Official ROH Discussion Thread

[WU LYF 4 LYF]

I find Daniels one of the most boring promo guys there is. It doesn't help that he seems to be booked to cut one every single show.

[LaGoosh]

I fucking hate Daniels in ROH, but love him in TNA. The booking of him in TNA is so much better rather than ROH where they give him a bunch of boring promo time and his matches are incredibly lifeless. It always feels to me that people cheer for him at ROH because they feel they should rather than actually genuienly loving him.

[gribbo2001]

ROH seem in no rush to put daniels in storylines which makes sense as he could get pulled at any time. However it has the effect of making the fans not care about him. Its just preservist booking by gabe

[edgecrusher]

I don't think for a moment that the fans don't love him. He's one of the most over people in ROH. The lack of storyline prevents him from getting over like Joe or whatever, but he's still VERY over. The TNA exposure probably helps, and as mentioned a lot of people LIKE the slickness of his ring work. I have no problem saying you don't like him, hell I don't like Kawada much. But it's another thing to act like he's either not over when he blatantly is or has no talent when he clearly does. I think Gabe realises that promos are an important part of a wrestling show. I think he also realises that most of his guys can't talk for shit. Daniels can, even if he is only average, so he gets given a lot of promo time. If you think about it, almost everyone who can cut a decent promo gets given promo time on ROH shows these days. GenNEXT (who are okay, but only Aries can talk, Stwong fucking sucks), Briscoes (who are kind of incomprehensible but distinctive), Cornette, Delirious, Danielson, Daniels...They all get their spots. But Daniels is reliable. Middle of the road. So I think that reliability means Gabe falls back on him. Or maybe he wants to get the most use of him as possible before he gets taken away from the promotion.

[Guest Lygerbomb]

LL sumed up the role of psychology in one sentance, good psychology you shouldnt even notice, and that is exactly why All Japan's peak such as the 5star Kawada/Misawa fued will piss over any ROH match ever.

[alexander]

I'll happily admit that Daniels is over, but I don't believe he has much talent for any thing I'm prepared to call professional wrestling.Also, you don't like Kawada?!?!

[edgecrusher]

Your point is what exactly? All Japan's peak is regarded as the highest peak of wrestling in wrestling history. It's not exactly a bad thing to not reach that level. If you 'shouldn't notice' good psychology, why does everyone talk about how good the psychology is in Kawada/Misawa? It's a logical fallacy.

[gadge]

Well, it does nothing for me. There's nothing wrong with gpoing after a body part in a wrestling match, it's just don't in such a souless, meaningless way. The difference is this. Daniel's works on Matt Sydal's legs because it's good psychology to work on a high flyers legs and good psychology gets over in today's Indy wrestling. Misawa worked over Kawada's legs because he knew if he didn't he'd get kicked in the face a lot.It's the difference in emotional realism between the two - Daniels can't convince me he's doing anything other than performing an exhibition of psychology. Whereas I just know that Misawa really doesn't want to get kicked in the face.Another way of putting it is, if it's great psychology you wont even notice it as such at the time.

ROH fans are the type who go looking for things like body part psychology, so the "if it's great psychology you wont even notice it as such at the time" thing doesn't hold up as much in that environment. It's even more this way on the DVD versions, it's much easier to get sucked into emotion live and easier to look for 'psychology' when you've got a DVD you can watch over and over.

[edgecrusher]

Well, it does nothing for me. There's nothing wrong with gpoing after a body part in a wrestling match, it's just don't in such a souless, meaningless way. The difference is this. Daniel's works on Matt Sydal's legs because it's good psychology to work on a high flyers legs and good psychology gets over in today's Indy wrestling. Misawa worked over Kawada's legs because he knew if he didn't he'd get kicked in the face a lot.It's the difference in emotional realism between the two - Daniels can't convince me he's doing anything other than performing an exhibition of psychology. Whereas I just know that Misawa really doesn't want to get kicked in the face.Another way of putting it is, if it's great psychology you wont even notice it as such at the time.

