ROH Double Feature
ROH Double Feature (3/14 & 3/15 2008)- Dover, NJ
We see a marquee telling us that â€"Ring of Honor presents â€"Randy the Ram vs. The Ayatollah.†Seeing as how neither of these people are anyone that anyone has ever heard of before, Becky Bayless explains to us that Darren Aronofsky’s film â€"The Wrestler†is filming footage at this weekend’s ROH show, so there might be some stuff that looks a little weird… but there is still going to be TWO great nights of ROH action packed onto this one DVD.
NIGHT 1:
RODERICK STRONG vs. PELLE PRIMEAU- 4.5/10
This was the story of the underdog vs. the complete and total killer, and they did quite a good job with it. Roddy’s offense, as always, looked SICK and Pelle’s hope spots have always been great.
NIGEL MCGUINNESS PROMO- this was Nigel’s first promo after his big heel turn at the 6th Anniversary Show (and I cannot praise both his match and promo segment with Danielson on that show enough- you REALLY need to see it), and he cut a very good heel promo… except for the one random line in the middle of it where he berated the crowd, telling them â€"how dare you disrespect The Ayatollah, a legend in this business,†a line which is doubly funny when you realize that The Ayatollah is played by Ernest â€"The Cat†Miller of WCW â€"fame,†a man whose lone championship/accomplishment in wrestling according to the often-generous Wikipedia is the fact that he was ranked #479 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the PWI Years by PWI.
(After some clarification by Prazak it appears that Nigel’s Ayatollah line was his own goofy attempt to get heat rather than something scripted for him to insert into his promo).
FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Erick Stevens vs. Nigel McGuiness vs. BJ Whitmer (w/Shane Hagadorn)- 6.5/10
A good match with an important finish. I’m not so sure I like Nigel getting pinned in his first match after his big heel turn, and it doesn’t seem to have mattered at all in the long run because, if I recall correctly, the thing that led to Claudio getting his big world title shot at A New Level was a deal the two of them made whereby Claudio agreed to team with Nigel against Steen and Generico at Tag Wars 2008 in exchange for the title match.
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Delirious vs. Necro Butcher (w/Lacey)- 3.75/10
The winner of this match would advance to Four Corner Survival match on Sunday’s PPV taping for a shot a world title main in the main event of the PPV.
The ref clearly saw Lacey interfere but there was no disqualification called for. The announcers explained this as being because a DQ would ruin the integrity of the idea of the better wrestler winning. Well you know what else ruins the integrity of the better wrestler winning? SOMEONE INTERFERING IN THE MATCH! Later in the match, Lacey gave the Necro Butcher a chair. Daizee Haze came out to stop this and neutralize Lacey. Again… if Daizee cares so much about the integrity of the match… why didn’t she come out and stop Lacey before?
Also during all of this, a small child apparently jumped the guardrail and tried to attack Lacey.
Necro got his hands on Daizee to pull her off of Lacey, but this allowed Delirious to roll Necro up for the win. Necro attacked Delirious after the match but Delirious made his own comeback while Daizee took out Lacey. Delirious seems smitten with Daizee, although the announcers didn’t mention it, so maybe I’m just adding that in hindsight. I know the plans for the angle had already been laid (that’s why Human Tornado was brought in for the last few shows), so I believe this was the unofficial, subtle beginning of what would eventually become the Delirious loves Daizee angle.
AUSTIN ARIES & BRYAN DANIELSON vs. THE VULTURE SQUAD (Ruckus & Jigsaw) (w/Julius Smokes)- 5.5/10
I believe this was the first instance of the fans chanting â€"Team Work†at Aries and Danielson, and since it didn’t seem like there were any plans for it to happen, I’m pretty sure the fan base creating, getting behind, and supporting the name led to this becoming a loose partnership over the next few months rather than a team created randomly for one weekend’s worth of matches. Also, props to whoever thought of the name, because I think it’s pretty darn clever.
This was also Jigsaw’s first appearance in ROH without his mask. He had promised to take it off if the Vulture Squad didn’t win the tag titles at the 6th Anniversary Show (they didn’t), so he took it off on the video wire available on this very DVD.
