Ring of Honor Live Review for Final Battle 2009, 12/19/09

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Welcome to the Ring of Honor Final Battle 2009 review. This is my in depth review of each match. For less of a match and more of a company overview focused review, click here. Let’s get to the show!

Larry Sweeney was back from dealing with personal issues to provide color commentary. Larry is fantastic and it’s great to see the modern day Bobby Heenan return.

Match 1: Claudio Castagnoli defeats Rhett Titus, Colt Cabana and Kenny Omega when he steals a pin on Titus by knocking out Cabana who had Titus in the Billy Goat’s Curse (** ½)

This was your usual spotfest, where everyone got in their moves. Everyone was in the ring at once, so story took a backseat, but wasn’t nonexistent. Colt and Omega worked together against the heels quite a bit, and when they faced off, Colt tried using some of Omega’s own stuff against him, like the stop then enziguiri, only for it to backfire. Titus got in a nice pop up to the top X-Factor, but was the whipping boy for the big spots for most of the remainder of the match. Colt played off him well, with the pace of this really helping his comedy from becoming grating, while Claudio looks like a star and felt a step above. Colt and Omega gave a cold staredown to Claudio post-match, perhaps foreshadowing a tag team.

Match 2: The Embassy of Bison Smith and Erick Stevens defeat Bobby Dempsey and Delirious when Bison powerbombs Dempsey (*)

Former ROH trainee and tiny, but good wrestler Pelle Primeau got a cameo as Delirious’s partner before being crushed and replaced by Dempsey. This was meant to be Necro Butcher, but weather prevented his arrival. The bulk of this match was Delirious being destroyed, taking horrible bumps on the floor and into the crowd to make Stevens and Bison look great. Dempsey got almost all of his team’s offense and blew up almost immediately, hitting power moves on his opponent, before being outnumbered and finished. Despite this being a nothing match, it was good enough seeing Pelle that I didn’t hate it.

Erick Stevens looked good, as usual, but shouldn’t really team with Smith. Stevens entire allure is that he’s so much bigger than the rest of the roster. Well, Smith is so much bigger than him, it’s a bit ridiculous. Stevens did nearly all the selling for his team and I still have no idea why Bison Smith is brought in. Just develop Stevens as the monster of the Embassy- it’ll take some work, but it’s worth it to not consistently fly Bison in.

Match 3 Fight Without Honor: Eddie Kingston defeats Chris Hero with a loaded elbow pad roaring elbow (**** ¼)

This was easily the match of the night and made Kingston look like a star. Kingston took a vicious beating to start, putting all his emotion into selling and comebacks. None of it did any good, but his fire started to get the crowd rumbling when Hero nailed a piledriver off the top through the guardrail perched on the second rope, one of the sickest spots I’ve ever seen. There was a huge dent and Kingston’s neck was swollen, but still he kicked out. Hero tried everything he could, but couldn’t but Kingston away. Eventually, Hero slowed and started telegraphing his attacks. This, Kingston was ready for. A dodge allowed him to begin hitting high impact offense and he had a counter for each of Chris’s attempts at regaining control, as well as an answer for the interference of Shane Hagadorn and Sara Del Rey. When his usual offense proved not enough to put Hero down, Kingston took Hero’s loaded elbow pad and finished him. This was perfect brutality and Eddie Kingston came out of it looking like a star.

Match 4: The Young Bucks defeat Kevin Steen and El Generico via numerous superkicks on Generico (*** ½)

The basic story here was El Generico not being able to hang with the Bucks speed and Steen trying to carry the offense, but ultimately paying the price. There was a heat segment on both Steen and Generico and then, eventually, when they got their big comeback, it was short lived as Generico was eliminated and Steen was taken out by double teams. He wouldn’t give in, fighting off the heels and kicking out of More Bang for Your Buck (the Young Bucks finisher), before being targeting by numerous superkicks while Generico was nursing numerous wounds on the floor and finished.

This lead into a post-match angle where Steen says he isn’t the same and attempts to retire. After emotionally thanking everyone else, he thanks Generico with a low blow and unprotected chair shot to turn heel and reveal the retirement is a swerve. Colt Cabana runs in to stop the violence and Steen leaves.

Ahhhh, intermission.

Match 5: Kenny King defeated Roderick Strong with a crucifix (dud)

They did some generic, sloppy mat wrestling to start, with King controlling, thus throwing away Roderick’s babyface shine. From there, King did a beatdown, without getting any of the heel mannerisms down to get the crowd to care. A sloppy comeback by Roderick was cut short by a sloppy crucifix for the pin as King takes Roderick’s Pick 6 spot.

Match 6: Rocky Romero defeats Alex Koslov with a top rope cross armbreaker (**)

Romero gets on the mic and announces that due to inclement weather, Jack Evans and Teddy Hart can’t make it. He and Koslov proceeded to have a solid match in front of a disappointed crowd, with Koslov playing up his Russian gimmick and Romero going back to being Low Ki junior. He eventually got the cross armbreaker from the top and the bell rang despite Koslov not appearing to have quit. Oh well, next.

Match 7: Jay and Mark Briscoe defeat Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards via Jay Driller (***)

This was fairly generic tag formula, with Mark being beat up most of the match before the hot tag comeback. This was elevated by Edwards faking an arm injury, like the one he had last time in New York. The finish was a bit out of nowhere, but made sense in context as this was just tag formula.

Post-match Claudio Castagnoli confronts the Briscoe Brothers only to have Chris Hero attack them from behind as the Kings of Wrestling reunite!

Match 8: Jack Evans defeats Teddy Hart with a 630 (No Rating)

Jack and Teddy were great, but mostly traded flashy spots. They wrestled in street clothes, as both had just arrived from the airport. Good fun and both are over.

Match 9: Austin Aries and Tyler Black go to a 60-minute draw (* ½)

This was bad. Austin Aries spent the match trying to turn the audience on him, playing the cowardly heel with the eye rakes and constant stalling and running to get in Tyler’s head. The problem was that when he was in the ring, he wasn’t doing poorly, he was just acting like a cocky mastermind. This went on for awhile, with a ton of stalling, before Aries got a bunch of knee work on Tyler. This went on for a bit, but when Tyler made a comeback, it was all with kicks and flying moves. He tried to sell the leg, but his offense made it look silly and the leg was forgotten before being kicked for momentum turns throughout the match… which doesn’t work when it isn’t being regularly sold. After this was a large portion of brawling on the floor with a ton of near count-outs. These busted both men open and lasted until around 10 minutes left when Tyler started using other guys offense for near falls, with both the end time (of Jimmy Jacobs) and the Cattle Mutilation (of Bryan Danielson) getting near-finishes and nice pops. Aries also got some near falls at this time, as Tyler kicked out of all of his big offense before hitting the small package driver with 30 seconds left. Aries kicked out and we had a draw. Head over to Examiner for the in depth on what went wrong.

This show wasn’t great, but it was solid. Kingston vs. Hero was excellent, and the Bucks vs. Steen and Generico was very good. Nothing else matched up to these two, but Pelle Primeau, Larry Sweeney, the Kevin Steen turn, the tag title switch, and the return of the Kings of Wrestling all made this a more than worthwhile show and worth checking out.

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.