I don’t really have a witty opening right now for this, but just like usual, this is the Pulse, and I’m here to deliver you your ROH on HDNet fix! Tonight’s show features the Briscoe Brothers taking on the team of Austin Aries and Rhett Titus, Homicide in action against Tony Kozina and Kevin Steen in action as well!
So, let’s start plugging away, shall we?
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*Ricardo Rochetti. The man’s second to none. Well, maybe me. But then again…actually, this won’t end anywhere good, so I’ll just shut up.
*Pulse Glazer‘s Monday Morning Backlash offers up a tremendous retrospective on the career of Eddie Guerrero in the form of 10 (or 11) MUST-SEE matches. Thanks, Ace!
*Will Pruett checks in with his Sunday random thoughts! You know you were thinking some of them…
*And finally…this week’s report is brought to you by: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA.
One of the best IPA’s out there for my money. Great stuff, even if it’s not local.
So now…on with the show. HERE COMES THE RUSH!
Your hosts, as always, are Dave Prazak and Mike Hogewood.
**We open with a video package detailing the Shane Hagadorn/Kings of Wrestling and Papa Briscoe brawl from “previously on ROH,” which segues nicely into their main event match from last week with the Dark City Fight Club which promised the DCFC a title shot. Hogewood–as he said last week–wants to see the Kings fight the Briscoes one more time.
**There’s a new opening sequence! Tremendous!
**Tonight, Homicide makes his HDNet debut…I already said that!
Grizzly Redwood vs. Kevin Steen (w/ Steve Corino)
We cut right to Steen in the ring, with the El Generico mask, and Grizzly already in the ring before him even. Steen attacks immediately but Grizzly dodges until Steen just decks him with a forearm. Grizzly dropkicks Steen down and hits a low bulldog…almost. Steen catches him and javelins him to the floor. Steen follows out with a big chop. Tossing Grizzly back in, Steen lays in a couple stomps and a chop. Steen adds a scoop slam but misses the front flip legdrop allowing Grizzly to hit an axe handle, but Steen immediately recovers and delivers an F5 for 2. Grizzly props himself up in a corner, and gets an elbow up on a charge, and boots up on a second, but Steen catches him in a crossbody and plants him air raid crash style for 2. However, Steen goes up for a swanton bomb but misses, allowing Grizzly to hit a tornado DDT for 2. Steen rolls to the apron and Grizzly knocks him down, only for Steen to pull him out and just obliterate him with a powerbomb onto the apron. Back in the ring, Steen puts the Generico mask on Grizzly and drills him with the Package Piledriver for the academic 3.
Kevin Steen def. Grizzly Redwood in 4:17 via Package Piledriver.
Well, that was just the squashiest squash that ever squashed. But I’ll say this; Grizzly takes one of the better beatings I’ve seen in awhile. (*)
**Post-match, Steen is on the mic. He took Generico’s mask at Glory By Honor IX, and now he has a new mission. At Final Battle, they will fight one last time. The gist is, that if Generico loses, he unmasks. But if Steen loses, he will leave Ring of Honor. Corino, for his part, seems a little shocked, and a towel covered (presumably) El Generico emerges. He removes the towel, revealing a new, all-black mask, and points to the ring, before nodding his approval and giving the throat slash motion.
**ROH announces on HDNet that they will be holding TV tapings in Louisville, KY on December 9th and 10th–the first tapings held outside Philadelphia. Good for them. Including–as mentioned last week–the return of Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin.
**Another video package for “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett. With this level of hype, it’s sink or swim, kid. Good luck to him.
**Back to the ring now, as we reveal that Roderick did, in fact, successfully defend the ROH World Title in the Toronto area on Saturday night against “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels. It will be Strong vs. Richards for the ROH World Title on Dec. 18th at Final Battle. The champ, with Truth Martini in tow, come down to meet with Jim Cornette in the ring. This should be good. Truth brings the awesome by claiming that the Book of Truth does not allow a man to look towards the past, and therefore no members of the House of Truth ever watch tape of a match that has already happened. Love it. Truth and Strong refuse to watch any footage that might show Truth as being physically involved in Roddy’s matches–as he denies it–because there’s too much at stake and say that the HoT is ROH.
