Ring of Honor Live Review: 10/6/07 from Edison, NJ (PPV Taping #4)

Houseshows, PPVs, Reviews, Shows

Welcome to Edison, NJ for ROH’s fourth Pay Per View taping! Pre-intermission is all PPV, post-intermission is for the DVD only.

The show begins with an introduction by Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. Claudio Castagnoli is in the ring, waiting for his match with Chris Hero. Larry Sweeney and Hero emerge, but inform Claudio that they will not face him unless their terms are met, thus furthering Sweeney’s agent gimmick, but at the expense of pissing the crowd off and starting a PPV with a ton of talk and teasing a match that they want to see, but not coming through.

Next, out come the Age of the Fall. Jimmy Jacobs gets a mic and talks about how he and Tyler Black need tag wins to get a title shot against the Briscoes. They challenge any team. Julius Smokes leads out the Vulture Squad and now he talks too. Way to be an alterative to WWE with three different guys cutting promos to start the PPV. Ugh, whatever. Smokes instructs Jack Evans and Ruckus to “transform” and we have our first match.

Match 1: Jack Evans and Ruckus with Julius Smokes vs. Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black with Lacey

Some early flips by Ruckus don’t last long and he ends up in a long heat segment. Tyler looks great throughout this. A hot tag to Jack leads to some nice flippy offense, but that doesn’t last either as in the brawl Jack gets caught in the guillotine choke by Jacobs and taps out.

Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black defeat Jack Evans and Julius Smokes (Submission, Jacobs Guillotine Choke on Evans, ** ½)
Tag formula that put over the age of the fall at the expense of the Vulture Squad. Some notes:
1. The Age’s song is just Lacey screaming. Interesting choice.
2. Jacobs still looks a bit slow after the leg injury.
3. Ruckus is, according to Smokes, the Black Vulture.

Match 2: Daizee Haze vs. Sara Del Rey with Larry Sweeney, Bobby Dempsey, and Chris Hero

Larry Sweeney gets mic time pre-match. This is the first Shimmer match on ROH Pay Per View and Daizee is botchtastic. This match absolutely kills what was a hot crowd. Eventually Claudio runs out and hits Dempsey with a European uppercut, allowing Daizee to roll up Del Rey for the win.

Daizee Haze defeats Sara Del Rey (Pin, Roll up, *)
Actively bad, with a lot of botches and strange pacing.

Post-match Bryan Danielson comes out, gives a little speech and challenges Hero. Hero accepts. That’s four straight segments with talking preceding them. I really hate that. Let the announcers explain backstory if need be. If I wanted this much talking live, I’d go to a Raw taping. Please note- I’m a ROHbot through and through and never say things like that, but this was quite frustrating.

Match 3: Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Hero

Hero’s response to a “You’re gonna get your fucking head kicked in” chant is that it’s pure speculation at this point. Hilarious.

This was meant to be wrestling vs. showmanship, I think, but everything came off so awkwardly, its really difficult to tell. Danielson dominated on the mat most of the match, with Hero being able to strike with him, but continually stopping to showboat. That didn’t seem to anger or amuse Dragon, he just looked bored. Pointless mat wrestling, an uneventful heat segment by Hero and Dragon goes home by stomping Hero’s face into the mat until the ref stops the match.

Bryan Danielson defeats Chris Hero (Ref Stoppage, Face Stomps, ***)
Hero can thank Pac for this not being Dragon’s worst non-squash of the year, but it was close. These two have no chemistry, as seen by this and their Hell Freezes Over match. I really struggled to see a point to a lot of what they did. It was fine entertainment mostly, but not much of a match.

Now, more talking. Adam Pearce calls out Kevin Steen, sits him down and discusses his hate of people in masks. He offers Steen a spot in his stable, saying he can make it the Hangmen’s Four. Albright and Whitmer bring out a beaten up Generico. Steen refuses membership and takes out the Hangmen’s Three until the numbers catch up to him. Delirious runs out and clears the ring. Then he cuts a promo and Steen then gets a mic and announces a 6-man tag. The segment would have meant so much more if half the show wasn’t talking already.

