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Official ROH Discussion Thread


alexander

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I've just been catching up with the ROH news and was really shocked to find that Gabe had been fired.

 

Have to admit that it's a really surprising thing due to the guy basically making ROH what it is today.

 

Anyway, does anybody know whether they've announced a return to the UK for 2009?

 

They havent. Given they are in a spell of cutting costs, I'm not holding my breath either.

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Hammerstein results from last night...

 

ROH returned to New York City on Saturday night, December 27th for Final Battle 2008, the seventh edition of the show. Really fun show with some interesting things going on.

 

-The show opened with Kenny Omega scoring a clean win over Claudio Castagnoli. Kenny's a charismatic kid who really seems to connect well with the crowd, I sense he's got a good future in ROH. On the other hand, I get the feeling like Claudio's probably on his way down the hill in ROH given how little he's been featured since the change to the new booking regime, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was gone from ROH by this time next year.

 

-Jerry Lynn won a Four Corner Survival Match that also included Chris Hero, Necro Butcher, and Rhett Titus when he pinned Hero after a Cradle Piledriver. Lynn's been getting great crowd reactions everywhere he's been since returning to ROH and tonight was no different. After the match, Lynn and Necro shook hands and showed one another respect, but as Necro went to head to the back, Jimmy Jacobs hopped the rail with a microphone and dared Necro to come in the ring and fight him. Of course this led to a 2-on-1 beatdown on Necro when Delirious ran out and hit Necro from behind, but Kevin Steen & El Generico ran out to make the save, leading to...

 

-Kevin Steen & El Generico defeated Jimmy Jacobs & Delirious to retain the ROH World Tag Team Title. Age Of The Fall spent much of the match working over Steen's knee, which had been injured the previous night when Davey Richards nailed him with a pipe, and then the injury was aggravated here. Daizee Haze, who was in Steen & Generico's corner, climbed in the ring to stop Delirious from using the steel spike, and when Jacobs tried to go after her, Delirious stopped him. This gave Steen & Generico enough of a break to recover and give Delirious the Package Piledriver/Brainbuster combo to retain. After the match, Jacobs began berating Delirious before walking out on him.

 

-Brent Albright, Roderick Strong, and Erick Stevens defeated the American Wolves & Go Shiozaki in a really wild New York City Street Fight. There was far too much going on in this match at all times for me to recap it all here, but it was a really wild, stiff brawl that ended when Go Shiozaki took several big moves from the babyface team before tapping out to Albright's Crowbar. After the babyfaces left, the American Wolves started yelling at Shiozaki, who they seemed to blame for the loss, and then left without him. The fans started chanting for Go and he waved at them in appreciation, but then remembered he's a heel and flipped them off before leaving.

 

-Jay & Mark Briscoe defeated Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima in what I have to consider a mild upset just because of Sasaki being one of their opponents. Sasaki no sold most of what the Briscoes did which was a little frustrating to watch, but he's a really big, thick guy so it's believable that it would take a hard shot to really rattle him. Nakajima was also very impressive, hitting a lot of the really nice, stiff kicks that he's sort of renowned for. The Briscoes came back and went for the Doomsday Device but Mark slipped off the rope and crashed, though they went for it again and hit it properly the second time.

 

I'm pretty sure Mark's mistake was intentional, because after the match the American Wolves came out and attacked the Briscoes, handcuffing Jay to the ropes and working over Mark's knee with a chair, and if this was all planned, I think it was a really cool way to play off of Mark's real-life penchant for getting himself hurt to to his somewhat reckless style and work it into an angle. Steen & Generico run out to make the save, and are soon joined by Albright, Strong, and Stevens. The whole lot of them run off the American Wolves, and then Albright got on the microphone and starting telling ROH owner Cary Silkin, who was sitting at ringside, that Sweet & Sour Inc is constantly interfering in matches and is ruining everything that Cary has worked to build for almost seven years, and the only way it's going to stop is if they get Sweet & Sour Inc in a steel cage. I don't exatly follow that logic, but Cary Silkin seemed to because he immediately told Albright he's got it.

 

-After intermission, Austin Aries defeated Tyler Black in a great match that easily got the most crowd heat out of anything going on that night. Tyler was about to go for the Phoenix Splash on Aries, but Jacobs came out to "encourage" Tyler, but ended up distracting him and allowing Aries to come back and hit the 450 splash for the win to become the #1 contender to the ROH World Title. After the match was over, Jacobs began berating Tyler and shoved him, but Tyler shoved him back and Jacobs went down on his butt. After a couple of tense minutes, they seemed to make up but Jacobs kicked him in the groin and put him in the End Time. Aries comes into the ring with a chair seemingly to run Jacobs off, but then he started smiling and turned around and smashed Black in the head with the chair. Aries invites Jacobs back into the ring and the two of them start working him over.

 

At this point, there was a very stupid incident where Aries was on his way to the back and a fan physically attacked Aries in some way. I couldn't quite see what happened from where I was sitting, but I did see Aries go after the guy, and let me tell you, you don't want to get on Austin Aries' bad side. Referee Paul Turner went out and got physically involved to neutralize the situation, and then it took him and about four other people to physically drag the guy over the rail and into the back. I'm not sure what happened with the guy when he got to the back, but I wouldn't have wanted to be in his shoes. When Turner came back out to the ring to referee the next match, he easily got the biggest pop of the night and one of the biggest pops I've ever seen at an ROH show, the fans started cheering for him and chanting "NEXT WORLD CHAMP!" Paul had the biggest smile on his face, which I found funny because he usually tries not to let much emotion out when he's working, but he did take a couple of bows and wave to the crowd. Let this be a lesson to all would-be funny guys: you do NOT want to overstep your bounds when attending a live wrestling show.

