wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: This Means War II
September 11, 2007 | Posted by
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| Ring of Honor — This Means War II by J.D. Dunn Pelle slaps Steen in the face early, pissing Steen off. He presses Pelle and drops a senton on him. The frontflip legdrop gets two. A Rolling Avalanche gets two more. Pelle comes back with a Springboard Press and a doublestomp. Steen catches him with a Samoan Drop for two, though. A Pump-handle neckbreaker sets up a moonsault attempt, but Steen has to land on his feet when Pelle gets out of the way. Pelle charges but takes a Packaged Alley Oop into the buckle. The Packaged Piledriver finishes Pelle at 4:43. Glorified squash. *3/4 Del Rey makes good use of her power advantage early. Daizee uses some armdrags to come back but messes up on one and gets stomped in the gut. Del Rey kills time with an abdominal stretch and Rolling Fallaway Slams. Haze comes back again with a rana, but the Heart Punch misses. Daizee lands on her feet on a Butterfly Suplex attempt, and she surprises Del Rey with a sunset flip for the win at 5:25. Del Rey is pissed and gets in Daizee’s face about the loss, but it looked clean. ** Slow start with a feeling out period early. Road Warrior Erick definitely looks like the class of the group, though. Edwards and Stevens go Strong Style on one another and won’t let the other guys tag in, so Blade and Generico low-bridge the ropes, sending both Stevens and Edwards to the floor. Stevens responds with a Goldbergesque press into a powerslam on Blade. Blade goes up and gets caught with a German Superplex by Stevens. He lands on Generico, turning the move into a moonsault. Stevens finishes Blade with the Doctorbomb at 11:33. Just another match to put Stevens over as a bad-ass. It would have been a better match with more Generico and Blade, but then it wouldn’t have gotten its point across. **3/4 It was already common knowledge that Cabana was on his way to the WWE at this point, so the crowd chants, “Please don’t go!” and “Thank you, Colt!” As hilarious as their Fifth Year Festival match was, this one just about as funny. It doesn’t have much actual wrestling going on, though, even if Delirious does open up with a Masterlock. Colt takes Delirious down into an Indian Deathlock, and then he enlists Todd Sinclair’s help to get out of it when Delirious makes the ropes. Delirious yanks Colt’s boot off at one point. Colt tickles his way out of a trapezes hold. They crawl under the ring, and Colt emerges wearing a mask. They go back underneath, and now Delirious emerges with Colt’s mask, and Colt emerges with Delirious’ mask. Colt does a pretty good Delirious impression before hitting a series of corner clotheslines. The buttalanche misses, though, and Delirious goes to work on the ass. ASS PSYCHOLOGY~! The Picture-Perfect Elbow to the ass misses. Cabana hits the buttalanche but hurts himself in the process. He tries a sunset flip, but Delirious uses the Stampede Counter for the win at 11:07. Fun stuff, and it’s nice to see wrestlers who don’t take themselves so seriously yet can entertain just as much as the guys with big egos. *** Mark still has that head injury, so Jay is trying some singles wrestling for a while. Obviously, if Claudio can get the win, he increases his chances at getting a title shot. Lots of back-and-forth early. Claudio gets the Giant Swing. They take turns cutting off each other’s charges before unleashing the uppercuts on one another. Jay wipes out Claudio with a clothesline and a somersault plancha. Back in, Jay gets two off a frogsplash. A strait-jacket suplex gets two more. Jay boots Claudio in the face, though, and hits a DVD. Claudio sets him on top for a superplex, but Jay reverses to the SUPER GOURDBUSTER! Claudio hits a springboard uppercut, though, and finishes with the Apomari Waterslide at 11:06. **3/4 Albright took a payoff to get rid of Homicide late in 2006, and now Homicide is out for revenge. Albright jumps him before the bell, and they quickly take things to the outside where Albright goes into the barricade. Smokes: I hate yo stank ass! The brawl goes up into the stands and back again where Homicide tries a rana off the railing. Albright blocks and slings Homicide’s head right into the barrier. Smokes gets in a few shots, so the referee sends him to the back. Back in, Albright sets up for the superplex, but Homicide shoves him into the tree-of-woe and hits a baseball slide. A Facewash gets two, but Albright comes back with the 619 Knee and Rolls the Dice for two. Homicide hits the Triple Verticals and goes up, but Albright rolls to the apron. Homicide gets down and shoulderblocks him through a table below. Back