjoyed it plenty but it isn't really a classic. I think in a gritty bloody fight like this it would have been better if Julious Smokes had avoided the over the top comedy selling. It seemed out of place.

Very unsure of whether I approved of the hand shake finish. If they'd had a classic wrestling match then fair enough but after such a voilent war? hmmmm not convinced...

Finally watched the Dragon Gate Six Man from SoH.

Absolutely breathtaking to watch at times. I wouldn't go as far as to say one of the best matches ever, but it's definately my match of the year so far, although I haven't seen even CLOSE to a lot of the good matches this year.

I just ordered Shimmer vol. 4, and the next 3 ROH cards.

NO JIMMY JACOBS

Wonder what's up? They finally gave him his win, and everything. Surely they should go with that?

Didn't even notice that chant when I watched it but that's pretty bad ass kissing.

The reason you don't always notice the crowd when Danielson's in there is because he's so fucking awesome that our attention's focused on him. The best thing is that since his style is primarily submission and technical based the risk of him injuring himself is relatively low; if he was taken out of action it'd be a nightmare for ROH.

If only Cornette wouldnt make the gay jokes so much.

So, if ROH won the war, why bother having the barbwire ropes match?

Yeah he's even better since he became a cocky heel, when did that happen?

Until recently the last time I saw him in ROH was during their first year when he was an awesome yet colourless face.

His promo on Samao Joe at Better Than Our Best was great lol - "Lose some weight fatty, lose some weight"

Apparently his personality came about after he toured the UK and Europe; basically he picked up on some things his repertoire was missing, most notablyhow to be a fucking awesome heel.

I can say without any overstatement that Danielson has the potential to be better than Chris Benoit; he's already a better character now, and capable of better promos, than Benoit's ever had or ever done. And his ring work is sublime. God, just imagine if the two wrestled each other!

Thanks for the info.

Yeah that'd be so good that ROH fans would probably be chanting "This is awesome" seconds after they locked up lol.

He already seems more comfortable on the mic than Benoit ever has, his "whoa...whoa....whooooooooa" surfboard made me laugh the first time I saw it. Can't wait to see him V Nigel McGuinness in Liverpool

Him v McGuinness on Weekend of Champions was absolutely awesome; the rematch is going to be Godly with the heat coming out of that.

The best sign of Danielson's mutation is at Arena Warfare. He cuts a HHH-length promo, and the entire thing is incredible.

according to the ROH newswire OVWS Chris Cage debuts at the end of the month

Got this from TWC forumns dont know if its 100% true but





itll be sad if he does go he was one of my favourate wrestlers in the promotion but he does deserve it

Nick Berk? He sucked so bad even CZW got rid of him. That's how bad he is.

I don't even know who Nick Berk is. I'll miss neither of them.

How can you be better than your best?

The show opens with a deeply pointless segment featuring Cabana, where he interrupts the pre-show to call out Homicide, only Homicide isn’t here yet. So then he leaves again. Thanks for that.

Ace Steel Vs Matt Sydal Vs Zeppo Crist Vs Harpo Crist Vs Jack Evans Vs Jimmy Jacobs

Urgh. A six man spot schmoz to kick off, very little in the way of wrestling, or anything resembling a contest, really. Just a bunch of spots, some more contrived than others, which in fairness were all executed well. The best probably being Ace Steel hitting a leg drop, Widow’s Peak and Stunner on three opponents simultaneously. At least IA, Evans and Sydal were all in one match. Evan’s gets the win with a 630. Next!

Jimmy Cornette pops out for his now traditional ROH promo, “Boy, I love these fans, boy, do I not like CZW”. He also finds time to grant Colt Cabana his Street Fight against Homicide tonight, and bring out an overexcited Delirious. The green goblin has one last chance to keep his spot on the roster, and he gets to pick his opponent. Pick Groucho Crist, he just got squished! Ker-azy man that he is, he ends up picking Ricky Reyes, due to the Rottweiler jumping him last night.

Delirious Vs Ricky Reyes

There was something just intensely satisfying about this. The fans love them some Delirious, really. And they don’t like Reyes, who is an effective heel, what with his funny shaped head and silly voice. So this match was short, and mainly involved Reyes bullying the likeable little loon around the ring with punishing neckbreakers and kicks, while the crowd did their best to show that they really, really want Delirious to stay put. Also, Smokes is apparently on his up cycle, as he is literally bouncing around ringside yelling ‘NIGGER!’ at people, which is always good for a laugh. And so eventually, after some close near falls and some big moves, Delirious locks in a choke submission of his own and the place goes green banana as Reyes taps out. A jubilant Delirious dives into the arms of the ringside fans, who are all happy and stuff that the weird little guy will be appearing on future presentations. Ahhhh.

Alex Shelly, Jimmy Rave and Masato Yoshino Vs Do Fixer

Was I ever looking forward to this! Yoshino and the Embassy do each others signature taunts to the ring, and Yoshino reacts to the biggest toilet paper showering ever along with his team mates. Genki has realised that the Gaijin fans are not up on their Dragon Gate, so he’s made a “PLEASE call me HAGE!” sign. The crowd are pretty hot for this after the excesses of last night coupled with the heelish status of the Embassy.
I fucking loved this match. Everything just seemed to click into place; Genki and Ryo’s silky double team work was extra silky and super, Dragon Kid again looked re-energised in a new environment, Yoshino heeled it up brilliantly, Rave was smooth without being flashy and Shelley was flashy without being likeable. From the off it’s clear Yoshino can even teach the Embassy a thing or two about heeling, as he twats Saito with a roll of toilet paper from the outside. Bastard. Shelley also seems to have been short changed by a waitress toady, as he goes totally overboard with being a dickhead, and his language…shocking. Rave is the third part in this for a change but it’s still awesome to have him in a match with guys that do the crazy Asaism things, just scoop slamming them and stamping on their faces.
Genki’s poster does the trick and he fights back with a big rush of crowd support and now we SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT to the end in true Dragon gate style. And it’s all fucking good stuff, with the usual flawless execution from the Gaters, and nothing to complain about from the Embassies end either. In fact, Rave’s Suplex/spear/DDT type offence looked crisper and hurtier then ever. A nice moment was Rave and Yoshino hitting a Lightning Spiral and the Ghana-rea simultaneously (They’re basically the same move) But the finish would come from the one thing the ROH fans didn’t want to see – Rave hitting a pedigree on Genki (Following Horiguchi taking a ludicrously dangerous lariat bump) and picking up the win. The fans go nuts and throw stuff. Brilliant, brilliant match. Just wall to wall fun and craziness.

Jimmy Yang Vs AJ Styles Vs Samoa Joe Vs Christopher Daniels

What? Can’t we have just the one pointless multi man schmoz on each show? And boy, an opportunity to see another Styles/Daniels battle of the soul mates match is doing even less for me. Add to that the exchange between Yang and Daniels that opens this up; straight out of my ‘Wrestling As Creative Dance’ nightmares, and I’m considering the fast forward button. Or death by consuming the remote control. Luckily, there’s something that is going to save this match – Samoa Joe is having a bad day.
I’m not sure if he was just extra motivated or if someone had trod on the back of his heel so his foot popped out of his shoe (Hate that) but Joe was just going nuts here, wrestling the entire match with his psycho face on. He literally tagged in when AJ was down, kicked him all over the ring like a football, gave him a face wash and knocked Daniels off the apron in about ten seconds of sweaty fury. He also kicked Styles so hard in the face that AJ jumped up and potatoed him back at one point, again showing himself as one of the few wrestlers who can make AJ stop arsing around and start fighting. Saying that, Joe pulled out a rolling cradle, but I guess you can’t have everything.
Yang does OK here. He’s involved in a few too many glossy sequences, but manages to hit all his spots well and doesn’t whiff any of his kicks for a change. He also produced a frightening clear the ropes tope that just didn’t look like he cared where he landed. AJ and Daniels only get the chance to do one unpleasantly ballet like sequence which I guess we should be grateful for. Also, Joe pinned AJ, the perfect result.

The post match confrontation between Joe and Danielson was fantastic. Dragon is such an asshole. As is now traditional with the Milestone shows, we get Hero and Butcher running in, another arena wide brawl featuring Pearce and ROH getting owned, this time thanks to a Claudio miscue putting Cornette in position to get his arm minced. Maybe it’s just because I’m watching all these shows close together, but this feud should get moving with some matches.

Austin Aries and Roderick Strong Vs CIMA and Naruki Doi

Bringing the Dragon Gate participation on the weekend to a close is this little beauty. Perhaps the best match for the ROH Tag Straps I’ve seen, this was a neat mix of ROH spot style and Dragon Gate slow build with only a little awkwardness blurring the lines.
It started off as a typical Generation Next title defence, with the champs looking assured and dangerous in the ring. ROH go out of their way to make the Aries/Strong combination look almost impossible to defeat, and here they cheerfully go about there business of taking Blood Gen to pieces with combination moves, possibly whistling off key as they do so. Things like the spots revolving around Roderick’s chops and Strong fooling CIMA into a drop down so Aries can senton him build the aura of elitism that lets their characters function so well in ROH.
However, this match really gets interesting after CIMA makes a hot tag, and he and Doi hit criss-cross Topes on the Champions. Somehow, Aries gets his nose broken on the dive and now it’s Blood Generation happy fun time. First, CIMA just pops Aries in his nose, but then Doi lays him throat down across the second rope and CIMA PUNTS him in the face, then has a good laugh about it. It was gross, and from then on Aries is bleeding all over the shop. Blood Generation take advantage by working over his nose for the rest of the match, including CIMA double stomping him in the face a few times. Aries has always been great at a kind of punch drunk selling of a match, he’s working out of his skin here – looking genuinely out of it and battered. He also has little flashes of furious “Stop punching my nose please! You anger me!” but gets cut off easily due to his guts falling out of nostrils. Aries also isn’t afraid to get absolutely fucking murdered, as he lets Doi run from one corner to the other and powerbomb him into the turnbuckle. Spine fusing.
Eventually he puts CIMA on his head with a knee breaker/backdrop combo and tags out. Now we go nuts! Strong kills Doi with a sweet dropkick, Aries proves to be nuts by taking an Ace Crusher and an Avalanche Release German Suplex right on his already two dimensional nose. CIMA Pulls out the Tokarev and the fans wet themselves. In a moment that just made me go “Yes!” Aries breaks up a Doi pin by measuring him, letting him get to two, then just Knocking him the fuck out with the Kick Of Death.
CIMA goes for the Schwein on Rodders, but Gen Next reverse it into a combination Missile Dropkick/Powerbomb Backbreaker that had to suck. One 450 later and it’s all over bar the stupid chanting. Awesome, awesome stuff, one of the best worked matches seen in ROH in a long time. I was a little pissed off to see the legit respect from CIMA, but as it actually went somewhere in a Dragon Gate storyline I guess it’s not too bad.

Bryan Danielson Vs Lance Storm

Soooo…what was Lance Storm’s last match to date. Lance Storm has been a much maligned figure on the Internet as of late, somewhere there’s an entire sub-forum dedicated to people who are better wrestlers than him. It’s funny, because I always remembered him as being quite well liked. He was great in WAR, he was good in ECW (chairshots aside) he was pretty damned awesome in WCW and he was good in WWE…for a while. Am I remembering all this wrong? Well, I guess a nice long title match will give me much time to decide. More time to decide than the Doug Williams match at the 1PW show, which I confess to being a little ‘merry’ for.
Danielson may well be my wrestler of the half year, he’s been off the wall fun in ROH, a proper scuzzy pick of a champion who fucks people around because he likes to, not because he needs to. It lets him play Tweener, and although skin crawling duelling chants will always be a feature of ROH matches, Danielson is discovering more and more ways to actually get fans of the company to boo him because they don’t like him. Shocking, I know.
Early on, I decide the whole Lance Storm thing is another one of those re-assessing history dealies like how we’re not supposed to like old ECW matches anymore. He takes it to the mat with AmDrag in a rough, realistic style, and gets across the experience divide by having an answer for all his stuff. When he finally hits his breathtaking dropkick the place goes wild and Danielson sells it like a bastard on the outside. He also works in that Roll Into Half Crab that so pretty to look at. So far, so good. He’s also a great bumper, eating all of AmDrag’s offence really well, such as a nasty looking spill to the outside and a Rolling Elbow that made y teeth hurt to look at.
Lance’s negatives are also pretty apparent however. And it’s strikes. I cringed at his forearms for all the wrong reasons, love taps not restricted to weapon shots in Storm’s world. That was nothing compared to the horror of his elbow strike with Spanish dance clap or what I guess passes for a clothesline. Yeah, that stuff wasn’t pretty.
Still, overall I thought this match did a good job. It was pretty basic stuff that didn’t reach the trouser stretching level of some of AmDrag’s other defences, but it kept my attention and some of the nearfalls had the crowd baying.
Speaking of the crowd, American audiences continue to plumb new depths of mental disability; I can’t imagine the level of mind that chants “Less Is More” at a wrestling show. Kill yourself.
Danielson has managed to create somewhat of a formula for his ROH title matches, not to say it hasn’t meant they’ve been very entertaining. He gets out wrestled earlier on, carries the majority of the offence by being a cock to his opponent, then there’s a red hot closing sequence. This follows the pattern, and a ever so slightly lagging crowd is fired up for the reversal sequence and on their feet for Storm’s cradle, half crab, and AmDrag’s reversal of the latter that harkened back to last nights match against Strong. Something else that Danielson has going for him is the sheer amount of ways the crowd are willing to believe he can win a match, all of which get big reactions. Here, he finally puts away Storm with the good old fashioned Cattle Mutilation. The Canadian gets his circle jerk of legit respect from the ROH fans and walks away, no-where near as bad as people seem to remember, but perhaps not quite worth the reaction he receives. More than decent match.