Bryan Danielson decided to have some fun before the match, telling the fans that this match was also being specially taped, so that whenever he did anything, the crowd needed to cheer. He also told them that the same went for his tag team partner Austin Aries. And even for Ruckus. â€"And whenever Jigsaw does anything… you all need to tell him to put his mask back on.†Huh. I guess Mike Quackenbush must have done a run-in with the Eye of Tyr while I wasn’t looking. And speaking of Mike Quackenbush and 2008 CHIKARA, the scene that CHIKARA would do later in the year where Shane Storm became Stigma while Vin Gerard shouted â€"TRANSFORM, SHANE! TRANSFORM!†at him is basically what happened in the two video wire segments about Jigsaw’s unmasking, including the first one ending with Julius Smokes shouting the Vulture Squad’s catchphrase at Jigsaw, which is, of course, â€"TRANSFORM!â€
In Quack’s defense, he would ultimately be proven right about Jigsaw taking his mask off being a bad idea. Apparently Jigsaw and Gabe came up with the idea because Jigsaw thought the mask was uncomfortable and Gabe felt it was preventing him from connecting with the fans because they couldn’t see his facial expressions. Well… it turns out that Jigsaw’s facials were pretty bad and never really improved, while a big part of the reason that Jigsaw didn’t connect with the fans was that the Vulture Squad were always booked like a second-class faction as compared to the other groups around at the time like the Age of the Fall or the No Remorse Corps or even The Resilience (while they were a thing), but while the other lower-tier stables managed to either find something entertaining to do on the midcard like the Hangmen 3 or had one main eventer to keep them relevant and an entertaining manager to do the rest like Sweet N’ Sour Inc. did, the Vulture Squad lacked that main event because Jack Evans was never around, and so the Vulture Squad was booked like a tag team… and when you are a tag team consisting of Jack Evans two flip-doing sidekicks in a tag team division that includes The Briscoes, Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs, Steen & Generico, The No Remorse Corps, and now the newly-emerging combination of Aries & Danielson, well… you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
During this match, Eddie Kingston showed up in the crowd, shouting â€"WHO YOU WITH?!†at Ruckus, who was Kingston’s stablemate in BLKOUT in CZW at this time. I guess Eddie felt like Ruckus was abandoning him to go to ROH. Either way, someone, in their infinite wisdom, had Kingston cause his little disruption while standing right in front the crew for The Wrestler, so we got both Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei on camera.
This seemed like a very poor time to start either the Kingston/BLKOUT/Ruckus/Vulture Squad angle or the Jigsaw unmasked angle because it really felt like things were being pulled in two different directions and not in a helpful way. I can see how Gabe fit the pieces together:
1) The Kingston distraction mans the Vulture Squad need to lose
2) Jigsaw getting distracted by Kingston means he won’t take the pin
3) Jigsaw is the babyface in peril so we can see how good his facial expressions are and if they help the crowd connect with him any better
But Jigsaw being distracted by Kingston in turn distracted everyone from the Jigsaw unmasked angle so it just didn’t work. Having Aries and Danielson as their opponents probably didn’t help people connect with Jigsaw much, either. The match was relatively short (I was actually expecting more of an â€"okay Vulture Squad, here’s the two best guys in the company and twenty minutes: show me what you can do) even though it was the longest match on the show so far (12:09), and while there was some good mat wrestling early on, everything that didn’t involve Jigsaw didn’t feel important, but then, when Kingston showed up, all of that Jigsaw babyface in peril stuff ceased to feel important at all.
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Brent Albright vs. Go Shiozaki- 7/10
This is Go’s third show as a regular in ROH… and he is already his already competing in his second tournament for a world title shot. I understand that the first one (at Eye of the Storm) only happened because a blizzard ruined the planned card, but I still find this factoid amusing. The match was pretty good, moving from technical wrestling to some brawling to the heat with Go selling his back to some strong style stuff and finally a moonsault finish, making it feel very much like a showcase for Shiozaki.
SWEET N’ SOUR INC. STUFF SEGMENT- Larry Sweeney comes out to court Brent Albright, making this the second straight weekend of shows that Sweeney has tried to recruit one of the Hangmen 3. He tells Albright that â€"with a push in the right direction, you could turn those losses into wins.†Insider jokes! Albright tells Sweeney that he doesn’t associate with scumbags, and Sweeney, being awesome, immediately turns it around and says â€"neither do I†and thus he Albright should come join him. Albright leaves without taking Sweeney’s card.