Match 4: Kevin Steen, El Generico and Delirious vs. Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer, and Brent Albright with Shane Hagadorn

The faces control early until a heat segment. Steen takes this time to get over with small sayings and trying to get in the ring. When he’s finally tagged in, he looks awesome, and he and Generico still look fantastic as a team. Soon after, though, Delirious eats a half-nelson suplex from Albright and loses the mach.

Pearce, Whitmer and Albright defeat Delirious, Generico and Steen (Pin, Albright half-nelson suplex on Delirious, *** ¼)
This was tag formula more or less and pretty good. The Hangmen were significantly better against masked men and struggled mightily with Steen who could stand up to them physically and was much faster than they were. This match was great in keeping Steen’s momentum up and making him look like a star above everyone else. Generico and Delirious came off as sympathetic, as well, so not a bad start.

Match 5: Austin Aries vs. Roderick Stong

This was a weird one. Roderick continually worked over Aries back all match, giving Aries regular hope whenever he tried to overdo his advantage and injure Aries. Unfortunately, however, Aries sold the back not at all and it really hurt the build in Strong’s moves and the sympathy Aries generated during the match.

Aries managed to kick out of a fireman’s gutbuster into a Gibson Driver and Strong kicked out of both a brainbuster and 450, although not in combination. Strong hit a ridiculous sidewalk slam style backbreaker on the top turnbuckle, but the lack of selling earlier again prevented that from meaning as much as it should.

Strong set up a table between the guard rail and the ring, but Aries countered into a brainbuster through it. Aries threw Strong back in and his 450 turned into a 450 stomp (a botch, but a cool one) and Aries got the big win.

Austin Aries defeats Roderick Strong (Pin, 450 Stomp, *** ½)
This was very good and built to quite a crescendo. Unfortunately a lack of selling hurt this a lot, as Aries back not visibly being injured caused him to generate less sympathy and make Roderick’s big moves mean a lot less.

Match 6: ROH World Title Match: Takeshi Morishima © vs. Nigel McGuinness

Nigel’s strategy here is quite simple: lariat Morishima to death. It makes sense since a lariat is one of very few moves to pin Morishima. Unfortunately for Nigel, early on when he went for an immediate Jawbreaker Lariat, Morishima countered. Twice more and twice more the Japanese behemoth had his number. Morishima then went to work on the left arm of Nigel and sent him to the floor.

Once on the floor, a strange thing occurred; Morishima attacked the right arm from then on! Morishima attacked it on the floor, and then in the ring. Then they both forgot about all that arm work.

Nigel made his comeback with his usual array of lariats, but Morishima cut him off with a backdrop driver for two. Morishima goes up top for a second time (the first being a missile dropkick), but gets caught with a superplex. Nigel tries a ton of lariats and Morishima won’t go down. Nigel then hits the Jawbreaker Lariat, but it only getting two.

Morishima, still the fresher of the two, goes for an avalanche backdrop driver, but Nigel counters with a sunset flip bomb. Both men are up at the same time and attempt to out-strike each other. Nigel wins a pure brawn contest with Morishima for the first time, showing how badly he wants the win this time. He hits the Jawbreaker Lariat again, this time for one. Morishima no sells and hits a backdrop driver. Nigel then, again, no sells, managing a third Jawbreaker Lariat and that time Morishima does not kick out. New World Champion.

Nigel McGuinness defeats Takeshi Morishima for the ROH World Title (Pin, Jawbreaker Lariat, *** ½)
The story here was, in intent, very good. Had the early armwork not been so awkward and actually gone somewhere, with this build, it’s a four star match at least. Without it, there’s a whole load of boring pointlessness at the stat of the match dragging it down like a weight. The no selling at the end was also awkward as can be. Too many big moves were hit for both to suddenly fighting spirit it up and finish. Still, at least it built, and a ROH World Title change is always a big deal. It was good, it just absolutely should have been much, much more.

