ROH Catch-up

Homicide vs Rhino, Best In The World

Fun brawl. Started off pretty hot and they kept it up all the way through. I could have done without Homicide no-selling a table bump, but Rhino looked good. He splattered himself on a missed dive and wrecklessly threw 'Cide around like a sack of potatoes. Post-match table Gore was also sick. Interested to see what they do with Rhino in ROH.

Christopher Daniels vs El Generico, Best In The World

This was not a perfect match, but overall was very good. Daniels turned heel at some point, and he actually wrestles like a heel (begging off, eye-raking, gathering heat, etc) instead of a bland indy dream match guy. Most of the match was pretty heated, and all of Generico's spots looked really good. One awesome moment where they are fighting outside the ring and some emo-looking Daniels fangirl is yelling shit at Generico, so he plants Daniels right in front of her and blasts him with a chop as an unofficial "fuck you". Daniels on offence for a long time dragged a bit, and a lot of his counters don't look organic and feel rehearsed, but the finishing run was pretty great. They did a boo/yay exchange, headbutted each other in the face, Generico teased an apron brainbuster but got launched into the railing before eating a suplex on the outside for a hot count-out nearfall. Generico's counter to the BME also looked sick. Easy MOTN.

WGTT vs The Kings Of Wrestling vs The All Night Express vs The Briscoes, Best In The World (Elimination Match)

Long ass match that was kind of just there. It is actually a little remarkable how this went for 40 minutes or so and was never really actively good nor actively bad. It just happened. The Briscoes/ANX stuff was the only real good point, as they still continue to hate on each other, though it came in the form of cheapshots and the like instead of one big moment or showdown. There was also a big dive train, which ended in Claudio teasing a Ricola Bomb on King OFF the top rope to the outside, but instead ended with a Benjamin leap-up superplex, which I found totally hilarious. The final five minutes were pretty exciting, but that is not enough, and it was obvious no one cared about seeing WGTT vs Kings one more round.

Eddie Edwards vs Davey Richards, Best In The World

I wasn't sure what to expect going in to this, as I have seen it pimped by a lot of people, but they were the same people who pimped Davey vs Tyler and that match was an abortion. Thankfully, Edwards is much better than Black and as a result this was much better. Not great, not even close to the ****3/4 match they were trying for, but I came away thinking it was OK rather than hating it. The main thing the match has going for it is just how absurdly stiff and violent it is. Half way through the match I was actually kind of digging it just because of how much they were beating the crud out of each other. Kicks, chops, shoot head-butts, all were hit with brain-cell killing force. Where the match fell down was on the more important stuff though. From both a structure and story-telling point of view this was a mess. For one thing, neither guy ever had a sustained amount of control in the match. It was too back-and-forth, Edwards gets the upper hand for a few minutes, then Davey takes over, then back again and so on. Really killed the heat for the match as they never built heat up on one of them or established a clear story. Secondly, the first half of the match had Davey specifically targetting Edwards's arm (which did include a sick counter to the backpack jawbreaker and some SICK face-stomps out of a juji attempt), then half way though he stops all together and starts working over his leg with his Kurt Angle imitation Ankle Lock routine. Again, this had a cool Indian Deathlock ankle lock variaton, but you can see where this falls down... especially when the finish was a fucking KO of all things. The crowd barely reacted for the finish for good reason, they did pretty much the exact opposite of build towards it. The "story-telling" moments of Davey talking to Eddie were hilariously forced as is Davey Richards nature, and the end run was a mess, with stupid backdrop trading, a 1-count nearfall off a lariat and some other stuff. The match was getting by fine on shear brutality up until the point where Davey was back on offence a minute after getting 2K1 Bombed on the apron, double stomped through a table then again in the ring all in sucession. That kind of says it all.

Mark Briscoe vs Kenny King, No Escape
Jay Briscoe vs Rhett Titus, No Escape

This was kind of like Bret vs Doink & Lawler from Summerslam '93 - on their own they are two good matches, as an overall package it's great. Granted, this wasn't as good as Bret vs Doink & Lawler, but you get the idea. The angle here was that during both matches their partners would be handcuffed to the ring so they wouldn't interfere. Well, there was still interference as they would get in plenty of cheapshots, but that wasn't a problem. Both matches featured plenty of stiff shots, trash talk, some big bumps and most importantly HATE. I love Mark's punch combo, and half of his match with King was spent wildly throwing each other in the barricades. Jay trying to deflect the "He's a moron" chant towards the ref was awesome. Titus throwing Jay into Mark and Titus's big dive were both cool spots and the big angle with Briscoes using bolt cutters to loophole the situation and beat the fuck out of Titus 2-on-1 style while King goes nuts watching was excellent. Jay scaring the referee out of the ring and then throwing the keys to King's cuffs into the crowd is why he's probably the best guy on the roster right now.

Chris Hero vs Colt Cabana, No Escape

Fun match, but really needed more from Colt to reach the next level. Colt was in comedy mode here and was out there to have a good time. I dug this as a way of throwing Hero off his game and psyching him out early, but the match really needed Colt to get more serious once Hero got the advantage and started beating him up. Even moreso when you consider Hero is higher up in the pecking order than Colt is. Colt does throw some pretty great punches, but his comeback attempt fell flat with the crowd hard, and the ref bump finish was the sort of thing that I grew tired of in Hero matches years back.