Once Albright left, Sara Del Rey came out and quit Sweet N’ Sour Inc. Sweeney asked for an explanation but before we could get one, Claudio Castagnoli came out and chased Sweeney away.
KEVIN STEEN vs. DAVEY RICHARDS- 6.75/10
They traded moves adequately until the really good finishing sequence.
JOEY MATTHEWS PROMO- bad.
Joey Matthews tells the fans that under no circumstances will they be getting weapons tonight. Instead, they will get a â€"slow, old school southern style†match. 1) The Age of the Fall HATE the Briscoes! Shouldn’t they WANT to kill them dead with weapons? 2) In kayfabe terms… what does that even mean?
THE BRISCOES vs. THE AGE OF THE FALL (Tyler Black & Joey Matthews) (w/Necro Butcher & Lacey)- 6.75/10
Well… Joey said we’d get an old school southern style match and that’s what we got, complete with those lying heels using a weapon to cheat at the finish.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good.
They kept fighting after the match with the Age of the Fall beating the Briscoes down. Daizee Haze came out to take out Lacey but she got beaten up so Delirious came out with a chair to save Daizee. Then Jay Briscoe cut a promo to hype up their Street Fight with the Age of the Fall at the PPV on Sunday.
NIGHT 2:
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Davey Richards (w/Roderick Strong)- 6.25/10
A good technical match but with a very weak finish (IMO).
THE HANGMEN 3 (Adam Pearce & Shane Hagadorn) vs. THE VULTURE SQUAD (Ruckus & Jigsaw) (w/Julius Smokes)- 4.25/10
I always laugh went the announcers justify the â€"Hangmen 3†name even though there are four of them by claiming that Hagadorn is a â€"fraction of a person†and thus doesn’t count. In retrospect it’s kind of a terrible thing to say about someone… but it’s also Shane Hagadorn, so that’s really not a problem.
They had a standard tag team match, with the Vulture Squad actually picking up a win.
JIGSAW PROMO- he blamed last night’s loss on the distraction caused by Eddie Kingston and said that if Kingston was really the tough guy he claims to be, he’d show up tomorrow in Philadelphia. Ruckus was not happy about Jigsaw cutting this promo on his friend from another promotion.
LARRY SWEENEY COURTS ADAM PEARCE- he gives Pearce his card and asks him to discuss an important business opportunity. They don’t get the chance because Claudio once again shows up to run Sweeney off.
THE BRISCOES vs. THE HANGMEN 3 (BJ Whitmer & Brent Albright)- 7.25/10
The Hangmen worked over Mark’s back. Then Jay gets tagged in and cut off and worked over until Mark gets the real hot tag and the Briscoes come back and win a fun match.
NIGEL MCGUINNESS & GO SHIOZAKI vs. BRYAN DANIELSON & AUSTIN ARIES- 8.5/10
Before the match, Aries and Nigel cut promos on each other that both got over both Nigel’s new heel attitude and also build up to Aries’ upcoming ROH World Title shot at Supercard of Honor III. These guys went in there and ad an absolutely awesome tag team match with all four guys shining. It was pretty obvious that this was the real main event of this show, no matter what the order of the matches was (and I’m pretty sure you can thank the movie taping for this being placed here as it sounds like they taped for about twenty minutes after this, so I think Gabe put this match here so as not to have to deal with a totally dead crowd).
KEVIN STEEN vs. JOEY MATTHEWS- 7.25/10
They started quick and hot with Joey jumping Steen on his way down the ramp and then a lot of brawling on the outside to get the crowd fired up (which also fits in with my theory that there was a long movie taping segment between this match and the previous one). Then Matthews slowed things down for the heat, but they sped up against once Steen made his comeback. This isn’t novel or anything. Just mentioning it. Based on Matthews’ work and promo last night and his comments tonight promising the crowd lots of chinlocks, I was afraid this run in ROH would be a lot of â€"I’ll be a heel by doing more moves†stuff, but he proved me wrong here.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Tyler Black assaulted Steen, then cut a good promo, which was quite the accomplishment for Tyler at this point in his career.
