Welcome to match-by-match spoiler-free review of ROH’s Age of Insanity. If you want the outcomes, skip to “Results and Spoilers.†If you want a recommendation on buying it – it’s only worth it for the main event. But for a more intelligent recommendation, skip to “Afterthoughts.†The reviews themselves do not spoil outcomes for people who want some surprise in their viewing. Please let me know what you think of this format in the Comments section at the bottom.
Kevin Steen Vs. Jigsaw
You know how this went, don’t you? Steen abuses a guy who takes abuse well. Jigsaw is more natural at wrestling unmasked now, but he’s still a scrawny guy that can’t pull Steen into holds with the ease he needs, so he struggles to make this anything other than a one-sided battle. Some of their exchanges are cringe-worthy in a good way, and the reversals are just plain cool. There aren’t a lot of guys who could do this with Steen in this little time. It’s a fun opener that sets a healthy tone for the show, with Steen’s buddy being in the main event tonight.
Delirious Vs. Rhett Titus
More community theatre than a wrestling match, as Jacobs comes out to narrate Delirious’s life and motivate him to destroy Titus and join the Age of the Fall. From there it was all about a beating and whether Delirious would go from depression to the dark side. As an execution on that plot point, it’s short and it’s very good.
Bryan Danielson Vs. Kenny King
Being on the undercard, Danielson has fifteen minutes to beat King, and that may not be enough. The commentators pretend this is their first meeting, but Danielson actually beat him in under sixty seconds at Reborn Again last year. Regardless, King has amazing athleticism, made even more impressive by how he dwarfs Danielson. Some of his counters and momentum-stoppers are stunning, and while his offense can be very simple, it’s quality. Danielson gets more upset and the story gets more complex as we come up the possibility that the rookie my draw against the veteran, or even beat him. It all feeds King’s ego, and he’s pretty darned cocky. Danielson loves to make cocky people pay. King is a great addition to the roster with his timing and physical ability, and just needs to learn how pull his stuff together and shape it, to own his offense the way Danielson owns his. It feels like they have a much better match in them, to deliver some day. But as the third match on a show like this? A heck of a lot of fun, and one of the best Veteran Vs. Rookie matches ROH has had in a while (at least, of those not featuring Tyler Black).
Sara Del Rey Vs. Sassy Steffy
Another match where Del Rey destroys a girl ROH fans have never seen before. Del Rey still looks goofy as heck in her outfit and funny make-up, and cannot pull off her bruiser/monster persona. Where someone like Amazing Kong looks like a monster when she makes a face, Del Rey looks like a girl making a face.
Ruckus Vs. Adam Pearce
Pearce is a jerk. Ruckus does backflips. They don’t gel and they don’t go at it for very long. There are several points at which Pearce has to get into position for Ruckus, and when Pearce is being a jerk Ruckus simply stays still with no character. They are not the opponents for each other.
Age of the Falls Rules Match: Austin Aries Vs. Tyler Black
So the joke is that Age of the Falls Rules Matches are scientific wrestling matches. Even with Black and Aries dueling in promos to explain it on the mic, this is suspect. The resulting match rocks, though. Aries is a great technical wrestler and Black is very capable at following. They kept returning to the match, with holds leading to opportunities for knees to the head or a Short Piledriver, effectively fighting through technical wrestling to do what they really wanted to. On the one hand it’s an incredibly arbitrary gimmick when Aries wants murder this guy; on the other, it’s a heck of a wrestling match for fifteen minutes, building to some high-class counters, kicks and attempts to get to bigger offense before the other guy does.
The Briscoes Vs. Jimmy Jacobs & Delirious
Following the previous match we have a massive brawl and Delirious officially joins Jacobs to be his partner. As good as the story was earlier in the night, the match and is touch and go. It doesn’t even try to be as dramatic as some of the Briscoes’ encounters with this faction (like Final Battle 2007, A New Level or Supercard of Honor 3). The moody, meaner Delirious doesn’t add what you might hope to the match. They just don’t hit the stride of their better matches.
FIP Championship Match: Erick Stevens ( c ) Vs. Claudio Castagnoli
This is not a bad match, but it is bizarre. It shouldn’t have been booked: ROH needed to give both guys momentum, and with Castagnoli having been on the verge of quitting on the previous show, there’s no reason for him to have accepted this. He never expressed interest in this belt and previously said the ROH title was all he had “left to do.†The crowd wanted to cheer Castagnoli, and he wasn’t diabolical or quite brooding enough to stop them, nor was he amiable enough for a Face Vs. Face dynamic. Stevens fired up in the way he always does. There was nothing distinct about it and it begged for distinction, putting the match in an emotional limbo where you had two guys technically being good, but not pulling it off. The whole thing feels arbitrary, probably summed up best by Prazak calling Castagnoli out for throwing a punch behind the ref’s back, ignoring that punches aren’t illegal in ROH, that Hero, Necro Butcher and Pearce throw them all the time, and Stevens had been doing them in this very match. And with that great sense that nobody knew what this was supposed to be, we were left with an ending that suggested they had no idea why they were doing this.