ROH fans are the type who go looking for things like body part psychology, so the "if it's great psychology you wont even notice it as such at the time" thing doesn't hold up as much in that environment. It's even more this way on the DVD versions, it's much easier to get sucked into emotion live and easier to look for 'psychology' when you've got a DVD you can watch over and over.

That's another good point. Isn't it sensible to wrestle for your fanbase ie. the people who are giving you money?I haven't seen Daniels as Curryman. Is he much different? You've said you like him in Japan, LL. Or at least like him more.

[alexander]

Yeah, he's pretty fun as Curryman. Check out the Michinoku Pro 6 man tags and his team in New Japan with American Dragon was ace. I think the mask helps him a lot, as well as giving him a more defined character he doesn't have to fail to emote all the time.

[WU LYF 4 LYF]

I saw him as Curry Man against jay Lethal, and it was one of the worst things I've ever had to sit through. Seriously cringe-worthy stuff.That said, his best performances have come in Japan as Curry Man. He seems to play a better character under the mask, and as Lantern says has some good matches in there teaming with Dragon.

[edgecrusher]

Review of 'Chi-Town Struggle'. Death Before Dishonour IV, next.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My DVD player is back to its old fuckery, loading slow and then abjectly refusing to play the Video Recap. Nice. Second try, more bullshittery. Third try? Shit. Fourth, crap. The students of shite have a go at Haga ‘only guy with talent’ dorn. He’s pissed and wants another shot at the Airborne to make up for getting beat. Cabana’s getting his title shot against Danielson today. Oh christ. I’m not looking forward to this whatsoever. The people took a liking to him, the people put him in a position to be at the top, him and Punk beat the Briscoes. Cabana beat the Punk. This is his home, he wrestled loads and loads of people, he wrestled, can you believe it? Etc. etc. etc. fucking hell he won’t shut the hell up. It leads to a late climax, when he mentions getting humiliated by Danielson. The problem with this promo is that it underlines how quick his ‘second rise to the top’ was. Lots of shouting. Cabana is pumped for this. Promo finishes strong, I must say. Took it’s bloody time getting there, unfortunately.First Match: Shane Hagadorn and Trik Davis Vs. Irish AirborneI’m pissed that I’ve missed the recap, now, because I know it’s based around Homicide, so I make the mistake of trying to go back and watch it. OOPS.I finally watch it on my boyfriend’s PC, which works instantly. Fucking typical.RECAP: Jacobs/Whitmer powerbomb death, Danielon/KENTA, Whitmer/Jacobs, stuff about KENTA being ready to wrestle in the USA, randomly the McGuinness/Cabana vs. GenNEXT tag team match, what the fuck’s that on here for? Re-mentions the lack of title changes this year. ANOTHER fucking Cabana promo talking about the humiliating loss, and the match in FiP, as well as apparently beating his way back to the top. Let’s forget he lost to GenNEXT. The whole buildup to this match has been totally nonsensical, but then there’s little logic behind any of Danielson’s title challengers these days. In fact, this is the exact same fucking recap from the last DVD, so I just wasted a half an hour of my life to talk about something I’ve already talked about, in order to do a comprehensive review of this DVD. Fuck balls. Right, that’s it, I’m going to pick on one of the competitors in the first match as an act of petty vengeance, and as training for when I’m a wrestling promoter myself one day. First Match yet again: Hagadorn/Davis Vs. Irish AirborneHmm. I hate Davis on sight. He’s the target. Davis is chewing gum, making him look like a mouth-breathing idiot. He’s still chewing in the ring, too. Can’t wait for him to chew on a springboard dropkick. He’s such a nobody that even Hagadorn tells him to shut up. Airborne are Airborne. The idiots who made this DVD run that stupid fucking message telling you to watch the Video Recap WHICH HAS ALMOST NO CONNECTION TO THIS GODDAMN DVD AND ADDS NO NEW MATERIAL WHATSOEVER. Fools.Trikless Davis starts off with Dave Christ. Trikless nearly fucks up an armwringer set up to a run up spingboard armdrag and looks shit on the traditional Indy quick pin effort. Then Hagadorn slaps him on the back to tag him out of the ring. Jake and Haggie (BTW, Jake has the beard and is blond, remember that and you can tell them apart). Jake takes Haggie down with a headscissors and jumping toe kick, then the Airborne hit a nice complex tag spot ending with a really horrible dropkick on Hagadorn and a diving dropkick to the outside. Trik Davis then does a suicide dive. You’re