wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Manhattan Mayhem
February 13, 2007 | Posted by
8.5
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Loading...Ring of Honor — Manhattan Mayhem
by J.D. Dunn
In a bit of genius booking, Gabe set up virtually every match at this show directly from the last one. The result was solid crowd heat and a lot of anticipation. Plus, Gabe went on and on about how great this show was on the website, so we’ll see if it holds up.
Colt Cabana is live on location from the street, irritating people and making fun of Nigel McGuinness.
Lacey is disappointingly absent tonight, allegedly meeting with P. Diddy. This is not exactly in doubt, since Azrieal is in line for a singles push (it’s odd to think of ROH in those terms, but there it is). Plus, Lacey just spent months creating a brand name in the Angels. They go considerably more spotty here than at “Stalemate,” which actually is more appropriate, considering the stakes here. Deranged does look like a pretty good heel, though. The Angels hit a nice Springboard Ace Crusher, but Deranged tries an arrogant cover. Dixie eventually gets the hot tag and snaps off a German Suplex. The faces try their set-up for the double-stomp, but Deranged pushes Dixie into the way. Azrieal falls for the same move he did at “Stalemate” as Deranged headscissors him into a piledriver at 10:17. **1/2
These two were the losers in the double stakes match at “Stalemate,” and Colt was upset that Nigel didn’t make the save for him. Since these two broke up as a result of Nigel objecting to Colt’s happy-go-lucky outlook, Colt is able to frustrate Nigel by doing his comedy act. Mostly, this involves Colt scurrying around on his hands and knees to escape Nigel. Nigel begins to frustrate Colt just as easily, though. You know how some matches are just a bunch of spots to fill time until the finish? Well, I was about to carp on this match for just being a bunch of reversals until a finish, but all those reversals actually wound up leading to the finish quite nicely as Nigel appears to misjudge where Colt is and “accidentally” drives his foot into Colt’s package for the win at 11:52. After the match, Colt accuses him of nutting him intentionally, but Nigel professes innocence. This one was fun, but it’s mostly just to set up the escalation of their feud over the low blow. **3/4
They do a little retconning by saying that James Gibson apologized for not being at his best during the Super Juniors tournament, so he challenged anyone from New Japan. Actually, he apologized for the poor quality of the tournament and challenged anyone from New Japan for putting Dragon Soldier B in there. Romero brings a lot of the usual moves that go along with the Black Tiger legacy as well as a cache of stiff MMA-style kicks. Gibson says to hell with the wrestling and just plows Tiger into the barrier. Tiger comes back with a missile dropkick but can’t capitalize immediately. BT works Gibson’s neck with a cravat and then rams his head into the corner. Tiger misses a back elbow drop but counters Gibson’s wristlock to a cross-armlock, but Jamie counters that to the Texas Cloverleaf. Great wrestling there. Tiger makes the ropes. Gibson squirms out of a Tombstone attempt, but Tiger counters the Snake Eyes. Tiger rolls through an O’Connor roll into the Tiger Suplex, but it only gets two. Gibson grabs the ropes to block a Fisherman’s Suplex, so Tiger unleashes the stiff kicks and locks in an Anklelock. Gibson reverses to a monkey flip attempt and winds up on top for two. Gibson sets him on top and kicks him, but Tiger catches his foot and reverses to another Anklelock (this time illegal because they’re in the ropes). Tiger stops to jaw with the crowd which doesn’t appreciate his illegal tactics. Gibson counters a crossbody attempt to a gutbuster and rolls through a Northern Lights Suplex into the Front Guillotine at 15:58. Spiffy little evolution of the Malenko-Guerrero series with counters and counters of counters, plus the stiffness of the new New Japan style. Good match all around. ***1/2