Colt Cabana Vs Homicide

I hated this. I hated this feud, I hate Colt Cabana in serious mode and I thought this match was awful.
Homicide is made for this kind of thing, he looks legitimate, he can throw a good punch and he takes an ass kicking. Cabana gurns uselessly when he tries to be serious, I like the guy fine as a light-hearted enthusiast of my nations wrestling history. I’ve seen many of his matches live and on tape and I liked more than I hated. But a 6 month feud with Homicide featuring increasing violence and culminating in a ‘chair riot’ is so far away from his comfort zone he couldn’t walk there in a day. I understand the need to create more ROH main event stars to combat the TNA brain drain, but Cabana isn’t it. He’s not going anywhere beyond being a very good, very over mid-carder and someone else could’ve done so much with a 6 month feud with a top liner.
The only moments I thought were much cop in this whole mess was the stuff with the fork, mainly because I’m a big mark for forks and spikes. And yeah, it was a nice piece of redemptive wrestling to see Cabana carving Homicide up, although he doesn’t do it anywhere near as well as Corino has. Also the rubbing alcohol spot was nice and Cide sold it perfectly. The DDT onto the ladder was another absolutely sickening moment…Not sold so well, unfortunately. Or at all. I thought bringing the wire out so early and then not using it until the end was a great idea, but having Homicide kick out of a Superbomb through a table into barbed wire then get pinned with a Canadian Backbreaker maybe wasn’t. Oh well.
The ending gave a lot of people trouble, but I can kind of take it. If nothing else, it means that the Homicide/Cabana feud is done, which is good. It means Cabana doesn’t have to be serious Cabana anymore, which is excellent. And it means Homicide is now a face, which is a relief, because he sucks at being a heel big time.

This was a good show, main event non-standing. The 6 way was shitty, unless you’re Edgecrusher and love those sort of things. The Four Way wasn’t a good wrestling match but watching Joe rule all over AJ Styles and Chris Daniels will never get old and this was a good example. The Delirious match is great. Both the Dragon Gate matches were fantastic. The world title match is very cool. This is one of the best ROH shows ever, well worth a watch.

Nice review Lantern. I've kind of decided watching is more fun than reviewing, and have this show, the 100th show and Weekend of Champions night 1 all watched but not reviewed. Hmmm.

Glad to see LOTS of pimpage for Blood Embassy vs Do Fixer, which I reckon will get lost in the shuffle as the year goes on but really, really is awesome.

To be honest, sometimes all the reviewing is a real fucking chore, which is why I like to break the boredom up with jokes about AJ and Daniels and their civil partnership. But I will persist in my crazy task to review every ROH show this year and see if I still like wrestling afterwards. Compared to what PUNQ is doing, it should be a walk in the park.

And I will be going to bat for the Blood Embassy match all year. I almost like it more than the SCOH 6 man.

Okay, bare with me here as I am not the best at producing the most interesting reviews. I'll give it a good go though.

ROH - Redemption - 12/08/2005 - Dayton, OH

Match 1 - Four Corner Survival Match - Matt Stryker vs. Ace Steel vs. Delirious vs. Sterling Keenan

These 4 way matches are horrible, especially when they seem to mean absolutely nothing. I might be wrong because I just chose this show to be my starting point in getting back into ROH after neglecting it for the better part of a year, but these types of matches just seem to have no meaning at all, they're basically just a card filler when they could actually have a really good match replacing these pointless 4 ways. Anyway, onto the match in hand, I've not seen much of any of these guys this year but they didn't look too impressive with what they had to work with throughout this match, not enough wrestling for my liking but this is usually the case with 4 way matches. I've never liked Delirious, his 'unique' style bores the shit out of me and his character is stale. Ace Steel eventually getting the win meant nothing at all, but the whole match seemed to come together slightly nearer the end of it, just a few minutes before Ace got the pin though, so there wasn't much time to make it into a credible match.

Match 2 - Spanky vs. Colt Cabana

I never really got into this match. I like Cabana and all when it comes to segments/promos etc. but I really don't like his matches at all, his comedy routine has been done for way too long and is pretty stale in my eyes. His matches always drag on because of how limited he is in the ring and when it comes to having a proper through and through wrestling match he rarely produces the goods. A couple of main factors as to why I never enjoyed this was because of how much time they got, but I suppose that could be down to the fact that Cabana's very limited. The European style that Cabana portrays doesn't help either, they never really seemed to get out of first gear and his style was a reason why, it simply doesn't help the speed of the match improve because it keeps them at a certain pace all the way. As for Spanky, he can have good matches but I never enjoyed his performance this time round, maybe because he was against Cabana and had to work the comedy role? Who knows.

Match 3 - ROH Tag Team Title Match - BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs © vs. Nigel McGuinness and Chad Collyer

I've just watched this match twice to make sure I actually did enjoy it and it wasn't me making myself enjoy it, but no it was fantastic. I've never been a huge fan of Whitmer but his performance throughout this match was fantastic, he put everything into it and his true ability shone through. Jimmy Jacobs is great, I've always loved watching his matches in ROH and he gets me coming back for more. I enjoy his style, he has the right look and he really looks like he knows what he's doing in the ring. Collyer and McGuinness were great in this too, they really played their part. Both men are good enough wrestlers and were solid through this match, especially when they were working as a team. I've always enjoyed the tag team wrestling in ROH, much better than a lot of other promotions.

Match 4 - Six Man Tag Team Match - Jimmy Rave, Alex Shelley and Abyss w/Prince Nana (The Embassy) vs. Austin Aries, Roderick Strong and Matt Sydal (Generation Next)

Prince Nana is fucking brilliant, I really don't know how WWE or TNA haven't picked this guy up yet, he is brilliant at putting his team over, solid on the mic and generally is a heel you love to hate. Abyss doesn't suit ROH, The Embassy or waiting in the corner for a tag. A monster like Abyss waiting to be tagged in the corner so he can come in and kick ass doesn't look right and isn’t believable, a guy like Abyss should be coming into the ring and destroying everyone in sight, not abiding by the rules. He doesn't suit the style of The Embassy or ROH either, there is a certain similarity between ROH's wrestlers' styles and Abyss just doesn't fit into the category, he's better off sticking with TNA and only TNA.

Anyway, onto the match, Alex Shelley's work rate in ROH is fantastic, he's an amazing wrestler and showed this in this match. Same goes for most of the guys in this match too, but another guy who stands out ability wise is Jimmy Rave, from what I've seen him in he's been awesome and he shows a real sense of psychology and how to properly work a match. Two of the biggest factions in Ring of Honor going head-to-head make for a great match and entertaining TV, seeing matches like this really makes me wonder why I boycotted ROH for ages.

Match 5 - Grudge Match - Low Ki vs. Jay Lethal

This match was decent, not anything special decent at the very most. But I must say that Jay Lethal is a great seller, his screaming after Low Ki performed a move on him really made me believe he was legitimately hurt. It was a shame though, this match would have been much better if the speed increased as the match went on, but it didn't. They seemed to be stuck in a rut and just couldn't up the pace at all. Well, a count out was certainly disappointing but it continued the feud so it was a good way as neither man loosed any face over it.

Match 6 - Matt Hardy vs. Homicide

I thought this was a good enough match, Hardy really showed what he is capable of away from the E, shame he's back to being the King of the Jobbers now. The crowd were electric for the majority of the match, just goes to show with Hardy not that long gone from WWE what they thought of him. Surprisingly quite a few fans were on his side, though. Anyway, I was quite pleased to see a lot of near falls nearer the end of the match, it made it feel as if the match could go either way instead of it being predictable. Overall it was a pretty decent contest with a good combination of styles.

Match 7 - ROH World Title Elimination Match - CM Punk © vs. Christopher Daniels vs. James Gibson vs. Samoa Joe

Wow, CM Punk is awesome and the heat he had was a brilliant way to go out. Great main event, it was a very solid match that was worked out well, all four men definitely put in everything they had. James Gibson going over was amazing too, he's a solid worker and deserved a run with the ROH title whether it is short or long, it's a real shame when you look at him in WWE these days. The celebration at the end with the roster and the handshake was a good send out for Punk. Can't really say much else about the main event other than I thought it was a fantastic 4 way, just shows how 4 ways should be done unlike the pointless one we had opening the show.

ROH - Joe vs. Kobashi - 01/10/2005 - New York, NY

ROH rolls into Manhattan, New York this time round in front of sold out crowd looking forward to one of the most anticipated matches in the history of ROH, Kenta Kobashi vs. Samoa Joe.

Match 1 - Colt Cabana vs. Claudio Castagnoli

Hmm, like I've said I'm not a huge fan of Cabana but when he's more serious in the ring his matches and style are much better and don't make me want to fast forward them...

The styles of both of these guys' seemed to blend together well as the match went on, Castagnoli impressed me for the better part of the match. I've not seen much of this guy and wouldn't mind seeing him again if I get a few more events with him on them.

At the very beginning of the match loud Cabana chants echoed through the arena, they (the crowd) were firmly on Cabana's side for this one. Cabana was constantly being distracted by Homicide's 'thugs' and this cost him the match because his attention and mind were somewhere else. Also, the commentators don't get tired of pointing out that they're wrestling with the European influence, do they? That seems to be all they blabber on about...

Match 2 - Three Way Elimination Match - Christopher Daniels vs. Azrieal vs. Matt Sydal

Loud 'Fallen Angel' chants were going through the arena before Daniels' music even hit, he's really over in ROH. Eh, this match was all right, by no means anything special but it was a cute little match at the start of the card. One thing I hate though is contrived spots, I hate when you see guys moving into a certain place so a guy can perform a moonsault or some sort of high flying move, it makes it look worked when really you're trying to believe what's happening in the ring. At a certain point during this Daniels hit a lariat on Sydal, you saw Sydal swing back and land on his neck and stay in that position for about 10 seconds, now that, that made me cringe. It looked fucking painful.

Azrieal was eliminated soon after, then Sydal looked as if he was really going for it until Daniels stopped him in his tracks to pick up the victory with an Angels Wings.

Match 3 - ROH Tag Team Title Match - BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs © vs. Tony Mamaluke and Sal Rinauro

Mamaluke came out and said he was glad to be back, said they had accepted BJ and Jimmy's open challenge, and he also plugged the fact he was a former ECW Tag Team Champion. I don't know why though, I don't think anyone actually gave a shit...

Anyway, it started off pretty slow but was actually quite an entertaining match for the better part of it, surprisingly because I don't usually enjoy Mamaluke's work. After Whitmer tagged out the match began to speed up and it started to flow faster with a few nice spots. Mamaluke and Rinauro eventually picked up the win to walk away with the belts! It's a shame though, after this I've heard it's all down hill with their matches being full of botches and their title run bombs...

Match 4 - ROH Pure Title Match - Nigel McGuinness © vs. Jay Lethal

Nigel started off patronising Jay by telling the fans to let the referee tell Jay the rules, he also ripped off Bret Hart by saying "I'm the best there is, the best there was...", but couldn't finish because of the crowds jeering and booing. There's some amount of chops in this match which can only be good because Jay can chop with the best of them. Nigel hit Jay with a massive, stiff kick in the corner after Jay was tied up in the ropes, it look sore to the say the least. Lethal was gaining the advantage with a spine buster and a few more chops just to make Nigel's chest even redder, but when the ref wasn't looking Nigel knocked Jay right out with a blow to the head with the iron. McGuinness is a fucking fantastic heel. The match was good for how long it lasted, usually Pure Title matches last longer than these but this wasn't your typical Pure style kind of match.