**As they leave, the production truck calls up a series of House of Truth matches with a variety of Martini interference. Ultimately, I’m not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. People watching the shows know that Truth gets involved, and that Roddy is a heel. Regardless, this takes us into promoting that later tonight we’ll have a sit down interview with Davey Richards, and up next…Homicide!
Homicide vs. Tony Kozina
Yeah, this won’t end well at all. I’ll be shocked if Kozina lasts more than 2 minutes. Lockup, and Homicide actually gets backed into the corner, and Kozina adds a couple of cheap shots and some knees. Yeah, he’ll pay for that. He misses a charge and Homicide gets..lectured for a closed fist? Okay. Kozina recovers, so Homicide adds a european uppercut and a back elbow. Third of a series of locomotion suplexes blocked, and Kozina adds a knee, and a snapmare/dropkick combo for 2. Kozina charges but a monkey flip is blocked, and Homicide adds a Michinoku Driver for 2. They trade strikes, but Homicide reverses a whip and throws an elbow. Homicide hits a sort of inverted splash mountain for 2, and he has words with referee Bryce Remsburg–a recurring theme in this match. Ace crusher blocked, and Kozina hits a Northern Lights suplex for 2. The crowd is just dead for this, because no one gives Kozina a prayer. Kozina counters the Cop Killa, but gets whipped to the buckle, where he flips to the apron, but misses a springboard…thing…only for Homicide to hit the ace crusher for 3.
Homicide def. Tony Kozina in 4:03 via Ace Crusher.
Kozina got entirely too much offense here. Homicide is a former ROH World Champion, and you’ve marketed him as such. You’ve presented him as a legend, and it took him 4 minutes to take care of a nobody? Homicide should have obliterated Kozina here, and he really didn’t. (*3/4)
**Now, our sit-down interview with Davey Richards. He says that Final Battle will be the start of a new era for Davey Richards. If you’ve seen one of these interviews with Davey, you’ve pretty much seen them all. The problem with this whole setup is that Roderick has a LOT of mileage as champion. If you build and build and build like this, and Davey doesn’t walk out of Final Battle with the belt, you’ve significantly hurt Davey. But if you turn Roderick into a 3 month transitional champion after finally winning the big one–after failing in something like 16 straight title shots, you’ve utterly DECIMATED Roderick.
The Briscoe Brothers (Mark & Jay) vs. Austin Aries & Rhett Titus
My fingers never like me after I recap Briscoes matches. That said, here we are again. The things I do for my loyal public. Jay and Titus start. Lockup, and Jay grabs a waistlock; Titus goes down to the mat and grabs a wristlock, only for Jay to counter with a drop toe hold into a front facelock. Transition into a side headlock, and Titus whips him off but gets bowled over with the shoulder tackle. Titus shows off the athleticism with a couple leapfrogs but turns into a running hurricanrana and an arm drag as Jay tags in Mark. Mark continues to wind on the arm, but Titus backs him into the ropes to break. Whip in, but Mark hangs on and throws a forearm, causing Titus to go tag Aries. The two exchange some chain wrestling armwork, with Aries transitioning into a crossface, but Mark gets to the ropes. Aries grabs a side headlock, but Mark counters; Aries sends him off and after some rope running, Mark decks Aries with his spinwheel kick, and lays in some punches in the corner. Aries reverses a corner whip and gets backdropped out on a charge, but springs back in with his back elbow strike. Aries tags in Titus, who lays in some punches and a snap mare before a bottom rope springboard splash for 2. Titus lays in a running back elbow for 2 and tags Aries back in.