Chris Hero & Go Shiozaki Vs. Brent Albright & Roderick Strong
Anyone who has followed ROH even semi-regularly will feel like they’ve seen this before. These guys have wrestled each other a lot on recent shows, in singles and tags. It isn’t heated and they don’t do anything new or unusual, so it feels like another installment of the ongoing story that barely ever changes. There are no great hot tags to Strong, and Go and Hero are simply not at a level where they can turn in the same usual performance and have it be worthwhile in a semi-main-event. The highlights are the exchanges between Albright and Go as they tried to out-muscle each other, reminiscent of their overlooked gem on Double Feature. But because it doesn’t build to anything that isn’t entirely predictable, you get the sense that all four are capable of much better (well, that and we’ve recently seen them all do much better: Go against Marufuji and Albright against Pearce at Death Before Dishonor 6, and Hero against Strong at Battle For Supremacy).
Special Segment
I skip most promos and backstage segments for review because they’re simple and usually aren’t noteworthy. Danielson and Castagnoli brawling outside during some random fireworks festival is darned sure noteworthy. I don’t know why nobody called cops on them for apparently fighting for an hour and spilling through the building, but it tickles the funny bone to see them throwing haymakers as fireworks go off overhead.
ROH World Title Match: Nigel McGuinness ( c ) Vs. El Generico
Here’s the match you bought it for. It’s one of those matches with a strongly established champion with a largely very effective moveset going up against a talented underdog who has scouted the champion thoroughly, and whose best hopes come in countering his offense and willing himself through the beating he’s bound to take. It’s very similar to McGuinness Vs. Black from Take No Prisoners, though not as one-sided early on, making it that much more complex. Generico is very athletic for his build but not the phenom Black is, yet he’s perhaps even more relatable and sympathetic. The myriad false finishes work the same magic here, though Generico’s counters are more clever, where Black’s really cool. For instance, Black would combo a Superplex and an F-5; here, Generico knows exactly where his Yakuza Kick will work. When McGuinness shows he’s scouted Generico, it’s an even more damning moment. McGuinness is finally developing a sense of ownership of his offense outside of the Lariats, injecting personality into things like his arm holds, playing with how he applies them with a renewed sense of character. In few defenses has he felt this much like the champion, as opposed to a champion.
Afterthoughts: Skippable? Borrower? Wait for a sale? Buy it now?
If you buy it, you’re probably buying it for the main event. It is probably Generico’s best singles match in ROH and among McGuinness’s strongest title defenses; up to this point, I’d only put the Aries defenses and the four-corner match from Death Before Dishonor 6 above it, and it belongs in a class with the first Danielson defense and the first Black defense. Generico was built to take the punishment McGuinness was built to deliver.
Main event aside, this show has a lot of funk on it. There are two screwjob finishes, one title match ends on something that looks ridiculous, and there’s a squash. Some ending or some match kills the fun routinely, making it much less entertaining to watch in one sitting. A lot of it is inconclusive, or even ends making you wonder what the point of it happening was. However, Danielson Vs. King and Aries Vs. Black are really good undercard matches, and Delirious Vs. Titus is a heck of an angle-advancement match. This is a quintessential “mixed bag†show. It’s safe to pick up in a sale if you want it. If you’ve got ROH fan friends, borrow it for the main event.
Results and Spoilers
-Kevin Steen pinned Jigsaw after absolutely crushing him with a Swanton Bomb.
-Delirious defeated Rhett Titus by ref stoppage when he hit multiple Panic Attack knee strikes on Titus until Titus stopped moving. Titus was bleeding so bad he soaked his hair red.
-Bryan Danielson defeated Kenny King by ref stoppage at 14:50 in a 15:00 match when King failed to defend himself in an Elbow Barrage and then a seated Arm Bar. Little shady, but a totally different style of ref stoppage than the bloody mess that was Rhett Titus.
-Sara Del Rey pinned pinned Sassy Steffy in under a minute with an Axe Kick.
-Adam Pearce pinned Ruckus with a Half-Nelson Suplex, a signal to Brent Albright that he wants his NWA title back. Sweet & Sour Inc. interfered to the point where one guy actually held Ruckus in place while Ruckus’s buddy, Jigsaw, went to tell the referee instead of helping his friend.
-Austin Aries forced Tyler Black to submit in the Horns of Aries/Last Chancery hold, then punched him a bunch in the face for good measure. Jerk!
-The Briscoes beat Delirious & Jimmy Jacobs with a Springboard Doomsday Device for the pin on Jacobs.
-Erick Stevens retained the FIP title by disqualification when Claudio Castagnoli refused to stop kneeing him in the corner and didn’t heed the ref’s demand to break. While I’m okay with it because of the technical rule of breaking in the corner, Delirious winning by a bunch of running knees to the corner and Castagnoli losing because of a bunch of knees in the corner is really questionable booking.
-Chris Hero and Go Shiozaki beat Brent Albright and Roderick Strong when Hero pinned Strong with a Roaring Elbow while wearing a loaded elbow pad.
-Nigel McGuinness forced El Generico to submit in the London Dungeon hold after dissecting his arm and shoulder all match. Where the submission hurt Black Vs. McGuinness at Take No Prisoners, the arm is such a bigger emphasis in this match, and Generico is so sympathetic, that is fits perfectly. See it.
