The Fifth Year Festival Night One: Opinions and thoughts from Big Andy Mac

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The Fifth Year Festival Night One: Opinions and thoughts from Big Andy Mac

The first two shows in the Manhattan Center’s Grand Ballroom were two of the best shows in Ring of Honor history. Glory By Honor V Night 2, which I attended, was stellar from top to bottom with several matches that would be matches of the night on other RoH cards let alone anywhere else in the wrestling world. Final Battle which I recently obtained on DVD looks to be equally amazing, and it saw the end of an era in RoH with Danielson’s loss, and more great tag team wrestling.

I was one of many Pulse people in attendance, and it was cool to talk to everyone. I arrived a little late so I missed Pelle Primeau get the backdrop driver from that smooth pimp Takeshi Morishima, I would have liked to see that. Anyways, on to the show

Delirious vs. Adam Pearce

Adam Pearce fills his role as a mid card heel and all around jerk. Hagadorn is rising to Palumbo levels of veiled homosexuality. Delirious is hilarious. This match was fun, and set the tone for good wrestling to follow all night long. Delirious in one of the more ingenious finishes I have seen in quite some time took brass knuckles from Pearce, hid them in his mask and delivered a headbutt for the win. It was the first time in a long time that a headbutt has won a match anywhere.

Winner: Delirious
I would give this match **1/2, my first attempt at star ratings. It was good, but nothing stellar, and I think shakes Pearce from Delirious’ tassles so he can move to bigger and better things.

Shimmer Tag Team Exhibition: Alexa Thatcher and Daizee Haze vs. Allison Danger and Sara Del Ray

This is my first time seeing Ms. Thatcher, and aesthetically she is pleasing. The nature of the match did not let her showcase much of her talent. Danger and Del Ray had matching Wonder Woman gear. An RoH story bled into this match as Lacey took out Daizee leaving Thatcher to be picked apart by the Wonder Women. Del Ray won after the double underhook suplex.

Winners: Allison Danger and Sara Del Ray
This furthered storylines more than showcased wrestling so it didn’t exactly meet its billing, it was good for what it was *1/2

Four Way Fray: Jack Evans vs. Shingo vs. Jimmy Jacobs vs. “The All around Best” Xavier

When I was making my predictions I should have realized that Xavier was a likely candidate for the fourth competitor in this match. This was contested under elimination rules, which is different than most Ring of Honor four way matches. To me a Four Corner Survival sounds like it should be elimination rules, and a Four Way Fray seems to lends itself to one fall to a finish, but c’est la vie.

The match was very entertaining. Xavier may have earned future bookings with his performance including a sequence of powerbombs and piledrivers that did not get him an elimination, but let him eat a reverse Rana from Evans.

Jacobs was next to depart after a violent clothesline from Shingo. Jacobs seemed a bit lost in the shuffle in this match which is unfortunate as gimmick wise he is one of the best things in Ring of Honor right now, and the most ahead of the curve gimmick in wrestling since Raven in the early to mid nineties.

Evans and Shingo, who can’t decide to be friends or enemies, were the last two in the match and Evans ended up beating his Dragon Gate compatriot with the 630.

Winner: Jack Evans
Admittedly I thought this was an opportunity to get Jimmy Jacobs more over, but Evans won and I have already written too much about this match .***

After the match Joe came out to address the New York crowd for a final time, and it was a nice moment. He also called out his opponent for later Takeshi Morishima. Instead of the Japanese star we got Nigel McGuinness. The two ended up brawling and were separated by a host of students and referees.

Tables are Legal Match: “The Gun for Hire” Brent Albright vs. BJ Whitmer

The first of many table spots in this match occurred about three seconds in as Albright press slammed Whitmer through a table on the outside while BJ was posing on the ropes. The rest of the match was a lot of crazy table spots including an awesome bomb by Albright through two tables on the outside. Oddly enough this nearly killed Whitmer at Final Battle, but only got a two count tonight. Whitmer ended up winning with a Super Exploder off of a table in the corner through a table in the ring.

Winner: BJ Whitmer
To me a match like this, although entertaining kind of weakens the impact of table spots in general. It was entertaining though, and Whitmer is getting on a role building to his title match against Either way as a violent match with big bumps this gets ***

Ring of Honor World Tag Team Title Match: Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal vs. Austin Aries and Roderick Strong

They should have gone to intermission after the last match, as table matches typically take the emotion out of a crowd, and the ring also needs cleaning out. Either way this match went on and was very good. Sydal came out with his Open the Brave Gate title on his waist and the RoH Tag strap over his shoulder, probably because the Dragon Gate belt is physically much larger. The match had a scare about midway through as Aries attempted his Hands Free Queprada and his knee must have buckled as he landed on his head, not being able make the full rotation. To his credit, he was able to finish the match in a very believable fashion.

