wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Caged Rage
January 16, 2008 | Posted by
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| Ring of Honor — Caged Rage by J.D. Dunn So, last time out Morishima successfully defended against Claudio Castagnoli and Brent Albright. Tonight, he defends against both guys in a 3-way elimination match. Of course, Bryan Danielson is on the horizon. The Resilience and the No Remorse Corps nearly tore the house down (literally) in their street fight, but Aries still hasn’t gotten a measure of revenge from when Strong turned on him months ago. Jack Evans also got laid out by Strong, so now he’s looking for revenge in a cage match. Kevin Steen & El Generico seem to have figured out tag team champions the Briscoes, beating them in a non-title tag match and then in separate singles matches. Tonight, they face off inside of a steel cage! If you happened to notice that two of those feuds would result in cage matches, then you realize why this show is called… CAGED RAGE! I’m convinced Hero can get to *** just through the sheer lovable stupidity of his act. Hero dominates in between gymnastic exhibitions. He and Del Rey do some jumping jacks, so Dempsey runs over to get in a few squat thrusts. That gives Hallowicked the perfect target for a suicida. Hallowicked puts on a good showing, but Hero takes over and finishes with the Hero’s Welcome at 7:31. Well, it’s not *** but then Tank Toland wasn’t present, so he may be the x-factor there. ** If Domino and John Morrison had a kid, it would be Rhett Titus. Jacobs is making his big return after injuring his knee in the big blowoff with BJ Whitmer. Jacobs seems surprisingly chipper for discovering that love had no significance. Titus cheapshots him off a corner break. If he can ever back it up in the ring, I think Titus might be a breakout star. He definitely has the airhead heel shtick down. He stops to pose, though, allowing Jacobs to dropkick his head into the ringpost. Titus goes to work on Jacobs’ injured knee. He gets two off the Bridging Humping Suplex. Yeah, you really have to see it to understand that. The spastic legdrop misses. That allows Jacobs to hit a senton and finish with the front choke at 7:51. ** Whitmer has new music. I don’t think it will help him, though. In fact, everyone but Pearce has new music. The fans start a “Fire Whitmer” chant, but the other fans drown them out. Pearce gets in Delirious’ face and slaps him around for sitting in the corner all the time. The bell rings, so Delirious goes crazy on him like Ann and Nancy Wilson. The formula for the match is BJ and Nigel handling the wrestling while Delirious and Pearce do the comedy stuff. It works quite well. Nigel nails Pearce with an uppercut at one point, so Pearce bails. Delirious follows him out with a somersault bodyblock. Back in, Nigel locks in an overhand hammerlock, but he’s not legal. It’s not long before everyone just starts throwing out big moves. Delirious saves Whitmer from Pearce. Remember that for later. Whitmer turns around right into the Jawbreaker Lariat at 8:29. Too short, and they just started hitting move after move only a few minutes in and never really let up. **1/4 See, Austin Aries was dissatisfied with the performance of the Resilience, so he put it all on the line here. If Stevens or Cross get pinned, they’re out of the group and the person who pinned them gets their spot. If Aries himself is pinned, the Resilience is disbanded. It was supposed to be Pelle Primeau on the jobber team, but Davey Richards takes him out before the match in order to get a shot at finishing off the Resilience once and for all. Blade and Cross do a little speedy guy exhibition early. Edwards and Stevens tag in. Honestly, I always thought they’d make a good team. Not much of note. Aries demands to get in there with Richards, and the Resilience starts kicking his ass. They almost seem to be playing heels (outside of Stevens, who is now hugely over). Aries hits Blade with the Stroke. Yeah, we get it. Jarrett’s an ass. Don’t turn into Bret Hart over it. Richards cuts off the 450-splash. Edwards and Cross blitz him with doubleteam moves. Aries plays face-in-peril for a while until the ref turns his back. Aries goes low on Richards and tags Stevens who cleans house. Cool sequence as Blade prepares for a dive, but Aries just spins him inside out with a clothesline. Richards tosses Aries and starts his own dive, but Cross takes him out with a missile dropkick. Cross busts out the Space Flying Tiger Drop on the pile. Back in, Edwards and Blade team up for the old Bad Company thrust kick/German Suplex combo on Cross. Stevens makes the save. Richards blocks an Aries sunset flip by using the ropes, but Cross knocks him over with the 619. Blade gets fired up and charges Stevens, but he gets lofted up and lands flat on his face. Stevens and Aries team up for an Au Revoir-type move, and Cross adds a doublestomp at 17:12. *** I really don’t get the appeal of PAC. He has a lot of flashy moves, but a lot of guys (and the Rock means A LOT) have flashy moves and a better look. He hits a few moves early, but Danielson gets surly and starts squashing him. Pac comes back with his usual array of high-flying moves. He tries a twisting quebrada and barely grazes Dragon. Back in, Pac gets a Stampede missile dropkick. He blocks a charge and hits a Shadow Star Press (Shooting Star Press to a standing Danielson). ONE, TWO, THR-NO! He tries a twisting press, but Danielson gets his knees up. That leads to some SICKENING stomps to the face. This man has no conscience. That leads to the Triangle Choke at 12:39. Pac played the part of Matt Sydal quite well. **3/4 Morishima defeated both guys in one-on-one matches, so we’ll see if this changes anything. The challengers team up for a double suplex, so Morishima just hangs out on the floor, letting the others duke it out. Claudio says, “To hell with that!” and dives out with a suicida. Back in, Claudio goes for the Ricolabomb, but Morishima backdrops out of it. Claudio actually busts out the Giant Swing on Morishima. That gets two. Morishima tries to buttbump Albright, but Brent turns it into a German Suplex. Morishima goes up, fighting Albright off, and nails Claudio with a missile dropkick. Claudio fights back and hits the Apomari Waterslide. Albright hits the champ with a Half-Nelson Suplex, but he can’t keep him from rolling to the floor. Claudio sneaks up on Albright and hits another Giant Swing. That sets up the Ricolabomb attempt, but Albright blocks and sets him on top. Claudio knocks him back and comes off… into a Crowbar. Claudio rolls through and rolls up Albright to eliminate him at 11:15. Morishima is out of it, so Claudio tosses him back in and sunset flips him for two. RICOLABOMB! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! The fans think that should have been it. Claudio tries a German Suplex but collapses under Morishima’s weight and nearly gets counted down. He runs into a Bossman Slam, and Morishima squashes him with a doublestomp off the second rope. The Backdrop Driver finishes Claudio at 15:23. The crowd is all over Todd Sinclair after that one. Claudio is hugely over, though, and had a breakout month of August. ***1/2 Evans and Strong used to be a tag team back in the days of Generation Next. Strong wanted to go out on his own, though, so he turned on both Evans and Austin Aries. Evans tries his speed early but misses a rana and gets clubbed. Strong launches him into the cage with a crucifix toss. Evans gets occasional bursts of offense, but Roderick always cuts him off when he gets out of control. Jack goes for the tree-of-woe knees, but Roderick just sits up and drags him off. Finally, Jack crotches Roddy on the top rope and springboards off the top of the cage into a kick. They brawl on top, and Jack busts out a sick Victory Star Drop that lands Roderick right on his head. Roderick gets tied in the tree-of-woe again, and this time, Jack goes all the way up and hits the double knees! Evans goes up again, but Roderick powerbombs him off the top of the cage and follows with an elbow for the win at 12:18. Short and disappointing. Jack hit a few impressive moves, but this wasn’t on par with their best work. It did set up Jack finally going out and assembling his own crew, something he’d been promising for months. *** Steen & Generico are already in the cage, so when the Briscoes arrive, they just kick the door right into Jay’s face. The brawl is on! Steen catches Mark crawling up the cage and just tosses him into the crowd. The Briscoes finally get their bearings and turn the tide. They finally get back in, and it’s a two-on-one with both Briscoes clubbing a bloody Kevin Steen. Generico recovers and assists Steen on a slingshot. He adds a Michinoku Driver to Jay for two. The match devolves into more of a straight brawl, which is fine by me. Finally, Steen & Generico get the bright idea of tossing Jay out of the cage and isolating Mark. They blitz him with a few moves, and Steen gets two off the Fisherman’s Neckbreaker. Jay finally drags Steen to the floor and whips him into the barrier. Jay and Steen fight on top of the cage, and Jay knocks him off through a table. That leaves Generico alone with the Briscoes, and they quickly finish him with a Spiked Jaydriller at 16:26. They seemed to want to do a cross between an old-school brawl like the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express against the Andersons and a more modern Hardy Boyz spotfest. Not a classic, but a decent addition to their feud. **1/2 |
The 411: Using the rule of thumb of "three good matches and no bad matches" this gets a solid thumbs up. I was a little disappointed that the two cage matches didn't deliver "epics" like I thought they were capable of. The result was one of those solid shows with no real weak points but nothing so outstanding that you *have* to see it. Solid thumbs up. |
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| Final Score: 7.0 [ Good ] legend |
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