Dil|kid Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 I dount he'll defend against Daniels seeing as how the latter has run off back to TNA, true to form. Â and yet he'll still get a hero's welcome when he returns Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted August 20, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 20, 2011 and yet he'll still get a hero's welcome when he returns  Better that he only does a few months in ROH at a time if you ask me, that way he should have a fresh batch of opponents every time and wont end up stale like he did before leaving in 2007.  And now, for something a little different...  Dragon Gate USA: United Philly - Philadelphia, PA - 29/1/11-  The first thing you notice on this show is that the Arena crowd are more than ready for some DGUSA, they're hot hot hot as the show opens...  YAMATO vs Brodie Lee - Gabe kinda follows his old tradition here of having the new champion open the show following his title win. Of course, he's not going to cut much of a promo, but Jon Moxley's expressions of glee at Kamikaze USA having the belt are great. The crowd are massively into YAMATO as well, and he actively encourages that reaction for the majority here. I'm not sure in the sense of putting Blood Warriors monster up against him here though, and there's no attempt at an explanation. They do a fair job with the match though, with YAMATO surviving the Truckstop before overcoming the uphill battle with a German suplex, a brainbuster then the choke sleeper for the stoppage at 8:55. Moxley is jumped by randoms "representing Homicide" before and after all this, which isn't very convincing.  Jigsaw cuts an extremely bland backstage promo before the next bout. Maybe cutting these out in NYC was a good thing after all...  Jimmy Jacobs vs Rich Swann - The crowd also choose to support Swann over Jacobs in this one, which is no surprise really. Ronin's quest for Japan is more convincing than Jacobs' quest to get into title contention, and collectively they have a good swagger about them even if Gargano and Taylor look ridiculous in shirt, tie and ring gear on the outside here. A shorter, spottier match than Swann vs Aries the night before, which makes it more watchable, and it looks more in place as second match that semi-main. Swann wins with the standing 450 at 9:15. You have to wonder why he doesn't use a regular 450 - purely from the logic it's more impactful and wouldn't take longer to set up as the standing version takes that ridiculous build-up before he does it...  Jigsaw vs Sami Callihan vs Cheech Hernandez vs AR Fox vs Frightmare vs Rexx Reed - Effectively a match ripped from an EVOLVE undercard - they even use the EVOLVE entrance music rather than giving the guys seperate entrances. Much like the EVOLVE undercard, this Freestyle is fairly short but fast and furious for the most part. I was particularly impressed by Frightmare, who I'm only semi-familiar with, and Cheech and Jigsaw also had good showings. Sami Callihan gets the win though, pinning AR Fox with a running elbow to the back of the head at 9:23.  Austin Aries vs Akira Tozawa - Credit where it's due, I enjoyed this one a lot, and even though the missed headbutts play a part twice, Tozawa gets his due for this one for sure. There are a lot of similarities between Aries and Tozawa in both character and in-ring as the match plays out, and they gel really well. There's a bit of shenanigans with Jon Moxley and Reby Sky, but not enough to overshadow the action. After both attempt to affect the outcome, they switch back to action for the finish, as Tozawa kicks out of the IED/brainbuster combo, and hits a wonderful Avalanche German/Straightjacket German combo for the win at 14:28. Really promising stuff for DGUSA at this point.  BxB Hulk vs Jon Moxley - No-DQ here translates to "Hulk is more aggressive than usual throughout the match, while Akira Tozawa interferes on the behalf of Moxley a couple of times". This is watchable, but Hulk almost messes moves up a once or twice, and it's too short to really have any impact. Hulk wins with the First Flash at 8:05 and we move on...  