This review may be a little bit out of date, but it is from an excellent show at an excellent venue, the Philadelphia National Guard Armory. This show is of course one of Ring of Honor’s forays into the world of Pay per View. Will it be as good as their other offerings? Read on and find out.
The show starts with a Cold Open and the four men from the opening contest in the ring. We also get an opening hype promo from Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard that is lit horrible and totally washed out. Prazak introduces the four men in the ring that will compete for a title shot later in the night.
Four Corner Survival Match: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Go Shiozaki vs. Tyler Black vs. Delirious
This match is made all the much better by Nigel McGuinness making a guest appearance in the commentary booth putting himself over, and to scout his potential opponents for the main event.
Delirious and Claudio start out and not surprisingly bring the comedy. They trade of and we get a more serious competition between Tyler Black and Go Shiozaki. The match is your standard four corner survival, a match that used to be one of the hallmarks of Ring of Honor, but has fallen off recently. At one point you could certainly argue that the four corner survival is to RoH as the three way dance was to the original ECW. Still they usually provide for entertaining matches. There is nothing too surprising in the match, Go brings the chops, Claudio brings the European Uppercuts, Delirious brings the crazy, and Tyler brings the high flying. The big surprise is the outcome as Tyler Black hit’s a phoenix splash on Delirious for the three count. Nigel is surprised as anyone about the result. It was a fun match that kept the crowd guessing in the build to the main event.
Winner: Tyler Black via pinfall; ***
We follow the opening match with a highlight video set to Ministry’s “Watch Yourself.†Their production is a far cry from WWE or TNA, but the video is still a lot of fun.
They also announce the suspension of Takeshi Morishima from RoH PPV and update the RoH tag team title situation.
The Pay per View feed then gets interrupted by Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black, and Allison Wonderland in some basement somewhere with a bunch of dudes. Jimmy talks about the importance of tonight for the Age of the Fall. We then cut to Tyler black and Lacey getting pumped in a laundry room…ok.
Roderick Strong vs. Kevin Steen
This match should be heavy hitting, and it does not disappoint. Steen proves again why he is one of the best in ring characters with his taunting of Roderick Strong. Like a lot of Steen matches this is all about hitting haymakers and going for big moves. It works out really well for him. Steen is more like mini-Vader than any of the midget impersonations I have seen over the years, well plus contrived moves and overkill. I still dig his schtick. The heavy hitting actually gives way to a pretty decent technical wrestling affair. This is one of those matches that has a little bit of everything, well everything except crazy hardcore light tube stuff. It ha strikes, wrestling and big moves at any rate. Steen is able to get the slightly surprising win over the FIP champion with the package piledriver.
Winner: Kevin Steen via pinfall; ***
The Age of the Fall public access show breaks into the broadcast again, and I have to say Wayne’s World is a lot better. This is weird pseudo-intellectual psycho babble stuff, but somehow it works. Jimmy Jacobs is no Tyler Durden. But wouldn’t it be funny if he was just a figment of Austin Aries imagination.
We go back to the Pay per View feed and we have…
Philadelphia Street Fight: Necro Butcher and Joey Matthews vs. Jay and Mark Briscoe
This is brawl through the crowd goodness that pretty much sucks live, but in most cases, like this one, pretty much rule live and in person. It takes less than ten seconds for Mark Briscoe to start leaking precious blood from…his ears I guess. This is basically just a wild weapons brawl, but a ton of fun. Lacey and Daizee Haze also engage in part 462 of their 3245 part feud. This match has all of the contrived spots you could want and none of the cumbersome selling. I mean that in the most respectful way possible. It works here because the match is more about just fighting than trying to get a win. Jay is able to get a win with the Jay Driller on Joey Matthews while Mark Briscoe dove from the top of the entrance way onto Necro Butcher.
Winner: Jay and Mark Briscoe via pinfall; ***1/2
We now get treated to the “Larry Sweeney Show starring Larry Sweeney.†Sweeney takes the time to announce his hostile takeover of Ring of Honor by buying out wrestler after wrestler and selling their contracts to Vince. This brings out his newest signees, the Hangmen 3. Erick Stevens comes out in all of his mohawked glory to ask for a match against one of Larry’s newest charges. He gets one.
Brent Albright vs. Erick Stevens
This is basically a power match, but it features two of the best guys in Ring of Honor at that particular style. Larry Sweeney continually stuck his nose in the match and it eventually spelled the end for Erick Stevens. I will say this, Stevens had a much bigger upside when he had that Mohawk. Albright got the win by delivering the half nelson suplex to a distracted Erick Stevens.
Winner: Brent Albright via pinfall; **
RoH Tag Team Title Match: The Vulture Squad of Ruckus and Jigsaw vs. The No Remorse Corps of Davey Richards and Rocky “Azucar†Romero ©
This match is brought to us from Orlando, Florida. It really doesn’t make a ton of sense that this match is included on the show, other than the fact that Romero was not in Philadelphia for the Pay per View taping. The match itself is flippy floppy spot-tacular goodness. These matches are always dangerous territory but pretty much everything is crisp and even the crazier spots look pretty natural. The spots in this match are pretty damned amazing though. The best of which was a stereo coast to coast drop kick by the Vulture Squad. This leads to a wild finishing sequence that goes in favor of the tag team champions. I should point out that the crowd was absolutely ON FIRE for this match. It was one of the hottest RoH crowds I have seen in some time, and that is saying something. The match itself was crazy and fun.
