Ring of Honor DVD Review: Live in Osaka , 7/17/07
Hi all, my names Hayden Munro, and this is my first review for Inside Pulse, so please bear with me if there are any kinks in the system to work out. I’m a long time ROH fan, and an even longer time Puroresu fan, so ROH’s trip to Japan seemed like a great first review for me. A couple of notes before we get started. First off, no play by play, secondly no star ratings. Why? Well if you want to see what happens in the match move for move, go buy the DVD.. I’ve never been fully comfortable with star ratings, as two matches can both get the same star rating, yet be totally different, with different strengths and weaknesses. If you want a reviewer that types out the match move for move, and then adds a bunch of snowflakes at the end, there are plenty to fill your needs. However, if you want to read a review with some real discussion and analysis, then read away. Shows will get an overall rating out of ten, just to help those who are deciding what they need to buy, and to keep a measure of quality compared to other shows.
For a non-spoiler review of this show, scroll down to the Summary section.
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Live In Osaka is the second of two ROH shows in Japan this past July. For many of the roster, including Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, The Briscoes, Rocky Romero and Davey Richards, it was part of a much longer tour of the land of the rising sun, as they had just recently competed on a circuit of Pro Wrestling NOAH shows, which climaxed at Budokan Hall, one of the most famous wrestling arenas in Japan, in front of a claimed attendance of 15,000 people. NOAH tours are famously grueling, in that wrestlers are working nearly every night of the week, against a variety of opponents, all of whom work the stiff high impact NOAH company style. To add to their many aches and bruises, the next night after the Budokan Hall Show, ROH presented Live in Tokyo, the first show on its first ever tour of Japan.
Live in Tokyo was co-promoted by Pro Wrestling NOAH, and as such the show was booked and wrestled in the NOAH style, with a focus on using tag matches to highlight undercard talent, and topping the card off with epic singles matches. On Live In Tokyo, Bryan Danielson beat the gifted NOAH youngster and protégé of Kenta Kobashi, Go Shiosaki, while Nigel Mcguiness came up short in his second ROH World Title match against reigning champion Takeshi Morishima. It was a very successful show, drawing a large audience, a real feat in the Japanese market, where foreign wrestling (even WWE) draws poorly. The wrestlers all got over, and the fans were even rushing the guard-rail to get close to Bryan Danielson after his classic match against Shiosaki.
Live in Osaka takes place the next night and for many of the roster is the third night in a row they have had to perform to a high standard in front of new fans, which is one of the hardest challenges for a pro wrestler who is seeking to make an immediate impact. Combine that with the various aches, bruises, bumps etc, and the roster must be commended for their dedication in even putting this show together.
Whereas Live in Tokyo was co-promoted by NOAH, Live in Osaka is co-promoted by the Dragon Gate promotion. ROH, NOAH and Dragon Gate have formed a three pronged alliance of sorts, with many wrestlers cross appearing on each others shows. Long time fans of Japanese pro wrestling will note how interesting this is, considering the bad reputation that Mitsuharu Miswawa has when it comes to working with other promotions (relations between NOAH and New Japan Pro Wrestling are frosty to this day). Just as Live in Tokyo was booked with NOAH influences, in front of a crowd of predominantly NOAH fans, Live in Osaka is booked in the Dragon Gate style, in front of Dragon Gate fans. That’s why you’ll see more focus on tag team wrestling, and less on the epic singles matches that are the staple of both NOAH and ROH.
The show starts with a backstage promo from Roderick Strong’s No Remorse Corp, bragging about their victory over the so called “dream team” of Jack Evans and NOAH wrestler Kotaro Suzuki. The NRC run through their usual frat boy shtick, joking about Davey Richards inability to get a girl, while Rocky Romero revels in his own playa-ness. The segment ends with Roderick Strong telling his stablemates he has found a perfect one-night member of the NRC, in one of the Dragon Gate stars. Personally, I’m hoping its Cyber Kong. If there’s one thing that would compliment the NCR’s offence, it would be a big guy in a plastic gorilla mask with drawn on abs hitting people in the head with coconuts.