Match 5 - Roderick Strong vs. Jimmy Rave

Strong looked as if he genuinely wanted to beat the crap out of Rave here, great stuff. Prince Nana~! is a true heel, bringing out Jade Chung in a dog leash was greatness. The match kicked off with yet another chop fest and when Rave realised he wasn't winning it he got out of the way. It was a very solid, fast-paced match with some nice moves exchanged. Strong picked up the win after about 13 minutes when he hit Rave with a gut buster and locked in the Strong Hold.

Jade Chung turning on The Embassy was played out brilliantly, from the low blow on Rave to the slap on Nana. It was a long time coming but was well worth the wait. One of ROH's longest feuds has been one of their best by a big margin.

Match 6 - Ricky Reyes vs. Pelle Primeau

Erm...I don't even think this can be called a match. I was looking forward to seeing this Pelle guy as I've never seen him before, he didn't get any offence in at all before Reyes made him tap out after about a minute. Pointless squash match.

Match 7 - James Gibson vs. Jimmy Yang

After it was acknowledged that Gibson is heading back to WWE there was massive chants from the crowd, like "Smackdown sucks!" and "Please don't go!", they were really showing their appreciation for Gibson and rightfully so. It's always a shame to lose a great wrestler.

Yang and Gibson were both excellent during this, both using various styles that were met well with the crowd and really showed what they are capable of. I look forward to checking out Yang's other ROH matches as I've heard nothing but positive reviews about them. Gibson took the advantage by diving onto Yang outside on the floor, throwing him back into the ring and hitting him with stiff spin kicks. Gibson was hit a spine buster after both guys were exchanging clotheslines and various pinfall attempts. Yang eventually got the advantage after hitting a corkscrew on his second attempt, Gibson dodged it the first time. Gibson eventually got his momentum back after hitting the Tiger Driver but Yang got his shoulder up before the ref counted the three, Yang was in no luck though after Gibson locked in Front Guillotine Choke to pick up the win. Very solid match from two great wrestlers.

Match 8 - Homicide vs. Jack Evans

Homicide was over like crazy here since it was New York, he also mocked Evans' gimmick early on and got a "YOU GOT SERVED!" chant from the Manhattan crowd. Both guys were exchanging monkey flips very early on and were really going at it, it was a decent match but I really don't like Evans, or his gimmick. He doesn't look like a wrestler and certainly doesn't show he is one in the ring. He's no more than a spot fest in my eyes. Homicide took the advantage after hitting a t-bone suplex on Evans, both guys were going back and forth exchanging moves until Cabana appeared on the balcony and began to distract Homicide. Evans got back up and rolled Homicide up for the 1-2-3. This really heat up the Homicide/Cabana feud.

Match 9 - Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi

Wow. Just wow. What a fucking match. I sat through this whole match with a huge grin on my face because it was so good, everything was perfect. The crowd were immense and were extremely lively for this match, Kobashi seemed overwhelmed by the crowds' chants for him. The crowd were rapid all through this, especially during the CHOP FEST~!, now that was unbelievable, it was fucking fantastic. Joe's chest looked like it was about to gush with blood. Joe began to lay into Kobashi with stiff kicks to his upper body, another great moment. The suplexes Kobashi was performing on Joe were out of this world, he literally landed straight onto his neck three or four times, and you can imagine how painful it must be for him because of how much weight he carries. Kobashi started to chop the shit out of Joe again, then hit an extremely stiff lariat to win. The crowd exploded with "ROH!" chants. The hand shake at the end put the icing on the cake to possibly the best ROH match of all time.

And that's a wrap, folks. Hopefully I didn't bore you to death.

Oh yeah, I'll be reviewing Vendetta, Steel Cage Warfare, Final Battle 2005, Hell Freezes Over, Tag Wars 2006, and Dissension in the next few days.

Good reviews. I have to say, I didn't quite agree with everything but mostly you drew the same sorta conclusions as I did.

I really loved Abyss in ROH, because of his difference. Wrestling needs a bit of contrast more than it needs ten guys like Matt Sydal. Also, Abyss selling loads for AJ Styles in TNA is shit, ROH booked him as the monster and didn't expose him and he looked really great. Shame it didn't work out.

And the four ways never get any better

That's a good review you've done on Better Than Our Best, I really wish I wasn't so far behind just now.

I just didn't think Abyss fitted in with the ROH style, but maybe that's just me, I'm overly critical by nature.

What happened to Jade Chung? She looks great.

Will be reviewing 'How we Roll' 'Ring of Homicide' and 'Destiny' soon, taking the slack off Lantern. You can tell we're the most frequent posters on this thread now that we're actually name checking each other in our reviews

Nice reviews. Add me to the 'Abyss was great in ROH' gang - it would've been great to see him in some more matches. Hell, at one point he *could* have had a title match with Bryan Danielson.

Edgecrusher - I think Jade Chung moved to the West Coast, and she wasn't a major enough name to fly in. She did some PWG appearances afterwards I'm sure.

ROH – The 100th Show

Wow. A hundred ROH shows, been and gone. So many chants, so many match times written down in notebooks, so many bad jokes about Rob Feinstein. It’s all led up to this…

Claudio Castagnoli Vs Christopher Daniels

So Daniels main evented the first ROH show, and he opens the first. Do I like him any more now? No. This is a typical Daniels match; from a cold, analytical, Anarchistxx view, it has everything you’d want – limb psychology, logical building, good execution, struggling for moves…But it’s soulless and flat. Something to be appreciated on an intellectual level, not touched and felt. On that note, Alison Danger. She was on the first ever ROH segment, getting gay bashed in fact, and has improved more in that time, both in ring and out, then half the wrestlers on the same card. From a somewhat interesting valet to a great wrestler, figure head of her own company and top class manager. She has great timing and always comes across as genuinely wanting Daniels to win. For some reason.
Claudio brings an awful lot to any match. Although he’s less effective as a face, he still gets great responses with his shortest catchphrase ever and Euro styling. He guides Daniels through a very Chikara style opening section of lucha armdrags and reversals before making his passionless leg work mean a little something with some good facial expressions.
At this point, it’s worth mentioning the CZW fans in the crowd. Man, I’m hard on the mouth breathers who sit front row for ROH…But come on. Where does Zandig find these guys? Yech.
So the match rumbles along, very mat based, very smoothly executed, with the two guys sharing out beatings to the others legs, until Daniels picks up the win with a roll up out of no-where. It was OK, but I’ll have forgotten all about it tomorrow, like every Christopher Daniels match not involving Samoa Joe. And yes, I do realise I spent as much time talking about Danger. Sue me.
Post match, Daniels breaks the habit of a lifetime and shakes Claudio’s hand, endorsing him as the companies future. DANGER, DANGER, WILL ROBINSON.
We then get treated to a rambling Chris Hero promo, as he wanders the crowd. The mike work itself is nothing special, but the crowd reactions promise something special from the main event.

Jimmy Rave Vs Jimmy Jacobs Vs Jimmy Yang Vs Delirious

Argh. Why one of these matches on every show? I guess you could claim that they help management sort out the rankings for titles, but really they’re just thrown together wastes of space. Still, at least this one had several characters and stories going through it, even if they didn’t result in much decent wrestling.
Jacobs is out with a big picture of Lacey, because she’s tired of his losing streak and wants him to get sorted on his own. She’s also said that if he wins this match she’ll get her norks out on ROHVideos.com, which must of got the message board a tad over excited. Yang immediately humps the picture, causing Jacobs to fly into a rage. Made me laugh.
Yang is still hanging around with obscure B Movie celebrity Bruce Leroy, who is getting involved in Yang’s feud with the Embassy by chasing Nana around. The delicious Miss Daizee haze is also out here, in swank white and gold ring gear, and she got to kick someone in the head this time. Cool. I want to Rave to feud with Daniels just so we can have Danger/Haze matches in ROH and I can then review them with gusto.
Delirious is his usual, nutty self. Watch him run around and talk gibberish. It almost never gets old.
So yeah, people come in and do their stuff, there’s some furthering of the Yang/Rave feud which eventually goes no-where, and not much of a match happens in between. The best part is Yang showing some of the fire often missing from his performances, when he gets his nose busted and goes mental on Jacobs with chops and kicks. Why can’t he look that interested in what he’s doing every match? The ending shows up abruptly, as Jacobs hits his Contra Code on Yang, but pulls the pin at two for some reason (I think it later got explained that he didn’t want the ROH Message Board Fans to see Lacey with her Monkeys out. Fair enough) which allows Delirious to lock him in his new submission finish for only his second direct win in ROH ever. Easily missed.

Austin Aries and Roderick Strong Vs Homicide and Ricky Reyes

Man, this match was kind of disappointing. You know sometimes when have the greatest idea for a shot at pool, and the miss is down to you not being a good enough player to turn it into reality? This match was like that. At its basic level, there was the germ of an idea for a really great match here. Aries and Strong have been unbeatable so far in their title reign, and that’s down to them wrestling their kind of match where they can use each others strengths to put together move combos that will keep anyone down. The Rottweilers come into this match with the idea of throwing them off this game plan with brawling and taking things on the outside, hoping to make the champions step outside of their comfort zone.
Sounds good, but the execution is dreadful, and that’s down to Homicide. I’m not sure if it’s down to the kicking he took a week before in Chicago, if it’s down to the CZW douches in the crowd, or if he just can’t be arsed, but he looked fucking terrible. He kind of wanders around for a bit, laughs off an attempt from Austin Aries to try and wrestle him by behaving like he’s forgotten how to run the ropes. He can’t seem to get Roderick in his sights for a tope, then double stomps him through a table instead for seemingly no reason at all. He also tries to chop block Aries when he was in the middle of his run up for a corner dropkick, getting only air. Aries didn’t even see him there. Perhaps he’s been on a bit of a bender the night before?
Reyes was OK here, if a little invisible. He’s surly and easy to hate, and his strikes and throws look like they fucking hurt. He needs his partner to be a little more on the ball then the clearly dazed Homicide though, he probably spent a huge amount of this match praying for Romero to come back and carry the team again.
Gen Next try and pull it back in; Aries uncorks his Best Tope In North America and crushes Homicide against the barrier as well as doing some world class selling of Reyes pounding his leg. Strong holds up his end by laying in some heavier moves than usual in order to try and give the fans something to distract them from CZW fans inexplicably shouting “Hooooooo!”, but this match was just never going to fit together well. Now I think about it, the Aries/Homicide World Title match was pretty good, so I have no idea why they couldn’t get this together. Oh well.
At least the ending was sort of neat – Reyes has Strong in the Dragon Sleeper near a corner and doesn’t spot Aries scaling the ropes. When Strong gets the rope break and Reyes lets him go, Aries immediately crashes down with a 450 for the pin. Nice ending to a pretty dismal match.

Colt Cabana Vs Bryan Danielson

Yay, thank fuck not serious Colt is back. He’s so much more comfortable and natural when he’s goofing around. Plus he’s had a shave. Bryan Danielson is not the favourite wrestler of the CZW fans, who chant ‘overrated’ at him, leading him to get Cruise to announce him as ‘The least overrated wrestler in the world’. He also moons them, and yes, his arse is as supernatural pale as the rest of his body.
If you ask me, the booking for this is great. Colt and Danielson do some old British style wrestling for five minutes as the CZW fans get increasingly annoyed, then Danielson pins Cabana out of no-where with a roll up. That’s it; five minutes. The ROH fans are stunned, the CZW fans are furious and Cabana can’t believe it. It sets up Cabana’s new storyline of being out of sorts since the Homicide feud, and further heats up the heel section, as they have to watch Danielson do moonsaults off the turnbuckle and leave without breaking a sweat. Lovely.

Derrick Dempsey Vs Pelle Primeau

To those not familiar with the ROH students (And why would you be) Dempsey is the big lad with the curly hair who isn’t fat, and Primeau is the really, really small one. Short match, and both guys are as green as you’d expect. Still, Primeau has a nice Rana and the fans find it easy to like him, and Dempsey has a great, Puro style build and cool strikes. He also dumps Pelle with a vicious Backdrop and gets the win with a big Spinebuster into jack knife hold. Some potential in that fella.
Now we have some fun. American Dragon comes back out and proceeds to cut a harsh promo on the CZW fans. You can tell the guy was speaking from the heart, and he tore them to pieces in short order. Of course, they didn’t make it easy on themselves by chanting things like “Shave your asshole” and “we want Ruckus” back at him. The best part was when he got the ROH fans to chant “You’re going to get your fucking heads kicked in” because the CZW fans aren’t quick enough to think of something to reply with in rhythm. The point of all this is for Danielson to put over what a fighting champion he is, and as he beat Cabana so quickly, he wants another match. He ends up challenging a winner from the first half, and as Delirious is the only guy who he hasn’t already defended the belt against, somehow we end up with

Bryan Danielson Vs Delirious

Man, what a great match. Remember, Delirious is a comedy wrestler who’s won exactly two matches in his ROH career. Danielson spends the whole first half of this match torturing him - he jumps him before the bell and slaps him half to death, then spends ages putting him in a variety of stretches so he can taunt the CZW section at the same time. He even does a Curb Stomp! And some Rick Rude grinding. Lovely. After absolutely dominating the lizard man for a while, he gets caught on a Superplex attempt and nailed with Delirious’ back splash type move. The little guy makes the most of the offence with a huge tope and some of his trademark offence, before Danielson hurls him bodily into the ringpost. Now it gets gross. Somehow, Delirious manages to take a huge chunk out of one of his hands…It bleeds like fucking anything. He also gets his head cut, but I guess that was gigged. Danielson goes to work on the head like a Rudo, ripping the mask and knuckling the cut as the crowd slowly begin to turn on him and his bullying. The bloody, beaten Delirious survives a little longer and even makes few comebacks, but eventually it’s all too much for him and a furious Danielson rains blows down on him until the match is stopped, and walks out with the belt again. A great little segment, with Delirious doing a world class job of looking destroyed.

