ROH TV - 4th February - KEVIN STEEN returns!

Show opened with clips from the TV Title match between Lethal, Generico and Bennett from Final Battle 2011. I didn’t see this one because I’ve had problems with IPPVs before and though better of it.

Kelly and McGuinness introduced the show from Baltimore. Every time I here Baltimore it makes me think of the Wire, which in turn makes me think of the Urban Wrestling Federation (yes, I know it’s based in Philly, but that’s how my mind works). They hype up the TV title match between Bennett and Lethal. Bennett did a promo saying how he was going to be the next champ, and how the audience could be proud to have him as a TV champ. Mike Bennett’s not the best worker in the world, his talents pales in comparison to the likes of Edwards and Lethal, but I think he makes a great heel and he’s got a great gimmick.


The first match saw Lethal beat Bennett by pin-fall with a crucifix to retain the title. This was a good TV match, good pace, commentary told a great story and Lethal looked like a star.


Next up was an interview with Eddie Edwards. I really like Edwards, in-ring this guy is easily one of the best workers outside of Japan. I can imagine that if he was to go to TNA or WWE he’d just bob around the lower-mid card for a few months before getting dropped. I’m just not convinced by him in interviews, and I think if he went to another promotion, this would be bad for his drawing power.

Tonight’s ROH is, however, the TV return of Kevin Steen. Unlike WWE or TNA where a firing angle will be resolved within a month (or not even a week if you’re John Cena), ROH had Steen away from the promotion for a year. In the big picture, it takes a little away from the ‘loser leaves town stip’, but at least they followed it through for a good while and had a build up to Steen’s potential return.

Steen came down to the ring and Kevin Kelly noted that Steen had been re-instated but at what cost. They really put over that Steen was a dangerous guy to be near, this was awesome. Steen responded by asking why ROH would keep down their best wrestler for a year. He said it was because he wouldn’t suck up to Cornette – this was a great promo. They seem to be hinting at doing what could have been the CM Punk holding the WWE title hostage angle, but they’ll probably have the guts to do it right. Cornette came out and laid into him. I love Cornette, not sure about him as a babyface GM, but the heel GM thing has been done to death. Steen ended by saying he was going to kick Richards’ ass, become the new champion and be the bane of Cornette’s life. Great stuff.

Next match was for the tag titles: Haas and Benjamin versus the Young Bucks. They had a decent TV match, but it felt a bit stilted a points. Bucks won via DQ, when Benjamin used a steel chair.

I quite like the way the Bucks have evolved lately. They are still doing their crazy high-spots, but they make sense in the matches now rather than just being some nice acrobatics with no real context.

Greatest Matches: Davey Richard versus Eddie Edwards (ROH 26th April, 2010)

Though ROH's TV show can be pretty inconsistant, when they put on a good match, you know it's a classic. One such match was for the ROH TV title from back in April between Davey Richards (who has had an excellent year) and Eddie Edwards.

Enjoy!