We then cut to a cool video diary of the ROH faces in Japan . I’m not going to spoil this amazing series of videos for you, because they are absolutely hilarious in places. Jack Evans is God. From there we cut to the ring for our first match
In what would be Match 1, Bryan Danielson is out to face Jimmy Rave.
The crowd here is VERY quiet, and is going to stay that way throughout the night. I’ve heard people say it was just because Japanese crowds are always quiet. Such people were clearly not in Sumo Hall for the finals of the 2005 G1 climax, when according to some reports, the building itself was shaking due to the excitement of the crowd. While it’s true that Japanese crowds are generally quieter and more respectful, the crowd here seems to be relatively disengaged, which does hurt the atmosphere of some of the finishing sequences in the later matches.
That in mind, Rave and Danielson come out to the ring, and are about to have their match, when top star of Dragon Gate, CIMA, leader of the Typhoon faction, comes out to extend a warm welcome to the ROH wrestlers. Such courtesy is apparently a grave insult to the No Remorse Core, who rush in from back stage, charging into the ring and attacking CIMA. Danielson takes exception to this, and joins the fight on CIMA’s side, only to get brought down by the grater numbers of the NRC. To the crowds surprise and pleasure, top young NOAH star Naomichi Mauruji sprints down from the back, rescuing Danielson and CIMA, as the NRC bail out of the ring.
Danielson takes the mic, and in very broken “I’m talking to a crowd that doesn’t understand English” language, explains that since he is the best wrestler in ROH, CIMA is the best wrestler in Dragon Gate, and Marufuji is the best wrestler in NOAH, the three should team up tonight, and fight the NRC in the main event. The Japanese Boys like this idea, and we get hand shakes all around, to the applause of the crowd. The idea of having the “Aces” (A Japanese wrestling term meaning the absolute top guy in the company, who may even be more respected than the world champion) of each of the three companies team up was, in my opinion, a good one, showing the unity between the three companies. One of the things that makes Japanese wrestling so interesting is the diversity of the different wrestling promotions over there. So when you get an event like this, it really means something, as it’s almost like the joining of three distinct philosophies of how pro wrestling should be performed.
If you’ve forgive me a moment of anal retentive Puroresu (Japanese wrestling) fandom, I should point out that Marufuji isn’t actually the Ace of Pro Wrestling Noah, either Kenta Kobashi or Mitsuharu Misawa is. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but part of NOAH’s “philosophy” of wrestling is that they book stories around battles over who is the Ace. Kobashi Vs Akiyama from the 2004 Tokyo Dome show for example, was a heated battle over who was the leader of the promotion. It’s a very small niggle obviously, and many do view Marufuji as an “Ace in Waiting”, but so much of puro history is spent building up the concept of the Ace, as THE most important role in the company. Like I said, an Ace is often more respected that the World Champion if the Ace doesn’t happen to be holding the title at that moment. Entire wrestling companies have folded due to their inability to produce an Ace the fans could get behind. With so much value placed by Japanese wrestling culture on the title of Ace, I would have liked to see ROH show a bit more respect to the idea of Ace. But that might be asking a bit much from a company that was in large part responsible for the advent of “American Strong Style” which reduced a style of Japanese wrestling with a long history, culture and tradition to “Two guys hitting each other hard”. But like I said, I’m just being anal about this, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the show at all, and the idea of the three leaders of the companies banding together is a really great one.
Rant aside, back in the ring, Jimmy Rave is furious that Danielson has withdrawn from the match, and insists someone in the back come down and give him a match. “Gimme Back My Bullets” hits (it almost sounded strange not being accompanied by a huge pop from the crowd) and the Briscoe Brothers come out to the ring. They’re all ways ready for a fight, so if Rave is ready to man up, they’ll put the ROH Tag Team Titles on the line against him and any partner he can find, right here right now. The Briscoe’s have another defense scheduled this evening, but are more than happy to wrestle twice in one night. Because they’re bad ass.