supposed to be the heel you fucking numpty. Fortunately Jake adds a senton dive so the face heat’s mostly on Airborne, who get a really, REALLY loud non-duelling chant. I’m actually surprised by how over they are. It helps that Hagadorn is so hateable, nobody’s going to chant for him. Trikless Davis comes back in and hits Indy Generic Offence Number 1, with a snapmare and chinlock, then forearm and knee strikes before tagging out. Mouth breathing gutter trash scumbag. Stuff happens, there’s a little heat, then Jake gets hot tagged to destroy people. The Airborne are definitely well organised as tag wrestlers. Both good on the hot tags and with sweet combos. Finally, Trikless Davis dies to Irish Airborne’s Death Valley Breaker. The fans go fucking NUTS. Like them or loathe them, the Airborne’s stars are ascendant in ROH. Tragically, Trik Davis gets up and is still able to walk. DIE, OH OBJECT OF MY IRE!Ahem. Red hot opener, and built as close to being a proper squash as ever. You’re NEARLY there, Gabe. Just a little less offence and this would have been a complete squash.*1/2Oh, it’s an Alex Shelley promo. His promo is based on an erection, which gives it bonus points, and Prince Nana is awesome too. Oh, it’s so tragic. The Embassy is fucking imasculated without Shelley. I didn’t realise how much he brought to the stable until now.SECOND MATCH: Jimmy Jacobs Vs. Wodewick StwongI immediately hate Wodewick even more, because it looks like he’s going to beat someone I really enjoy. The fans are TOTALLY into Jacobs’ entrance, which is great. Fire lighters everywhere. Lacey’s really pissed tonight. Jacobs isn’t as soppy as usual. The Stwong man comes out, with his glassy vacant eyes and punchable face, but tragically he’s over so I’m stuck with him. He sort of typifies the ROH style of yesterday, in that he’s got the ring skills but no personality or charisma at all. Maybe one day the fanship will turn on him for being totally fucking boring, but it’s not going to happen. I defend Daniels, so it’s only fair I have to put up with Stwong.Jacobs goes for a school boy, and amazingly only gets a one count. That’s right, a cradle in ROH that doesn’t result in a two! Shocking. Huge duelling chants, and I begin to see why everyone hates them. The response to the Airborne made them look like stars. Here... less so. Jacobs hits that BEAUTIFUL no-hands headscissors, making up a part of the DVD asking price in one go. He controls with side headlock takeovers until Stwong gets a headscissors, but Jacobs breaks it with his foot on the ropes. Lots of nice sequences in this early section, with Jacobs constantly taking Wodewick down until the first of the death backbreakers makes its appearance, followed by the first chop. Wodewick shows he’s learning from KENTA with a fake chop into face slap for a thunderous ‘YOU GOT BITCH SLAPPED’ chant. Jacobs gets back into it a little after that with a diving hurracanrana. Jacobs hits a dropkick on the outside and some other stuff, then takes a backbreaker and fallaway slam before tossing Stwong out and headscissoring him on the outside, and adding his very own chop. Jacobs randomly does Junkyard Dog style headbutts with them both on all forus, then chats to Lacey. Tries Contra Code, doesn’t work, Stwong hits another sick backbreaker out of a back suplex. An awful camera angle shows Jacobs calling the next spot with Wodewick, leading into his recently established elbows/chop/enziguri combo, nearly gets backbreakered, but ends up spearing Wodewick out of his boots. Jacobs then gets military pressed and launched into the turnbuckles for a near fall. He asks if the fans want Jimmy launched into the stands, resulting in everyone chanting ‘OVER HERE’ at him. Jacobs gets a close fall, Strong gets one, Jacobs gets one, Stwong gets one, cradles, and schoolboys and Gibson Drivers oh my! But really, no-one thinks Stwong is losing this one. Wodewick’s top rope gutbuster gets countered into a hard fought for death valley driver to put them both down. Contra Code is finally countered into half nelson backbreakers, and Stwonghold for the tap out.This match actually exemplifies what’s GOOD about ROH’s booking for workrate. I’m a massive Jacobs fan, or have turned into one. If Gabe booked Jacobs depending on his position, he’d barely get two moves in. This match would have been a complete squash instead of what it was, which was a very competitive and very good match. **1/2Nigel McGuinness gets a promo talking about the internet geeks who think McGuinness is going to lose his title first of the company’s champs. This is a really nice little promo, but it’s sad that in fact the fans got it right, because McGuinness HAS lost his title now.THIRD MATCH: Jimmy Rave and CK3 Vs. The BriscoesYAY! Alex Shelley accompanies