wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Survival of the Fittest 2006
February 6, 2007 | Posted by
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Loading...Ring of Honor — Survival of the Fittest 2006
by J.D. Dunn
For those not familiar with the format of the show, it breaks down like this: You have twelve wrestlers who wrestle in qualifier matches. The winners move on to a six-man elimination match at the end of the show. In 2004, Austin Aries really vaulted to the top of the rankings with his performance and used it as a springboard to a title reign at the end of the year. 2005’s winner Roderick Strong also took a step up, even though he hasn’t quite reach the heights that Aries reached.
And instead of me bringing you up to speed…
ROH Videowire:
So with all that in mind:
Davey uses “Runnin’ With the Devil” as his entrance music, which makes him a perpetual babyface in my book. Speaking of liking random, unimportant things, I don’t care what anyone says, I like the Rohbot arm. Long feeling out process to start, but it feels way too choreographed. Davey starts unloading his Baby KENTA offense with a series of kicks. Sydal nuts up and hits a dragon screw. He sends Richards to the floor and flies out on him with a no-hands tope. Back in, Sydal hits a legdrop and a nice standing moonsault for two. Richards blocks a single-leg takedown, but Sydal counters his Running Lygerbomb with a rana. Davey catches him in mid-air and hits that Lygerbomb he was looking for. It only gets two. Sydal catches him coming off the top with a jumping spin kick and slaps him to stop Richards’ kick combo. Richards hits a springboard into an enzuigiri. Sydal misses his Shooting Star Press, and they go into a series of nearfall reversals ending when Sydal plants Richards on his head with an Impact Driver at 12:23. This started out in a herky-jerky sort of way, like they were imitating wrestling instead of actually wrestling, but once they got more comfortable with each other, it turned out okay. **1/2
Monster pop for Delirious. Heh. “Monster” pop. The Rave toilet paper gag will *never* get old. Delirious, of course, tries to turn it into a comedy match by making Rave chase him around the ring. Jimmy walks out to the entrance ramp and nearly falls down from exhaustion. When the fans start a “Rave’s a pussy!” chant, Delirious tries to keep up, but it sounds like “Raise a posse!” Gotta love Delirious. Rave plays straight man, trying to have a serious match here. Daizee gets in on the act, taking a few shots at Delirious on the floor. Delirious hulks up back inside, though, and hits a flying clothesline for two. He goes nuts and charges right into a spear. Rave goes for Greetings from Ghana (the Pedigree), but Delirious backdrops out of it. He rams Rave into the turnbuckle on a second attempt and rolls him over into the Cobra Stretch at 12:24. Jimmy’s a decent worker who doesn’t have much ring presence (without Prince Nana at his side) and Delirious is all ring presence. You’d think they’d wind up making up for each other’s deficiencies, but instead they just accentuated them. Not much better than average. Rave doesn’t look pleased with Haze. **1/4
This should pick things up a bit. Daniels was ROH’s first big heel in 2002 and 2003. When TNA and ROH had a falling out, he stuck with TNA and had to be written out of ROH. Then, when things cooled off a bit, Daniels made his big return and attacked a heel CM Punk to announce he was back. He still hasn’t been able to recapture that glory he had before he left, though. Aries is coming off a huge tag title loss to Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli, but he pinned Daniels in a tag match at “Gut Check.” Aries controls early with a headlock, prompting a listless dueling chant from the crowd. Daniels eventually reverses to a headscissors and then ducks out of the ring to avoid the inevitable dropkick. They trade hiptosses and counters, and Aries eventually does hit that low dropkick. He goes to work on that well-known bad neck with a bridging reverse chinlock. Daniels comes back with a Death Valley Driver and goes to work on Aries neck. Tit for tat, I guess. They slug it out, and Aries gets his slingshot bodysplash and quebrada combo for a pair of two counts. Daniels gets a sloppy Koji Clutch, but Aries makes the ropes. That move is only really cool when he hits the Flatliner first anyway. A pair of uranages don’t stop Aries from avoiding the Best Moonsault Ever. Aries goes up but gets hit with the Shoryuken. That’s not enough to deter him from shoving Daniels down and hitting the 450-splash for the win at 17:10. Solid work from two guys who are capable of much more. The neck work was a nice idea, but it was mostly lip service. The crowd gave only half-hearted support, but the match was good from a technical standpoint. Aries moves on to the finals, which isn’t much of a surprise, considering he’d go after the title the next night. ***