It has to be noted that the night before, The Briscoes had been in a hard fought six man tag, and the night before that they had been in an absolutely grueling 30 minute draw against GHC JR tag team champions Ricky Marvin and Kotoro Suzuki. By this point, the Briscoes have got to be feeling hurt and run down, yet they are still ready to wrestle twice in one night. Those are the sort of guys you want leading your tag division. True champions.
Rave of course, accepts the challenge, and his Muscle Outlawz (a Dragon Gate version of the New World Order that Rave is a member of when wrestling in Japan) stablemate Genki Horiguchi comes out, and we finally have our opening
Match 1: ROH World Tag Team Title Match: The Briscoes Vs Jimmy Rave and Genki Horiguchi
When you think standard opening tag match, you think this match. This is worked clearly with a second title match awaiting the Briscoes later in the evening. Its not massively high impact, but some fun spots are busted out to get the crowd fired up, including the Splash Mountain-Neckbraker combo that I love so much. Match structure wise, it’s very basic. Mark Briscoe and Horiguchi start things off with mat wrestling, Briscoe gets the advantage with a Hurricanrana, sending Horiguchi to the floor, and establishing early the champions’ superiority. Rave and Jay tag in, Jay out wrestles Rave, sending him to the floor, setting up a nice dive from Mark. After the Briscoe’s are done shining, Rave and Horiguchi take over for what is a relatively heatless, and in typical Rave fashion, uninspired and boring beatdown on Jay.
Jay eventually gets the .lukewarm tag to Mark, who busts out redneck foo (which I love) and we go to the near fall section, teasing but not delivering on the springboard doomsday device (teasing a spot in the first match you wrestle, only to pay it off in the second, is just plain cool any way you look at it). The Briscoes eventually pick up the win with the spike Jay Driller.
Jay and Mark Briscoe defeat Rave and Horiguchi
Overall, a really standard opener, nothing special, made fun only through the Briscoe’s spots, and Marks red neck foo. The Briscoes were clearly holding back, and rather than use that as a reason to kick things up a notch, Rave and Horiguchi delivered a standard boring middle section. An acceptable, but nothing special match. The next match is
Match 2: Nigel McGuiness Vs BJ Whitmer.
Uh oh. As soon as this was announced, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. Whitmer at this stage was in the middle of his losing streak gimmick, and had been showing a heelish edge due to his frustration, which actually made his matches less bland and boring (I’m not a Whitmer fan). Nigel at this point was DEEP in Mclariat mode, especially in front of the Japanese crowd. He was coming off what I thought was a very disappointing title match the night before. Still when he wants to be, Nigel is a great wrestler, and Whitmer’s heel stuff is fun, so this could have been good.
But it wasn’t. The first thing is it was just dull, real dull. Most of the match is Nigel running through his offence, with Whitmer being his normal bland self. Some of the other stuff was just weird. Example they do two clean break spots, neither man being able to get an advantage. Cool, I found myself saying, Whitmer’s frustrated and can’t get an advantage, now he’ll show that heel tendency, and Nigel will get to do offended baby face ass kicker. Instead its Nigel hitting a cheap shot after a handshake. WHY? WHY? Why is the respectful, fighting spirit baby face cheating against a guy doing both a losing streak gimmick, and in the middle of a heel turn? When Nigel is on, he’s SO good (see Driven, or all of DBD V weekend, for evidence of this) but when he isn’t, its painful.
The match plods on for a while, with more random heel stuff from both Nigel and Whitmer, before Nigel ends it with the Jawbreaker Lariat.
Nigel McGuinness defeats BJ Whitmer
Bleh. So far, Live in Osaka isn’t exactly blowing me away. Luckily for me, the next match is
Match 3: No DQ- Roderick Strong Vs Jack Evans
Oh man, is this ever fun. Evans comes out and calls Strong out for getting put in the Three Ace’s main event six man as a way of ducking out of his fight with Evans. Strong comes out with his one night only NRC member, the UBER bad ass Masaaki Mochizuki, one of the hardest and most precise kickers in Puro. According to Strong, Mochizuki will be taking his place in the main event, while he deals with Evans.