The Embassy to ringside! He’s wearing the Ghana flag on his head! He’s Alex Shelley! Wow, what an entourage. Shelley, CK3, Rave, Haze, Nana... real crowd. This has got to end in a screwy win for The Embassy. There’s a MASSIVE toilet paper shower, and Alex Shelley has me in stitches by curling up in one corner with the Ghana flag on his back like a makeshift bunker or something. I fucking love Alex Shelley. The toilet paper shower, The Embassy’s entrance, it’s all improved a dozenfold by adding Shelley to the mix. Nana cuts a promo, but again I cannot catch a single word he says. I think he’s basically saying Ghana rules and USA doesn’t. I don’t know. I’m not sure whether it’s his accent or the mic harmonics, but he’s utterly incomprehensible on the house mic. He’s fine backstage. Briscoes make their way to the ring, and the fans are very pleased to see them. The house lighting picks up MASSIVE motes of dust in the air. Seriously, I wouldn’t mention it if it wasn’t really noticeable. Rave manages to jump up and slam dunk a toilet roll on its way into the ring. Good one.Now, Jay and Mark Briscoe are REALLY hard to tell apart. They have similar faces, the same hairstyle, and they’re wearing the exact same ring gear these days. I think Jay has the slightly bigger head, and he’s the one who opens up with CK3. I’m wrong, this is Mark Briscoe. Jay gets tagged in, but he wants to fight with Rave. Conrad fits well into The Embassy, actually. He goes to tag, but Rave doesn’t want to, resulting in nearly every fan in the building chanting ‘RAVE’S A PUSSY’, which segways into ‘DIE JIMMY DIE’. Rave spits in Jay’s face after a shoulderblock, which results in him getting his head kicked in, including receiving the Briscoes’ moderately new double flapjack-into-orbit. Briscoes hit some good pop-grabbing offence, then Rave hits Jay with a clothesline until Jay hits back, and Mark finally takes over properly as the man in control. Still, it’s not long before he tags in his bro again, and Jay hits a nice dropkick on Rave. The Briscoes are REALLY slinky on teamwork here, making this match really feel like a proper tag team contest. Well, I say slinky, quite a few of their moves are pretty rough, like the double shoulder tackle, but their overall performance is great. The Embassy uses old-school healing to take the edge, with Haze kicking Jay in the side of the head and CK3 going to work on Jay. There’s eventually a double tag and Mark clears house leading to a close near fall off a leg drop/side slam combo on Rave. CK3 gets back in and hits his hammerlock/cobra clutch lung blower (what a fucking move), Briscoes explode back in, Rave takes a military press death valley driver, and CK3 DIES to a Cutthroat Driver.Bloody hell. What a match. This is one of those true Briscoe matches, with lots of spectacular offence, contrasted somewhat by The Embassy’s more grounded offence. Very exciting, but not going to please people who are insistent upon AJPW levels of work. For my money, though, very good and I’m looking forward to watching this one again.***FOURTH MATCH: Delirious Vs. Samoa JoeOh, man. Delirious is a man I never want to hear ‘JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU’ getting chanted at. He’s just so loveable. But here comes the jolly fat horseman of the Apocalypse, and we just know that Delirious is going to come three inches away from death in this one. Probably. Joe has some fun with a kind of ‘secret handshake’ with Delirious in the corner. Delirious, as always, goes mental when the bell rings and charges around like he’s just taken a dose of speed. Then he runs into Joe’s fist, and Joe gets a near fall to open the match up.Ahem. Delirious does recover from this early mauling with a long series of clotheslines in the corner into a bulldog for his first near fall. He then tries to slam Joe, and fails miserably, being a cruiserweight and all. Joe holds Delirious on a looooooong vertical suplex, hits his favourite powerbomb/boston crab/STF spot, and then converts it into a crippler crossface (didn’t see that one coming). But the fans are behind Delirious now, and he gets to the ropes. Joe beats Delirious up, then starts hopping and shouting for the ref as Delirious bits him in the leg after catching a kick. Delirious tries for the slam again but it backfires, and you know if he manages it on the third attempt, the fans are going to go nuclear. Joe then catches and kills him with an STJoe. A running forearm in the corner and a pele, PELE, NOT PAYLAY YOU FUCKING ANNONUCING RETARD PERSON! Ahem. kick in the corner. However, Delirious counters the face wash and hits the Panic Attack knee in the corner. They go into a long and hot series of strikes, clotheslines and stuff, until Delirious finally takes Joe down with a leaping lariat for a big round of cheers. He finally slams Joe, and the fans do indeed go nuclear, then cinches in the Cobra Stretch. Joe slaps Delirious a bit, then gets his leg dropkicked out from under him, but Shadows Over Hell is countered with a boot, leading to the muscle buster and the three count. FABULOUS match. One of Delirious’ best in ROH that I’ve seen so far, and definitely worth seeing.