in, Albright avoids a charge, and Homicide posts himself. Albright hits a Half-Nelson Suplex for two, and a second one finishes Homicide at 16:00. The match was kind of clunky, and I didn’t really feel the hatred that the match really deserved, considering Albright tried to cost Homicide the title that he’d been chasing for four years. Part of that is probably Albright’s robotic style. **1/4 Evans uses the usual flippy moves to frustrate Shingo early, but he gets cute, and Shingo catches him with a spinebuster. Jack comes back with a nice handspring kick and a springboard into a huracanrana. Shingo falls to the floor, so Jack hits a somersault plancha. Back in, Shingo catches Jack coming off the top and hits a rope-assisted DDT for two. A Helicopter Bomb gets two more. Jack cartwheels right into a facebuster for two. A lariat gets two more. They fight on top, and Shingo falls back into the tree-of-woe. Jack comes off with a double-knee and finishes with the 630-senton at 9:00. This was…almost exactly what I expected. That’s neither criticism nor praise. They just kind of did their thing and went home. **1/2 The Resilience storms the ring for a big brawl. It settles down into Cross and Romero before Roderick wants a tag. Aries tags in too, and now Roderick gets a “case of the limber tail” as Jim Ross might say. Stevens tags in and cleans house on the NRC, even hitting the Choo-Choo Train Elbow. Aries tags in but gets chopped off the top rope by Richards. Aries plays face-in-peril for a while before tagging out to Stevens. Stevens cleans house again, and the Resilience hits a cool series of charges to the NRC in the corner. Stevens sets up for the Doctorbomb, but Richards breaks it up with the handspring kick. That allows Strong to hit the Tiger Driver to eliminate Stevens at 12:01. Good showing from Erick. Cross immediately assumes the face-in-peril role as the NRC starts to triple team. Richards mocks Aries’ Pendulum Elbow, so Aries runs in and slaps him right in the back. Cross hits Richards with an enzuigiri and tags Aries. Aries hits a quebrada on Richards and Strong and uses the Finlay Roll. Cross comes back in with a double-stomp. Cross fakes out the NRC, and then Aries wipes them out with a suicida. Richards cuts off Cross’ dive, hits the Alarm Clock, and finishes him with the DR Driver at 21:43. That leaves Aries alone in a 3-on-1. Aries fights back, reversing a suplex to a small package. He knocks out the NRC with Roaring Elbows and sets up for the 450-splash on Richards. Strong distracts him long enough for Richards to roll out of the way, though. Strong hits a press gutbuster, and Romero gets the honor of finishing off Aries with a series of roundhouse kicks and the Tiger Suplex at 27:44. Wow. That was a dominating performance by the NRC. Stevens looked good in the loss, though. The NRC tries to continue the humiliation, but Delirious runs in with the Section C sign to make the save. ***1/2 Hero looks to have lost a significant amount of paunch since last I saw him. The Brits isolate him early and fluster him with their wacky British style. They work the arm for the most part, but Hero goes to the eyes and tags in Morishima. The champ gives Williams a knee to the head and lets Hero do all the dirty work. Nigel gets the hot tag and cleans house on Hero until Morishima makes the save. Hero works in the Taue’s chokeslam. Nigel hits a few Eurocuts on Takeshi. Williams adds a kneedrop for two. Hero tags in and hits the Shiranui for two. Nigel blocks the Go2Sleep but runs into a knee. The Brits hit a doubleteam Tower of London. Nigel tries the Jawbreaker Lariat, but Morishima shoves Hero out of the way and catches Nigel with the Bossman Slam. He follows it up with the Backdrop Driver for two. The ending is overly complex with Williams helping Nigel flip out of another Backdrop Driver and knocking Hero into Morishima, allowing Nigel to rebound and NAIL Hero with the Jawbreaker Lariat at 18:57. Nigel says he’ll have more of the same for Morishima. Hero provided some entertainment by working in all the big-name Japanese moves. It didn’t quite click with me the way a lot of ROH main events do. *** |
The 411: This was an inauspicious post-Joe show as ROH tried to shift the focus to the gang wars and Nigel's chase. Nigel's pursuit of the title doesn't work nearly as well as it did last year, in part because Morishima doesn't have as much heat as Danielson did. Like Akira Taue, he's just kind of…there. The show isn't bad, by any means, but it doesn't have a lot to recommend either. Mild thumbs down. |
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| Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]  legend |
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