Of the three Evans Vs. Strong matches this year, I’d put this above the Good Times, Great Memories match, but slightly below All Star Extravaganza 3, as it lacked the awesome 06 Danielson style heel work from Strong that made that match so good. What it does have, however, is Jack Evans generally being awesome, shining in front of the Dragon Gate crowd (Evans is a regular in Dragon Gate, its almost his home promotion over ROH).
The first awesome Evans moment is his jaw dropping leaping missile dropkick over the top rope to Strong on the outside. That’s how Flippy Mcgillicuty (old CM Punk mocking Jack reference) street fights!!! For a spot monkey, Evans has gotten really smart at using the story of him using his speed to get momentum for big strikes. It’s a theme used through out this match to great effect, most of Evan’s control segments coming through big running strikes and the like.
For his part Strong plays a good heel, slapping Jack around, and bending him every which way. Being in the NRC has been good for Roderick, but he’s SUCH a talented and underrated singles wrestler, especially as a heel. I’d love to see him get a big singles run in ROH, where he doesn’t have the FIP World Title (or as I like to call it, the “Gee I wonder who’s winning this one” kiss of heat killing death) bogging down his ROH work. There’s some really smart stuff here from Strong, like him having to go low a lot, having to work harder than he has in previous matches to get an advantage over the pissed off Evans (who the NRC concussed after their last singles match).
The only major flaw (though it is a major one) to this match is Evans selling. While he’s gotten way smarter at match structure, character work etc, Evans still doesn’t sell that well. For example, Roderick spends (as he’s wont to do) a large portion of the match working over Evan’s back and mid-section. Good story, Evans is all flippy and using that to negate Strong’s strength advantage, so Strong beats the air out of him by working over his midsection. Jack then can’t flip around and kick Strong in the face if he can’t breathe. The problem, and this is true of all three of their matches this year, is that when Evans makes his big comeback, he does it with big flippy moves like the standing shooting star press, which involve him landing on his midsection on his opponent, which doesn’t seem to hurt him at all. This annoying tendency isn’t as pronounced in this match as it is in the other two, but its still in a way pissing all over Strong’s very fun control segment. The result is when Strong fights back with big mid-section killing moves like his SWEET top rope fall away slam (which Evans takes really well by the way) the resulting drama isn’t quite the same, since Evans has already shown himself to be able to come back from stuff like that.
Still, the match has a nice ending, with Evans hitting that cool tree of woe double knee and nailing the 360 senton (kind of ) for the win, pinning his hated rival.
Jack Evans defeats Roderick Strong
A great, if flawed match, that was a whole lot of fun, and got me right back into the show. And saw Jack defend his home turf.
Match 4: Delirious, Naruki Doi, Masato Yoshino Vs Matt Sydal, Dragon Kid and Ryo Saito
It’s matches like this that make me glad I don’t do play by play. There’s so much going on here in terms of moves and spots. The first really interesting thing to note is Delirious, perhaps the most babyface wrestler in ROH, is teaming up with Doi and Yoshino, two of the main members of the Muscle Outlawz, Dragon Gate’s top heel faction, while Sydal, who is a heel in ROH, is teaming up with face stable Typhoon’s Dragon Kid and Ryo Saito. This might make little sense to ROH fans, but Sydal is a Dragon Gate regular, and whenever he’s over there, he’s a member of Typhoon. Putting him against his stable mates would really confuse the Dragon Gate fans that make up the audience tonight, so I think it was a good move by Gabe Sapolsky, ROH’s booker, not to push ROH’s face-heel structure on the fans, as it would have been to the detriment of this match’s already lacking crowd heat.
Match wise, this is a solid example of the Dragon Gate six man tag style. Performance wise, the DG guys don’t really do anything different from the million or so similar matches they’ve been in against one another. It’s the same spots, the same interaction. That isn’t a bad thing, however, since this really is the ROH guys night to shine. And Shine they do. With the DG guys providing their normal quality fast paced wrestling, Sydal and Delirious take it upon themselves to provide the personality, and thus the heart of this match.
