Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted December 11, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 11, 2008 FIP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted December 15, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 15, 2008 Does anyone else think it odd that ROH didn't bother to mark their 200th show? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daaaaaad! Posted December 15, 2008 Share Posted December 15, 2008 Before Gabe went I would've agreed, but I think they're probably trying to establish a different direction for ROH. It is still a little odd, but I suppose this is the way they're trying to go, which is fair enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobystag Posted December 15, 2008 Share Posted December 15, 2008 The 200th show was in Japan. And this was before Gabe left. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted December 16, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2008 Up For Grabs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted December 16, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2008 (edited) I have to say, I liked the main event of this show immensely, as it makes the eventual payoff that much sweeter. This is the Steen and Genrico vs AOTF equivalent of Homicide challenging Danielson at 'Destiny' in 2006, the fact that it works even better in 2008 is a novelty in this less thrilling year for ROH storylines. Â In terms of pushing fresh talent, I'd agree with you if you were pushing for anyone other than Kingston, as I think he's awful. Â EDIT: I still haven't watched Death Before Dishonor VI. I have 6 DVDs and no time to watch at the moment Edited December 16, 2008 by gadgetboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted December 17, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 17, 2008 The way the tag title tournament was booked was brilliant from start to finish. It just baffles me how the same people that booked that are also responsible for drivel like "Southern Navigation". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted December 19, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 19, 2008 Fuck me, I've watched 2 dvd's in a week! If I carry on like this I'll find myself up to date with ROH releases - a position I havn't been in since 2003 Â Respect Is Earned II Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted December 25, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 25, 2008 Battle For Supremacy - 26/6/08 Â Â Mitch Franklin & Silas Young vs. Tank Toland & Shane Hagadorn - what the fuck is this match doing on a main card? Mitch Franklin is almost as big a joke as Pelle Primeau, while Silas Young is about as interesting as a dead squirrel. It's supposed to be Dempsey and Hagadorn, but Sweeney announces the return of Tank Toland. Where's he been for the past 6 months? Subsequently, Hagadorn and Toland make short work of these jobbers. Â Delirious vs. Tyler Black - once again Black is over like a motherfucker. This is actually a pretty enjoyable match - again, maybe if Delirious has a gimmick change he might have more decent matches instead of the odd one here and there. The finish sees the incredibly hot Alison Wonderland crack Daizee Haze (who happened to be in Delirious' corner) with her handbag, leading to Rhett Titus to come out and help her, leading to Delirious being distracted...and Black hits the small package driver for the pin. I should also mention Nigel joins Prozac and Leonard on commentary. He's a pretty good heel commentator, and it makes a change from listening to Prazak and Leonard constantly agreeing with each other. Â Jay Briscoe vs. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Brent Albright - I see Albright has taken a page out of "The B.J. Whitmer guide to heel and face turns". His look and ring entrance are exactly the same as when he was a heel, except he slaps a few hands on the way to the ring. Dear oh dear. A somewhat odd composition for a triple threat match, it's nonetheless quite entertaining, with a couple of good three way spots. Castagnoli wins with the running European uppercut on Jay. Still, considering they're supposed to building Castagnoli up for another title shot, he really ought to be in better matches than this. There's also a classic moment on commentary when McGuinness accuses Castagnoli of doing "the Nazi shuffle". Priceless. Â Erik Stevens vs. Brian Danielson - a good match, but no-where near as good as the corker they had back in January. Is it me, or has Danielson been phoning it in for the past couple of shows? Even so, the fact is that he Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 FIP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-storm Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 I'm also a huge Davey Richards mark! Can't watch enough of the guy, so crisp and fluent. Â Â ...Anyone else think he has Dynamite Kid(in ring) written all over him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted December 27, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 27, 2008 (edited) Review now complete...  