AJ Styles and Matt Sydal Vs The Briscoe Brothers

It seems like ages ago that I reviewed AJ Styles Vs Matt Sydal, and I said at the time that there was nothing wrong with the match, but it wasn’t for me. Well, there wasn’t a huge amount wrong with this. It had nice moves, I guess it was exciting, both teams established their characters…But it wasn’t for me.
For a start off, I don’t like any of the guys. I think The Briscoes look like skeezy losers and wrestle like backyarders. They have “40 Oz.” And “Hard 2 Hit” on their tights. Why? The only match of theirs I ever really liked was when they wandered around a car park in Delaware hitting each other with chairs while drunk. I guess they look like they could really beat you up, but it’s in the way that two mean guys will wait until one student is really drunk at the end of the night and act like he spilled their drink.
I also hate AJ, and his gay bashing face, but I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. This match demonstrates what I have against Sydal well though. He’s a cry-baby. I’m sorry, but I find it really hard to get behind the guy when he always seems on the verge of bursting into tears. I know it hurts damnit, but get up and do something about it, don’t just make doe eyes at Styles on the apron! The relationship between Sydal and Styles (And now Daniels) worries me. I can’t decide if he’s the son they adopted thanks to liberal law reform, or a catamite they bought while on a cruise to Morocco. Either though terrifies me, frankly.
So yeah, nice spots. Some very good ones in fact, top of the pile being the insane and hard to explain Briscoes Special Doomsday Device that had the crowd on it’s feet. The ending is good as well, in fact, a few sub-standard ROH matches have great endings. I imagine Gabe has all these ideas for how the moments will look in highlight videos and such, then just tries to stretch his booking around so he gets to witness AJ making a desperate lunge for Mark Briscoe, but being just five seconds short of stopping him leaping from the top and permanently shortening Sydal with a ridiculous Spiked Jay Driller.
I think the idea was to re-create the wow factor that the Styles/Red Vs Briscoes matches had in ROH’s infancy. The only problem with that is everyone’s caught up now, so the same criss-cross dives and fancy ways of getting neckbreakers (Soooo many ways) don’t have quite the same impact. Oh well, it shook the crowd up a little and AJ is still over like god in Philadelphia. Watch if you like hurty moves.

The Debate

In a way, this is pretty pointless. John Zandig has already lost the game of life by being John Zandig. But I could talk for pages about John Zandig and all the lives and careers he’s blighted and destroyed. This debate was undersold to me, it didn’t reflect anywhere near as badly on Cornette as people made out. In fact, the only really homophobic comment he made was when he was obviously really, really pissed off. And yes, it wasn’t at all funny. But most of the things he said, right or wrong, were said with the typical Cornette piss and vinegar and sounded fantastic. Where as Zandig can barely put a sentence together and didn’t make one coherent point. It was sad in a way, watching him get clubbed like a baby seal, but then I think about what he did to Big Japan and realise it’s far less than what he deserves. This whole thing leads into…

Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer and Adam Pearce Vs Chris Hero, Necro Butcher and Super Dragon

Absolutely fucking brilliant. Just incredible stuff, almost non stop from beginning to end. All six guys worked a hell of a brawl here and the effect is just insane. Although only one tenth of what it must actually of been like, I imagine being live for this must be a close as you can get to that old time religion, folks.
Like I said, everyone acquitted themselves well in this match. Pearce (One of y big discoveries doing this review project) bled an absolute gusher from the side of his head, going toe to toe with Necro for most of the match and generally behaving like an absolute bad ass. He took a fucking kicking as well and sold it like he’d been stampeded. Dragon hit all his nice, painful looking spots (oh, so painful. That double stomp on the chair was hilariously evil), and his exchange with Whitmer was fucking greatness. Apparently he was doing great stuff with fans as well but unfortunately it didn’t make tape. Speaking of Whitmer, how improved is this fella? He used to be Mr Vanilla with the hard head. Now he’s become a fiery Texas ass kicker who isn’t from Texas. For most of the match he’s just brawling on the outside, but when Dragon hits the Curb Stomp and turns around into a hellish lariat from BJ the place erupts with one of the pops of the night. He then gives him an exploder into a set up chair. Ouch.
Necro is Necro and Hero is Hero. The Butcher spends a lot of time wandering around, seemingly aimlessly, but managing to get more and more battered and bloody as he goes. Then he has the aforementioned punchy punchy game with Pearce which easily tops the similar thing he does with Kingston. He gets backdropped on set up chairs by Joe which I’d normally wince big time at, but hey, it’s Necro. Hero is pretty ace in his non wrestling way. There’s a moment (It might be the Joe/Butcher chair thing actually) where Hero is just in the crowd watching the ring. His expression is perfect; he looks like a Bond villain who can see his mad scheme being thwarted before his eyes. I also love him pulling out his goofy Cravat based offence in the middle of all the chaos and brawling in order to get under the skin of fans, but it’s incredibly ironic that he does that shit in CZW for the same reason.
For me though, this is Joe’s match. He’s like a god of fucking war out there, and boy is he enjoying himself. From the very start when he and Whitmer appear on the ramp and he looks and BJ, says “Shall We?” then sprints to the ring, howling like a demon, it’s just amazing to watch. The look of child like joy on his face when he Ole Kicks Hero into the crowd. The restrained malevolence when he arranges the chairs in the ring, all the better to kill Necro. Some of his best ROH work in years. Fuck the flat and lifeless Daniels program, we need more of Joe head butting Necro till he dies.
I only have two complaints about this match. One is using Bryce Remsburg as the CZW ref. He’s a likeable little soul and I can’t bring myself to hate him. Don’t CZW have any heel refs they could bring? Secondly, the continued use of John Zandig. The guy looks ridiculous, he has no presence and tends to ruin anything he gets involved in. Plus he might set one of the students on fire. If they’d run this feud with IWA:MS instead they could of used the same workers but got Ian Rotten instead, who can talk and wrestle. Oh well.
The turn, and the ending of this match are great. I almost want to like Gabe as a booker after all this. First, Whitmer gets killed (Almost literally) by a Psycho Driver from the apron through a table. Madness. Then the Claudio thing. I guess you could say the turn was kind of on the radar, but it still came across as shocking for the live fans if the stunned reaction was any indication. And the feeling of deflated pride when Pearce got pinned was palpable. Team CZW head into the bleachers to celebrate with their fans as the ROH boys lie around bloody and broken, their 100th show in ruins. Sheer fucking class. I forgive ROH a hundred Scramble matches for producing something so real feeling, and a huge round of applause to everyone involved in the match itself.

How much do you want to bet they find a way to fuck it up?

Is she gay?

I have no idea, but at the time she was the valet of the Christopher Street Connection who were assaulted by the Hit Squad in the first ever segment on an ROH show. The Christopher Street Connection were threatening the fragile minds of the ex-ECW Philly blood marks by making out in the ring.
It's interesting that the CSC only ever played heel in ROH, an Indy owned and booked (At the time) by an open Homosexual, every where else they were flamboyant gay faces. Feinstein must have some self loathing issues.

Probably does. Feinstein seems a bit of a fuck up.

Decent review. I'm nearly done on 'How We Roll'. Good card so far. ROH wouldn't be half the promotion it is without Danielson.

I notice you're not half as jaded by Generation Next as me. I'm finding their matches difficult to get into these days, and I'm really starting to hate Wodewick.

I'm still enjoying the Generation Next tag run a whole lot. The Danielson/Lethal, AJ/Sydal and Blood Gen defences in particular were all great, and I haven't even got to the Embassy match yet! I can kind of see where you're coming from with the idea that they're looking too good, but at the moment I'm digging the whole "Very good tag team that can beat any two wrestlers" thing. It's nice to have such an established elite team. And I think they give enough to their opponents not to bury them. Hey, if the alternative is putting the straps on the Briscoes again, Gen Next can keep the belts all year.
I enjoy Roderick's work, but he needs a good opponent in a singles match, unlike Aries who is one of my five favourite guys in the company. Also, Strong needs to stop mouthing Aries' words when they cut promos together.

Good to see you enjoyed the 100th show main event, Lantern. It's my favorite match I've seen this year. It's one of those matches which is just perfectly booked. The story of how it goes from an even brawl at the start to ROH destroying the CZW guys to CZW slowly getting the upperhand and then the ROH side slowly falling apart as Super Dragon murders BJ, they knock out the ROH ref and Pearce is bleeding to death and then the fantastic Claudio turn.

It's just a shame the brawl from Weekend Of Champions Night One sucks though. Mainly because Claudio ain't no brawler, Joe barely features, no Chris Hero, Colt Cabana has an off-night and Ace Steele is a complete retard. The Super Dragon/Whitmer match from Night 2 is an awesome match though.

CSC were faces in ROH at times.
Feinstein is not an out gay, and Gabe always did the majority of booking.

Yeah, the crowd turned them face after several heelish beatdowns. And Feinstein's sexual wossnames were well known before ROH even opened it's doors, if he was still lying to his mother about having girlfriends the dude's worse off than I thought.

That dude still denies hes gay, even to people whove see him at gay bars on dates. It was sad when it was just rumours, its even sadder now when everyone knows and he still tries to make himself out to be a ladies man.
The funny thing is that CSC were made faces by fans lot of places before ROH started and DHS were starting to lose their hotness, but its exactly how you describe it. Booking to the fragile minds of the ex ECW fans, ROH was saved when less philly ECW fans were the core and average indie fans started filling those seats.

I don't see what's wrong with Ace Steele. I rather like him. The 100th Show main was indeed amazing.

Anyway, my next review.

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

HOW WE ROLL


The Milestone Series is dead, long live the Milestone Series! Huzzah! Whatever. There’s another video recap, I’m beginning to think that this might be a recurring theme. If so that’s cool. This one recaps Delirious’ shot against Bryan Danielson, and how the champ mauled him. Basically declaring there’s a new ‘grudge’ which I suppose is like a feud, but shorter.

Following on, we have Delirious cutting a very serious, very incomprehensible promo. The gash in his hand looks fucking brutal. Surprisingly, this works. Delirious is a genius. He’s as nonsensical as always (I think he promos using garbled Mexican and English for the most part), the look on his face and the tone of his voice does the work for him.

Recap moves onto the CZW/ROH feud and saying it’s going to continue, and indeed end, on May 12th/13th. JC makes an appeal to Homicide to help the gang out in the feud. Sum of it is: We might not be able to win unless you help us, Homicide.

And we are in to our 8 match card! Either lots are short, or there won’t be many non-wrestling segments here. Pearce opens up immediately with a ‘commissioner’ promo, and also calls out Homicide. These guys suck. Everyone knows Homicide’d puke if he saw this stuff. They should challenge him to match, beat his head in and THEN ask him to join up. Dumbasses. Pearce’s promo is okay, though. Moves on to generally talking about the CZW feud. They’re going to keep fighting.

Okay, I’m wrong. Here’s Nigel McGuinness for a promo! Nice little prick promo from the company’s PURE heel. Short promo, to the point. The rematch is going to be immense when it happens, so long as they remember to keep building it.

1st Match: Matt Sydal Vs. Jimmy Yang

I’m not too fussed on Yang, but I like Sydal. This should be a good opener, at least. I REALLY like Yang’s entrance music. If Yang’s off to WWE as Lantern claimed a while back he’s taking his sweet time about it. The commentary is incredibly quiet for some reason.