Post match the locker empties to congratulate Nigel. Danielson and Nigel get in a bit of a shoving match, as do Danielson and Aries. Dragon then leaves and Aries holds Nigel’s arm up. Nigel shakes hands with Morishima, who finally shows ROH respect and then ROH owner Cary Silkin gets in the ring and hugs Nigel.

Thus ends the Pay Per View segment of the show. That had entirely too much talking and matches that could have been special marred by faulty selling.

Match 7: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Jigsaw with Julius Smokes and Jack Evans

They start off with some even mat wrestling to show that Jigsaw can hang with Claudio. Jigsaw has a slight advantage here, but nothing major. It’s very crisp, so they get away with it.

After this they go into their story, which is lucha based and features Claudio’s power vs. Jigsaw’s speed. They do some very nice spots here, and although Jigsaw momentarily botches once, he recovers very well.

The finish was Jigsaw with a sweet top rope small package getting two, but when he ran at Claudio after he was tossed into the air and caught with a European Uppercut for three.

Claudio Castagnoli defeats Jigsaw (Pin, European Uppercut, *** ¾)
This was very good. It built perfectly, was paced to keep the crowd involved, and told a good story. This was nearly as good as most Claudio vs. Quackenbush matches, high praise indeed. I can see Jigsaw making this match great to show up the ROH fans who were complaining about him being in the Vulture Squad, because this was great.

Match 8: Davey Richards and Rocky Romero vs. Matt Cross and Erick Stevens

This started with pretty Resilience double teams until Cross got caught in a long heat segment. At one point Romero hit cross but left him about two feet from his corner. Cross naturally nearly made the tag, but Romero was too busy dancing like a fool to notice and Cross had to just “fall down” himself to not mess up the match. I do not like Rocky Romero much.

The hot tag saw a lot of pretty moves as Stevens took out the NRC, but eventually got splattered all over the floor by a Davey Richards shooting star press from the top to the floor on him. That left Cross and Romero in the ring.

Although Cross, hit a Phoenix Splash, it was only a near fall (really shouldn’t be used that way, but okay). After more back and forth, Romero managed to kick Cross’s head off and get the three.

Davey Richards and Rocky Romero defeat Matt Cross and Erick Stevens (Pin, Romero kick to the head of Cross, *** ¼)
Good tag formula here again. I can see why the Briscoes are so over with their different style, because three tag formula matches can get a bit boring, especially when all are won by the heel. Still, this was quite good and Stevens and Davey both impressed.

Post match the NRC attack Stevens arm as Cross is helped to the back. Neither Aries nor Strong involve themselves in the segment, and Stevens leaves with his arm in visible pain. Best selling of the night.

Match 9: Jay Briscoe vs. Necro Butcher

They began with a wild brawl through the crowd that I missed. When they got back in the ring, Jay threw a pile of chairs in and onto Necro in a cool visual, as Necro was laid out, bleeding profusely.

They go back and forth with huge moves on each other, Necro hitting a tiger driver, airplane spin into a DVD, a top rope hurricanrana, and a top rope cross body, while Jay managed a sunset flip bomb to the floor, a guillotine leg drop and a DVD through a table.

Necro began just viciously punching Jay in the face and as soon as Jay made his comeback the lights went out. The rest of the Age of the Fall came out with a badly beaten Mark Briscoe and held him up. Jay was distracted enough to take a chair shot and a sidewalk slam onto the top part of two set up chairs. That was enough to finish the brutal matchup.

Necro Butcher defeats Jay Briscoe (Pin, Sidewalk slam on the top of 2 chairs, *** ¾)
Depending on the quality of the out of ring stuff, this might be four stars. This was an absolutely great brawl. Not a lot of selling or psychology, but they sold their hatred of each other and willingness to try and injure each other perfectly. Necro also looked a lot better wrestler than he is generally given credit for. I love the Age of the Fall.

Overall, this show wasn’t bad. There were far too many ***+ matches for it to have been bad at all. In fact, from most companies this show is a homerun. ROH is not most companies. This show had some major moments, but was marred by what should have been great being merely good. This is worth seeing, not least because ROH Title changes are so rare, but this should have and could have been a lot more than it was. A disappointing show, but by no means a bad one.

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.