Death Before Dishonor VI - New York, NY - 2/8/08  The second ROH show in the Hammerstein Ballroom, the opening visual of that venue filled with people immediately screams "this is going to be a major show". The opening hour and ten minutes of the DVD featuring the first four matches flows from one match to the next. Something that ECW used to do a lot, and which can be confusing, but it works very well here with Larry Sweeney's mic work explaining who is who and what's going on...   Jay and Mark Briscoe vs Ruckus and Jigsaw opens, and is a fast paced spot match which gets the crowd going and announces the return of the Briscoes teaming together properly after Mark's latest injury abscence. The Vulture Squad hang in there for a bit, through the big dive sequence, but then fall to the double teaming of the Briscoes as the springboard doomsday device sees Jigsaw take the fall.  Then out comes Sweeney, along with Chris Hero, Eddie Edwards and Bobby Dempsey. Sweeney puts over the Briscoes and tries to sign them up to Sweet 'n' Sour Inc. though they have none of it and quickly leave. Hero then gets on the mic, and he's pissed about being pinned by Delirious in the tag team scramble at 'A New Level'. I do like it when ROH maintains continuity in particular venues. So...  Chris Hero vs Delirious is your second match. The crowd are still hot after the opener, Sweeney and Hero's mic work got them booed nicely after they came out to a booming ovation of "Sweet and Sour" chants, and Delirious' entrance gets a big reaction as usual. So when they follow that with a clever start involving Delirious going under the ring after the banished Bobby Dempsey, and Delirious then diving onto S n S Inc en masse, then keep the tempo up throughout, we get a good undercard match with clearly defined roles for both guys. Hero gets a much needed win as his strikes wear Delirious out and a second rolling elbow gets him the clean pinfall victory.  A jubilant Sweeney then gets back on the mic, and goes on a rant about Roderick Strong's failure to sign the entire No Remorse Corps to S n S, and we go straight into...  Roderick Strong vs Eddie Edwards. Neither guy here has the character of Hero or Delirious in the previous match, so after a really nice, fast paced series of NOAH junior heavy style exchanges at the start, Sweeney and Hero on the outside start interfering to help Edwards. It seems like a long time since the Roderick of the second half of 2005 and the team with Aries in 2006 appeared, but he seemed to be trying to resurface here, chopping loads, and participating in some pretty slick exchanges in this one. A good match concludes with Sweeney distracting the ref, and Hero using a loaded elbow pad to KO Strong, and Edwards nails a quebrada for the upset victory. I approve, as Edwards showed at least the athletic tools to belong in ROH in this one.  Once again, Sweeney is jubilant as Sweet 'n' Sour Inc have gone 2-0. He sends Hero and Edwards off to the back to 'luxuriate', and introduces NWA World Heavyweight Champion Adam Pearce, who comes out with Sara Del Ray and Shane Hagadorn. This is certainly a faction with plenty of numbers on their side. Pearce cuts some verbals on Brent Albright, and after he comes out we eventually get a title match...  NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Adam Pearce vs Brent Albright  Words almost fail me when it comes to describing this one. On paper, this is something like the worst nightmare for this thread's Dearly Devoted Dexter. In execution.... this is easily one of the top 5 matches of ROH in 2008 to this point. It seems unbelieveable. It almost feels that way. Yet, the same New York City crowd who went mental for Albright's face turn at 'A New Level' get a very good match and make it great by reacting properly to a classic evil champion vs heroic good guy challenger World Title match.  The introductions are a good start. There's even a really nice bit of editing between camera shots when the referee displays the NWA title belt. The NWA title match rules (over the top is a DQ, 10 count on the floor, etc) get booed. The ref asks both men if they understand, and Pearce tells him to "stick it". The early exchanges are your standard title match feeling out process. They end up on the floor when clueless Bobby Dempsey tries to interfere, then gets punched by Pearce by accident when Albright doesn't fall for the obvious distraction. A bit later on, Pearce is on the floor teasing an intentional countout, and Sweeney climbs into the ring with a chair to presumably try and cause a DQ, when Roderick Strong runs in out of nowhere and catches him with a BIG boot to the face, taking him out of the equation for the rest of the match and igniting the crowd into a frenzy.  That's barely half the story though. From there, there's dramatic nearfalls from both men's signature stuff - the half nelson suplex from Albright, the top rope splash and jumping piledriver from Pearce, 5 rolling German suplexes from Albright. There's a good exchange from a Pearce STF into an Albright Crowbar. Albright pulls down his kneepad to go for his kneestrikes finisher, and Pearce quickly counters to a figure four, which works amazingly well in setting of the NWA title being on the line, and a second attempt by Pearce at the hold later on suckers the entire crowd when Albright hooks an inside cradle for the closest nearfall. Then finally, Albright has the Crowbar on, Pearce is shaking his head, so Albright just WRENCHES the arm, and Pearce taps, and the crowd just erupts. As impressive a visual as past ROH title change pops, though the reaction doesn't last as long as such moments.  