Sydal and Daniels ended up getting the win after the Shooting Sydal Press and the Best Moonsault Ever combo onto Aries.

Winners and Still RoH World Tag Team Champions: Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal
This match was good and the finishing sequence was hot, probably the best match of the night to this point ***1/2

After the match the injured Davey Richards made his way to the ring to speak to Austin Aries. While Aries and Richards were jawing, Roderick Strong came from behind and delivered the Half Nelson Backbreaker to Aries. It was then revealed that Strong was Richards new teammate in the No Remorse Corps. A fitting way to turn Strong heel, and I will talk about this more in my review of Saturday’s show. Aries was needless to say furious with Strong and said that he would get his revenge. Evans then came out and tried to be the peace maker, but no piece could be made for the uncrowned RoH Icon Austin Aries.

Intermission, go get a slice of pizza or buy a DVD at RoHwrestling.com

Tag Team Bonus Match: Jay and Mark Briscoe vs. Colt Cabana and Nigel McGuinness

Nigel and Colt are back to teaming and I am pleased with that. The Briscoes are the best team in wrestling today. This match was extremely entertaining and surprisingly enough Nigel and Colt were able to win after the Pendulum Lariat by Nigel; a rare loss for the Briscoes.

Winners: Nigel McGuinnes and Colt Cabana
Colt has a history of good matches with the Briscoes, Nigel works well with just about everyone, a compliment that can’t even be paid to William Regal as some of the WWE wrestlers just didn’t know how to wrestle with him. This match was good and I will echo the sentiments of Pulse Glazer that this could be the beginning of a quality tag series especially when the Briscoes win the tag titles next week.

Samoa Joe vs. Takeshi Morishima

Once again Joe, now in his ring gear came out to confront and fight with Nigel, they fought a bit, but this then brought out Morishima. They started brawling and the match was underway. Two words to describe this match were stiff and violent. Morishima won over the New York City crowd with his cartwheels, forearm strikes, and prominent posterior. Joe seemingly could not harm the big Japanese monster, but eventually took control. This wasn’t as head-drop-tacular as I had predicted prior to the match, but Joe delivered a Muscle Buster that only got a two count, and Morishima hit a sick Back Drop Driver which only got two. Joe then locked in The Choke but it took him a long while to get the legs wrapped around. Morishima ended up passing out and Joe took the win.

Winner: Samoa Joe
The finish was sort of anti-climactic, and not because of the pass out. Joe has won with the Choke and made it seem climactic like in Joe vs. Punk 3 and against James Gibson at New Frontiers, either way the match was great and pretty easily ****1/4

RoH World Championship Match: “The Notorious 187” Homicide (champion) vs. Jimmy Rave

Wow did I love this match. Jimmy Rave is now a legit main eventer. He won over the New York City crowd, and when he locked in the Heel Hook, a good percentage of the Manhattan Center was yelling for Homicide to tap. Homicide was the most over I have seen him since winning the championship, mostly because of it being NYC, but still over nonetheless. Rave came out of this match looking significantly better than when he went in. Homicide was in top form as well. Rave’s Heel Hook is still over as it was Julius Smokes’ distraction that caused the break. A nice touch might have been Homicide tapping behind the ref’s back, but that would have made Homicide look too weak and messed with the face/heel dynamic they had established. Some other nice spots were Rave hitting the Rave Clash, which was actually addressed in the build to the next night, and I will comment on that later. Homicide ends up hitting the Cop Killa after Rave breaks the Heel Hook and gets the three count.

Winner and Still RoH World Champion: “The Notorious 187” Homicide
This match exceeded my expectations and certainly delivered in the main event slot. Rave has developed into a truly great wrestler and everything he does makes sense. Rave came out of this match looking like a million bucks. It is ****1/2 in my book, and it also gets my nod as match of the night.

Final Thoughts: This was a great show not a greatest show. Nothing on the undercard was extremely memorable, but there were storyline development in almost every match, and really storyline advancement and really good wrestling is, to me, better than great wrestling with no back story or advancement. Wrestling is storytelling and this show did a fine job. The last show in Edison had some good storyline advancement, but the wrestling quotient in this show was much better, and this as far as I am concerned is the best show so far of 2007 will it be topped with Saturday’s show wait and see.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns shoot me an e-mail at bigandymac@yahoo.com

I’ll see you next time