Another damn good show at Boston for ROH. The new building, at Boston University, is about as good as the Roxbury building, but in a much better part of town. There’s a lot more seats, but I doubt they will ever need them, I’m thinking the peak for Boston attendance was 8/10 with the Briscoes vs. Steenerico Street Fight, and there was room in the Roxbury building for that show. And unless they are dumb as shit, they must have papered the hell out of the BU campus (I’d offer a bunch of free tickets to students) to try and gain resident WWE fans. I’d say the draw here was probably in the 600 range, which they have to be happy with on a Friday in a new building. Missed the pre-show, and the return date is April 11.
Pelle Primeau and Eddie Edwards vs. The YRR of Kenny King and Jason Blade: King and Blade are the FIP tag champs, and this was announced as a “non-title matchâ€, so don’t be shocked if those belts start getting defended in ROH. The YRR came out with about five girls accompanying them, along with Sal Rinauro and Chasyn Rance. One of the girls looked so much like Sal that I am quite sure she was his sister. Pelle and Edwards looked REALLY good. Edwards is a damn good hot tag and Pelle is a perfect face-in-peril. Hopefully Pelle is on every main show from now on, and if they continue this team, I could see them competing for the tag belts this time next year. The match was very good, they worked Pelle over, King is a fountain of charisma, and Edwards makes a good powerhouse. Eventually, Edwards was taken out, and they finished Pelle with a combination Cutter move. Damn good opener. ***
Daizee Haze vs. Alexa Thatcher: I recall nothing here except fans were making fun of Sinclair, and it was quite funny. They’ve had two years to make me care about SHIMMER, and the one cool thing, Awesome Kong, was taken away. The Sinclair hate was quite funny though. Daizee won with a Heart Punch/Mind Trip. I don’t know, **.
Claudio Castagnoli vs. Ruckus: Ruckus was accompanied by Mercedes Martinez. This was a solid “Claudio vs. Flipper†match. IN all honesty, not a lot stood out and these two just kinda hit there stuff and were done. It was good, but it did not stand out at all. Ruckus got caught going for a move, and thrown into a giant swing. And when Ruckus got up, he was caught with a running uppercut for the win. Amazingly, Claudio is STILL a star in Boston due to that match with Morishima in August. ***
Larry Sweeney and Sweet N’ Sour Inc. made their entrance. Hero was wearing a neck brace for his knee injury. Sara does not even wear the SHIMMER Championship around anymore. Bobby, as usual was quite over. Sweeney informed us that Hero was injured attempting to break “The Guinness record for most consecutive backflipsâ€. He then called out anyone for Puder, they teased Claudio but he was pushed to the back. Then, Puder killed a goof with a leglock, and Sweeney said no one could beat him submission style. Out came AmDrag, and they teased that. Bobby carried Hero out, and Dragon called Albright out.
