Oliver

The Definitive Braden Walker 3 Disc DVD Trailer

I don't know if it began when ROH started producing their own DVD's, but I was quite miffed that they continued to use the same weak theme rifts from the HDNet show. Chris Hero's 'Requiem for a dream' entrance is epic, and really sets the tone for a match. Likewise, 'The final countdown' would have been such a fitting song to play to close the show.

I had no problems getting my copy to work.

PWG: Kurt Russellmania - Hype Video

How about the Carnage Crew vs Special K feud, which included the kidnapping of one of their daughter's?

Is Mike Hodgwood doing the commentary on the DVD's? I was thinking about picking up The Final Countdown Tour, but I would be deterred if he was on commentary for the events?

No it's been Prazak and Hero since the FCT DVD's

 

 

Hey Olly, do you get your ROH dvds from Smartmarkvideos or AMerchandise

Neither, I use the official ROH website.

They have a buy 3 get 2 free deal now.

Just watched Ring of Honor HDNet 11/30/2009

The show started with Eddie Kingston vs Claudio Castagnoli with Chris Hero watching at the entrance way. Claudio looked tremendous, displaying tremendous athleticism and strength. A further reminder what a disgrace it is to have him losing to the vastly inferior Brent Albright. I was impressed when Claudio hurled up Jigsaw, uppercutting him on the way down, and I was even more impressed when he did that to Eddie Kingston! Somehow, Kingston kicked out of that and a spin around waterslide before pulling out the recently stolen CH loaded elbow pad and backfisting Claudio with that. Chris Hero looked infuriated on the ramp. I look forward to seeing those 2 go at it again.

The awesome Kenny King then cut a promo proclaiming himself a future world champion! He stated that he was learning at the very moment from Austin Aries about what being a champion entails! Very nice! This sidekick has so much more of a personal identity than Cody Rhodes or Bland Debiase have.

The Dark City Fight Club vs The Briscoes is most notable for a miss-timed 'Hart attack' double team maneuver. TDCFC went for the move again, and hit it the next time, but nothing elicited a 'You fucked up!' or any other chant or reaction for that matter. The match is thrown out and we get a boring brawl. I enjoyed TDCFC's squash matches, and considering how awesome El Generico is at getting beat up and surviving just before making a hot tag to Steen, I wouldn't mind seeing that match. I can't say I'm all that interested in seeing another Briscoes vs DCFC match though.

Speaking of Steenericho, they face 'The SET' next. "What in the world is that?" the awful Mike Hodgwood asks, before poking fun at 'The Set's' physiques. One is skinny and the other is fat you see. The same jokes could be made at the expense of Steen and Generico. 'The Set' actually impress Dave Prazak with some flashy tandem maneuvers on Generico, but you could hear a pin drop within the audience. Steen gets tagged in and puts the skinny guy down with a hard powerbomb. For good measure they then swanton and splash him as Mike Hodgwood makes some unbearable remarks.

Main event time, and its Colt Cabana vs Austin Aries in a non title match! At this point I'm beginning to crack under the unbearable commentary, who at times are more concerned with a single kid chanting in the crowd than the match. I'm not particularly big on Cabana either, and he reminds me why when he uses his ass as a weapon and shouts "Flying asshole!" So overall, nothing much to say about this. Austin Aries treated us to his suicide dive and his wicked torpedo dropkick, but I didn't much care for the interference filled finish. Kenny King, then Brent Albright and then Rhett Titus all came out in rapid succession, and through that Aries got Cabana in the Last Chancery and made him submit.

Is Mike Hodgwood doing the commentary on the DVD's? I was thinking about picking up The Final Countdown Tour, but I would be deterred if he was on commentary for the events?

Part 1 of Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw vs Bryan Danielson & Claudio Castagnoli

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

Ring of Honor HDNet program 10/05/2009

Watch the show here is you so please. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4_55pBsaQ

Sonjay Dutt vs Delirious

Enjoyable encounter where I mostly remember Sonjay Dutt's beautiful hurricanrana's which he snapped off with relative ease. Nice ending as well with Dutt countering Shadows over Hell with a diamond cutter and then rolling back to transition in to the camal clutch for the submission win. Post match sees Dutt retaining the hold only for Dazie to break it up. Dutt gets up, feels himself up a bit and gives Haze a creepy, perverse look. I know in the future he'll kiss her (see the video wire) but tonight Delirious chases Dutt away. Dutt can really convey a great character, its such a shame TNA wasted him with a Guru gimmick and dress up matches.