Jack is mightily over with the crowd. Of course, so is Jimmy. Strong overpowers Jacobs early, and then Jack serves BJ. BJ slaps Jack out of his Filas and tosses Jacobs onto the challengers. Whitmer and Jacobs fire off a series of nice doubleteams, but GenNext are the masters of crazy doubleteams. For example, Strong stretches Jacobs across the second rope and then flips Jack into a doublestomp on Jimmy’s back. DANGEROUS! They team up for another doubleteam as Roddy suplexes Jack into a 450-splash on Jacobs. Jacobs fires back and counters to a reverse rana to avoid a Doomsday Device move. Whitmer actually gets booed on the hot tag, but he cleans house until getting swarmed by Strong and Evans. They hit him with an impressive-but-silly backflip Demolition Decapitation move. Jacobs and Whitmer team up for their own Doomsday Rana, but Strong hits Whitmer with the backbreaker to ensure they can’t get the pin. Jack hits the moonsault off the British Bulldogs’ old move, but it only gets two. Evans hits a very sloppy top-rope rana for two. The fans are firmly behind Jack here. Whitmer puts Jack on his shoulders, and Jimmy backflips into the Contra Code (or up, down, up, down, left, right, B, A, start, if you prefer) for the win at 14:46. Just a crazy series of murderous doubleteam maneuvers down the stretch. If they could actually hit them with a little more accuracy, it might help, but the thought was there. I fully expect Jack to become paralyzed by 30. ***1/2
Oh, sure. Now Joe likes the Pure Title. Joe fires away at Lethal, but Jay isn’t intimidated and slaps Joe on his ass. Gabe wisely put over the psychology here by booking Lethal in a match with Spanky at “Stalemate.” In both matches, Lethal was overmatched, but because of his familiarity with the rules, he had the advantage. Lethal locks in a reverse hanging surfboard, and Joe uses a ropebreak. Lethal tries a crossbody, but Joe just walks out of his way and punches him in the face. That earns Joe a warning, a fact that puzzles Joe so much that Jay is able to sneak up on him with a neckbreaker. A crossface forces Joe to use another ropebreak. Lethal charges right into an STO. Joe switches to forearms to stay within the rules, but he reacts without thinking and uses another closed fist to lose his last ropebreak. It may not matter as Joe powerbombs Lethal into the STF. Lethal makes the ropes, though. Lethal blocks a Facewash (because he knows Joe, and all) and hits a running dropkick that nearly knocks Joe through the ropes. Lethal hits the Swandive Headbutt for two. Joe blocks his shoulderblock attempt and punts Lethal to the floor, following him out with a tope. Back to the apron, Lethal ducks a lariat and locks in a sleeper against the ropes (which is legal because Joe has used all his breaks). Joe sends them both through a nearby table to break it up. They tease a DCOR before they get back in. Joe hits a snap powerslam for two, but Jay comes back with a flying DDT. Lethal hits a Dragon Suplex but can’t capitalize immediately. He tries another, but Joe reverses to a German, then a Dragon Suplex, then a straight-jacket (Chimera Combo) for the win and the title at 16:36. Excellent psychology and action with the rules allowing Jay to hang with Joe for most of the match. Jay also had a great strategy going in that made the match more interesting than the one-sided affair you might have expected. ****1/4
After the match, the Rottweilers interrupt the celebration and lay down a huge beatdown on Joe and Lethal. The fickle fans start cheering for the Rotts because they’re local and all.
If you don’t know the story behind this, you haven’t been paying attention to the last five reviews. But, since Attention Deficit Disorder is a serious problem, I’ll recap. Punk laughed at the Embassy’s attempts to recruit Spanky, so they attacked him. Punk made his own save and sprayed them with their own air freshener, but in a match with Jimmy Rave, Rave sprayed bug spray in Punk’s eyes and got the upset win. Punk vowed revenge, but at every turn Rave has been able to slip through Punk’s fingers. Rave even tried to take off Punk’s straight-edge tattoo with a cheese grater. Speaking of ADD, Jade Chung forgets to act as Rave’s foot stool again. If you’re wondering why I (and they) keep bringing that up, it becomes important later in the year. Nana tries to use the “Rave is sick” excuse again so they can substitute Mike Cruel, but they already played that card last time. Punk wears a Chris Candido shirt, which makes his choice of words quite poor when he promises someone’s going to die. Rave waits until Punk is tied up in the collar and then runs back down and attacks. Punk fights back and hits the Garvin Stomp. Punk takes it to the floor and grabs a chair, but Rave yanks him into the post. Punk is busted open early, and Rave capitalizes by stretching the chain across Punk’s wound. They replay the spot from the infamous Piper/Valentine match with Rave stretching the chain across Punk’s mouth. He one-ups that spot by curb-stomping Punk’s face into the mat. Rave tilt-o-whirls into the Crossface and uses the chain to