***3/4Necro’s out to the ring to challenge Joe, but here comes Claudio to chop block his bad leg, and it’s a two on one beat down. A few ‘hey’s for Claudio. Whitmer and Pearce are out, so’s Nate Webb and here comes Ace Steel to even the teams. Of all things they work a big bionic elbows spot here. This is the usual chaos-o-thon, with stuff happening everywhere and quite a bit of stuff missed by the camera. I remember Cornette commenting on his Secrets of the Ring DVD that in such situations its paramount not to split the audience’s attention in such a way. Good example of it. Necro takes YET ANOTHER sick bump onto a pair of back-to-back chairs, chairs get thrown in people’s faces, there’s lots of people punching each other in the face. Steel makes Webb eat some toilet paper. Webb leg drops Steel through a table, only to fall right into Pearce’s hands and get running powerslammed through a bit of the table that hadn’t broken properly. A barbed wire crown’s part of the festivities here. Whitmer is made to wear it by Necro, then takes an unprotected chair shot on the barbed wire crown, giving the win to CZW. It’s old now. One or two new tricks, not boring, but still... old. Credit to Gabe for finishing the feud as a whole when he did (the blowoff is at the next show), because this would have started to get really tiresome after a couple more of these brawls. On the bright side, between this, powerbombs to the outside, and so on and so forth, BJ Whitmer has finally convinced the fans that he is A) Insane and B) Completely indestructible.**Briscoes cut a promo. They are not pleased with KENTA. Some kind of reprisal for his bitch kicking them when they ran in on Stwong the previous show appears to be in order. He must, in fact, ‘man up’. Word. The Briscoes are half-comprehensible in their promos, but it really does fit their gimmick. They have a certain degree of charisma, and they carry off what I call the ‘aggro-scuzz’ attitude really very well. There’s a world of difference, in character terms, between them and the bland Airborne brothers, for example. Their ring work, however, is very comparable, though the Briscoes hit harder.SIXTH MATCH: Nigel McGuinness Vs. HomicideWhile McGuinness is on the way to the ring, someone asks ‘what the fuck happened to your eye’, and he is sporting quite a shiner. McGuinness gives someone the good ol’ British two finger salute, and comments ‘you can kiss my arse. This belt stays right here, you fruit cakes’. Yay for Britishness in an ROH ring. Homicide takes some time working out the Pure Title rules, so Nigel pisses him off to provoke him into an early start, presumably in the hope that he has a shaky grasp of the rules and will fuck up early.Indeed, Homicide’s delayed when he measures a closed fist, and ends up chatting with the ref about whether he can, and again on a headlock. He hits a brutal looking lariat. Lots of near fall cradles, of the bad, or ‘totally unbelievable’, kind.Homicide totally dominates the early part, and Nigel loses his first rope break on a rings of saturn. McGuinness gets in the game with a unique armbreaker take down, then goes to work with a lot of arm based offence, stealing Danielson’s ‘I have ‘til 5, referee’ spot to remind people where that there’s a rematch somewhere in the future. Homicide uses his first rope break on a chinlock variant, and the match continues with Nigel mostly in control with constant work on Homicide’s arm. Homicide finally comes to life, and tragically forgets to sell Nigel’s ten minutes or so of arm work even a little bit. Literally, there isn’t even the slightest indication that Homicide’s arm has been worked at all. It always sucks when that happens. Homicide gets suplexed through a table on the outside, and one has to wonder how this fits into the Pure Title rules. Homicide just gets in to avoid a count out loss, kicking off a huge ‘HOMICIDE’ chant. Homicide starts getting increasingly enraged with the referee’s count after a two on a frog splash. He tries to go up again, but Nigel cuts him off and nails a Tower of London for a hot near fall. Nigel hits his death lariat after Homicide shoulder blocks him, but only gets a two count. They fight out onto the entranceway, and Nigel starts clinging to Homicide’s leg so he can’t break away, then ducks under him on a lariat and slides in just before the 20 count, resulting in Homicide losing via countout, pissing off the crowd, and Homicide. Bottles start getting chucked at the ring, and there’s a loud ‘BULLSHIT’ chant. I dunno. Something didn’t click. Homicide’s selling was really annoying here, or lack thereof. I’m not a pedant for such stuff normally, but it really stuck out, since Nigel is SUCH a good arm worker. His various hammerlock stuff and whatever looks fucking brutal so for someone to just not sell it even a little bit is a bit... wrong, especially since he was holding his arm and all sorts while the moves were actually happening. Breaks the illusion, whatever. It just left me feeling a bit deflated. I’m sure the match should have been better.