From their early mat work, to Delirious mocking of Sydal (“OOOH Matty, Matty Matty”) to the never-ending elbow strikes of DOOM, these guys consistently bring the fun. But there’s more to it than that, as Dragon Gate matches, despite the heated nature of many of the company’s feuds, have a real tendency to come off feeling like exhibition matches, a by product of the heavily choreographed nature of the sprint style they use. Having Delirious and Sydal mix it up, and focus more on character interaction and heat, than million miles a minute spots. Delirious has REALLY slotted well into the “Colt Cabana” role, where he can be called upon to make a match with his personality, or when required too back it up in a more serious role. Good stuff. We do still get the fun sprint at the end, which ends with Sydal picking up the win with the Shooting Star Press.
Matt Sydal, Dragon Kid and Ryo Saito defeat Delirious, Naruki Doi, Masato Yoshino
A very fun match, wrestled in the DG style, but with enough personality from the ROH guys to keep it from being just another Dragon Gate match, and I think this is exactly what ROH was going for in presenting the show in the DG style.
Match 5: ROH World Tag Team Title Match: Shingo and Susumi Yokosuka Vs Jay and Mark Briscoe ©
You know all those teenage romantic comedy movies, where you have a guy and a girl (usually nerdy and dressing oddly and unattractive) who are friends for ages, but never considering dating, until prom night when the girl shows up all sexy and dressed up, and the guy sees her in a whole new light? This match was a lot like that, except instead of fugly girl becoming sexy, it’s the one dimensional Briscoe Brother’s showing they can wrestle an intelligent, story driven match.
The Briscoe’s get a lot of criticism for not working traditional hot tag stories, having too many back and forth, short control segments, and generally only being good at sprint based matches (I always thought that was selling their great brawling ability short, but still ). In this match, they show they really have a good grasp of how to both tell an interesting and compelling story, and make an opponent look great.
The story of this match is a really great one; Shingo totally has the Briscoes’ number. It was the Briscoes’ failure to capitalize on having Shingo down that cost them the titles in March, and through out this match, it’s made quite clear that Shingo has the Briscoes figured out. Right at the onset, where the Briscoes are able to take control very quickly, and look to isolate Yokosuka, it’s Shingo that cuts them off. Throughout the match we see this same story being retold over and over again.
Be it in out chopping Mark, and thus ruining one of the Briscoes strongest control segments up untill that point, or interrupting their attempts at double teams, the story is clear, if the Briscoes are going to walk out of Osaka as champions, they need to take Shingo out. Only problem is, they can’t seem to get any sort of prolonged advantage over him, and focusing their efforts on Yokosuka (who doesn’t know them as well, and thus isn’t as effective, plus he’s ranked below Shingo in Dragon Gate) isn’t working, because Shingo is always there to mess it up for them. It’s a really compelling story, and its actually surprisingly deep for the “they can’t work story” Briscoes.
You see Shingo is sort of in the same position in Dragon Gate as Marufuji is in NOAH, in that he’s pretty much being prepped to be the Ace of the company. He’s currently the leader of the VERY successful trueborn (essentially home grown) stable New Hazard, which has totally revitalized Dragon Gate’s product. Having him treated like an absolute threat to the titles by the Briscoes, makes him look great in front of the Dragon Gate fans in the crowd, really giving him a boost, and showing that ROH is a real help in terms of getting the native talent over. It’s great to see such a nice and mutually beneficial relationship between companies in wrestling.
I don’t want to give away the ending to this match, since it’s a great conclusion to the match’s story, but I’ll just say it works completely and really makes the match. Some people have complained that this match wasn’t fast paced enough, but I was digging the story too much to care, and I thought this was a lot of fun, definitely worth seeing, just to see evidence of how great the Briscoes really are.