Before the match, Corny gets defensive about his feud with Homicide and calls the people of Cleveland “ball-less cowards.” Hey, it takes guts to show up at a Browns game! He also asks the Briscoes to hurt Homicide tonight so he can’t take advantage of his title shot in December. When I first saw these guys in CZW, I never, and I mean never, thought they’d be considered enforcers. The rule here is that both guys on the winning team qualify. Strong and Homicide are together more for a “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” reason than actually being allies. Homicide teases his tope con hilo early, but Mark one-ups him by actually hitting a no-hands over-the-top tope. Roderick pairs off with Jay while Mark and ‘Cide go at it in separate brawls on the floor. Referee Todd Sinclair keeps preventing Homicide from using a chair, turning into the biggest heel in the match. Things actually settle down into a real match as Homicide is your thug-in-peril. Sick spot as he backdrops Jay to the floor, and Jay takes the Randy Savage bump. The Briscoes have really toned down their style since the last time I saw them, and it works well for them. ‘Cide eventually gets out of trouble with a Butterfly Suplex and gets the hot tag to Roddy. Guess what move Roderick uses to soften up the Briscoes. Go on. Guess. You’ll never guess. It’s a backbreaker. Actually, two of them. Strong does quite well for himself until Jay trips him up from the outside. It’s not long before Strong winds up caught in the wrong corner. Homicide eventually gets the hot tag with about two minutes to go. Homicide is a veritable house of fire, Tornado DDTing one Briscoe and hitting a tope con hilo on the other. ‘Cide busts out the Triple Verticals and goes up, but Corny sneaks back down to ringside and hands Mark the tennis racket. Mark picks his spot, waits for Homicide to come off the top, and NAILS him with the racket for the win a 19:49. The Briscoes move on with just over 10 seconds left to go before the time limit. This was the usual Corny formula, which I like, and Homicide looked like a worldbeater. Strong was persona non grata, but that was to be expected. I’m not a big fan of this angle, though, so this didn’t do much for me as it probably would for others. ***1/4
Only a 20-minute time limit here, which works against both guys because they went to a 60-minute draw last time out. Danielson actually outwrestles Joe handily in the early going and mocks the crowd’s “Joe’s gonna kill you” chant. Joe weathers the storm, though, and wins a battle of striking moves with a corner enzuigiri. FACEWASH! Danielson charges right into an STJoe and gets sent into the guardrail. Hey, there are a bunch of women in the front row, confirming my theory: chicks dig workrate. Danielson avoids the Olé Kick and hops back in. He rips at Joe’s face and reminds the ref he has ’til five! We hit the midway point as Danielson controls on the mat with a sort of loose Anaconda Vice. He works in the gyrating reverse Indian Deathlock. Who in the hell used to do that?! I want to say Super Delfin, but maybe it was Gran Naniwa. Joe gets pissed and loses his cool, allowing Danielson to take him down and work the knee. Jared David brings up Danielson clipping the knee in the Cage of Death. Suddenly, Joe fires back with an Ace Crusher and rides Danielson down into a reverse armlock. Danielson sets up the Swandive Headbutt with a suplex, but Joe kicks out and spins him down into the STF. Danielson crawls to the ropes, but Joe switches to the Crippler Crossface. Danielson shifts his weight and reverses to Cattle Mutilation. Joe makes the ropes, though. Danielson blocks a senton, but Joe hits an enzuigiri to knock Danielson silly. He goes for the Muscle Buster, but time expires at 20:09. Danielson agrees to five more minutes, so you know something’s up. He offers a handshake and then smashes Joe in the face with it. Then, he stomps it into Joe’s face. He walks out and tells the fans to kiss his ass. I’ve heard complaints about this match being too slow and heatless in the beginning. Well, I can’t argue with the “heatless” part; that’s been a problem all night. However, I will say that I didn’t find any big problems with the work involved. In other words, there was nothing wrong with the match that a good finish wouldn’t cure. Both guys are eliminated from the main event. ***1/2
Lacey cuts off the lame music and cues up Colt Cabana’s entrance. Happy-go-lucky Cabana grabs Lacey for a dance that gives Cleveland a pretty good view of her ass cheeks. Jimmy, of course, pouts in the corner until Colt tries to get Lacey and Jimmy to dance together. Lacey bitches Jimmy out for not being focused on the match, and Jimmy cries again. Colt is so “Trent from Swingers” in this angle, giving Jacobs encouragement that he doesn’t really want and being totally clueless about it. Jacobs does well against Hero, but he and Colt clearly aren’t on the same page as Colt offers a chance to double-team, but Jacobs just walks out and stands on the apron. Colt works in his usual vaudeville act, but never at the expense of wrestling, which is why I’m puzzled that he seems to have been in a holding pattern for the last year or