Both men's best ROH outings by some distance.  Austin Aries vs Jimmy Jacobs vs Necro Butcher  From the sublime to the somewhat ridiculous, this one fall three-way match isn't all out bad, but the execution of what is basically the final part of the Necro Butcher leaves Age of the Fall and goes out on his own angle is pretty sloppily executed. Jacobs and Necro come out together, pretty much ignoring the end of the New Horizons PPV show (and there were no developments during Fueling the Fire, but who cares about B shows?) and work together against Aries. Together, tha is, until Necro tries for a pin, Jacobs flips out, goes on and on and on on the mic, Necro turns on him (eventually) and leaves, and we get a replay of the very end of the match between Aries and Jacobs from Vendetta II - dropkicks in the corner, brainbuster, 450, Aries wins.  The only credit I can give it is it does forcefully push one story. What will happen when Jacobs has to face Necro in Chicago (at the show that is titled Night of the Butcher II on DVD.... subtle).  The second half begins with Delirious once again trying to ask Daizee Haze out on a date (another storyline that started at the last Hammerstein show). This time, he actually gets the question out there, and it's not until Haze is just about to answer... that you might as well face it, it's 'Addicted to Love' Rhett Titus coming down to interrupt. Titus declares the Haze to be used goods and goes off on his now usual spiel. Delirious looks all confused, then gets enraged when Rhett unveils tights with the Haze's face on them! He cleans house on 'Addicted to Love' and turns his attention back to Daizee... who can't act, and also spurns Delirious with lame (yet at the same time great heat getting material) such as "we should just be friends" and "it's not you, it's me..." and walks out. Poor old Delirious, one of my favourite characters in ROH, who to be fair has needed this storyline after months of treading water, doesn't know what to make of that. A proper rebirth is coming, though....  Naomichi Marufuji vs Go Shiosaki gets us back to the in-ring stuff nicely. After what happened to both Sweeney and Pearce in the first half, Go comes out without the Sweet 'n' Sour entourage, which is a good cover for the fact that, as a match between two NOAH talent, there's not going to be any shenanigans anyway. So what we get is basically a NOAH rankings match - not as in they are fighting for a ranking, but in the sense that Marufuji is higher on the NOAH totem pole, so Go spends the whole match as an underdog, in spite of his superior size. The match is really enjoyable to watch, but Marufuji controls things a bit too much for my liking, and kills Go in many ways - a brainbuster on the ring apron, a Shiranui from the apron to the floor, and a regular Shiranui all fail to beat Go, who channels the Kobashi Spirit technically well but without the same charisma. A shame, as it also weakens his offense, as some of the Kobashi chops spots - "now I'm going to chop you from this position" - are pretty contrived and need the charisma of the performer to make you overlook the contrived nature of things. Man, do I sound like a geek. Anyway, Marufuji busts out the Pole Shift for the expected win, and the build to the title shot he just received in real time begins here.  Kevin Steen and El Generico vs The Motor City Machine Guns - There's no in depth analysis here. I was looking forward to this a lot, and it's a really good tag team encounter that never reaches the million miles an hour stage, which can be taken as a good or bad thing. I enjoyed it, really enjoyed it perhaps, but the sense of exhilaration and 'holy crap' didn't really kick in for me. I'm off to watch it again, though...  ROH World Title Match - Elimination Rules: Nigel McGuinness vs Claudio Castagnoli vs Tyler Black vs Bryan Danielson  A worthy main event to conclude one of the best shows of ROH's 2008 thus far. There's loads of back stories, especially where McGuinness and Danielson are involved. Nigel, of course, was the perennial challenger during the latter parts of Danielson's reign, and so is still mentally obsessed with holding him off now he's the champion, and has used Danielson's material as one of the main driving forces of the heel part of his title reign. Tyler Black has had three singles losses to Danielson by this point, including the belter at New Horizons, and an unsuccessful challenge for Nigel's title was the selling point for the Take No Prisoners PPV. Then there's Claudio, who came up short against Nigel in the main event of the last Hammerstein show and the main event of the New Horizons PPV, and has just tied a two match series with Danielson, winning the first match with a pop-up European Uppercut and losing the blinding rematch at Northern Navigation when Danielson reversed the pop-up European into a backslide in a stunning counter.  