CIMA & Dragon Kid vs Johnny Gargano & Chuck Taylor - Some good stuff here before the opening bell even goes. Lenny Leonard does the introductions in-ring to make it feel like a big deal for one. Rich Swann does the Ronin song for their entrance, which the crowd digs. Blood Warriors then come out en masse to be in CIMA and Dragon Kid's corner. The match itself has the good thread running through it where CIMA is trying to show Ronin up to prove they aren't worthy. A dance-off of sorts even works its way in there, and Gargano is a good choice to be on the receiving end of an extended heat segment. Then Chucky T gets the tag and there's plenty of time to go all out, with the Ronin duo holding their own nicely. Their double team moves are really fun, and there's an excellent reversal sequence between CIMA and Gargano leading to the finish, with Gargano avoiding Meteora, hitting the Hurts Donut, then locking in a Border City Stretch with Chuck managing to hold DK off for long enough that CIMA is forced to tap at 19:26. An excellent way to finally give Gargano the credibility over CIMA that he's been seeking. Post-match, CIMA finally relents and admits Ronin are good enough to go to Japan... "to be young boys", at which point the BW five lay a beating on Ronin's three. This is the official beginning of Blood Warriors as heels in the USA.  Masato Yoshino & Pac vs Naruki Doi & Ricochet - With Doi and Ricochet already out there, it only natural that we head straight into our main event. Yoshino and Doi start, but as Dexter said already, it's Pac and Ricochet that bring the memorable moments. Pac in particular unleashes just about everything from his high flying arsenal, but as many incredible moves as he breaks out, they somehow keep the match from degenerating into a total spotfest and keep you guessing until the final minute about the result. Credit to Ricochet also, not for the spots but for conveying the proper cockiness required of a Blood Warriors member and just being eminently smackable. Pac kicking his ass - and even stealing his 630 at the end - is all the more satisfying as a result. Yoshino follows said 630 with Torbellino into Sol Naciente, and Ricochet is foced to sumbit at 19:44. A tremendous match, the best of the weekend (so far, at least).  Overall - A better show than the previous evening, the two tag tournament matches and BW angle in between are must-see viewing for anyone following this promotion. DVD run time is only 2 hours, 7 minutes, and sadly the 24 minutes of bonus material don't have any native DG footage, but there's still enough there to make this one an essential purchase.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted August 20, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 20, 2011 and yet he'll still get a hero's welcome when he returns  I don't think he will though, fans who were at ROH events in 2010 said Daniels was nowhere near as over as he used to be - and the reaction he got when started appearing on TNA events again spoke volumes.  Couldn't disagree with anything from gadges' Philly review. Hopefully my review of Finale will be up tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted August 20, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 20, 2011 I wonder if I can beat you to the review Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted August 21, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 21, 2011 Dragon Gate USA: United Finale - Union City, NJ - 30/1/11 Â Grrrr, I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I hate it when the DVD boxes don't list the matches in order of occurance. Anyway, DGUSA completes it's United tripleshot at the ACE Arena. Let's get to it. Â Brodie Lee vs Rich Swann - This is reminiscent of when ROH did Abyss vs Jack Evans. Brodie Lee is booed at the start as a member of Blood Warriors, but when Swann gets too cocky, the cheers for him disappear as the crowd enjoy Brodie destroying him just a little too much. Swann manages to be evasive for a bit, but falls to the Truckstop at 4:55. Blood Warriors come out en masse and encourage further destruction, then cancel the Doi & Ricochet vs CIMA & Dragon Kid United Gate tournament match as both teams have no points anyway. Jimmy Jacobs comes out and ends up being challenged to find three partners for an eight man tag. I'm sure that will be really good, but the segment to set it up was almost painful. Â AR Fox vs Cheech Hernandez - Speaking of painful, this is like Dragon Gate USA meets NXT. Conor O'Brian and Jacob Novak wrestle a disjointed match to no heat before AR Fox hits a flying codebreaker for the pin at 4:35. Â BxB Hulk vs Akira Tozawa - After two matches with a under ten minutes ring time combined, this is like the show getting out of dark match mode. A terrific tussle between the former Open The Freedom Gate champion and the new audience favourite, this starts slow but is free of distractions, as Reby Sky talks Jon Moxley into going backstage before the opening bell. Hulk gets through the match without any botches, which is a step up on his two matches earlier in the weekend, and Tozawa drops the comedy spots which pleases me no end. Tozawa in fact outshines Hulk with sharper looking strikes and better intensity, and gets the popular victory with the same Avalanche