Aries comes off the top with an elbow strike for 2, and then grabs a chinlock. Mark fights out, but Aries grabs the tights and adds a back suplex for 2. Aries pulls up Mark by the ears and bell rings the ears, before tagging in Titus to hit the World’s Greatest Tag Team leapfrog assisted hotshot. Jay blind tags and Mark reverses Titus into a big clothesline. Jay lays in the chops and whips Titus across, following in with an avalanche and a low dropkick for 2. Mark back in an a Briscoe double team ends in a springboard twisting senton for 2 on Titus. Vertical suplex by Mark gets 2. Jay back in, and the Briscoes lay in double team chops in a neutral corner, and then beal Titus into the other corner. Aries comes in and eats the double team shoulder block for his trouble. They go to do the same with Titus, but Aries pulls him to the floor. However, Aries and Titus get their respective irish whips reversed outside, and they collide. Back in, Jay goes up top, but Aries catches the foot, allowing Titus to hit a high dropkick for 2. The heels hit Jay with their slingshot/forearm combo for 2, as Aries tags Titus back in.
Titus lays in a boot to the side of the head for 2, and grabs a chinlock. Jay gets close to tagging, but Aries comes into take away referee Paul Turner’s attention and Paul has to disallow the tag. The heels hit the Power & Glory superplex/splash combo, with Aries using a frog splash (although at a bit of a delay) for 2. Apparently Aries and Titus get caught with some tag related chicanery, allowing Jay to tag Mark in, and HE’S A HOUSE OF FIRE! Mark starts doling out the Redneck-Fu, but Aries gets him from behind. Mark ducks the double clothesline and hits a double DDT for 2 on Aries. Mark runs into a boot off a corner charge, and goes for an Iconoclasm on Aries, pausing to boot a charging Titus on the way and hits Aries with the Iconoclasm on to Titus, before picking up Aries again and hitting a sideslam/guillotine legdrop combo for 2 on Aries. They signal for the doomsday device before Titus comes back in and all four men are inside. Jay sends Titus to the floor, but Aries hits his shinbreaker/suplex combo. Aries goes for the IED but Jay blocks it with a boot. They go for the doomsday device, but Titus breaks it up, allowing Jay to hit a dive onto Titus. Aries tries to hit the heat seaking missile, but Mark stops it. Aries counters the cutthroat driver, but they exchange nearfalls before Aries is able to hit the heat seeking missile onto Jay and Titus. Shortly after, Mark follows with a dive of his own. Aries hits a hurricanrana to counter the Briscoes Space Mountain/Neckbreaker combo. Aries hits the IED in the corner on Mark, allowing Titus to hit another gorgeous dropkick for 2.
Back into the heels corner, Titus sets up Mark, and goes for the Super Sex Factor. Jay, however, comes in from behind to knock off Aries from the apron and catch Titus in the Doomsday Device for the 3 count.
The Briscoe Brothers (Mark(W) & Jay Briscoe) def. Rhett Titus(L) & Austin Aries in 16:24 via Doomsday Device.
This was pretty paint-by-numbers Briscoes. Not to say that that’s a bad thing, because their formula is pretty solid. Aries delivered his usual strong performance, Titus continued his development on TV, and all was right with the world (***)
**Next week on HDNet; the Kings of Wrestling find out who they will face at Final Battle, and Davey Richards steps into the ring with Shawn Daivari. BE THERE!
**Let’s add up the numbers. On a 50+ minute show, there was 24:44 of wrestling. As I’ve heard written, a show can be 75% wrestling, but if the wrestling is poor quality, it doesn’t make for a good show. This one kept up ROH’s typical recent trend of a squash, a fairly solid main event and some good angle development. The Final Battle card will continue to come together next week, and if given time, Richards vs. Daivairi could be solid.
As always, thanks for reading, never hesitate to hit me up with any comments questions or anything else and I hope to see everyone next week!