Yang does a little heeling, a few quick lockups and short technical series to open. Very different to the usual ‘showy’ opening that is common in ROH. Very nice. Yang’s pissed tonight! Going for cheap shots wherever they’re available. Maybe his wife/girlfriend pointed out his win/loss record sucks. Sydal takes over with the covers and that weird reverse DDT/leg drop thing he does. Yang gets control by poking him in the eyes. How bizarre! Yang’s actually pretty good at playing sneaky. Maybe it’s because he’s dressed in black. Commentary is still incredibly quiet. Yang starts working over Sydal’s shoulder, with armbreakers and rams into the guard rail and then, in a bit of irony, he sends SYDAL into the pole! (For those who don’t know, one of Yang’s big spots is the old missing a shoulder block in the corner spot) Sydal sells the arm very well indeed, and very consistently, too. The fans catch Yang on missing a wheel kick and give him shit for it, so he low blows Sydal then does it again and hits clean this time, using the ropes for assistance. He jaws with the crowd, too, don’t catch what he says, but from the reaction I imagine it’s a pithy come back to the ‘you fucked up’ chant. I really like this new direction for Yang. I hope it’s not a one-time deal. Yang fucking PASTES Sydal when he goes up top for something with a front enziguri thing, then hits a top rope swinging neckbreaker. Nice. He then kills Sydal with a dragon punch... er... uppercut on the top rope. Sydal actually slumps off the top rope on the apron on the first one. Yang does it again, but Sydal drops him off and shooting stars for the three count.

As predicted. Nice opener, nothing too special. Possibly good things in Yang’s future, though, if he sticks with this new direction. I think the heeling ring style nicely removes his worst excesses (such as over-use of the pop-getting wheel kicks).

**

2nd Match: Nigel McGuinness Vs. Delirious Vs. Kikutaro

Kikutaro is a complete unknown to me. Seems he’s going to stay that way, too, since it’s ACTUALLY Christopher Daniels vs. Delirious Vs. Nigel McGuinness. The box is remarkably wrong, wrong, WRONG. I’m already disappointed. I want to know who Kikutaro is, now. What the fuck? Now Colt Cabana’s coming out. Did the guys doing the box die mid-process or something... oh, hang on. CZW run-in? Christian’s out for a promo. Namely he’s out to ask Cabana to be his partner, and to inquire about how Delirious got to be like he is. Makes a backhanded crack at WWE’s ‘wellness program’ too. Someone shouts ‘pick Gangrel’, and Christian immediately replies ‘he’s not here’ to the fan in question before putting the question to Colt. Christian and Colt do a bit of promo comedy, it’s pretty damn good. I didn’t know Colt Cabana was Jewish. Not that it matters. Wonder if he practices... or is professional. Sorry, I’ll go kill myself later. Oh dear, out comes Danielson. He INSTANTLY gets a ‘FUCK YOU DRAGON’ chant. He smacks them down for it, of course. He’s pissed that Christian got an ovation. Turns out that this is the very building where Danielson began his World Title reign. Says he’s beaten everyone who’s ever been put in front of him (though of course that’s not quite true anymore, after his loss to McGuinness). As usual, Danielson is awesome on the mic, and the fans get pissed about it. Sorry, Danielson’s playing tweener. Delirous is apparently ‘way too crazy and weird’ to be Danielson’s partner, so he asks Chris Daniels. All four of these guys do a good job on the mic, all told. Long segment, good stuff. Upshot: Daniels gets a title shot down the line in return for tagging with Danielson. It’s cool that they freely acknowledge Daniels wrestles for TNA as well.

So, after all that Daniels, Danielson, Cabana and Christian all leave. Delirious, meanwhile, just sits in the corner like a clueless fool. Kind of forlorn, really. Poor Delirious. And FINALLY, out comes the advertised people. I follow this jig now. Here’s McGuinness, and I imagine this Kikutaro dude’ll be along in a minute. Kikutaro comes out to ‘Born to be Wild’ and IIIIS... a dude in a silly mask. McGuinness doesn’t like him much. Delirious is clearly waiting for the bell to go apeshit, and he promptly explodes the moment it goes off, running around like a loon, chucking people’s hats into the ring and generally being nuts. YAY!

Kikutaro, as expected, does a bunch of comedy stuff, then gets owned by McGuinness. This match is completely weird. Kikutaro and Delirious rant at each other, then start vaguely pawing at each other’s chests and slowly walking into each other and stuff. The fans chant “THIS IS AWESOME”, and for once I doubt even Leicester Lantern will mind. Delirious + Ring = Awesome. You know it’s true.

Kiktaro and Delirious seem to understand each other, and get along well until Kikitaro goes for a schoolboy out of nowhere for a near fall. Delirious then points and laughs while Nigel beats up Kiki. I just noticed that the referee is Japanese. Must have been imported for this. There’s a weird comedy spot involving the ref which ends up with him accidentally DDTing Kikitaro, leading to the Cobra Stretch for the Delirious win. Well worth seeing, I’d be surprised if you don’t at least chuckle at some points.

**3/4

3rd Match: Shelley/Rave Vs. Homicide/Reyes

Ohhhh, this is gonna be good. Nana’s there with Haze, the gang’s all together. You’d have to think that The Embassy is going over. ROH bookers seem determined that The Embassy is the distant No. 2 tandem in ROH. As always, Shelley and Haze are brilliant here. Rave’s the reason they throw the rolls, but in my opinion it’s Haze and Shelley that make these peculiar entrances so worthwhile. Someone randomly throws in a pink teddy bear here. Homicide is incredibly over, as always. I guess that’s what kills The Rottweilers as a tandem; Reyes just isn’t a star of the same magnitude. The teddy bear is back in the ring by the time Homicide’s made his entrance and he plays with it a while.He then starts threatening the Embassy with it, creating a thoroughly surreal image.

Smokes and Nana unsurprisingly start giving each other shit. No handshakes here. Is that a “LET’S GO SMOKES” chant I hear? Commentary is STILL incredibly quiet. Shelley and Rave open up against each other, with Shelley pretty much on top, ending with him biting Reyes’ hand and tagging out to Rave, who gets more shit from the crowd than I’ve ever heard before. The Embassy start heading out because they so pissed, resulting in a thunderous “WHAT A BITCH” chant. Rave does a great job of antagonising the fans, while Haze and Smokes give each other shit. See, this is why managers at ringside is great. It just adds to the atmosphere with other personalities having a go at each other all the time. Nana shouts “Hey, I’m not the one getting paid with foodstamps, huh?” At Smokes, which gets a bunch of heat. Homicide and Shelley do one of the traditional Indy mat sequences, but Shelley badly fucks up a simply handspring, looks like he hurts his leg a little. My DVD fucks up at this point, and I have to fast forward a few minutes to get past the bad patch. Homicide hits his awesome tope con hilo into the front row, while Smokes has a little chat with the fans. Everything goes crazy when the managers get involved, ending with Julius chasing Nana around the ring. Shelley and Homicide go back at each other, so obviously Shelley wasn’t badly hurt. Shelley’s usual prickish brilliance is great to watch. Haze is a fucking awesome heel. At times its shocking to see how good a unit The Embassy are. I like their clothesline/spear combo. Reyes makes the hot tag to signal the closing stretch, some nice stuff from the Rottweilers, apparently their finisher’s a weird elbow/lariat combo. Reyes gets the sleeper on Rave, but Nana forces the break to save Rave from death. Rave then applies a dragon sleeper to Reyes, Smokes interferes, and the referee promptly disqualifies the Rottweilers.

That was weird. DQ is a very rare finish in ROH. The fans chant “BULLSHIT”. Post match Homicide’s on the mic to answer the calls of Cornette and Pearce. He says... “Fuck you, and fuck this company.” So there you are.

*** - maybe **** but my viewing was kinda chopped up by the 3 minute crash on the DVD. Wild stuff, for sure.

Lacey’s backstage to say something about Jacobs, but they cut immediately back to the ring as Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, and the CZW ref all hit the ring. Fans aren’t pleased. Neither will I be if we don’t see what Lacey wanted to say. Hero points out that more and more people are turning their backs on ROH, pointing out that Homicide has been around since day one but he’s still thinking of jumping ship. CC and CH generally give the company shit.

4th Match: Hero/CC Vs. Pearce/Whitmer

Claim that it’s their responsibility that ROH is a sinking ship. Pearce and Whitmer come out, and a brawl is on. Generally, Claudio and Chris get their asses kicked. Things then settle down when they take control, and we have a match on. Hero’s ring attire, I might add, looks awful. Reminds me of “Sparkplug” Bob Holly. The Kings of Wrestling have some slick and interesting team moves. Whitmer starts getting his head kicked him while Adam Pearce is kept out of the fight. As one-sided as the first section, just in the opposite direction. Pearce takes a MAD whip into the guard rails. Full credit to the Kings of Wrestling, they really do look refined as a tandem. My DVD spazzes out again and I need to skip a minute or so. Don’t think much happens in it, though. This is mostly a Kings of Wrestling showcase so far. Not a very heated match at all, considering its part of the company’s big feud. Whitmer fires back with an exploder out of nowhere which looks REAL nasty, dropping CC almost exactly on his head. That reverses the momentum and the ROH boys get control again. “ROH” chant starts, which is fine, but this would have been so much better if they’d booked these two teams in an intense, even fight. Instead it’s been ‘slaughter slaughter - shift - slaughter slaughter - shift - etc.’. The CZW ref prevents the ROH ref from counting three after a superplex/splash combo, and then Necro Butcher comes in to break the match down. I think I hear them calling Pearce ‘Scrap Daddy’. Yuck. Three on two beatdown with Necro in the mix. This is the first time I’ve seen them COMPLETELY screw the pooch in this feud, because this match has been really flat and the aftermath is no better. Whitmer takes another crazy bump to the outside, though after the Psycho Driver off the apron he probably feels like he’s having a day at the beach. Then, with a 3 on 1 advantage, CZW get the win with a double team Hero’s Welcome.

W

T

F

?

Can tell who was booking this, can’t you?

**

Joe comes out, Chris Hero and Claudio drag Necro away instead of letting him go at Joe. Rousing “JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU” Chant. CZW escape through the crowd. I’m guessing this is the point where ROH got a bit tired of putting over the CZW guys, as this whole segment/match/angle really made them look piss weak. They needed a 3 on 1 advantage, biased refereeing and a massive bump to kill Whitmer in order to get the win. Joe cuts a promo: “Grrrr, ROH rules, grrr, Necro’s gonna fight me and die.”

The bastards don’t show the Lacey angle, leaving me wondering what the fuck she was talking about. Delirious, however, is there to cut another serious promo. Ish. It’s strangely engrossing, even though you have no bloody idea what he’s going on about. I do make out the last words, though: “Delirious... Ring of Honour World... Champion!”.

5th Match: Samoa Joe Vs. Apocalypse

Who’s this guy? Never heard of him. Someone from the crowd shouts ‘WHO THE HELL ARE YOU’ so I’m obviously not the only one who’s wondering. I’m guessing he’s gonna be squashed in preparation for the Necro match on the next show. Well, I’m wrong on the squash front. All technical at the start, until Apocalypse goes aggressive and doesn’t give a clean break in the corner. STJoe almost kills him, and Joe takes control. Apocalypse eventually gets back in with some kicks. This is remarkably pointless. I see where the complaints about ROH’s booking for workrate strategy: The fans want to see Joe kill this guy, they don’t want to see a ‘proper’ match. That’s for people they consider stars, like Bryan Danielson. On the other hand, I see their point. This way, there’s never a really bad match on the card unless you dislike the style of wrestling as a whole (see: Lantern vs. spot matches). I can’t think of a match I’ve seen on ROH where I’ve come out thinking it was actually awful. Joe inevitably hits muscle buster for the three after a while.

**

6th Match: Wodewick Stwong Vs. Mark Briscoe

Well, this’ll be reminding people of that feud GenNEXT are having with the Briscoes. Problem is, I can’t imagine that they’d book the BBs to win, since they’re hardly ever on the shows at the minute. Still, they’re one of the only teams that haven’t been beaten multiple times by the champs, so they’ve probably got a better chance than most others. I still find Wodewick Stwong faintly annoying. The numpty also comes out wearing a fucking CZW shirt. Yeah, that makes sense. NOT. Dumbass.