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Erick Stevens vs. Tyler Black- 6/10
This went less than ten minutes, which is disappointing and surprising considering that these were ROH’s two biggest rising stars at the time (with Tyler that wouldn’t become quite apparent to the rest of us until tomorrow night, but from some of Tyler’s comments during his promo I am fairly confident that Gabe already had his world title victory planned out for Final Battle). They did a great job with the time they had, though.
FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL: Eddie Edwards vs. Delirious vs. Roderick Strong (w/Davey Richards) vs. Necro Butcher (w/Lacey)- 7/10
Well… this is a REALLY random main event, considering that none of these guys but Roddy (and MAYBE Necro could be considered anything close to main eventers in ROH at the time (and even Roddy was on his way down from his challenge for the World Title at Without Remorse, so he hadn’t been positioned as a main eventer since then), and Eddie in particular had never even gotten anywhere close to one.
Eddie had just recently cut off his signature braids and gotten a buzz cut, which, when combined with his blue trunks, made me do a double take every time he was on the hard cam because he looked a lot less like himself than he did like his future tag team partner Davey Richards.
Stuff happened. At one point Daizee Haze ran in and to stop Lacey from interfering and they did a bunch of spots in the ring while the other four wrestlers brawled on the outside. Then everyone just started to brawl on the outside including Lacey and the Haze brawling. Tod Sinclair completely gave up on enforcing the rules like â€"you must tag in and out†or â€"don’t hit people with weapons. They did some It was a clusterf*ck, but a surprisingly fun one.
The fact that they kept reminding us about the movie taping and the short length of most of the match did make this show feel kind of weird, but I thought that the venue and the set-up the movie wanted them to use both looked VERY cool. While the match quality (especially on night one) is really not what we’re used to from ROH, the shows did have some rather important happenings and that big tag match on the second night was definitely worth going out of your way to see, so I would absolutely recommend this show if you can find it, but if you can’t find it, you’re not missing anything ultra-important or super-amazing.
We see a marquee telling us that â€"Ring of Honor presents â€"Randy the Ram vs. The Ayatollah.†Seeing as how neither of these people are anyone that anyone has ever heard of before, Becky Bayless explains to us that Darren Aronofsky’s film â€"The Wrestler†is filming footage at this weekend’s ROH show, so there might be some stuff that looks a little weird… but there is still going to be TWO great nights of ROH action packed onto this one DVD.
NIGHT 1:
RODERICK STRONG vs. PELLE PRIMEAU- 4.5/10
This was the story of the underdog vs. the complete and total killer, and they did quite a good job with it. Roddy’s offense, as always, looked SICK and Pelle’s hope spots have always been great.
NIGEL MCGUINNESS PROMO- this was Nigel’s first promo after his big heel turn at the 6th Anniversary Show (and I cannot praise both his match and promo segment with Danielson on that show enough- you REALLY need to see it), and he cut a very good heel promo… except for the one random line in the middle of it where he berated the crowd, telling them â€"how dare you disrespect The Ayatollah, a legend in this business,†a line which is doubly funny when you realize that The Ayatollah is played by Ernest â€"The Cat†Miller of WCW â€"fame,†a man whose lone championship/accomplishment in wrestling according to the often-generous Wikipedia is the fact that he was ranked #479 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the PWI Years by PWI.
(After some clarification by Prazak it appears that Nigel’s Ayatollah line was his own goofy attempt to get heat rather than something scripted for him to insert into his promo).
FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Erick Stevens vs. Nigel McGuiness vs. BJ Whitmer (w/Shane Hagadorn)- 6.5/10
A good match with an important finish. I’m not so sure I like Nigel getting pinned in his first match after his big heel turn, and it doesn’t seem to have mattered at all in the long run because, if I recall correctly, the thing that led to Claudio getting his big world title shot at A New Level was a deal the two of them made whereby Claudio agreed to team with Nigel against Steen and Generico at Tag Wars 2008 in exchange for the title match.
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Delirious vs. Necro Butcher (w/Lacey)- 3.75/10
The winner of this match would advance to Four Corner Survival match on Sunday’s PPV taping for a shot a world title main in the main event of the PPV.