augment it. Punk counters Gonorrhea and rolls through the Shining Wizard into a single-leg crab. Punk gets distracted by Nana, though, and Rave is able to crotch him with the chain and hit that running knee. Rave continues his finisher thievery by going for the Pepsi Plunge, but Punk backdrops him over and powerbombs him on the chain. He locks in the Anaconda Vice, but the Outcast Killers interfere. The Pepsi Twist gets two, but Fast Eddie breaks up the count. Punk DDTs Killer Cruel, but Jade jumps him from behind. All this has given Rave a chance to recover, and he gets medieval on Punk’s head with chairshot after chairshot. That gets the win at 13:37. A gaggle of babyfaces saves Punk from another beatdown, and Bower confirms that Punk will get another chance at next week’s show, this time in a cage. Dog-Collar matches require a certain amount of creativity. Unfortunately, for this match, they cheated quite a bit by using a chain that was long enough to allow the wrestlers to get 15-20 feet away from one another instead of confining them to close quarters. So basically, instead of being a hindrance, the chain was just another weapon. As a regular hardcore match, though, it was quite good. ***1/4
This one has been brewing for a while. Aries kicked Shelley out of Generation Next and then broke his arm when Shelley came for revenge. Shelley was out for a month before coming back and earning this match in a bit of an upset at “Stalemate.” They do the “former partners who know each other” thing until Shelley catches Aries in mid-air and plants him with a German Suplex. SNOTTLE ROCKET! He knocks Aries to the floor and follows him out with spinning bodyblock. Aries comes back with a Randy Savage-ish necksnap and a Rope-assisted Roll of the Dice. I love how Aries will pinpoint on a bodypart and go right at it tenaciously. I mean, a lot of guys will attack body parts, but Aries is versatile enough and has a wide enough moveset to target a number of different body parts without it getting boring. Aries drops Shelley right on his head and gets two. He starts his usual nearfall sequence with the slingshot twisting splash for two. Shelley gets the knees up to counter the quebrada, though. Shelley hits a frogsplash and goes for the Border City Stretch, but Aries reverses to an armbar. The ref makes him break because of an illegal fishhook, though. BORDER CITY STRETCH! Aries bites his way out and hits a trio of corner dropkicks. The Cradle Slam sets up the 450-splash, but Shelley moves and hits the SHELLSHOCK! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Aries kicks out. Shelley counters the Crucifix Bomb to an Ace Crusher and hits another SHELLSHOCK! Aries rolls to the ropes to avoid being pinned. Aries kicks Shelley in the head and finishes with the brainbuster and 450-splash at 19:34. Aries was bumped up to the main long ago, while Shelley started an angle about trying to redeem himself, so I didn’t really have much confidence in Shelley taking the belt here. Both guys’ work was okay, but Aries always seems to come in with a strategy while Shelley is just all over the place, making his offense seem desperate and less credible. ***3/4
Post-match, The Rottweilers come back down since Homicide failed in his title match. They allow Aries to walk out, but Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal run down for a little revenge, and we get…
The faces come out fast with a the Hangman’s Facewash, but Homicide hits his tope con hilo and takes over. Lethal plays face-in-peril as the Rotts enjoy torturing him. Homicide holds Lethal up for the double-stomp. Lethal hits the Dragon Suplex, though, and gets the HOT TAG TO JOE! Joe starts killing bitches left and right. STO for Low Ki. Belly-to-Belly suplex to the corner for Homicide. Homicide saves Ki from the Muscle Buster, and Ki knocks Joe out with the double-stomp. Jay fights back against both of the Rotts, but the numbers overwhelm him. Ki and Homicide team up for the Cop Killa assisted by the double-stomp to injure Lethal’s neck at 9:17. Pretty good for an impromptu match, and the final spot is just sickening. **1/2
The 411: ROH promised their best show of the year, and I can't say I disagree. Everything here was either the start of a hot feud, the continuation of a hot feud, or the blowoff to a hot feud. There were a number of different styles, from brawling to technical, to high-flying. No complaints here. Enthusiastic thumbs up. |
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| Final Score: 8.5 [ Very Good ] legend |
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