Wodewick controls, blatantly borrowing a move or two that Danielson used against him at SOH as he works the arm, until Mark gets into the action. Lots of good, equal exchanges and cool sequences of counter-anticipation-counter, interspersed with chopping and forearming each other’s heads in. Briscoe nearly kicks a camera on an elbow drop, while proceeding to go all thug-style on Wodewick with head butts and general violence, before missing on a springboard off the turnbuckles and getting the chops and the backbreakers for his trouble. For all that Wodewick’s wearing thin on me, there’s no doubt that he knows how to make his stuff look nasty. He tosses Briscoe into one of the guard rails so hard it knocks one fans drink and he gets it all over his shirt, so Wodewick has a little chat with him about it. He doesn’t seem to mind. The back and forth nature of the match remains, with neither man having domination, just hitting the odd big move. Stwong gets the top stuff, though, from superplexes to his signature fireman’s carry/gutbuster to Gibson Driver, while Mark hits a few nice springboard moves and suplexes. Stwong tries a top rope super gutbuster, but Mark fights free and hits a top rope ace crusher and exploder (though I’m pretty sure it’s actually a uranage) into a fisherman’s buster for a near fall. After that I’m expecting Stwong to win aaaaaand... Mark misses a shooting star press, gets a running death kick to the face, and gets locked in The Stronghold. But he doesn’t submit! Half nelson backbreaker gets blocked, and converted into the Cutthroat Driver to prove my prediction completely wrong.

It does make sense, admittedly, to put the Briscoes over tonight. They have a title match tomorrow, after all. Question is, will Jay go over Aries?

***

We finally get to see Lacey’s bit. Basically a pep-talk for the missing Jimmy Jacobs, saying that she wishes he was around to tell her how great she looks, but if he keeps up his winning ways you never can tell what’ll happen. I hope he’s back soon. I miss Jimmy Jacobs. Good to see he’s not just getting dropped randomly.

7th Match: Jay Briscoe Vs. Austin Aries

While I figured Wodewick would win the last match, it does make sense for both Briscoes to go over here. Gen Next have looked unbeatable enough of late. However, Austin Aries is infinitely more awesome than Wodewick and I don’t immediately want to see him lose in the same way. His entrance music is also much cooler. I personally like the Briscoes’ look. They look thuggishly tough, and their style mixes that with a flashy aerial vein. In a way they’re flagship ROH, for better or worse. I likes them, and I know I’m not alone.

Jay’s the one who brings the aggro, with pie facing and shoving Aries after being frustrated on a lockup, then going in with a knee. Unfortunately for him Aries has him in his signature clinging Japanese arm drag/armbar combo. Jay gets out and hammerlocks, then slaps Aries about until he pulls a SWEET escape and bitch-kicks Jay. In a moment that Leicester’s surely going to love, Austin Aries sends Jay to the outside with a sick roaring elbow then hits his evil tope through the BOTTOM ropes. It really does have to be seen to be believed. Remarkably, Aries mostly kicks Jay’s ass. People give Aries a bunch of ‘WOOOO’s when he does his slow motion knee, before he MISSES his powerdrive elbow (first time I’ve seen that), and then Jay blocks his corner counter elbow thing and sends him into the post, then hits a shoulder breaker to get himself into the match properly. Quite a nice story of the ultra-talented elite wrestler (Aries) dominating until the underdog’s able to come up with answers and start pounding him down. Jay switches over into working the arm and shoulder. Aries tries a crucifix bomb and Jay counters into a TKO, furthering the angle that the Briscoes are starting to develop counters to all of Gen Next’s primary offence. As always, Austin’s limb selling is superb, adding a new dimension to the match with various things he can’t do. Most notably failing on the brainbuster, resulting in a falcon shoulderbreaker. He eventually does hit the Brainbuster, rolling free of an armbar to do it, in fact, then goes for the 450, but we know it’ll end in tears, and it does. Jay Driller attempt, counter into backslide for near fall, Jae Driller hit, but Aries has his foot on the ropes! Jay then switches tack, and applies a standing shoulderlock, converted into something they call a shinonamake or something like that for the submission. Good to see all that arm work come to something.

Quality match. It helps that I really quite like the Briscoes, but this is a very well worked match that hypes up the Briscoes as a threat to Gen Next’s tag titles. It does it a lot better than that silly loss to Wodewick and Evans a while back. Good stuff.

****

8th Match: Christian Cage Vs. Colt Cabana Vs. Christopher Daniels Vs. Bryan Danielson

And here we are at the main event! Now, Danielson doesn’t have the most sterling record in matches where his title hasn’t been on the line. In fact I think he’s lost every single match where his title hasn’t been on the line that I’ve seen. But we shall see. Danielson’s entrance is no more elaborate than anyone else’s in ROH, but its still a very good entrance that gets the crowd well into it. Great bit when he’s announced and he catches a yellow streamer, then tosses it right back out. Someone throws a loo roll at Danielson. Good God, let’s hope that the loo roll streamers entrance doesn’t spread to Danielson. Christian’s now wearing a home-made ‘Cabanaramma’ headband.

I concur with Leicester’s analysis that Cabana’s no way main event material. The fans chant ‘THIS IS AWESOME’ to a comedy spot based around Christian’s ‘That’s how I roll’ catchphrase. I know everyone hates it, but I think in this situation it adds to things. The match really comes alive when Danielson’s in the ring with Cabana, and promptly schools him, as you’d expect. He then contemptuously tells him to tag in Christian. Bastard. He doesn’t spend long in the ring with Christian, though. The moment he gets a really frustrated, he ‘power’ tags Christopher Daniels and steps out, resulting in him being called a pussy by pretty much everybody. Cabana and Christian pull off an old E & C move, before Cabana does a few necbreakers and moves, before his pratting about pisses Danielson off and he proceeds to destroy him with knees and elbows to the face. Very puro-inspired spot, that. Reminds me of a somewhat differently angled KENTA/Kobashi exchange. Danielson then causes Cabana to head to the outside and proceeds to throw him into a couple of railings while being a cocky shit towards Christian. Danielson continues to muller Cabana. Daniels hits a Death Valley Driver with difficulty after being tagged in, resulting in Danielson shouting at him “See? That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention. WORK HIS LEG!” The ongoing story is that Cabana can’t deal with Danielson in any way, shape or form. This is obviously building to the rematch of that horrendous embarassment that Cabana suffered at the 100th Show. Cabana hits an awful Asai moonsault on Daniels on the floor, where he gets almost no horizontal movement and nearly hits his head on the apron as well as Daniels clearly having to move forward to catch him. Unprettier gets converted into Cattle Mutilation, but Cabana breaks it. Christian is remarkable in how heavily he puts over Danielson. He gets outwrestled systematically and goes through both of Danielson’s primary submission finishers before Daniels gets tagged in. Christian gets a near fall off a frog splash, following a miscue, then goes for the Unprettier but gets missile dropkicked. Cabana then butt bumps Danielson before getting launched over the top rope. Daniels goes for Angel Wings, and Cage converts into Unprettier for the win. Amusingly, Danielson is in perfect position to save Daniels, but he just shrugs it off and walks away instead.

Post match Christian says the match proves Danielson isn’t the best, but of course we all know he let his team lose, and he’s not impressed. Good stuff, usual superlative work from Danielson. Christian seemed a little inactive, though.

***1/2

Finally, Pearce and Whitmer are all pissed off about losing yet again. They want to fight CC/Hero/Butcher, anyone, everyone, they’re here to fight. And Samoa Joe’s looking for a fight, too! Scary. Next up... Ring of HOMICIDE!

Nice review as always, mate.

Ahhh, Kikutaro. If you’ve never seen him before…Kikutaro is the legend of Osaka Pro Wrestling, and in my opinion the greatest ‘comedy’ wrestler of all time. He was originally called Ebbessan, but when his contract with OPW ran out his boss gave the gimmick to someone else and he changed his costume, keeping the same mask. His character is based around some kind of Japanese myth of a god of prosperity (Help me, Carbomb!)
As well as checking out his brilliant work in Japanese Indies, OPW and All Japan, he’s been on several ROH shows previously. Most notoriously, when Mick Foley was feuding with Samoa Joe, Foley hand picked ‘Ebbessan Jack’ (He also does great parodies) to take on the Samoan. It was a classic. They also faced each other in a Four Way that also contained Jack Evans and Delirious. Probably Jack Evans’ best match ever.

Aries always hits the tope between the bottom and middle ropes. That’s one of the reasons it’s so awesome, because it always crushes his opponents against the rail instead of just making contact with a shoulder or something like most Indy topes. Aries is about the best seller in the whole company.

As far as spot fests go, I don’t so much hate them as think they don’t relate to wrestling very much. I can’t see the elements of a wrestling match in a four team scramble, so it makes my head hurt trying to review them as such. They can be some fun to watch live, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a six way high flying match where the fans gave a damn about who won it more than they cared about popping for the dive chain.

So I'm going up to Broxbourne next week with a fair bit of cash to spend on ROH dvds. I have everything I want up to Night of Grudges 2 from last year, so could someone who knows what they're talking about recommend me the best ROH releases from then up 'til their most current ones?
cheers
James

THE

ENTIRE

MILESTONE

SERIES

.

Seriously, ROH's product is consistently good quality. They have occasional dips and occasional highs, but I've yet to see an actual bad card. The ones where the undercards are a bit cack invariably have astonishing main events (a la Arena Warfare). Supercard of Honour's must-see, and Better Than Our Best is widely considered one of the best ROH shows in history.



I'll agree with that, but I kind of see them as the equivalent of 'rest' matches. They're the dip before the super quality comes on. It's like in NOAH with the old fart matches. They're shit, but they're fun. This is just a different kind of fun for a different kind of crowd that dig seeing very pretty sequences and moves. I enjoy them on that level. I think when they're done right, so that they're totally chaotic with bodies flying everywhere and moves all over the place, they can be at least *** matches. I prefer sitting in front of my PC (always watch on my PC, as you know) marking a little for funky moves I've never seen than sitting with a scowl on my face as my sensibilities are bludgeoned with a hammer by the appalling piss-break matches on WWE shows.

They're certainly a step up on the old ECW equivalents, and tend to have SLIGHTLY more point to them. Then of course there's the ones which actually weave a few storylines together like the one where Jacobs finally scores his win which have some legitimate emotion behind them.

On a side note, I still don't get what people have against Ace Steele.

As you might have noticed from my reviews, I have a soft spot for Crazy Ace.

Oh yeah, I wasn't really directing that at you. I'm wondering what OTHER people have against him. We both dig the crazy troll.

If you haven't seen much older ROH, the Prophecy/Second City Saints wars were the golden age for Ace Steel in the company, although the Second City Saints Vs Generation Next feud featured him in some good tag matches as well.

So.

Joe vs. Danielson.

Who's gonna win? Joe has looked completely unstoppable on ROH shows of late, while Danielson has been in trouble in his defences multiple times and lost to Nigel McGuinness not so long ago. The fans will be completely behind Joe, and you just know they'll probably chant "BULLSHIT" if he loses. They're ready for another Joe title run.

On the other hand, Danielson's proven he can beat anybody and thrives when he's pushed to the limit.

My heart goes to Danielson, but I think Joe's going to do it, although in my opinion the smart booking says Danielson should win it. Unlike Joe, he needs the title for his gimmick to really work.

I’m pretty split, but I think the booking might point towards Joe reclaiming the title.

With KENTA owed a title shot, the match with Joe would probably be the big pay off for his involvement in ROH. It’s the match they’ve been leading up to since day one, really.

The stipulation for Danielson’s match with Nigel in Liverpool still hasn’t been announced. Is this because a big change is coming soon? Like Nigel being the only guy going in with a belt?

Aries is also owed a title shot, and being the man who ended Joe’s first title reign, the heat would be incredible.

However, how much is there really left for Joe to do as champion? How could he follow his historic first reign and would it tarnish it’s legacy if the second was muted by comparison?

I want Danielson to keep hold of it for now. I want the eventual winner to be someone like Aries, who got made in one match by winning it. Part of me doubts we will ever see a two time ROH champion, it just doesn’t seem to be in Gabe’s nature as a booker.

I think Danielson will be winning, or it'll go the time limit. Either way, I can't see Joe leaving with the belt. I think Joe/KENTA may happen on 9/15, non-title.

However, a 4 month reign for Joe doesn't seem too out of bounds. Looking forward, he'd replace Dragon in the Nigel match (Shane said if Joe were to win, he may make a 1 night only appearance in Liverpool. Coincidentally, Joe was scheduled to defend the belt against Nigel the show after Aries beat him), the Cabana 2-out of-3 Falls match (Cabana's the story in this, not the Champ - It's in Chicago), the Aries GBHV match (we know the build there) and the KENTA match (THE match that ROH are promoting). So if Joe wins, title booking still makes sense. Then you'd have Homicide winning SOTF (to get a shot at Final Battle), with Strong pinning Joe first. He could have filler defences vs. BJ (who he'll team with in August) and Claudio (whose match with Joe in Chicago would be cancelled due to the Cabana defence). Then the Strong defence at a Chicago show before finally losing to Homicide at Final Battle.

I'm still going with Dragon, though it's very much up in the air.

See, I think Joe not having the title would be better for the KENTA match. Everyone'll know immediately who's going over if Joe's got the title going in. If they go in without titles, the possibility will be there that Joe'll lose, remember he lost to Kobashi last time, and that memory's sure to be hot in ROH fans' minds. KENTA is Kobashi's protegé and everything, too.