Bryan Danielson vs. Brent Albright: This was good, but I really wasn’t into it. To me, this was like, the worst possible Dragon singles match. Even PAC brought something to the table, his flippiness, but Albright did nothing new at all. No excessive power moves, no dominating Dragon Morishima style, he just worked a 50/50 match with him to the finish, even doing each others finishers (which didn’t make a lot of sense to me, KENTA did it cause they knew each other well, why here?). Albright worked the arm, but it eventually failed, as Dragon took him out with the Triangle. Again, good, but Albright showed me no reason he deserved a push other than Dragon can work a good formula “matwork, limbwork, finish†with him. ***1/4
Kevin Steen vs. NECRO BUTCHER: Here’s a man that deserves allcaps. This was an awesome brawl. Necro did, in fact, get a streamer or two, including one from me of course. They had an awesome brawl, with some absolutely nutty spots. I won’t recap them all, but Necro rolled Steen up in the mats, then did a dive from the top to the outside on top of him. At another point, Necro did the sickest open chair backbreaker of all time. Steen’s body bent all around it, and it did not budge. Then, Necro was set up on three chairs outside, and Steen did a dive from the ring outside, but Necro moved and he crashed and burned through the chairs. Finish came when Necro challenged Steen to give him a chairshot, did a no-sell that would have made Masato Tanaka tell him to slow down, then take a low blow and a Package Piledriver on a pile of chairs for the Kevin Steen win. Steen is awesome, Necro is awesome, this was awesome. ***3/4
Delirious vs. Sal Rinauro – Rinauro, despite being extremely rich, is still wearing YOSSINO hand me downs for tights, despite not being a jungle man. This was also announced as non-title, and Rinauro wore his NWA Tex-Arkana Heritage Western States title to the ring, so expect that to start getting defended in ROH too. Delirious wore green, so I assume the red is for feuds and big matches. Extended squash. Kenny King is awesome, and if he doesn’t work out as a wrestler, could totally go the Sweeney route as a manager and doing matches elsewhere. Finish comes when Delirious throws Sal off the top onto King and Blade, then taps him while King and Blade are down with the stretch. King heard the bell while he was down, and exclaimed “Well, at least Sal wonâ€. See, this man gets it.
El Generico vs. Roderick Strong – Generico is super over. This was good stuff, though a little disappointing as I heard they had an awesome match in PWG. This was great character work, as when Strong truly works as a dude with “No Remorseâ€, he comes off great as an angry heel. Generico is of course, an amazing babyface. They went back and forth at the finish, including some apron work, then Strong caught him with the Gutbuster/Gibson Driver for the finish. It wasn’t abrupt, but most were expecting a longer match, myself included, and they definitely looked like they have a classic in them. Rematch please! ***1/4
Erick Stevens vs. Austin Aries – Aries current character is really awesome. He’s kind of a heel, he works like one, but his past has the crowd cheer him, and he doesn’t hurt the match by trying to turn them. This was great stuff, Stevens was constantly trying to keep up with Aries, but was always a slight amount behind. Eventually, Stevens was tossed into the crowd, and Aries did a dive from the top to the crowd. They each got into the ring at the count of 21, and Stevens challenged Aries to keep going. I was SO worried Aries would continue his turn by leaving, which is done all the time and would make no sense. They went in and went blow for blow in a really exciting finish. I won’t recap it all, but they attempted basically every big move each man had before Stevens ended it with a lariat and a Doctor Bomb. This felt really like Stevens becoming a main eventer. Very slight match of the night. ***3/4-****
The Age of the Fall of Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black vs. The Vulture Squad of Jack Evans and Jigsaw vs. The Hangmen 3 of BJ Whitmer and Brent Albright vs. Jay and Mark Briscoe: This was more good stuff. The scramble fall was actually mainly a brawl, with two guys doing stuff in the ring at a time. Some really cool stuff here, including BJ getting Jack up for a Jay Briscoe Doomsday Device, and Jack using the attack by Jay to hit a reverse rana. Albright pinned Jigsaw to eliminate them, and now it’s No DQ. Jimmy and Brent had a SPIKE FACEOFF~!, and I marked, but then they started working the Briscoes over. Boo. Jay eventually hit a Jay Driller on BJ, and Mark dove off the top of a massive ladder from the outside in to pin BJ. Age of the Fall and Briscoes had the cliffnotes version of the NYC match, only it was more Briscoes-y with less layout and more random no-sells and moves. Hate goes a long way though, so it worked for me. I dug this as a whole, Age of the Fall wins with a Phoenix Splash, all is well. ***1/2-***3/4
The Inside Pulse
Overall, good show. The crowd kinda died a couple times, like the SHIMMER match and the Delirious match, and stayed dead for the following matches, but the big stuff (Steen-Necro, Dragon-Albright, double title matches) all got great heat so all is well. Another randomly good Boston show where nothing is classic and almost everything is good, like the June show, and this is definitely a show to pick up if you like Necro brawls or Stevens. Reccomended.