Eddie Kingston vs Kyle Matthews

Prolonged squash match with Kyle Matthews showing a lot more competence than some of the other mis-timing jobbers. The commentators talk about Hero's match with Kenta next week, and Prazak knocks Eddie Kingston for not being able to move on. Kingston yells Hero's name throughout slapping around the jobber.

Joey Ryan vs Roderick Strong

Fair encounter but with a poor ending. Prince Na Na drags Roddy to the outside while he made a cover, Roderick shoves him away prompting Na Na to unconvincingly throw himself in to the laps of the front row fans. Roddy re-enters the ring only to take a poor superkick with Ryan blatantly slapping his thigh to produce the sound. I'm a big fan of Joey, but that was just terrible, and sadly that was what put Strong down for the 3 count. Post match, Roderick hits his wicked charging kick.

Tag team Honor Rumble

8 teams, 2 to start and 6 to enter at 90 second intervals. Eliminations occur when a team mate is thrown over the top rope with both feet hitting the floor. A small tag team royal rumble essentially.

We start with an unshaven Ernie Osiris (Another reminder that this is out of sync with the video wires) and Jimmy Rave facing The Young Bucks. The Young Bucks turn the tables after getting jumped and, with their dazzling tandem offense, double superkick Osiris from the aprons edge to the floor. A correction, both team mates have to be eliminated as Jimmy Rave is now going at it alone. He is quickly joined by The Dark City Fight Club, who drill The Young Bucks with a couple of double team maneuvers. Cory Chavis averts a Jimmy Rave sneak attack and various exchanges near the ropes proceed until Rhett Titus and Kenny King are entered in. As they showboat, Rave sneaks up on King while he's posing on the ropes, and throws him over. But King holds on and Rave falls victim to some double teaming, bumping quite unusually to a clothesline. Once again we are treated to various exchanges of wrestlers jostling by the ropes until...

Erick Stevens and Brent Albright enter and shoulder block and clothesline various workers down. Jimmy Rave is tossed out and then Stevens and Albright face off with The Dark City Fight Club. All 4 men are jumped by the remaining contestants, this is all going way too fast. El Generico and Kevin Steen enter while The Young Bucks each eliminate a member of TDCFC with dropkicks. One of the Jacksons goes out shortly afterward and is pummeled on the outside by TDCFC prompting the other Jackson brother to suicide dive off the top rope, wiping them out. Another spot which would have benefited with more time and a replay ala WWE's production. Stevens and Brent are also eliminated, Stevens by Kenny King via a sweet kick. King celebrates with his back to Generico, Steen and The Briscoes lying in wait behind him in another spot that goes by too quickly. The Briscoes and The Wolves enter after Generico Yakuza kicks King out. Mark Briscoe ends up being the last man after eliminating Davey Richards, with assistance from Jay Briscoe on the outside, and Eddie Edwards.

The match was a nice concept but was crying out for more time. They ought to have dedicated the majority of their program to this one match so all the happenings in it could have gone at a pace where it would have all sunk in better.

Overall an enjoyable show until the last match which was tainted by not having enough time allocated to it. On the whole though ROH TV has definitely grown on me from when it first started.

Just watched episode 22 of the show on HD Net.

Fair opening match with Stenerico beating Tony Kozina and Samo Callihan. Kozina humorously (and I think deliberately) falls over while attempting to leap over the top rope for a ring entry. Nothing else to really report, the package piledriver/brainbuster combo in succession win it.

D-Lo Brown beat a jobber (John Kermin) which had me longing to see Alex Payne in the match. Kermin was abysmal. At one point he just back bumped for no reason and when taking the Sky High off the middle rope, had no facial expression to put the move or D-Lo Brown over with. Post match interview has Brown making disparaging remarks about Jerry Lynn and his age.

Jerry Lynn then interrupts Tyler Black during his mic time to announce his slowing down, or semi retirement.

