BRM (Re-)Reviews ROH The Battle of St. Paul

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Big Red Machine
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BRM (Re-)Reviews ROH The Battle of St. Paul

Post by Big Red Machine » Nov 26th, '21, 00:04

ROH The Battle of St. Paul (4/27/2007)- St. Paul, MN

CARY SILKIN ANNOUNCES THAT ROH WILL BE ON PAY-PER-VIEW- good… although it was a little misleading to say that ROH was going to be on TV, which was how Cary actually started this. We then got a pretty good highlight package for the roster, with some good focus on a lot of different wrestlers, although without any sort of character details.

AUSTIN ARIES PROMO- good
He compares his title shot tonight to his title shot tonight to his defeat of Samoa Joe, planting the seeds for the story he was going to tell in the main event.

DANGEROUS ANGELS (Allison Danger & Sara Del Rey) vs. THE MINNESOTA HOME WRECKING CREW (Rain & Lacey) (w/Jimmy Jacobs)- 5.75/10
Lacey was in fine form on the outside, working extra hard to prevent the fans cheering her here in her home market. Jimmy Jacobs was good with his low-key trying to get her to calm down. Lacey and Rain both complied with the Code of Honor with a quick slap of the hand to ensure that they spent as little time as possible having physical contact with their opponents, and then immediately went over to wipe their hands off on the turnbuckle.
This was a good hard-hitting opener. Lacey got the win after Jimmy Jacobs tripped Danger up and Lacey hit the Implant DDT for the win.

RHETT TITUS vs. MICHAEL ELGIN- 1/10
They did some stuff in the ninety seconds they were given before Jimmy Rave ran in and attacked them both. The fans cheered Jimmy, and he soaked it up. I was not expecting that at all.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Dave Prazak came out to ask Rave what he was doing in the ring when he was supposed to be at home healing up a broken jaw. He said sitting at home just pissed him off and made him meaner, and that he was going to start taking what was his, starting with a match against Elgin right now. Everyone who needed to apparently approved this so got…

MICHAEL ELGIN vs. JIMMY RAVE- 4/10
This match did a great job of making Rave look strong here coming off of losing his feud against Nigel McGuinness, while still giving the young Elgin some spots to look impressive.

JIMMY JACOBS’S PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY THE ROH STUDENTS- good
He is about to give us an update on his knee… and also on the status of his relationship with Lacey. Pelle Primeau, Mitch Franklin, and Bobby Dempsey walked by, with Pelle bragging about a chick he banged and the others asking Jimmy how Lacey was in bed. Jimmy got angry at them, calling Pelle and Mitch “midgets” and calling Boby Dempsey fat. He poked Bobby in the stomach with his crutches and walked off. The camera panned over Pelle and Mitch, who were baffled at Jimmy’s reaction, and then lingered on Bobby Dempsey, who looked quite sad at having his weight brought up. With the benefit of hindsight, we see seeds being planted with Jimmy taking issue with the treatment of women (which would come up in early Age of the Falls promos) and Bobby Dempsey’s shame over his weight, which would drive him into the abusive clutches and Sweet N’ Sour Incorporated.

SHINGO vs. BJ Whitmer- 7/10
Speaking of Jimmy Jacobs, this was BJ Whitmer’s first match since losing to Jimmy in their cage match at Supercard of Honor II. Shingo won a very hard-hitting match that was excellent for the time it got.

ULTIMATE ENDURANCE MATCH FOR THE ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: The Briscoe Brothers(c) vs. Hallowicked & Gran Akuma vs. Pelle Primeau & Mitch Franklin vs. Mike Quackenbush & Jigsaw- 6/10
I get that the point of this match was to make the Briscoes look strong, but everyone knew that there was no way in hell that a bunch of first-time teams were going to take the belts off of the Briscoes. This left Quacken-Saw as the only duo to even stand a chance… and they weren’t given ANY nearfalls at all! It just wasn’t very exciting. There is an awesome sequence in it that makes Quack look like a BEAST, but that was the height of any excitement.