 

-After all that, we went to our ROH World Title Match, which saw Nigel McGuinness successfully defend the title against Naomichi Marufuji. This was a really good match, I really enjoy watching Marufuji wrestle because he's so innovative. With most guys, even if they have some cool moves, you end up seeing enough ofthem that you've pretty much seen all they've got, but even though I've seen Marufuji wrestle a bunch of times now, he's always pulling out new stuff I haven't seen and it's all really clever stuff. Nigel, in the meantime, has really grown into his role as the ROH World Champion and despite his rough start, I'd put him right up there as every bit as capable a champion as Joe and Danielson. Nigel put Marufuji away with the Rebound Lariat, and after the match Jerry Lynn came down to congratulate Nigel on his win, but Nigel grabbed the mic out of his hand and started running him down again. This time, Lynn got really mad and challenged Nigel to fight him, but Nigel not only backed off, but actually ran out through the crowd to get away from Lynn.

 

-The main event saw Bryan Danielson defeat Takeshi Morishima in a Fight Without Honor. This was a really brutal, bloody match that saw Morishima take a chain out from under the ring and use it to brutalize Danielson, both by wrapping the chain around his fist to punch Danielson as well as use it to choke him. Danielson didn't give up and fought back, using the chain to choke Morishima while stomping on his head, then wrapping it around his arm and giving him the MMA elbows with the chain, before finally putting him away with the Cattle Mutilation to finally, finally finally get that win over Morishima. After the match, Danielson is joined in the ring by several of the ROH babyfaces and Danielson tells the fans that this show had the biggest crowd in ROH history, and thanks the fans for supporting them for almost seven years, and tells them it will be worth it to the wrestlers as long as the fans keep coming.

 

This was a really good show and like the show in Philadelphia the night before, it was very well paced and didn't leave me feeling burned out by the end. The show, including intermission, was over in under four hours, which I think is a vast improvement over the sometimes five hour plus marathon shows we would get a lot in New York.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

 

Thank you for your praise kind sir! Do check out some of gadgetboys' reviews, his tend to be a bit more balanced than mine. As for the Gowan remark...ok, maybe I was a tad harsh. But I just think that there's no way you can suspend your disbelief with him in the ring. He would make an excellent second though - indeed, he had a spell accompaning Alex Shelley to ringside in IWA as I recall. Plus there's great heel potential in waloping someone with the false leg.

 

While I'm here a few odds and ends... Final Battle 2008 seems like a decent show. Naturally it produced a slew of "ROH IS SAFE!!!" threads on the ROH board. Having not seen any Pearce shows yet, I can't comment either way at the moment... given that they undertook a second money losing tour of Japan this year, ROH would have a hard time claiming that financial restrictions are the reason they can't run a couple of shows over here. The reason the October 2007 shows broke down fromwhat I can gather was that Alex Shane was acting the prick behind the scenes. But Mark Sloan seemed to make a decent fist of putting together the NOAH show in the summer, so maybe he could undertake a similar role for ROH?

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In an interesting note, if ROH had toured here in October 2007, the money draining west coast shows would never have happened...

 

Apparently ROH just bought four new cameras at $13,000 each, and now every DVD will be produced to the standards of this year's Rising Above PPV taping - one of the recent videowires featured clips of the non-PPV Samoa Joe vs Tyler Black from that show, if you want to see how it looks.

 

I'll be finishing my DBDVI review later this evening, even though it's back on the previous page now.

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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.

 

I agree with this. Tradition Continues was a really overlooked show at the time.

 

I've added more to the DBDVI review now...

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In an interesting note, if ROH had toured here in October 2007, the money draining west coast shows would never have happened...

 

Now there's an interesting counterfactual...

 

On the ROH board, a post has suddenly popped up to the effect that the reason all the Japanese guys lost at Final Battle is due to their participation in ROH being severely curtailed in 2009, as apparently Pearce wants to develop "homegrown" talent. Of course, there's no reason why you can't do that AND use the NOAH/ Kensuke Murderer guys, which leads me to suspect another cost cutting measure. The increased production values thing I'm somewhat ambivalent about. I'm guessing the impetus for that is from Cary - increased production values lead to TV deal? However, shades of ECW here - if the product sucks it doesn't matter a wank about the production.

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Vendetta II - 27/6/08

 

 

Rhett Titus & Delirious vs. Silas Young & Alex Payne - I like the idea of doing something different with Delirious, but Rhett Titus is not the man to carry it off with. Speaking of embarrassments, I havn

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Interesting review of a fairly popular show there DDD, though it appears to have lost a little of it's hype as time has gone on... it apppears to have been a starting point for many things, the Danielson/Claudio feud, Jerry Lynn's run, and of course the first Aries/Jacobs match in the main event.

 

While I really liked the main event, elsewhere Danielson and Claudio have a much, much MUCH better match at the following show, which is possibly the match I've watched the most this year. It's just ridiculously enjoyable wrestling.

 

EDIT: I just watched the latest ROH video wire... and Davey Richards now has no hair! Not sure I'd have done that if I were him...

Edited by gadgetboy
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He has previously shaved his head bald when he was in Japan at the very beginning of last year. If you watch his match with Aoki, you'll see his look is very similiar to now, as well as very reminiscent of Dynamite Kid.

Edited by cobystag
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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.

Edited by Oliver
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