The opening part of the match with all four men starts off with feeling out processes, the highlight of which is Nigel only tagging in when someone is down, and quickly tagging out again whenever anyone starts a comeback against him. Things then take a turn for the worse for Claudio, who is already struggling for fan support in the wake of failures in his singles main events, when he is suddenly isolated and takes a battering from all three men due to the way Nigel is tagging out so frequently. Eventually he is able to make a comeback on his own, Danielson and Black avoid Nigel's attempts to tag out, then everything breaks loose into mayhem. And why not. Danielson manages to launch Nigel into the crowd then do his big springboard flip into the Hammerstein throng, then with Nigel down on the outside, Danielson and Claudio go toe to toe, and Danielson once again eats the pop-up European... only to cradle Claudio when he goes for the cover for a three count for the first elimination.  The Hammerstein Ballroom crowd turn on the eliminated Swiss with a chant of "Get the F**k Out", and he responds by shaking the hand of Danielson, only to level him with a bicycle kick, a Ricola Bomb, then battering the downed Danielson with right hands as a gleeful Nigel, who has just made it back to ringside, looks on. The locker room empties to try and drag Claudio away, but he gets hold of a chair and they scatter, allowing him time to get back in the ring and stomp the chair into the head of the downed Danielson before being dragged out. Nigel then capitalises by somehow getting the dead weight Danielson up, just so he can stick it to him with a lariat for the easy pinfall. The crowd really don't like that.  So, it's down to Nigel and Tyler Black, which unsurprisingly takes a similar vein to their previous encounter at Take No Prisoners. In spite of his Age of the Fall affiliation, the crowd get right behind Black as he throws everything at Nigel, while the champ hits lariat after lariat to no success. There's some more basic wrestling in there too, but especially as it reaches the conclusion, it becomes an extended session of big move gets hit-close nearfall-look of shock by the man who doesn't get the pin-repeat. The closest nearfall, the one which really gets the crowd jumping convinced of a title change, is for Black's small package driver, the God's Last Gift. Nigel looks to have the match won with the London Dungeon, reminiscent of the PPV match, but Tyler escapes into a small package for another close nearfall, only two eat two successive lariats that finally keep him down for three. In a scene reminiscent of the Age of the Fall tag title victory over Steenerico at Up For Grabs, the crowd bombard the ring with rubbish, as Nigel cuts a hilarious promo about no-one being left... all the while being stared down by Marufuji, who has been in the aisleway for some time.  While the final part may be a bit indie cliche for some people's taste, overall this is an excellent rollercoaster of a main event, with an excellently executed turn by Claudio in the middle leaving Danielson stranded in his chase for the title, Black denied in the end, a main event set up for the next Hammerstein show. Good work there Gabe... oh, wait. Nigel is the star of the match, though something else to add to his arsenal of lariats could perhaps add another dimension. Tyler is developing, and I'm sure when the time is right, he'll hit the main event bracket properly. He's certainly going to be in the 'one to watch' bracket for 2009, if he wasn't already in 2008.  I'd recommend Death Before Dishonor VI highly... shame that ROH is operating to less fanfare in many internet parts now than at any point recently. Next up, Age of Insanity will be getting short thoughts rather than the full review treatment, then it'll be Night of the Butcher II which I haven't yet seen... Edited January 4, 2009 by gadgetboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Cum Doctor Posted December 27, 2008 Share Posted December 27, 2008 I actually enjoyed a three way a bit. Maybe I've not seen enough recent ROH, so I don't know if that's "the norm", but I got a kick from it. Â Pearce/Albright didn't surprise me one bit. Albright is very capable. Pearce has good points which they played to. It was an amazing match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted December 27, 2008 Paid Members Share Posted December 27, 2008 To be fair, I didn't hate the three way, it's just the booking was all over the place. I'm not personally an Albright or Pearce hater, either, but they tend to get a lot of negative reaction and at times I can see why some of it might be justified, though Pearce tickles me when he does comedy goof heel and it's impressive to see him play the role he does here so nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steveo2007 Posted December 28, 2008 Share Posted December 28, 2008 I've just been catching up with the ROH news and was really shocked to find that Gabe had been fired. Â Have to admit that it's a really surprising thing due to the guy basically making ROH what it is today. Â Anyway, does anybody know whether they've announced a return to the UK for 2009? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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