so. Jacobs tires to chase Claudio away from Lacey, but Claudio is about a foot taller. Jacobs runs away from him but runs right into a Hero elbow. Colt gets the hot tag, and they work in a goofy spot where Colt keeps knocking Hero’s ass into Claudio’s face. Jacobs tags back in and goes for the Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B + A, Start, but the Kings counter to the Dislocater. Colt helps out from the outside, and Jacobs gets a Golden Gate Swing for two. Jacobs and Colt try to doubleteam Claudio, but Jimmy accidentally spears Colt. The King’s hit a double-team Hero’s Welcome for the win at 17:28. After the match, BJ Whitmer runs down and brawls with Jacobs. Jacobs goes to Whitmer’s knee, but Colt pulls him off and tries to talk sense into him. Jacobs runs off to listen to some Simple Plan and write on his MySpace blog. This match felt like two halves that didn’t really form a whole. Jimmy and Colt were doing their thing. The Kings of Wrestling were doing their thing. They just happened to be in the ring together at the same time, but it never felt like Colt and Jimmy really cared about winning all that much. I guess, in short, the love triangle overshadowed the match. **3/4
I think this field indicates that ROH wants to build a new star at the expense of the event. Think King of the Ring in its later years. Sydal and Delirious start out, which is probably a good idea, considering the chemistry they’ve shown in past matches. Their opening sequence is surprisingly low-key. Aries tags in and calls out Jay Briscoe. That proves to be a mistake as the Briscoes team up to toss all three of the other guys to the floor. They isolate Sydal to repeat the Generation Next strategy in 2005. Matt escapes, though, and brings in Aries. Austin cleans house until Mark shoves him off the top rope, and the Briscoes hit a Springboard Doomsday Device to eliminate the former champ at 11:19.
The Briscoes LAUNCH Sydal with a press and then toss Delirious to the floor. Delirious and Sydal suddenly turn into Timmy and Lassie. Delirious apparently offers a truce to ensure their survival, and Sydal agrees. It works for a while, but Sydal winds up in the Briscoes’ corner. Matt avoids a slingshot doublestomp, but Mark slingshots to the apron and hits it anyway. Jay delivers a Press Death Valley Driver, but Delirious makes the save to ensure he doesn’t wind up alone in there with them. The Briscoes try another Springboard Doomsday Device, but Sydal counters to a Victory Roll to eliminate Jay at 19:05 .
Delirious and Sydal continue their alliance as they double-team Mark. Sydal gets two off a nice Fisherman’s Suplex. Look at the form! Mark comes back with a T-Bone Suplex and a Springboard Ace Crusher on Sydal. The tandem proves to be too much, though, as Delirious hits the Panic Attack (Cactus Knee in the corner), and Sydal delivers the Shooting Star Press to send Mark home at 23:07.
Delirious doesn’t waste any time, tackling Sydal over the top. Sydal backdrops Delirious to the floor and moonsaults into the crowd after him. They take it back to the ring where Delirious blocks the standing moonsault. Sydal gets two off the Here It Is Driver (Pump-Handle Piledriver). Delirious blocks a rana and hits him with the Panic Attack. The Bizarro Driver (Ki Krusher) gets two, and Delirious locks in the Cobra Stretch. Sydal goes for the Moonsault Belly-to-Belly (a move that has garnered him two wins against Delirious in the past). Delirious blocks and hits the Shadows Over Hell (bodysplash to the opponent’s back). It gets two, but Delirious segues to a Cobra Stretch. Sydal gets out of it and hits the standing moonsault for two. ONE, TWO, THRE——NO! Delirious gets caught going up, and Sydal hits the Moonsault Belly-to-Belly. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! The Shooting Sydal Press misses, and Delirious gets two off the Oklahoma Roll. Sydal takes him down, but Delirious counters to a Cobra Stretch to pick up the big upset win at 34:51. You gotta give credit to Delirious and Sydal. They won over a crowd that was only intermittently into the event. Sydal and Delirious put each other over after the match, although Delirious could have been ordering Chinese food for all we know. What it lacked in star power, the match made up for with effort and character psychology. Hardly a MOTYC, but not everything has to be, ya know. ***1/2
The 411: I'm torn on a recommendation here. There were much better shows for ROH in 2006, and part of the problem I have with this show is the superfluous nature of the undercard where guys are either saving themselves for later in the night or the next night of the double shot weekend. Plus, I question the long-term value of Delirious once people get tired of the gimmick. Good enough to get a recommendation from a wrestling standpoint, but I just wasn't that excited to see any of these matches given limitations of the event. Very mild recommendation. |
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| Final Score: 6.5 [ Average ] legend |
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