I think by the time I got done qualifying my annoyance at ROH and its fans, my arguments were as toothless as a geriatric hooker, is what I’m saying. Anyway, now I’ve actually watched some of their matches, and here’s what I thought of them!
CM Punk vs. Alex Shelley- This was a solid, entertaining match, very different from what you’d seen on TV these days from either guy. It was all about the psychology, which is fine and even refreshing in spots, but all the mat wrestling to establish it, I have to say, was kinda tedious.
Maybe it’s because WWE and TNA (and WCW and the real ECW before them,
really) have trained me to consider that kind of stuff meaningless, I don’t know, but I didn’t start really getting in to this match until Punk started doing things like axe kicks and ropewalk legdrops on Shelley’s arm. After that, though, it really kicked in to gear. The Mysterious Benefactor who sent me the links to these matches said maybe my not going nuts over was because I didn’t know all of their spots in ROH, and that’s pretty true; for instance, it took me a while to figure out that the Border City Stretch was an elevated Crippler Crossface kind of thing.
I didn’t have the boner for this match that the ol’ MB did, but it was solid, entertaining stuff, and at least let me see how ROH sets itself apart from the major leagues in the US of A (which are RAW, ECW, Smackdown, and TNA if you’re feeling charitable). Can’t give it more than *** based on my reaction, although I’d give both guys a firm handshake if I ever met them and they wanted to talk about this match. That is the greeting equivalent of ***, isn’t it? With * being a slap in the face and ***** being felatio, I imagine.
Ladder War- the Briscoes vs. Steenerico, ROH World Tag Titles
Well, that was certainly a spot fest, wasn’t it? Not saying I didn’t enjoy it; there were some jaw dropping spots here, stuff you’d never see in WWE, even during Money in the Bank. But it was totally a fest of spots, yo, and the whole match of the year chant at the end of it was a bit misplaced, I think.
Generico endeared himself to me immediately by acting like a human lawn dart, and Steen does his whole crusierweight bully act very well, although he bbetter get all that out of his system in the indies if he plans to take a crack at being in WWE or TNA.
This is actually my first real encounter with the Briscoes either, and they certainly are crazy. They take insane bumps and do insane high spots and everything I expected. If they’re as bad with the no selling as I’ve read, though, they will wear on my nerves mighty quickly. Here, they didn’t have a particular choice, and Steen came up with a hilarious counter for repeated manning up, so that was cool.
Once again, my not being emotionally invested in the feud or anything may have had something to do with me not loving this match. I still enjoyed it a lot on a “what the hell next?” level with all the one upsmanship. If they’d cut the stupid, cliched, got stale in ECW circa 1995 crowd brawling from the beginning then I really would have been in to it. As is, yes yes, crazy spotfest, not something WWE or TNA does anymore, still not an ROH-bot, but I have to give them ****1/2 stars for all the ladder breaking tomfoolery anyway.
Coming up- I try to sit through a 45 minute 2/3 falls match between London and Danielson with my absurdly short ‘net attention span!