**Post match, Homicide throws a hissy fit and walks out. The camera follows him all the way out of the arena.SEVENTH MATCH: KENTA Vs. Austin AriesTHIS should be good. Here comes KENTA, with his slightly underwhelming music but pure awesomeness, and here comes Mr.Aries, second God of ROH behind Joe. Full of charisma, intensity and personality. Hell, even his walk is unique. Slow opening, proper feeling out process. Prazac puts over how similar they are in terms of weight, build, style etc. The commentary in ROH is really not very good. I’m starting to realise that I can barely remember a single word of commentary. There’s odd bits, but in general the commentary is so lacklustre that it’s just in one ear and out the other. Aries and KENTA punk each other out, then go into a high speed series that ends with Aries on top. Aries hits his favourite handstand out of headscissors to dropkick spot and gets a near fall off a northern lights suplex. STO goes into powerdrive elbow and headscissored deathlock thing. Austin breaks it after a while and applies a bridged front headlock, presumably because this is a move KENTA can actually struggle to the ropes from. KENTA finally counters an apron shoulderblock effort with kicks to Austin’s chest and then double stomps him on the back from the top rope to get some proper offence in. He applies a nasty looking camel clutch, taking a leaf out of Kobashi’s book on the way he cranks his neck until Austin gets to the ropes. Austin generally stars getting destroyed by KENTA’s offense, whether he’s getting kicked in the chest or thrown into the guard rail. They go into a strike/running moves sequence until KENTA takes Aries down with a big boot counter on a running something. Then KENTA hits his slingshot punk kick and showboats, pissing Aries off royally, and getting a slow motion knee drop for his temerity. They face off, and tempers are absolutely flared as they slap each other to death. This is all going very puro, and no surprise it is thus very good because KENTA’s got to feel comfortable in there. Or as comfortable as you can in a hard-hitting wrestling match. KENTA then hits a dropkick in the shattered dreams position, takes another run in... and bitch slaps Aries. Jesus KENTA’s being a dick tonight. Maybe he’s annoyed that Aries has a cooler beard. Aries counters KENTA’s Tornado throat drop by tossing him to the outside and hits his super tope to get the fans into a big ‘ROH’ chant. Austin absolutely MULLERS KENTA in a tree of woe position with a dropkick to the face, I think a kick to the back of the head and a neckbreaker, but its all for naught as KENTA fires back with a german and tiger suplex for near falls. Aries ducks the Busaiku and hits a roaring forearm into lariat for a near fall, then goes for the Brainbuster, that gets blocked so Aries hits the rolling fireman’s carry, then goes up top to take KENTA’s leaping falcon arrow. Well, that’s the only possible explanation for his choice to go to the corner furthest away. Aries crucifix bombs out of Go To Sleep for a near fall, and the dreaded chant of ‘THIS IS AWESOME’ kicks out. Lots of fighting over a Brainbuster, counters, all sorts of shit, Aries finally hits it for a near fall and goes for the 450, but KENTA moves and hits the Busaiku into another Busaiku and Go To Sleep for the three count. FUCK. ING. AWE. SOME. See this match. Nothing else I can say.