However, Danielson dropping the World Title only to take the Pure Title would make sense, but that kind of leaves McGuinness in the lurch, and he's very, very over at the minute because of his 'best champion in the world who only wins by countouts or cheating' stuff.

Good point on the Aries match.

I don't think there's anything for Joe to do in ROH save win the tag titles. He's like the Undertaker. He could come to the ring and do nothing but fart for five minutes and remain over.

He's booked two-time ROH tag champions (Punk/Cabana, Whitmer/Jacobs), so anything's possible. There's only so many guys he can give the top singles titles to, after all. I've noticed he has a fondness for long title reigns, and you can see why. It definitely gets his champions over well. If anyone's going to be the first two-time singles champ it'll be Joe.

There's definitely going to be a 2-time ROH World Champion.

It just won't happen this weekend.

I think (and kinda hope).

I'd be shocked if Danielson lost the title this close to the one year mark (he's at 321 days).

I'd also be shocked if Joe won the title from Danielson here, as Joe retained in his one defence against Danielson. A Danielson win this weekend would make it 2-2 in singles contests between them, I think, so they'd still have a tiebreaker they could build to.

Seems they’ve decided to include Video Recaps on all their releases from now on. This one first recaps Delirious’ match with Danielson and getting his head smashed in. CZW beating ROH yet again. Also includes Jim Cornette’s promo towards Homicide. End. Nothing new, basically.

And we are in to Ring of HOMICIDE!!!!

Sorta.

First we get a shot outside the building, and a BJ Whitmer interview. Whitmer’s pissed that Homicide told the company to go fuck itself. Recaps a little history between them. Whitmer asks him ‘as a man’ to come join the fight. It’s a much better pitch than Cornette/Pearce. Embassy interview. They’re not happy with Mr. Yang. Apparently he has Ninja friends, and Rave wants Haze to watch out for them.

1st Match: Kikutaro vs. Colt Cabana

Now this is Colt’s territory. This should be superb. Somehow, though, I doubt it will be as good as the last show’s match with Delirious, they played off each other so very well. With the memory of Colt’s supposedly life-changing feud behind me I’m not so burnt by how badly it’s been treated in the aftermath. He does indeed look very natural, happy and OVER. The fans like Colt a lot. So much so that Kikutaro goes to walk out. Kikutaro shows he knows a bit of English with a little bit of mic work.

Prazak has a new pal in the broadcast position. Some nice play around some high/low five spots, then a weird arm wringer-based dance. Match goes on with all kinds of hijinx, including both Colt and the referee getting crotched on the middle rope, before Kiku botches Shinzaki’s rope walk spot. The shocking thing here is that it’s actually a well constructed match. Just a very silly one. Kikutaro shockingly hits a serious move with a dragon screw into shining wizard. The referee (same guy from the previous show) ends up clotheslining Kikutaro, leading to Colt’s powerbomb-assisted victory.

Funny stuff, well worth seeing at least once. Kikutaro is indeed very funny.

**1/2

2nd Match: Homicide and Ricky Reyes Vs. Dunn and Marcos

Apparently D and M are called the something-something express. I do wonder why they don’t advertise them as that tandem name. It’s not as if any of their fans aren’t going to know who is in what teams, after all. Ricky “Mr. Charisma” Reyes continues to look pissed off at the world, while Homicide eclipses him in a similar manner to a nuclear bomb vs. a firecracker. Far from shaking hands, Homicide spits in his guy’s face, and Reyes just stares. Friendly as always.

RING CREW EXPRESS! That’s what it is. Nice. Homicide pulls a Blood Generation spot with a super-ultra-duper-mega rope run into a face dropkick in the camel clutch position. Homicide pulls a fuckin’ ROLLING superplex into a falcon arrow. Super-awesome. Still, this is traditional ROH tag material, more move based than anything else. As always, Ricky Reyes looks like he knows how to hurt people and intends to do exactly that. Rottweilers isolate Dunn, and start kicking and hammering him to death. Dunn breaks free from Reyes and tags in Marcos, who goes at Reyes. Some lovely stuff. The new play-by-play man sucks. He sounds FAR too similar to Prazak. Homicide kills Dunn with a lariat, then kicks Marcos to set him up for the dragon sleeper. I don’t think this match went over 10 minutes. Closest thing to a TOTAL squash that ROH is likely to book.

Entertaining, nothing special. Too short.

*1/2

Post match, out comes Pearce in a fucking weird glittery outfit. He talks to Homicde and tries to appeal to his sense of home. Homicide immediately replies “Oh, not this shit again”. Know why? Because the office is being LAME. Homicide plays this great, he looks incredulous that Pearce is even talking to him. Pearce gives him the mic, he lifts it to speak... then drops it and walks off. Probably the best possible way they could have booked this segment. The ongoing theme is that Homicide doesn’t give a toss about... well... anything, but ostensibly he does like the company. If he gets involved, though, it’s obvious it’ll be on his own terms.

3rd Match: Jimmy Rave w/Haze and Nana Vs. Jimmy Yang

The toilet shower isn’t the same without Shelley. It’s just not. Wonder where he is? Haze, surprisingly, doesn’t get involved at all here, playing peacemaker and trying to calm Rave down. Jimmy Yang’s weird. His music is awesome, he’s obviously very charismatic, he definitely has the look, but the whole doesn’t click together. It’s a pity. He definitely has the potential to be mega in ROH, considering how over he is despite a consistent losing streak and a series of so-so or subpar matches. Will he heel it up again, though? I hope so. Yang has no ‘ninja friends’ I might add. Handshake and we’re on, but for the crowd heckling pissing Rave off something rotten.

Prazak reminds us that Yang beat Rave recently, and Rave wants his win back. My DVD then inexplicably freezes solid. My task manager suggests the program is playing silly buggers. It then does it again in the same fucking spot, and a little bit of my soul dies. What the hell is up with this little batch of DVDs? I skip ahead by about ten seconds and all is cool. I think Rave runs out to the entrance ramp after pissing Yang off. Back in, Rave goes back to pissing off Yang with slaps to the back of the head off a takedown, then gets bitch slapped on his way out of the ring and heads to the entrance again. Rave looks flustered, but it’s pretty obvious he’s trying to annoy Yang, who simply sits down in the middle of the ring and waits. Lockup and Rave goes behind, slap up the head, leaves the ring again. Yang follows him around the ring for a bit before heading back inside and waiting again. Yang gets some sustained offence in, pitches Rave to the floor, and throws him into a few of the guard rails for vengeance. Well, I say ‘some’. I mean ‘all’. Yang’s back on his face game here. Pity. Haze comes in and LEGITIMATELY outdoes Yang on a brief exchange, planting him with an inverted DDT. This gives Rave control of the match. Rave hits some good, hard offence. Yang slips free of a sunset flip-esque pin to dropkick Rave square in the face, getting back on the aggro. Yang slightly messes up a moonsault off the top, forcing Rave to take a little step forward to catch him. Then in comes Nana to rake the eyes, and receive one hell of a low blow, complete with comedy over-selling. Rave takes a superkick, but Haze SWEETLY pulls his leg out from under him, none of this pausing crap, she just leaps up on the apron and yanks his leg free. It looks BRUTAL. Greetings of Ghana, three count. Rave steals an undeserved victory.

I have to say, Rave’s gimmick works so much better in ROH, where almost everyone gets clean, well deserved wins whether they be face or heel. As a legitimate cheater and ‘dishonourable’ wrestler, Rave attracts legitimate hatred from a crowd that STILL cares about the ‘Honour’ part of their company’s name. This one’s a good match, still, not stellar.

**

4th Match: Nigel McGuinness vs. Jay Lethal

Don’t know Lethal well, but I’ve liked what I’ve seen. I’m not sure whether to say that this is looking like a relatively poor card so far or not, to be honest. Nigel cuts a good promo, starting with a joke about him not knowing where he’s wrestling and being corrected by the referee. “I thought New Jersey was just a smelly part of New York” Goes on to talk about how people can’t decide who the best of the best champions in ROH is, and how he has beaten EVERY other title holder in the company, and that his reign is longer than theirs is. I didn’t know that. I think Danielson’s got more defences, though, due to Nigel’s long stint in Japan. He opens a challenge to the entire world to take him on for his title. Which is cool. Wonder if they’re going to start the whole ‘cross-promotional’ defences for McGuinness, too. It’s done wonders for the profile of Danielson’s title reign and career.

Oh yeah, I know Lethal. Got beat by Joe a few shows ago. Gets a “WELCOME BACK” chant. I forget sometimes what a big guy McGuinness is. He definitely has ‘the star’ look about him. Nigel controls the opening stretch without difficulty. The top wristlock is McGuinness’ poison of choice in the early going. Uses some sneakiness to get a punch in behind the ref’s back, then blocks about a dozen chops from an incensed Jay, before pronouncing Bret Hart’s old catchphrase for some boos. I really do like Nigel McGuinness. He’s silky smooth, intricate, and cool. And he calls people ‘wankers’ on a regular basis. He’s also far more agile than he looks as he demonstrates by cartwheeling out of a scissors throw attempt. Lethal eventually gets control with a hip toss/cartwheel/dropkick combo. He then locks in some weird ass submission based on a russian leg sweep to force Nigel’s first rope break. Nigel immediately hits back into it, then pulls a beautiful headstand spot. I love Nigel’s headstand spots. He always changes what he does. The only thing I’ve seen twice is his mule kick. Here he kicks Jay in the back of the head then practically caves his chest in with an elbow OF DOOM. McGuiness then applies a top wristlock into a takedown to start working on his arm more intently than earlier in the match. As you’d expect he comes up with all kinds of fun and original stuff to hurt the arm, eventually using his repeat-o-pin sequence to get Lethal to use his first rope break, and runs him down as he stands up with contemptuous little kicks like a total bastard. “Look at you, in front of all your friends and family, too. You’re embarassing yourself” Git. Lethal, however, escapes a Tower of London, hits Nigel a bunch and hits a diving wheel kick to knock him down and get some severe momentum going. This unfortunately culminates in him getting crotched on the ropes before getting his head lariated off. This apparently results in him using another rope break. Lethal goes for the win with a dragon suplex, but it ends up with a rope bounce lariat OF DOOM and McGuinness gets a heart in the mouth near fall. I was sure he had it there! This is great. The fans are totally behind Lethal. McGuinness drags the referee in the way to stop a top rope move, then runs in and hits the Tower of London... FOR A NEAR FALL! But number two kills him, and Nigel gets the win. Fucking awesome. If this hadn’t been a match that had no build it would undoubtedly have been five stars.

****1/2

5th Match: Bryan Danielson Vs. Delirious

I predict that this will rock. Delirious, underneath all the nutty antics, is actually an excellent wrestler, and Danielson could probably have a decent wrestling match with Margaret Thatcher if it so pleased him. Delirious is bouncy and happy to be with the people as always, and it seems he’s hungry for green streamers as he puts one in his mouth in the corner. Wonder if he’ll go nuts at the bell like he always does? Danielson looks like a superstar, as always. It’s amazing what lighting can do to a man. Look at HHH, who’s entrance is completely shit but for the cool lighting he gets given.

Danielson’s given the mic, and awesomeness ensues. Rags on the fans for being interested in Christian Cage and having the gall to chant for American Dragon AND the other guys in the back. Pisses the fans RIGHT off. “I’ve got the microphone, and there’s nothing you idiots can do about it. I was actually going to shut up right there, but since you people want me to shut up so badly, and I do things the way I want to do, I will talk all night long.” The number seven cannot contain the awesomeness of Dragon. I’m not sure that any number can. Delirious then grabs the mic and cuts a super awesome incomprehensible promo of his own that riles the fans up rotten in a completely different way before proceeding to attack the champ. Brilliant build to this match.