German-Straightjacket German combo that dropped Austin Aries the previous night at 20:29. As he leaves, Hulk looks distraught at both his second loss of the weekend and falling out of the fans favour as Tozawa laps up the adulation... Â Angle time next, as Austin Aries comes out, but before we even find out if he has an opponent, Jimmy Jacobs talks him into being one of his partners. Jon Moxley then comes out and offers YAMATO to counter the potential threat of Blood Warriors to Kamikaze USA, but Moxley's prescence leads straight into: Â Homicide vs Jon Moxley - There are some good things I can say about this. First, credit to Gabe for putting this match on in the venue of their match/angle at EVOLVE 6. Second, it's much better use of a no-DQ stip than BxB Hulk vs Moxley the night before. However, Homicide now brawls in slow motion, and the aura he once had is long gone. Reby Sky predictably betrays Moxley with a mid-match low blow, and Moxley generally takes a one sided pummeling before the match descends into the ridiculous. Moxley says Homicide will "never pin him", so Homicide hits him with another low blow and a Cop Killa, then pulls Moxley on top of him for a Homicide loss at 13:21. The reason behind this? Homicide doesn't care if he wins or loses... he wants to try and CUT OUT MOXLEY'S TONGUE with some scissors. Akira Tozawa makes the save and they quickly cut away, presumably because common sense prevailed between the taping of this cable PPV and the airing. Ridiculous, and not in a good way. Â Pinkie Sanchez vs Rexx Reed - Presumably this is the live show post-intermission bout. It's better than the NXT-like contest from earlier, but Reed bumps too much for a big man in this brief encounter before winning with a Roderick Strong style Fireman's Carry backbreaker at 3:40. Â CIMA, Dragon Kid, Naruki Doi & Ricochet vs YAMATO, Jimmy Jacobs, Austin Aries & Sami Callihan - Callihan makes himself the fourth member of the impromptu team as the introductions are being made. He'll do, I guess. This is a bit like the Blood Generation vs Generation Next bout from the DG tour of ROH in 2006, in that it'll be lost in the shuffle of the weekend's bouts but is absolutely rock solid. It doesn't play out like the DG sprint many of the lauded six man matches are, as instead the BW team work their heel mojo to the max, including a long heat segment on Callihan. Then, when the sprint phase does kick in, and this is where the ROH match came to mind, the unity of the proper faction gives them the advantage, as even though it's 4-on-4 they always seem to have a man spare. The opposing team hang in there for as long as they can, but it's only a matter of time. Doi is the one to get the fall, pinning Jacobs with the Bakatare sliding kick at 24:33. Jacobs goes 0-3 for the weekend, while Blood Warriors are now established as the force to be reckoned with. Well booked, well worked, good stuff. Â Open The United Gate Championship: Masato Yoshino & Pac vs Chuck Taylor & Johnny Gargano - A slightly underwhelming final to the Open The United Gate tournament, not so much because of the action but just because the fans don't really bite on any nearfalls, and generally watch without getting emotionally invested in any way. The prime example of this is when Chuck Taylor hits the Awful Waffle on Pac at about the 13:45 and Pac kicks out to almost no reaction whatsoever. They then do a similar sequence to when Gargano forced CIMA to tap the previous night, again to little reaction. Pac then kicks out of a Dragon suplex from Gargano, and pins Gargano a few seconds later with a whiplash German off the ropes at 17:26. The crowd do pop for the three count, and that's our show. Â Before the DVD finishes, Jon Moxley and YAMATO kick Akira Tozawa out of Kamikaze USA in a backstage segment. This is a nonsensical way to do a major angle, and there's no logic to why they would want to bin him. It's not even as if Kamikaze USA have had a bad weekend, going 3-0 and taking the Open The Freedom Gate belt in NYC, and with Tozawa winning all three of his matches in the weekend, he's definitely not the loser in the group. Still, I guess this sort of thing is going to happen when the shows only happen every 2-3 months, and major unit reshuffles are going on in Japan. A shame, though. Â Overall - Three decent matches in Hulk vs Tozawa, the 8-man and the United Gate finals are worth checking out here, though the rest of the card is dross. The slightly flat end to the weekend is cause for concern, though the attempt to establish Blood Warriors over the triple-shot was mostly successful, the breaking up of Kamikaze USA was pathetic. DVD run time is 2 hours, 24 minutes, plus there's an Open The Dream Gate title match in the extras... Â Naruki Doi vs Susumu Yokosuka - This is from October 25, 2009. A slow building, epic Open The Dream Gate title match, there's way too much to go into. The only thing I could nitpick is that a load of body part work from the first 15 minutes isn't that relevent to the end. Great counters at a lightning pace highlight the finishing stretch. Doi retains his belt for the sixth time by countering Jumbo No Kachi! with a three quarter nelson for the pin at 33:29. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted August 21, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 21, 2011 I wonder if I can beat you to the review  Congratulations. As a reward I'm forwarding you a copy of "Jackknife - The Best of Kevin Nash" on DVD.   DG:USA - United : Finale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted August 23, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 (edited) It was inevitable I guess - B.J. Whitmer makes his DG:USA debut on Sept 9th... Â Also on the DG:USA Industry news thing, it says that it doesn't look like Lo-Ki will be signing with TNA. Hopefully he'll end up in DG:USA or ROH. Edited August 23, 2011 by Dearly Devoted Dexter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dil|kid Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 It was inevitable I guess - B.J. Whitmer makes his DG:USA debut on Sept 9th... Also on the DG:USA Industry news thing, it says that it doesn't look like Lo-Ki will be signing with TNA. Hopefully he'll end up in DG:USA or ROH.  Im pleased for BJ Whitmer, always had a soft spot for him despite being overpushed by Sapolsky, he was an integral part of ROH between 04-07 (its best years) and gave us some memorable moments. Im glad he has overcome whatever prevented him from wrestling.  Really hope Ki comes back to ROH, the main event needs someone like him, plus him vs Davey could be great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted August 23, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 Check out the Ki vs Richards match from PWG this year - took a while to get going, but the last ten minutes were a bit special... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted August 23, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 I've just been watching the first three matches of ROH World's Greatest. Going back to ROH's muffled sound quality, hardly audible commentary and slightly fuzzy picture after getting used to DGUSA is a bit of a shock to the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dil|kid Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 I've just been watching the first three matches of ROH World's Greatest. Going back to ROH's muffled sound quality, hardly audible commentary and slightly fuzzy picture after getting used to DGUSA is a bit of a shock to the system. Â For a company who is 'number 3' the production, especially the audio, are terrible. Â That being said I watched the 2nd half of Best In The World on a portable player with headphones and the audio was spot on, could hear the announcing, entrance music and promos clearly. So I tried with other shows from 2011 and again with headphones the audio is spot on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted August 23, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 I still have nightmares about that out of focus hard camera at the first two Final Countdown shows. ROH's production can be spotty at times.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gadge Posted August 24, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 24, 2011 The Young Bucks Are Back In NYC! Â <-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler At Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Dearly Devoted Dexter Posted August 25, 2011 Paid Members Share Posted August 25, 2011 SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read Bah, those disrespectful Bucks. Back when I broke into the business, I had to blow Lou Thesz for 8 hours before I was even allowed in the lockeroom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dil|kid Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 (edited) <-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler Ive never been a huge fan of the Bucks but their bout with Futureshock had the potential to be awesome, I was really getting into it and cant wait to see them go again. The Bravado's have been surprisingly fun and only add to a great tag division. Â I guess we are spoilering for those who haven't watch Best In The World? Â [close spoiler] ");document.close(); Edited August 25, 2011 by joe mills Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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