ANYTHING GOES MATCH: Homicide & Colt Cabana vs. Brent Albright & Adam Pearce (w/Shane Hagadorn)- 6.75/10
They brawled into the crowd and hit each other with things. There was a little story about Hagadorn’s attempts to interfere always being foiled. Hagadorn wound up eating a Cop Killah, which looked terrifying. The crowd was extremely hot for Cabana, as this was his penultimate show before heading to WWE. After the match, Homicide grabbed Hagadorn and threw hi back into the ring so that Cabana could hit him with a Colt.45 to make the crowd happier.

REBECCA BAYLESS INTERVIEWS THE BRISCOE BROTHERS- fine
They cut a promo building up tomorrow night’s title defense against the Motor City Machine Guns, telling Keing Steen and El Generico that they would fight them anywhere, and also calling out calling out Claudio Castagnoli, telling him to find any partner he wanted, so I guess Claudio had a cut a promo on them at them point?

FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH: Jack Evans vs. Erick Stevens vs. Rocky Romero vs. Delirious- 6.75/10
All three babyfaces in this match had issues with the No Remorse Corps, so the story was Rocky Romero using blind tags to only jump in advantageous moments, then tagging out as soon as he thought he was in trouble. Eventually it broke down into the usual four-way. Rocky got a sneaky win, pinning Jack Evans.

FIP WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) vs. Christopher Daniels (w/Allison Danger)- 8/10
Cheerleader was easily the strongest of the various themed outfits that Allison Danger would cycle through while managing Daniels around this time, so that was a nice treat. Daniels and Roddy had the excellent match you’d expect between the two of them, though Roddy did a lot of things that could have easily led to him being DQed and losing the title. The count-out finish serves to get that rule over for FIP World Heavyweight Title.

JIMMY JACOBS’ ATTEMPT TO TELL EVERYONE WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN HIM AND LACEY IS INTERRUPTED BY ADAM PEARCE, BRENT ALBRIGHT, & SHANE HAGADORN- great
Hagadorn asked Jimmy if he got any “backdoor action.” Jimmy yelled at them to “SHOW HER SOME RESPECT, ALRIGHT!” and left, at which point we transitioned into an…

ADAM PEARCE PROMO- excellent!
He told us that he isn’t going to show Colt Cabana any respect tomorrow night just because they have history and it is Colt’s last match in ROH.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Takeshi Morishima(c) vs. Austin Aries- 8.25/10
This was a great David vs. Goliath story, but with the added layer of calling back to Aries’ title win over Samoa Joe. The announcers drew comparisons to Aries dethroning Samoa Joe early on to remind us that the much smaller Aries had a very credible kayfabe chance of beating Morishima for the belt here, and did a great job of not only reminding us of that throughout the match, but of keying us in to the exact information we needed to know to tell that layered story (specifically the finishing sequence of the match). Aries and Morishima, for their part, did a great job building up to Aries finally managing to hit the famed “Joe-Killer Combo,” and then pulling the rug out from under the crowd when Morishima got his foot on the rope. Aries went up for another 450, but Morishima crashed into the ropes to knock him off balance, hit a super back suplex off the top and a huge lariat, and when Aries kicked out of that, nailed him with a Backdrop Driver for the win.

REBECCA BAYLESS’ INTERVIEW WITH JIMMY JACOBS IS INTERRUPTED BY THE NO REMORSE CORPS- good
Becky Bayless also wants Jimmy to “spill the beans” on what happened between him and Lacey. Jimmy says he will do so, even though he is disgusted by the “primate mentality” in the locker room. The NRC came up to him and congratulated him on nailing Lacey, and Jimmy got disgusted, yelling that none of the “apes” and “jocks” in the locker room know what happened between him and Lacey, and left. At that point the NRC took over the interview, bragging about their wins. Roddy in particular was pretty good by pre-2015 Roderick Strong standards.


This was a good show from ROH, even with something of a disappointing undercard. It’s definitely not one you need to see unless you’re a completionist, but if you decided to take the two hours and forty-two minutes to watch it, you’ll certainly enjoy the experience.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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