The ref clearly saw Lacey interfere but there was no disqualification called for. The announcers explained this as being because a DQ would ruin the integrity of the idea of the better wrestler winning. Well you know what else ruins the integrity of the better wrestler winning? SOMEONE INTERFERING IN THE MATCH! Later in the match, Lacey gave the Necro Butcher a chair. Daizee Haze came out to stop this and neutralize Lacey. Again… if Daizee cares so much about the integrity of the match… why didn’t she come out and stop Lacey before?
Also during all of this, a small child apparently jumped the guardrail and tried to attack Lacey.
Necro got his hands on Daizee to pull her off of Lacey, but this allowed Delirious to roll Necro up for the win. Necro attacked Delirious after the match but Delirious made his own comeback while Daizee took out Lacey. Delirious seems smitten with Daizee, although the announcers didn’t mention it, so maybe I’m just adding that in hindsight. I know the plans for the angle had already been laid (that’s why Human Tornado was brought in for the last few shows), so I believe this was the unofficial, subtle beginning of what would eventually become the Delirious loves Daizee angle.
AUSTIN ARIES & BRYAN DANIELSON vs. THE VULTURE SQUAD (Ruckus & Jigsaw) (w/Julius Smokes)- 5.5/10
I believe this was the first instance of the fans chanting â€"Team Work†at Aries and Danielson, and since it didn’t seem like there were any plans for it to happen, I’m pretty sure the fan base creating, getting behind, and supporting the name led to this becoming a loose partnership over the next few months rather than a team created randomly for one weekend’s worth of matches. Also, props to whoever thought of the name, because I think it’s pretty darn clever.
This was also Jigsaw’s first appearance in ROH without his mask. He had promised to take it off if the Vulture Squad didn’t win the tag titles at the 6th Anniversary Show (they didn’t), so he took it off on the video wire available on this very DVD.
Bryan Danielson decided to have some fun before the match, telling the fans that this match was also being specially taped, so that whenever he did anything, the crowd needed to cheer. He also told them that the same went for his tag team partner Austin Aries. And even for Ruckus. â€"And whenever Jigsaw does anything… you all need to tell him to put his mask back on.†Huh. I guess Mike Quackenbush must have done a run-in with the Eye of Tyr while I wasn’t looking. And speaking of Mike Quackenbush and 2008 CHIKARA, the scene that CHIKARA would do later in the year where Shane Storm became Stigma while Vin Gerard shouted â€"TRANSFORM, SHANE! TRANSFORM!†at him is basically what happened in the two video wire segments about Jigsaw’s unmasking, including the first one ending with Julius Smokes shouting the Vulture Squad’s catchphrase at Jigsaw, which is, of course, â€"TRANSFORM!â€
In Quack’s defense, he would ultimately be proven right about Jigsaw taking his mask off being a bad idea. Apparently Jigsaw and Gabe came up with the idea because Jigsaw thought the mask was uncomfortable and Gabe felt it was preventing him from connecting with the fans because they couldn’t see his facial expressions. Well… it turns out that Jigsaw’s facials were pretty bad and never really improved, while a big part of the reason that Jigsaw didn’t connect with the fans was that the Vulture Squad were always booked like a second-class faction as compared to the other groups around at the time like the Age of the Fall or the No Remorse Corps or even The Resilience (while they were a thing), but while the other lower-tier stables managed to either find something entertaining to do on the midcard like the Hangmen 3 or had one main eventer to keep them relevant and an entertaining manager to do the rest like Sweet N’ Sour Inc. did, the Vulture Squad lacked that main event because Jack Evans was never around, and so the Vulture Squad was booked like a tag team… and when you are a tag team consisting of Jack Evans two flip-doing sidekicks in a tag team division that includes The Briscoes, Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs, Steen & Generico, The No Remorse Corps, and now the newly-emerging combination of Aries & Danielson, well… you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
During this match, Eddie Kingston showed up in the crowd, shouting â€"WHO YOU WITH?!†at Ruckus, who was Kingston’s stablemate in BLKOUT in CZW at this time. I guess Eddie felt like Ruckus was abandoning him to go to ROH. Either way, someone, in their infinite wisdom, had Kingston cause his little disruption while standing right in front the crew for The Wrestler, so we got both Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei on camera.