Winners: The No Remorse Corps via pinfall; ***½
We get another montage of Nigel and Tyler getting psyched for their match and we see highlights of BJ Whitmer getting beaten up by Pearce, Albright, and Sweeney for disagreeing with them. This was BJ’s last appearance in Ring of Honor.
“American Dragon†Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries
This match was really just put on the Pay per View as a showcase of some of the best matches of the last year in Ring of Honor, and why the heck not. These guys have chemistry in an RoH ring like few others. They also manage to put out distinctly different encounters each time. They have done the young lion vs. the wily veteran at “Survival of the Fittest“. They have done the endurance trial at “Testing the Limit.“ They have had matches where both were champion, and they had their recent best of three series to determine the Roh Ace. The only thing they haven’t had is a hate-filled brawl, which doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon. This match was more about body part psychology, striking, and submission work than any of their previous more mat wrestling focused encounters, but it is still awesome. Dragon is able to get the win with a devastating series of submission culminating with an absolutely sick seated Fujiwara armbar. This match is just amazing.
Winner: Bryan Danielson via submission; ****¼
We go back to the AOTF Bunker and Jacobs rants some more. He really has his cult leader stuff down to a science.
Ring of Honor World Championship Match: Tyler Black vs. Nigel McGuinness©
This match appears at or near the top of pretty much every match of the year list on the Ring of Honor message boards. We shall see if it lives up. It is amazing how over young Mr. Black is considering he has been a pretty despicable heel in his run. I guess that is just Philadelphia for you. Nigel draws 90% heel heat which really makes the dynamic of this match clear from the get-go. If there was any doubt about the face/heel status in this match, Nigel throws Tyler shoulder first into the ring post to start the sympathy rolling. Nigel spends the majority of the match going after Tyler’s arm. Tyler plays the plucky upstart underdog role to perfection, and many point to his performance in this match as the turning point for him from young upstart to legitimate singles title threat.
As the match continues Tyler Black continues to kick out of more and crazier lariat variations from the champion. Tyler is able to pick his hope spots perfectly, and the commentary team does an amazing job of selling the sense of urgency going on for Tyler and Nigel in this match. Both men are absolutely great in their roles, but the near falls start to become a bit ludicrous and that is really the only thing that hurts this match. The late stages are really just Tyler kicking out of lariats and that hurts the match for me. If it had ended when Nigel locked in the London Dungeon after Black missed a Phoenix Splash it would have been perfect. Instead the match goes on a little longer before Tyler eventually taps. With all of that being said, the match is still awesome, awesome, awesome. To me, though, it is just not the match of the year that everyone else thinks it is.
Winner: Nigel McGuinness via submission; ****
That ends the Pay per View portion of the DVD, now we get to the DVD extras which include other matches taped that night and a special bonus match.
Davey Richards vs. D-I-N-G-O Dingo is his Name-O
Dingo kind of looks like the Australian Dragon but with more silly tatoos. He is currently in the midst of a mega-push in IWA: Mid-South as their champion. This match happened just as his buzz was starting to rise. As for the match, Davey pretty much dominates Dingo save for a few hope spots. Davey wins with the tombstone into the Kimura. It kind of seemed like an early 90s midcard Raw match.
Winner: Davey Richards via submission; *
The Hangmen 3 of Adam Pearce and BJ Whitmer vs. The Vulture Squad of Ruckus and Jigsaw
This match actually happened before The Hangmen 3 joined Sweet and Sour Incorporated. To say this match is a contrast of styles is…well, it’s pretty accurate. Pearce and Whitmer bring the clubbering while The Vulture Squad provide the flippiness, and Julius Smokes squawks on the outside. After not much action Jigsaw gets a surprise rollup on BJ Whitmer. Good luck in your future endeavors BJ.
Winner: The Vulture Squad via pinfall; *
The match was bad but afterwards we get Eddie Kingston interjecting himself into the affair in the early stages of an angle that just kind of died.
GHC Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Takashi Sugiura and Naomichi Marufuji vs. Jay and Mark Briscoe
This match happened in Pro-Wrestling NOAH and is added as an extra probably to bring up the quality of the other two crappy matches. It is kind of weird watching a Japanese match with a dead silent crowd on an RoH DVD. It makes the polite applause that much more impressive when it comes from a place of total silence. Marufuji is definitely the glue that holds this match together. Jay and Mark provide the flash. Sugiura provides the ugly power guy (who would have thought Jay Briscoe would be in a match and not fill that role), but it is Marufuji that keeps the match flowing with great wrestling and spots to match the flashy Briscoe Brothers. The match is great, but I have to be honest the lack of crowd interaction detracts some, especially because Prazak and Leonard seem a bit disinterested in their commentary as well. The finishing sequence is unbelievably hot as all four men try to hit their home runs. Marufuji is able to reverse the springboard doomsday device into a rollup for the pinfall. The match was really good, but seemed a bit disjointed.
Winners: Naomichi Marufuji and Takashi Sugiura via pinfall; ***¾
Big Andy Mac’s Big Andy Final Thoughts: This is an awesome DVD. Everything is not lights out amazing, but there are three pretty amazing matches, a few other solid matches, and a crazy tag team brawl. The two Pay per View main events are worth your purchase price alone. The bonus match from NOAH is a damn fine exhibition too. Ring of Honor always brings it’s A game on PPV and this is no different.
I’ll see you next time…