Austin Aries and Roderick Strong was the main event which started out fair with but really picked up towards the end where the incredible transitions and counters peaked. I'm looking forward to seeing title defenses from A double, may even shell out on some DVD's for them.

Motor City Madness

Cracking stuff there DDD, several laugh out loud moments.

I agree with you on SJK's present look and ring attire. Its unfathomable to me why he ever changed his once awesome appearance.

While you bashed his and Callihan's woman's swimsuit attire, I'm surprised you didn't mention Chris Hero in tights, something which should just not be.

I'm also surprised to find out Nate Webb worked ROH again with his full entrance! Good stuff.

The Hurricane cleanly defeats Jeff Hardy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApHl9BF3ETw

As for commentary, Prazak and Leonard aren't the best, but I was watching Midnight Express Reunion the other day from 2004, and Gabe and Nulty were doing commentary. They sounded like two old women.

I enjoyed Prazak's work at one time, especially his live commentary. Either I have grown tired of him, or he's grown tired of commentating (sounds like it to me) or both.

I don't know why you bring up the former duo on commentary. Its of no solace to me that Prazak and Lennard aren't as bad as they were. Either way, we do share the sentiments on Gabe and Nulty.

There then follows a dreadful promo from Brent Albright. Words cannot describe how hilariously woeful this promo is. In a perverse way it

I haven't followed much TV throughout the last few years. Last night I watched (and gave up on) 'Kiss the girls.'

But during the adverts, a promo video for a re-run of 'Dead set' aired.

How did I miss this? I am fascinated with the zombie/apocalyptic theme, and mixing Big Brother in to it! Well, before I exclaimed 'Fantastic!' I was wondering how main characters resembling BB contestants will be glue to hold the film together.

I checked out some clips on E4, and wow! The parody of Big Brother was hilarious! And the other scenes I saw got my interest peaked. Looks like a more serious 'Shaun of the dead,' with of course the notable running zombies.

So, for anyone who watched it, how was 'Dead set?'

I did try doing a search, but I always get the 'something went wrong' message when I do searched on the UKFF.

Just read Gadgetboy's New Horizons review. Usually I don't like buying dvd's which I know the results for. Near falls and the unknowns of outcomes are possibly my favourite intangibles in wrestling.

However, I may just be tempted to buy new Horizons to see Tyler Black vs Bryan Danielson, amongst other things.

From reading other reviews as well, I can see that McGuinness has been doing some commentary. This is very good news, as CM Punk made the commentary more interesting when he stepped in.

But I wish to raise a subject on live commentary, and weather or not ROH should start doing it? It works very well for the Smart Mark Video releases, it works absolutely horrifically for 1PW. But, there's some evident differences. As well as in just sound quality on its own, 1PW have their commentary table situated at ringside, where as SMV releases usually keep their table at quite a distance from the action.

I love how wrestlers doing commentary works in IWA: MS. There's beautiful diversity in how much can be gained from their (the promotion's) style, which is seemingly an open chair for any wrestler to pop in when he/she pleases. I've loved the assisted feud drives from, most memorably, Jim Fanin or just generally hearing the wrestler's voice and what they have to say.

The downside is that if ROH adopted this approach, it might take the speciality of Nigel McGuinness, who they are giving commentary benefits to now. However, I don't think this would be the case. ROH fans have more invested in a wrestling product than the majority of the large audiences that attend WWE, so it seems. I think there's enough capacity within the ROH fan base, to care about several wrestlers, feuds, angles ect. And thus, I would love to hear more wrestlers routinely do some commentary.

My final question is to DDD, and regards the FIP show held 2 nights before the other show you reviews that featured Scotty and Delirious teaming in the main event.

I'm particularly interested in the Davey Richards vs Scotty too Hotty match, and your thoughts? Its something that has irked me quite profoundly and I can't seem to stop bitching about it! It would be cathartic to read some venting on the subject that shares my sentiments.

I watched Game Boys last night, on youtube. Its really a glorified home movie, however, its written incredibly well and is a lot of fun.