This seemed like a very poor time to start either the Kingston/BLKOUT/Ruckus/Vulture Squad angle or the Jigsaw unmasked angle because it really felt like things were being pulled in two different directions and not in a helpful way. I can see how Gabe fit the pieces together:
1) The Kingston distraction mans the Vulture Squad need to lose
2) Jigsaw getting distracted by Kingston means he won’t take the pin
3) Jigsaw is the babyface in peril so we can see how good his facial expressions are and if they help the crowd connect with him any better
But Jigsaw being distracted by Kingston in turn distracted everyone from the Jigsaw unmasked angle so it just didn’t work. Having Aries and Danielson as their opponents probably didn’t help people connect with Jigsaw much, either. The match was relatively short (I was actually expecting more of an â€"okay Vulture Squad, here’s the two best guys in the company and twenty minutes: show me what you can do) even though it was the longest match on the show so far (12:09), and while there was some good mat wrestling early on, everything that didn’t involve Jigsaw didn’t feel important, but then, when Kingston showed up, all of that Jigsaw babyface in peril stuff ceased to feel important at all.
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Brent Albright vs. Go Shiozaki- 7/10
This is Go’s third show as a regular in ROH… and he is already his already competing in his second tournament for a world title shot. I understand that the first one (at Eye of the Storm) only happened because a blizzard ruined the planned card, but I still find this factoid amusing. The match was pretty good, moving from technical wrestling to some brawling to the heat with Go selling his back to some strong style stuff and finally a moonsault finish, making it feel very much like a showcase for Shiozaki.
SWEET N’ SOUR INC. STUFF SEGMENT- Larry Sweeney comes out to court Brent Albright, making this the second straight weekend of shows that Sweeney has tried to recruit one of the Hangmen 3. He tells Albright that â€"with a push in the right direction, you could turn those losses into wins.†Insider jokes! Albright tells Sweeney that he doesn’t associate with scumbags, and Sweeney, being awesome, immediately turns it around and says â€"neither do I†and thus he Albright should come join him. Albright leaves without taking Sweeney’s card.
Once Albright left, Sara Del Rey came out and quit Sweet N’ Sour Inc. Sweeney asked for an explanation but before we could get one, Claudio Castagnoli came out and chased Sweeney away.
KEVIN STEEN vs. DAVEY RICHARDS- 6.75/10
They traded moves adequately until the really good finishing sequence.
JOEY MATTHEWS PROMO- bad.
Joey Matthews tells the fans that under no circumstances will they be getting weapons tonight. Instead, they will get a â€"slow, old school southern style†match. 1) The Age of the Fall HATE the Briscoes! Shouldn’t they WANT to kill them dead with weapons? 2) In kayfabe terms… what does that even mean?
THE BRISCOES vs. THE AGE OF THE FALL (Tyler Black & Joey Matthews) (w/Necro Butcher & Lacey)- 6.75/10
Well… Joey said we’d get an old school southern style match and that’s what we got, complete with those lying heels using a weapon to cheat at the finish.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good.
They kept fighting after the match with the Age of the Fall beating the Briscoes down. Daizee Haze came out to take out Lacey but she got beaten up so Delirious came out with a chair to save Daizee. Then Jay Briscoe cut a promo to hype up their Street Fight with the Age of the Fall at the PPV on Sunday.
NIGHT 2:
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Davey Richards (w/Roderick Strong)- 6.25/10
A good technical match but with a very weak finish (IMO).
THE HANGMEN 3 (Adam Pearce & Shane Hagadorn) vs. THE VULTURE SQUAD (Ruckus & Jigsaw) (w/Julius Smokes)- 4.25/10
I always laugh went the announcers justify the â€"Hangmen 3†name even though there are four of them by claiming that Hagadorn is a â€"fraction of a person†and thus doesn’t count. In retrospect it’s kind of a terrible thing to say about someone… but it’s also Shane Hagadorn, so that’s really not a problem.
They had a standard tag team match, with the Vulture Squad actually picking up a win.