Jay and Mark Briscoe defeat Shingo and Yokosuka
This is a great companion match to the FYF: Liverpool (Briscoes vs Doi and Shingo) and Finale (Briscoe Vs Briscoe) matches, and brings the story there full circle.
Match 6: Dream Tag: Bryan Danielson, CIMA and Naomichi Marufuji Vs Rocky Romero, Davey Richards and Masaaki Mochizuki
Man this ..This was a little disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad match, it’s really solid, it’s just that the story here is more of a “hey look, three Aces in one ring” thing than trying to tell any thing based on character or story. Danielson, while being my favorite wrestler in the world (until Kobashi comes back from cancer) is often a little hit or miss when it comes to multi-man matches, and six man tags really don’t seem to be his thing. The six man tag at Reborn Again, for example, I thought was very weak, and this is similar to that.
The NRC, for the most part, don’t really play any role in this match other than ‘Those guys the Aces are fighting.” Romero does a nice enough job of working Danielson’s arm (one cross arm breaker of his being the only time the crowd seemed to show any sign of thinking the NRC might win), and Richard and Mochi are fun, as always, when they’re kicking the crap out of people. But that’s sort of what this match is; everyone is fun in their own little roles, with CIMA and Marufuji playing the flashy faces, but it doesn’t really gel into a complete whole. Its not a bad match at all, I just would have liked more story, especially between Mochi and CIMA, who have a history in DG, and whose interactions were some of the more fun parts of this match.
Danielson, CIMA and Marufuji defeat Romero, Davey and Mochizuki
As a main event, it’s a nice feel good end to the show to have the Ace’s come out on top, but I don’t see anyone walking out of this show going “Wow, what a great ending.”
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Overall, Live in Osaka is sort of summed up nicely by the main event, in that it’s a fun show, and it’s cool to see ROH in Japan (especially with Samurai TV’s added production values), but besides that, there isn’t a whole lot to it. Some of ROH’s best workers, people like Danielson and Nigel, either didn’t get the chance to shine, or got lost in the shuffle. I didn’t get the feeling that the crowd was as sold on ROH as the crowd the night before in Tokyo had been. My recommendation? Pick it up, but maybe as part of one of ROH’s great sales, and get Live in Tokyo along with it, hell get the 7/15 Budokan Hall NOAH show as well, and watch an ROH triple shot of shorts. I don’t give ratings remember, but this is probably an average to good level show, made more fun by the novelty. The two high points being Strong Vs Evans and The Tag Team Title match, but both are sort of lesser versions of matches we’ve already seen (at ASEIII and FYF Liverpool respectively). Still, this show is a good debut show in a new market, and gets extra points for the AWESOME video diaries.
Overall, I’d give this show a 6 and a half out of 10.
Summary Section
The Briscoes Vs Genki Horiguchi and Jimmy Rave
A good, if somewhat standard opening match from the Briscoes, atypical Briscoes defense.
BJ Whitmer Vs Nigel Mcguiness
A very poorly worked match, that was both boring, and at odds with how each guys character was being portrayed at the time.
Roderick Strong Vs Jack Evans
Very fun match, highlighted by great brawling from Evans, fun high spots and a dramatic conclusion.
Delirious, Naruki Doi, Masato Yoshino Vs Matt Sydal, Dragon Kid and Ryo Saito
Very enjoyable mix of the ROH and Dragon Gate styles, solid and entertaining character work from the ROH guys.
ROH World Tag Team Title Match: Shingo and Susumi Yokosuka Vs Jay and Mark Briscoe ©
Great story driven match, a stand out in the Briscoe’s reign, made Shingo look like a star.
Dream Tag: Bryan Danielson, CIMA and Naomichi Marufuji Vs Rocky Romero, Davey Richards and Masaaki Mochizuki
Passable main event, but nothing special, NRC never really seemed like a threat.
The Inside Pulse
A solid, yet unspectacular event, best picked up as part of a sale, yet worth seeing for the novelty of ROH in Japan. It makes a fine set with Live in Tokyo