The 'How to beat video games' take off on Custer's revenge was ingenious, and the chubby guy attempting to seek out said game had me rolling at certain points. Several other fabulous lines and jokes to be had as well, and this is coming from a 20 year old who wasn't avidly playing old school video games back in the days. If my knowledge on retro games had been more up to speed, I would have likely appreciated all the references even more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewc3VL4bPoA

Was this the match where AJ Styles countered the shining wizard and converted it in to a Styles Clash?

 

That was Tradition Continues. A significantly better match as well.

Am I right in thinking there was one other match between the 2?

My memories for this period of time have not held up.

I do remember Ricky Steamboat officiating at least one of their matches due to the controversy of a rope break strike. And of course I remembered that awesome counter. I struggle to remember much else.

Just read DDD's reviews of Tag wars 2008 and Return engagement.

Mostly agreed with, except I feel I enjoyed myself more with everything that was on offer, probably due to my break from wrestling.

Indeed it was interesting seeing Joey Matthews vs Jigsaw, I hadn't thought about comparing it to a SD match, but I suppose that works. I thought Matthews looked really good subtly playing this AOTF role where he rather nastily gouged eyes and rubbed his foot hard down on Jigsaw's body. Jigsaw did a fair job of selling it and playing the role of a beaten youngster over his head. I would have liked to have seen at least one fancy arm drag from Jigsaw in his comeback to scoring the surprise win, but aside from that, I give the match its due. It was indeed interesting.

I don't really see a problem with Jigsaw's unmasking on an ROH video wire. They're not only included on the DVD's, they're also readily available on the net. I had seen the unmasking on that video wire, but not seen the rest of the content in full from the shows!

So as far as the unmasking goes, I can believe you when you say that its gone nowhere so far, despite of a fair showing vs Matthew. Of course, that and his performance in the 6 man tag (forgettable) are all I've seen. What's happened to Jigsaw in Chikara then? Haven't seen him on any pod-cast-a-go-go's.

I really must disagree with you on labeling Zach Gowan as a fool. I myself am still in awe at how Zach Gowan manages, and at some of the maneuvers he pulls off. If you can't suspend your disbelief with a one legged wrestler, fair enough. I'm the same way, and would far rather see Gowan in a managerial role than in the ring facing, and being on the winning team, off against opponents with 2 legs. But again, I wouldn't take it out on him by branding him a fool.

Enjoyed your reviews DDD. I shall take a look at Gadgetboys some time.

CM Punk vs. AJ Styles - ROH Pure Wrestling Championship

 

Forget what came before, and this is actually a decent showing from both men. Punk goes after the leg a bit, but seems to realise that Styles doesn't want to play ball. They do lots of cool stuff, which is the norm when these two guys hit the ring. A bit disappointing, but both men wrestled two matches before this one, so that's to be expected.

Was this the match where AJ Styles countered the shining wizard and converted it in to a Styles Clash?

I loved that counter. Not sure when it happened though.

FIP

I watched 'Nudist colony of the dead' yesterday.

Some of the charactrs at first were really irritating, and a lot of the jokes just ran on and on, seemingly not knowing when to stop!

However, it was very rewarding to persevere with! The jokes really picked up (the head having a drink sleighed me) and I really got in to the songs. Gotta also love the:

"Look *pronounced from the Japanese character to sound like Rook*"

"This is no time for a game of chess!"

Fun to be had for sure! Any one who likes musicals should give it a go. While some of the earlier songs are unimpressive, and drag on, later on there's a fine and eclectic mix of songs ranging from blues to disco! Very catchy. Loved the part in the last song where the zombie sang about the motions that were happening in that very instance!

Well it says "after the ECW PPV In Augusta". Augusta is in Gerogia, not California where the Heatwave PPV was held. So it blatantly isn't a video of the incident...and if you read the comments on youtube, it actually says it's footage from after a WWECW show.

Oooops, consider me caught as well.

Good reminder to pay attention and notice.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RIx5eSXbjLM&...feature=related

 

Thought some of you might find this interesting. This is after ECW's Heatwave 2000 (when XPW tried to disrupt the show). The footage is taken outside the building.

Ah yes. It was hard to make out who was who, very hard for me anyway. But, the losing side was holding its own. Much different to what Power Slam had lead me to believe...

'The XPW crew were taken outside and given a battering by their ECW counterparts.'