JIGSAW PROMO- he blamed last night’s loss on the distraction caused by Eddie Kingston and said that if Kingston was really the tough guy he claims to be, he’d show up tomorrow in Philadelphia. Ruckus was not happy about Jigsaw cutting this promo on his friend from another promotion.
LARRY SWEENEY COURTS ADAM PEARCE- he gives Pearce his card and asks him to discuss an important business opportunity. They don’t get the chance because Claudio once again shows up to run Sweeney off.
THE BRISCOES vs. THE HANGMEN 3 (BJ Whitmer & Brent Albright)- 7.25/10
The Hangmen worked over Mark’s back. Then Jay gets tagged in and cut off and worked over until Mark gets the real hot tag and the Briscoes come back and win a fun match.
NIGEL MCGUINNESS & GO SHIOZAKI vs. BRYAN DANIELSON & AUSTIN ARIES- 8.5/10
Before the match, Aries and Nigel cut promos on each other that both got over both Nigel’s new heel attitude and also build up to Aries’ upcoming ROH World Title shot at Supercard of Honor III. These guys went in there and ad an absolutely awesome tag team match with all four guys shining. It was pretty obvious that this was the real main event of this show, no matter what the order of the matches was (and I’m pretty sure you can thank the movie taping for this being placed here as it sounds like they taped for about twenty minutes after this, so I think Gabe put this match here so as not to have to deal with a totally dead crowd).
KEVIN STEEN vs. JOEY MATTHEWS- 7.25/10
They started quick and hot with Joey jumping Steen on his way down the ramp and then a lot of brawling on the outside to get the crowd fired up (which also fits in with my theory that there was a long movie taping segment between this match and the previous one). Then Matthews slowed things down for the heat, but they sped up against once Steen made his comeback. This isn’t novel or anything. Just mentioning it. Based on Matthews’ work and promo last night and his comments tonight promising the crowd lots of chinlocks, I was afraid this run in ROH would be a lot of â€"I’ll be a heel by doing more moves†stuff, but he proved me wrong here.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Tyler Black assaulted Steen, then cut a good promo, which was quite the accomplishment for Tyler at this point in his career.
PPV #1 CONTENDERSHIP QUALIFIER MATCH: Erick Stevens vs. Tyler Black- 6/10
This went less than ten minutes, which is disappointing and surprising considering that these were ROH’s two biggest rising stars at the time (with Tyler that wouldn’t become quite apparent to the rest of us until tomorrow night, but from some of Tyler’s comments during his promo I am fairly confident that Gabe already had his world title victory planned out for Final Battle). They did a great job with the time they had, though.
FOUR CORNER SURVIVAL: Eddie Edwards vs. Delirious vs. Roderick Strong (w/Davey Richards) vs. Necro Butcher (w/Lacey)- 7/10
Well… this is a REALLY random main event, considering that none of these guys but Roddy (and MAYBE Necro could be considered anything close to main eventers in ROH at the time (and even Roddy was on his way down from his challenge for the World Title at Without Remorse, so he hadn’t been positioned as a main eventer since then), and Eddie in particular had never even gotten anywhere close to one.
Eddie had just recently cut off his signature braids and gotten a buzz cut, which, when combined with his blue trunks, made me do a double take every time he was on the hard cam because he looked a lot less like himself than he did like his future tag team partner Davey Richards.
Stuff happened. At one point Daizee Haze ran in and to stop Lacey from interfering and they did a bunch of spots in the ring while the other four wrestlers brawled on the outside. Then everyone just started to brawl on the outside including Lacey and the Haze brawling. Tod Sinclair completely gave up on enforcing the rules like â€"you must tag in and out†or â€"don’t hit people with weapons. They did some It was a clusterf*ck, but a surprisingly fun one.
The fact that they kept reminding us about the movie taping and the short length of most of the match did make this show feel kind of weird, but I thought that the venue and the set-up the movie wanted them to use both looked VERY cool. While the match quality (especially on night one) is really not what we’re used to from ROH, the shows did have some rather important happenings and that big tag match on the second night was definitely worth going out of your way to see, so I would absolutely recommend this show if you can find it, but if you can’t find it, you’re not missing anything ultra-important or super-amazing.