****Here come the Briscoes, and this time KENTA is on the receiving end of the beat down, and the Briscoes get booed. Stwong comes out and runs them off. Would it really hurt to have a proper beatdown every now and again? I mean seriously, why the fuck not? It would actually build a little more anticipation for the Briscoe/GenNEXT matches they obviously have booked. It just makes sense. Give the Briscoes some heel heat, get the fans on the champs’ side, there you go, you’ve got yourself matches with more interest than just ‘another good match’. Or maybe that makes too much sense. As it is, nothing’s achieved. As usual. The Briscoes don’t do enough to get booed properly, and GenNEXT don’t get beat down so they don’t look vulnerable. Just another waste of thirty seconds.EIGHTH MATCH: Bryan Danielson Vs. Colt CabanaWell, here we go. Let’s see if it’s worthy of the billing. They’ve been building to this for a while, but I’m pretty certain it’s not going to be worthy of the attention. Okay, here comes Danielson, the Pale Rider. They should switch his monicker to that. It’s both fitting and mocking at the same time. Bit of a ‘FUCK YOU DRAGON’ chant. The fans start chanting ‘NEW CHAMP’ for some unfathomable reason. Tonight, Danielson is ‘the man who beat this Chicago chumpstain in 5 minutes’. Heh heh heh. The fans go back to chanting ‘FUCK YOU DRAGON’. It’s so cheap but so effective. Can’t you just hear it, though? ‘he is your ROH World heavyweight Champion and The Pale Rider of Massacheussets, Bryan Danielson!’ Yay? Nay? Mmm. Nay, I guess.Danielson shakes Colt’s hand. There’s another random ‘NEW CHAMP’ chant. I wonder how the ROH fanbase would react if Colt actually DID win the title, though. MASSIVE duelling chants to kick off. As usual, Danielson has all kinds of interesting ideas on how to break free of moves and counter, and comes up with some nice stuff .They tease the five minute loss after a tight backslide near fall. Colt offers his wrist to Danielson, who doesn’t take it and gets a loud ‘PUSSY’ chant. Danielson grabs it, and of course immediately gets outwrestled. Instead of, you know, just kicking him in the gut or punching him in the face or a half dozen other things you could do instead of taking his wrist. After a near fall, Danielson backs off and Cabana offers the wrist again. This time Danielson grabs it and takes him down. All the while I’m thinking ‘why doesn’t he just slap him across the face?’ Cabana works in random laugh spots, as you’d expect, but they don’t help him break Danielson’s arm control. After it breaks, Danielson offers his wrist, much to Colt’s irritation, and cry of ‘that’s my trick!’. Colt grabs it, and gets forearmed in the face. Danielson goes into some rougher work for a spell, hitting european uppercuts and kneedrops and whatnot. We see the double leg stomp surfboard, which Colt sells very well indeed. He can’t quite get him all the way up, so Danielson does a Lyger dragon sleeper variant. Danielson gets a ‘SAME OLD SHIT’ chant for his good old ‘I have til 5’ spot. I’ve heard someone complain about this before so they’ll surely be happy. Danielson immediately does another surfboard double stomp to taunt the fans who chanted it, and goes for the surfboard which leads to a funny spot between Colt and the referee. Basically, Colt hangs onto the ref’s hands to avoid the surfboard, ref counts, then Colt does the ‘I have til 5’ as he lets go, segwaying into a scream of pain as his arms are pulled back and he’s rolled properly into the surfboard. Colt finally hits back with a missile dropkick. Cabana starts firing up and firing back, then outright no-selling and bionic elbowing Danielson to death. Flying asshole hits, and he crossbody’s them both to the floor. A couple of fans seem to have a loud argument while they’re at ringside. Cabana hits an asai, a good one for once, after sending Danielson into the ring post. They work a series of 2 count spots, until Danielson manages to roll through one into Cattle Mutilation, but Cabana reaches the ropes. Cabana gets a near fall off a powerbomb into turnbuckles to a charging lariat, then goes for Colt 45. Danielson slides off the back and tries something, but Cabana counters, only to take a roaring elbow into USB elbows. Cabana rolls out, then gets rolled into the butterfly pin. Colt’s still alive, though, and hits a snapped fisherman DDT from a standing cradle position, then goes for a top rope moonsault, which hits for a hot near fall. Cabana escapes another Cattle Mutilation and the Crossface Chickenwing, then locks Danielson in... something, then applies Cattle Mutilation himself. Danielson gets the ropes to a round of boos. Colt hits the powerbomb, but Danielson rolls out. Colt 45 attempt after elbows, Danielson roaring elbow leads to lariat and Colt 45, but Danielson rolls Colt’s cover into a small package for the three count.HA! Quite a shock pin, actually. Fans chant ‘BULLSHIT’ and throw toilet roll, Danielson wins. It’s a good match, no doubt about it. The near falls at the end are red hot, and the comedy spots aren’t quite as annoying as they can be when Colt’s in the ring. ***1/2Post match, Briscoes get another promo. They want to hurt KENTA plenty. Move onto another promo from the ROH students, who think Hagadorn is somehow a bigger loser than them despite the fact they’ve never even APPEARED on the main show. Sorry guys, but losing on the main show is better than not even appearing on it. Idiots.