Review: ROH, 12th July

This week’s Ring of Honor kicked off with a recap of Necro Butcher’s angle that he was short of money and could not afford to pay for his medical bills, an angle which would not work in the UK with our glorious and highly communistic National Health Service. Anyway, so with Necro not being able to pay his bills, he decides to hook-up with one-time WWE jobber Price Nana and become part of his stable, the Embassy. Instead of a pauper entering, we see Necro dressed in a flashy robe and apparently wearing a Rolex. Nana describes Necro as ‘the crown jewell’ of the Embassy. Here in the UK, we use the term crown Jewells to refer to one’s testicular area, so essentially Nana is calling Necro a big testical.
After a bit of an incoherent promo, the match begins: Necro Butcher versus Bobby “The Jobber” Beverly. The match was under ‘Butcher’s Rules’ which, as far as I can make out, is exactly the same as Raven’s rules: basically a no DQ match. The match on the whole was pretty lame, with Necro dominating throughout. There were some pretty cool spots during the match, for example when Necro scooped up the Jobber using a steel chair and then slammed him down to the canvas, chair and all, Necro also did a chokeslam and a Sit Out Powerbomb onto two chairs (one is never enough) to get the pin. What was perhaps the nastiest move of the match came in the post-match beat-down, when Necro used a standing chair as an aid to a nasty looking Back Breaker.
Next up was Eddie Edwards in one of his Ten Minute Hunt matches to be in contendership for the coveted TV Title. If the videos remain on YouTube, you will notice the beauty and quality of the graphics for this segment. Every time I see Eddie Edwards I am always made to think of Olympic ski-jumper Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards. For this reason alone, I was gunning for Edwards. Edwards’ opponent for this match-up was the Andy ‘Right Leg’ Ridge, a wrestler famour for having a right leg. After questioning Right Leg’s sexual prowess, Eddies hits him with the mic and match begins.
Eddie spends much time during the match working on Ridge’s left leg, not realising that Ridge’s power is drawn from the right. Edwards hits a nasty Lariat and then Powebomb’s Ridge to an single-legged Boston Crab to get the win by submission. The match lasted around four minutes and was pretty mediocre.
The camera cuts to a promo with Austin Aries, dressed in a suit, wearing aviator sunglasses and smoking a pipe, alongside Rhett Titus and Kenny King. What I found out in this promo was that you need to have a licence to be a manager in professional wrestling, and that Aries has one, but states that he’s still going to wrestle. Aries made a sly jab at Jim Cornette, referring to him as a‘mama's boy with a tennis racket'. You tell him, Austin.
Back in the ring, Cornette brings Strong out for an interview. I was difficult to tell that Strong is a heel, because if he was in WWE or TNA, he’d be wearing a suit damn it. How do you know a guy’s bad if he’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt? The promo was pretty bizarre, it began with Stong going on about how he’s been screwed by everyone in the company, but has found someone to tell him ‘The Truth’ and introduced his new mentor Truth Martin (geddit?) who came to the ring with Christian Abel and Josh Raymond.
The mic is passed to Martini who rambles about being a Life Intervention Expert and says the Strong isn’t to blame: it’s all Tyler Black’s fault (now it makes sense). With a few more minutes of incoherence, the crowd were visibly and audibly getting bored. Cornette then referred to Martini as a ‘snake oil salesman’. Oooh.
Onto the main event: Tyler Black, Jerry Lynn and Delirious versus Austin Aries, Kenny King and Rhett Titus. The brawling begins before the match starts. You can tell that wrestlers don’t like each other when they fight before the bell rings, and with RoH’s code of honour, this just goes to underline this.
With King and Lynn in the ring, the bell rings and match starts officially. Thank goodness that the violence was now contained within the legitimate boundaries of a wrestling match. On the whole, this was a decent match, there were some great moments such as Black and Lynn delivering stereo F-5s onto King and Aries then take Titus up for a double F-5 on him. The match ended with what I think was a DQ due to Delirious throwing Aries onto a chair. The brawling continued outside, but there was no real ending to the match.
In summary, this was a mixed bag: there was far too much time spent on pointless promos which didn’t add much to storylines. The first two matches were squash matches which had very little purpose and the final match, though pretty good, lacked a sense of closure.

Review: ROH, 7th July 2010

This week’s Ring of Honor started out with a pretty poor, non-title match between the Dark City Fight Club and the Kings of Wrestling. The Kings of Wrestling have been in some great matches, but this was not one of them.

The Dark City Fight Club are what you would get if Mark Henry tagged with his spastic brother. The timings were way off, they sold injuries worse than Hogan, and, well, they just sucked anus.

The match went nowhere, the KoW did some of their usual spots and then the Briscoes turned up in revenge for insulting their daddy at the last PPV.


This is where it went a bit stupid. With the Briscoes set for revenge, ROH security and most of the locker room came out to stop them. The KoW made a quick escape and the Briscoes went at it with security.

This was a shit end to a shit match. I wouldn’t even give it one star. It was probably because the match was so bad that the Briscoes got the biggest pop of the night.

Next up was a women’s match between Daizee Haze verus Jamilia Craft. This really surprised me as to just how good it was, and might actually be one of the best women’s wrestling matches I think I’ve seen. A lot of really strong technical wrestling and completely wipes the floor with WWE at the moment: men and women. Also this match shows what the Knockout division could be capable of if TNA gave it a bit more time and got in some better wrestlers. You know it’s a bad state of affairs when the penile reactions of teenage boys have a direct effect upon the women we tend to see in the ring.

TNA/WWE management: “Well there’s a choice between this really good technical wrestler who is just amazing in the ring, or there’s this bleach-blonde stick with bolt-on tits who will make even the most basic of moves look shit...”

Teenage boy: “Tits.”

Grotty little bastards.

Anyway, the match was won by Daizee Haze with a German Suplex to pin. I’d give this match four and a half stars, and could probably be the best women’s match we’ll see for a good while.

Next up was an interview segment with Christopher Daniels. With him being pushed down the card and eventually let go by TNA, it’s easy to forget what a great promo this guy can give when he’s on form. This also goes for Davari, who was also in TNA. He hasn’t dropped the ‘hard-done-by-victim-of-racism’ type of thing he’s been doing since his WWE days, but still, he’s great on the mic.