The CZW fans typically ruin the fantastic atmosphere by chanting ‘OVERRATED’. Why is this ruining? Because the ROH fans IMMEDIATELY rally by chanting ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP’ in reply. Pity, but predictable. Delirious ends up getting dominated, of course, which makes sense. He works as a brilliant underdog challenger. When he does get control, it’s with a fabulous headscissor counter out of a backdrop which has to be seen to be believed, before hitting a big clothesline and choking Danielson with one of his mask tassles, then losing control to... um... getting hit in the face. Danielson’s good that way. The match settles into back and forth, with Delirious’ much wilder offence contrasting nicely with Danielson’s mostly aggro offence. Which is another awesome thing about Danielson: He can adjust his style to his opponent. Here, where a technical masterclass isn’t appropriate, he switches to a more brawling, strike-based assault. Delirious twats him with a chair and rams his head into a chair held by a fan, before Danielson gets pissed and absolutely BLATHERS him with a chair of his own. Back in the ring Danielson goes for his surfboard, for a rousing chant of ‘SAME OLD SHIT’, which of course he eats up, taunting the fans with a cry of ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ before, naturally, proceeding to change up his old surfboard with a couple of Lyger’s old surfboard variations. After a bit of choking, he then puts Delirious on the apron and damn hear cracks his head open with a running forearm. This has been awesome so far. Danielson is being BRUTAL in this match. The CZWankers start chanting ‘TNA REJECT’ so Danielson corrects them with ‘I don’t know if you heard, but I rejected TNA, so fuck you. Besides, they wouldn’t let me do the same old shit’. It’s exchanges like that where you understand the sometimes crawling reactions Danielson gets from sections of the ROH fans. I don’t know of anyone in ROH who plays off, against, and with the fans like Danielson does. He works them with his style, with his voice, with his spots, with everything. He really is the total package. Anyway, aside from increasing my ‘worship-o-meter’, he tortures Delirious a bunch with some submission holds, before getting launched outside and toped into the guard rail by Delirious, who is in full suicide mode. Dragon takes control again, but his diving headbutt gets countered with an ace crusher. After a complicated series, Delirious hooks in the Cobra Stretch, but Danielson makes the ropes. Again, Danielson OBLITERATES Delirious with sick running forearm shots, then hits a roaring elbow and dragon suplex for a near fall. The response after he’s hooked the chickenwing and Delirious hits the ropes is heartwarming, and says a lot about the success of this match. Delirious takes a little, before hitting Shadows over Hell, the Cobra backbreaker and the Cobra Stretch again, but Danielson makes the ropes. When he misses a second Shadows and gets put in Cattle Mutilation, you can feel and hear how badly the fans want Delirious to get the ropes, and he does, then escapes the USB elbows (which beat him last time) to a massive fan response. Delirious goes apeshit with a pair of fucking sick soccer kicks to the face, then gets snap-rolled into a small package and Danielson gets the the three count. This was fucking awesome, and the people who chant ‘OVERRATED’ in the audience need to die.

This match and the preceeding one are both must-sees, IMO.

****1/2


There’s some intermission here, with Julius Smokes dressed up weirdly in a baseball outfit. He basically says ‘well, you fucked us on a title match, screw you all’. Samoa Joe’s in to go ‘grrrr, there’s a fight going on.’ Smokes agrees to chat to Homicide about the matter over tea and scones.

Well, not exactly. I’m sure scones will be involved, though.


6th Match: Matt Sydal Vs. Christopher Daniels

No. 1: This is not going to be as good as the previous two matches.

No. 2: Lantern’s gonna hate this.

No. 3: I’m going to rather like this match.

Sydal enters the ring, sans anything interesting. Daniels makes his cool entrance with his great lighting, cool dramatic music and good routine. No Allison Danger. I wonder where she is? Oh, I do believe I remember a phone conversation a show or so ago where she said she’d be absent. Maybe it’s to do with that. It’s weird that Daniels is so much more over with the ROH crowd than AJ Styles is. You can tell. It’s the way ROH doesn’t book Styles half the time and book Daniels on almost every show. Though Lantern would debate it, I think it’s because Daniels is just a better wrestler, certainly more reliable, and definately better able to connect with the fan base.

Handshake, ‘cause we’re both faces here, and Sydal explodes like a firecracker all over Daniels’ face. Niiiiice. Unfortunately, this is doomed. The explosive beginning can’t help but be compared to the previous match’s start, and it pales. Here, Sydal’s in control early trying flash pins and stuff. I really believe ROH would improve if they booked the wrestlers to kick out at one at the beginning of matches. SO MANY ROH matches involve flash pin attempts that the use of one counts would actually have an automatic and positive effect, IMO. Sydal hits a nice running clothesline in the corner combined with a jump through the ropes. If he can master that it’s the perfect ‘combo linker’ for possive signature spots. In ROH, that’s goldust. Even the crap performers have SOME cool looking moves, so finding ways to differentiate is vital. Danielson gets control and goes hard with bully boy offence, mostly based around kicks and violence, which is a very sensible way of working. Instead of going for spot obsession, his own more grounded offence gives Sydal more room to shine. Smart work. Sure enough, after a long period of offence Sydal fires back with a headscissors and spinning wheel kick, then a half twisting dive over the top rope. This match, especially in comparison to the previous one, epitomises the ‘pretty but vacant’ style that often permeates ROH cards. The fans pop, but are almost silent when they’re not popping. The work doesn’t truly connect. It’s weird. Delirious is so much newer to the company than Sydal, but he has infinitely more star potential. He sells better, naturally incites sympathy, is completely unique, and tends to be (ironically) a much smarter worker despite his humourous antics. The only issue is whether you find said antics annoying or not. Daniels gets locked in his own Koji Clutch, which earns a few claps, but is populated by silence. Compare to Danielson in the Cobra Stretch for context. The announcers build this as an important match for Sydal, as he’s going to Dragon Gate and a victory over Daniels will really put him over; but the fans aren’t feeling it. Sydal blocks a hurracanrana and hits a jumping ‘rana for another near fall, then rolls through a top rope toss and cradles for another one. Counters the STO and goes for Angel’s Wings, before Daniels counters it into a cradle of his own and gets the three count, beating Sydal at his own match-long game.

There’s no doubting it’s high quality, but the lack of crowd reaction and its placing really kills it. This is undercard stuff, not main event.

**1/2

7th match: GenNEXT Vs. The Briscoes

I’m going to like this. I like the Briscoes and their slightly scuzzy, street aggro look, especially compared to the super refined GenNEXT elitists. I HOPE they’re going to build from the previous evening’s double jobs, and we’ll see all those usual GenNEXT spots being challenged or blocked.

Lots of handshakes at the start. Lots of ‘NEW FUCKIN’ CHAMPS’ chants, so the Briscoes are well over as a threat. Jay and Wodewick start off, pretty much even. Mark gets tagged in and does not fair so well, leading to GenNEXT taking control and going to work on his arm. Probably a sore point after the previous evening’s loss. Lots of fine technical work with the fans intermittently well into it and quiet. Briscoes take over on Wodewick, attacking his leg, but that last about five seconds before GenNEXT are back in command and working Jay Briscoe’s arm. Blind tag to Mark gets the Briscoes back in control. Which, again, lasts not very long at all. Despite multiple switches of momentum, GenNEXT seem to be the ones scoring the bigger hits. Aries hits his Death Tope on Mark, but he seems to hurt his shoulder and has Wodewick launch Marky Mark into the barricade while he shakes his arm out. Also possible he’s just selling the work from his loss the previous show. Either way, GenNEXT continue with getting the important hits. Hart Attack clothesline on Mark and Aries again sells the shoulder, and then the first of Wodewick’s chops is doled out. So far the BBs aren’t doing very well. They’re basically trying to outdo GenNEXT at their own game and failing miserably. Aries gets blasted by Jay on the slow motion knee, then hit with a spinning wheel kick to get Jay tagged in and the BBs on aggro again. Typically, they’re A LOT less slinky than GenNEXT with their tag moves, including a rope choke/stand on the back spot and the old partner-assisted abdominal stretch. That gets some boos. Double shoulder block knocks Aries flat, and some fucking berk in the crowd is repeatedly shouting “<something> is a phony”. Die, prickboy. Aries gets worked over behind the referee’s back, gets a near fall off a sunset flip, but gets mowed down by a lariat. Good spot were Mark Briscoe stops Aries from tagging by clinging to his tights, and when he finally elbows him off Jay comes charging in and yakuza kicks Aries right in the side of the head, leading to a springing double stomp. OW. Aries finally tags in to Wodewick, who of course proceeds to beat both Briscoes down. Big flying death kick gets a close near fall, and the fans are properly into things again. Irish whip into dropkick goes to uranage backbreaker for a near fall, then a Mark Northern Lights gets a near fall, immediately followed by a Jay diving leg drop for another one. Aries breaks up a backbreaker/knee pin at one, then kicks the crap out of both Briscoes, leading to a double backbreaker and a chop/brainbuster. Finally, GenNEXT’s finisher is blocked and a spiked Jay Driller leads to a double pin, one on Wodewick and one on Mark, for two three counts. However, Wodewick wasn’t legal and Mark was, so GenNEXT win.

I did like this, but as is typical with GenNEXT the Briscoes really didn’t look all that competitive. If they had won it would have looked like a fluke, because GenNEXT had almost all of the big hits. If they wanted to build this up to a return match (obviously they do, such finishes have no point otherwise), the Briscoes should have looked equal, or at least looked like they would have won on this one night, all things being equal. Yes, GenNEXT are unbeatable. I get the point. Why do I care when they’re defending the titles, then? The basic point of the previous evening appears to be that while the Briscoes have answers to Aries and Wodewick individually, they have none for them as a team. So what was the point of the weird finish?

Aside from my growing boredom with GenNEXT’s reign, it’s a poster-child for why Danielson is working better as champ. Anytime GenNEXT lose, it’s swiftly depicted as making no difference, as it was here after their singles losses. When Danielson loses, it usually ends up meaning something, and his opponents are always kept strong to a degree. The fans genuinely believed Delirious could beat Danielson earlier in the card, and Danielson’s win was believable but hardly dominating. I don’t think that anyone really thought the Briscoes could do it until they’d hit the Jay Driller. Domination’s fine on a short run, but where are they gonna go once they’ve conclusively beaten everyone? With Danielson, the rematches still have plenty of heat in them, for the most part.

***


8th Match: Samoa Joe Vs. Necro Butcher

The CZW/ROH feud continues. Joe and Necro destroy each other’s referees, first. Joe opens up dominating Necro until Chris Hero interferes and attacks him, but Joe fires back before long and smacks him about a bit. Joe beats up both Hero AND Necro for a while, then out comes Claudio Castagnoli and blathers him with a chair shot. Three on one, maybe they have a chance. Unsurprisingly this makes the fans angry. Then out come Whitmer and Steel, sending CC and Hero running for their lives. Hero plays terrified really well, here. Claudio gets chased around the ring, then goes to escape underneath it, but gets dragged out and tossed into the crowd. Joe gets taken off to the back. Riiight. So a single chairshot is enough to take out Joe, now? Joe the ultra-invincible superman? Sense making much? Necro gets powerbombed really scrapily onto a pair of chairs, which looks horrible. A general back and forth brawl goes on, 3 on 2 of course, with chairs being the weapon of choice and lots of fighting in the crowd. In the end they all end up in the ring, where CZW takes over properly. Double Hero’s Welcome kills Pearce, and Whitmer gets hammered down by Hero and CC while Butcher continues to attack Pearce. Then... the lights go out, and Homicide’s music hits. Things are hitting high gear. The response when he attacks Hero and CC is immense. Things work out with Homicide facing Necro Butcher, and everyone else gone. Talk about a bait and switch. What the fuck is up with Samoa Joe, of late?

In the fans, Necro pelts Homicide with chairs before dragging him off and getting suplexed onto a half dozen other chairs, then getting blasted with a bunch of others. The fight heads back to ringside and Homicide continues to attack a now bloody Necro. He then appealsto the fans to launch their chairs, and Necro ducks and covers while he gets buried under thrown chairs. One hits the camera and we switch angle. I have no idea how many chairs are in the ring, but it’s a lot. Necro is fucking INVISIBLE. Homicide eventually gets on the mic to get it to stop. “Alright, alright, this guy’s fucked up already, he got the fucking deal, there’s too many chairs in the ring”. Unbelievable. The chair throwing visual I think will remain one of wrestling’s most unique, treasured things. Homicide then digs Necro out and piledrives him on the chairs for a TWO! The bell rings, but the ref corrects, and Necro hits a fucking TIGER DRIVER on the chairs. This has got to feel like hell for both of them. ROH students are down to drag some of the chairs out of the ring so its vaguely safe. Necro goes up and gets tossed onto chairs for another two, the fans are majorly into this whole thing, as you’d expect. Necro tries a few moves on the apron but gets blocked, including a piledriver, suplex and DDT, before finally getting suplexed off onto the chairs that the students had pulled out of the ring! Holy christ this is madness! Homicide splashes Necro through a table, the one move since the chair throwing that DIDN’T land on chairs, then proceeds back in to a ring finally cleared of steel for another shocking near fall. Necro fires back with punches, then gets kneed in the gut and killed with a running lariat to give Homicide the match-winning three count. Homicide’s joined the war, and he’s on ROH’s side. But he says he’s not for ROH, he’s for himself and nobody else. In fact the ROH chants seem to piss him off.

****

Madness. Watch this show. The undercard’s a bit below par, but the main event and the two singles titles matches are absolutely immense.