[King of my World]

I have watched most of 'In Your Face' and have the main event to watch. Really solid show with my favourite match so far being Whitmer vs Jacobs, really good match. Richards vs Rave was enjoyable as well.

[RCD]

Your thoughts of the show being good will disappear when you see the main event, it's a massive clusterfuck. Also if you need to tell the difference between Jay & Mark then Jay has a big back tattoo & Mark doesn't.

[edgecrusher]

Your thoughts of the show being good will disappear when you see the main event, it's a massive clusterfuck. Also if you need to tell the difference between Jay & Mark then Jay has a big back tattoo & Mark doesn't.

I thought the main event was fantastic, actually. KENTA was out of it but he still carried his part of the match fantastically well once he'd recovered. It was intense, exciting, and had a lot of really good stuff going on in it as well as building the various singles confrontations the company seems to be building towards (Joe/Danielson, KENTA/Joe, KENTA/Danielson).

Also, you don't like Kawada?!?!

Nope, not really. I've never dug him. I've always been a Kobashi mark and usually preferred his matches with Misawa over Kawada's. Some of the 'famous five' are truly exceptional, but I still just can't quite feel it for Kawada. He doesn't incite passion in me. I can believe HE wants to win, but I don't really care whether he does or not. Misawa and Kobashi both make me want them to win. The match in 2003 where Kobashi finally won the GHC title from Misawa is probably my favourite puro match ever for intensity and impact.