Next up was the main event: The American Wolves versus Roderick Strong and Christopher Daniels. This was another fantastic match, probably one of the best tag matches I’ve seen in a while. These guys aren’t a bunch of spot monkeys like you get with the WWE, but have a real ring presence and excellent ring psychology. Each move seemed to have a purpose and didn’t seem to be done for the sake of doing a move that looks cool but doesn’t really fit in with the match. For such a good match, the crowd didn’t seem to be into as much as I would have expected, but what do I know, I just know what I like and what I don’t.

This match was 20 minutes long, this wasn’t a PPV or a championship match, it was just a good-length match that felt right and worked so much better than the four minutes of wrestling-lite you get with the WWE. The match was given time to evolve and develop and it really showed.

For the last minute of the match I was on the edge of my seat. Daniels tried to get the BME and Davey Richard ran up and hit Daniels with a German superplex from the top rope for a quick pin. I’d give this match four stars.

On the whole, this wasn’t a bad episode, the first match was awful, but the last two matches saved it. With no build up or hype, it’s fair to say that women’s match stole the show.

I have to say that I really like the way ROH structures its shows. They are heavy on the wrestling and there is hardly any in-ring rambling for 15 minutes. The matches are a decent length and are punctuated by old-style promos and vignettes. This gives opportunity to develop a storyline, but doesn’t turn a wrestling show into a talk show.

That Clown from Outta Town - May 10th ROH

I've never got the hype about ROH. I watched a couple of their shows when they first went on TV, but they didn't grab my interest. I'm going to give them another shot, since people are still raving about them...this is the latest show.

0:22 - One of the most despicable, deplorable things you have ever seen in professional wrestling? This ought to be good.
0:32 - What?? Austin Ares pushing a woman is one of the most despicable things in pro wrestling? Christ, this guy clearly wasn't an ECW fan. Hang on, let me grab a link...here we go, skip to 1:17 and tell me that a push is something to give a fuck about.



Or here at 0:40:



To treat a push like a big deal is kind of patronising.
2:09 - That was more of a forearm than a push, to be fair...still not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things
2:48 - Is that Sonjay Dutt? I didn't realise he was in ROH, I like Sonjay.
3:17 - Jim Cornette :) I like Jim.
4:35 - The Briscoes - I've heard good things about them, but I've never seen them wrestle. I hope they're as good as people are saying.
9:37 - Nice double team move
13:22 - Whoa, top turnbuckle moonsault to the floor :) Nice. This match is starting to heat up.
16:23 - Nice match, it seemed to end just as it was getting good though :/
17:38 - "There's only actually six people in the Battle Royale" "Oh, well this is gonna be a piece of cake then" hahaha
24:00 - Ooh, Daivari. I like him, he never got a fair run as Bashir.
27:06 - Cool, Colt Cabana
45:54: Ares wins the Battle Royale. Not a great match, but it's a tough stipulation to make interesting.

Overall, not a bad show, better than I remember it being. The tag match was solid, would have been great with an extra 5 minutes - it was just getting some decent momentum when it ended. I'll give them another shot maybe next week, hopefully the next one will have more than 2 matches.

Speaking of CM Punk...

Socko,

Every time you post clips of Punk, it reminds me of this...



Classic.

- Clown

Greatest Matches Ever! ROH: Samoa Joe vs CM Punk (October 2004)

Before CM Punk was everyone's leasr favourite savior and before Samoa Joe was in dire need of some sit-ups, they were some of the best up-and-comers on the ROH roster. For those not familiar with Ring of Honor (ROH), think of an indie promotion run by Jim Cornette, which as had top names on its roster including CM Punk, Brian Danielson, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Nigel McGuinees (AKA Desmond Wolfe), to name a few.

I watched a shoot interview recently from around 2005 with Joe and Punk talking about this match. They did three one hour matches together for the ROH championship, the second being my favourite. According to the interview, both Joe and Punk had gone into this match injured, and what's more, the match was booked at short notice and the match came as a suprise to the fans at the event as the match wasn't advertised on the card. With only a few minutes contact between Joe and Punk to plan any ideas for the match, it is suprising that they put on a decent match at all. On paper we have the potential for a train wreck match, but in reality it is one of the best matches I've ever seen. Watch it and enjoy the drama.  









See?
ROH Ring of Honor Straight Shootin' with Samoa Joe & CM Punk Dvd! March 10, 2005