wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Motor City Madness 2007
January 30, 2008 | Posted by
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| Motor City Madness 2007 by J.D. Dunn This show takes place one night before ROH’s third PPV, “Man Up.” Silas comes out to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'”, thus making him my favorite wrestler ever. I think that could be one of those “Final Countdown”-ish entrances. He looks a little like a small BJ Whitmer, though, so it’s going to be hard for him to get over in ROH. I’ll say this for him: He does look like an actual wrestler, which is more than I can say about a lot of the other underneath guys ROH uses. He does a pretty good sequence with Richards too. He doesn’t do anything flashy, but he actually works well with Richards. Richards takes over on him and works the arm. Young comes back with the Finlay Roll and a split-legged moonsault. He gets caught going up, though, and Davey throws him off. Silas blocks a running boot but gets hit with a lightning leg line. Richards gives him a German and rides him down into the Chimera at 8:25. Young didn’t show me anything that made me think he’d have a bright future in ROH, but he did look like he might get a cup of coffee in the WWE. He just has that style. **1/4 Awesome spot as Franklin goes up top, but King cuts him off with an enzuigiri. The YRR team up for Poetry in Motion only Rance springboards off King into a big boot, sending Franklin all the way to the floor. A sitout powerbomb/neckbreaker finishes Payne at 3:00. Brisk squash. 3/4* Kenny King looks like he has money written all over him, which makes this performance even more disappointing. Danielson takes him down pretty quickly and applies the crossface. Dragon just starts blithely going through submission moves until Rance distracts him from the outside. King gets a few good shots, but Danielson nails him with the roaring elbow and gets submission with a triangle choke at 4:12. 3/4* Danielson is pissed because Rance took a cheapshot at him, so he challenges him on the spot. Rance reluctantly accepts and promptly gets his fucking head kicked in – almost literally. Danielson pulls Rance’s arms and stomps him in the face and head until the ref is forced to stop the match at 0:41. Danielson looked like a world-beater, but the YRR was given a basketful of berries. Did I not say that right? 1/4* Winner here goes on to take on Morishima for the title later in the night. Delirious and Stevens both go after Roderick, of course. Steen just seems to be along for the ride to stir things up. This is one of those “a lot is happenin’, but nuthin’s goin’ on” matches. There is one cool spot as Stevens calls for the choo-choo avalanche, but Strong absolutely NAILS him with a flying kick to cut it off. Strong and Stevens start chopping it out. They take turns countering each other’s finishers. Strong hits a Northern Lights Bomb (the Snow Plow) so Steen hops in and jumps Roderick from behind. Delirious wipes out everybody and puts Stevens in the Cobra Stretch. Steen makes the save but gets tossed out again. Stevens and Delirious trade blows, and Stevens gets the upper hand. The Doctorbomb finishes at 12:57. The crowd isn’t impressed with the result, but he was the most logical choice for a good match. The match was okay, but it’s a four-corner match. I wish they would adhere to the “two guys on the outside” formula instead of just throwing out a clusterfuck every time. **3/4 This is just before the Age of the Fall but well after Jacobs had started doing Lacey, so she is positively beaming over him. That’s odd to see, but it’s nice to see that Lacey can basically play four variations on her character: messed-up raver chick, domineering businesswoman, smitten kitten, and finally obsessive emo woman. Hero works in his gymnastics display for his own amusement. Jimmy just waits for him to finish and then restarts the match where he left off. Jimmy hits a satellite headscissors and clotheslines Hero to the floor. Jacobs hits a suicida, but poor Bobby Dempsey takes the brunt of it. Hero takes over after that thanks to some chicanery from Toland and Del Rey. Of course, he gets cocky, and Jacobs is able to spear him to come back. Hero gets two off a Cravat snapmare. He tries it again, but Jacobs reverses to a Guillotine Choke. Hero counters to a release suplex. He gets two off the Dislocator (Canadian Backbreaker into a Flapjack). Dempsey and Sweeney distract the ref while Del Rey tries to interfere. Lacey hops in and takes her out, though. That leads to a big brawl between the two. Hero jumps Lacey from behind and sets up for another Dislocator, but Jacobs saves. That leads to a DDT into another Guillotine Choke. This time, it’s enough for the win at 16:25. After the match, Dempsey attacks from behind and gets choked out. Fun match. We did get to see Jimmy’s mean streak come out at the end, foreshadowing his turn the following night. *** Prazak sells this is a “one-time only” dream match. That’s taking it a bit far. Generico hits about a dozen different variations of armdrag to start. Marufuji takes things to the floor and dropkicks Generico into the barrier. Ouch! Generico seems to be cut open along his back. Back in, Generico tries to chop his way out, but Marufuji cuts him off with a dropkick. Generico keeps blocking the powerbomb, though. He hits a flying splash and a sitout powerbomb for two. Marufuji fights back, though, and curbstomps his face. That leads to a Butterfly Powerbomb into a cross armlock. That’s such a cool move. Generico turns out of it and hangs Marufuji in the tree-of-woe. He “hits” a springboard coast-to-coast. Cool spot as Marufuji hits a flying elbow into the corner, but Generico follows him out and hits him right in the face with a boot. That sets up a Falcon Arrow! ONE, TWO, TH-NO! Marufuji catches Generico going up and hits him with an uppercut. SHIRANUI! ONE, TWO, THRE-Generico gets the foot on the ropes. Marufuji’s coast-to-coast dropkick misses, and he goes for the top-rope shiranui. Generico blocks and tries for the turnbuckle brainbuster, but Marufuji blocks that and hits the top-rope shiranui for the win at 20:23. In a classy move, Marufuji leads the crowd in a round of “Olé.” A surprisingly competitive and entertaining match. ***1/2 Holy shit, it’s Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oh, wait. That’s just BJ Whitmer. BJ and Nigel exchange reversals, and BJ shows his new mean streak by turning and swiping at Claudio without provocation. Nigel and Claudio make him pay by pinballing him with European Uppercuts. Claudio works in the Naniwa Crab Elbow. Finally, Whitmer backs Claudio into his corner so that Albright can get a few shots in. Claudio plays face-in-peril. Nothing of note really happens. Albright wrestles like he’s auditioning for the fifth member of Demolition. Nigel eventually gets the hot tag and cleans house. Claudio takes out Whitmer with a suicida. Back in, Whitmer hits Claudio with a German Suplex, then a Dragon Suplex, but he turns right into a lariat from Nigel. Nigel is pumped, but he misses Albright returning to the ring and tossing him overhead with a Half-Nelson Suplex at 16:32. It’s just hard to get excited about BJ and Albright as a team. **1/2 Evans hot dogs his way to the ring and pays for it when Rocky just runs out and kicks him over. Serves him right. Inside, Romero hits a running kick, knocking Evans for a loop. Evans hits a flipping dropkick and gets on the mic, proposing that they turn the match into a Street Fight. Romero is cool with that so he grabs a chair and charges in. Jack kicks it back in his face, though. They take it to the floor where Romero catches Jack getting cute again and belly-to-bellies him into the crowd. Jack rips off Matt Cross’ walk-the-wall spot and hits another flipping kick. Back to ringside, Evans tries to springboard off the railing and goes splat. Romero wedges a chair in between the ropes, but Jack hits a corkscrew kick. Romero gets serious and targets Jack’s ankle, looking for the Anklelock. He nails Jack’s ankle with the chair and goes for the Anklelock, but Jack small packages him for two. Jack gets two off another rollup and flips out of a powerbomb. He tweaks his ankle on the landing, though, allowing Rocky to kick him into the wedged chair. That leads to Romero kicking Jack’s lights out with a buzzsaw kick. He opts to set up a table instead of pinning Jack. That can’t be good. Jack fights him off and puts Romero through the table with the jumping knees at 14:20. Jack gets a measure of revenge. **3/4 The fans are really not into Stevens, which is odd because he was hugely over after the street fight a few weeks earlier. He unleashes a flurry on Morishima, but Takeshi buttbumps him to cut off the offense. To the floor, Morishima hits the Olé buttalanche. Back in, Morishima grounds him with a camel clutch but misses a missile dropkick. Stevens powerslams him for two. He hits a running clothesline on the outside as the fans begin to warm up to him. Back in, the Choo-Choo sets up a Doctorbomb attempt, but Morishima backdrops out of it. Stevens catches him in a TKO! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! German Suplex! Lariat! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Oh, sure. *Now* the fans love him! DOCTORBOMB! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! He tries another German, but Morishima squats down on his chest. Morishima casually nails him with a lariat and hits a second one that spins Stevens head over heels. That leads to the Backdrop Driver at 9:53. It took the cynical fans a while to get into it, but once they did, they were buying every nearfall. Stevens gets a standing ovation after the match. *** The Resilience are trying to salvage some dignity after months of playing the No Remorse Corps’ whipping boys. In a nice bit of retroactive continuity, Prazak explains that if the Resilience wins the titles here, the PPV match becomes a triple threat. Aries outwrestles the Briscoes early, but they start double-teaming him. He makes his own save, hits the Stroke, and tags in Cross. Cross cleans house with a missile dropkick and a suicida. Cross and Aries work in the catapult/forearm/slingshot elbow sequence that Strong and Aries used to do. It’s just not as crisp, though. Jay plays Ricky Morton to the Resilience’s brisk teamwork. He boots Cross right in the face, though, and tags in Mark. Now Cross is caught in the wrong corner. Prazak stops to talk about the cryptic internet messages aimed at the Briscoes. Leonard cuts him off and tells him they’re not supposed to talk about it. This would be so much better if it were on television or something because by the time this came out, the Age of the Fall had already debuted and started jobbing. Matt gets out of trouble and tags Aries. Aries gets a huge pop as a cleans house on the champs. They go for the Crucifix Neckbreaker, but Cross breaks it up. Cross and Aries team up for a spiffy Triple Jump doublestomp. Aries goes up but gets shoved off. Cross follows him up and hits an SSP! ONE, TWO, THR-Jay makes the save. Aries breaks up the Springboard Doomsday Device, and Cross rolls Jay up. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Mark kicks Aries in the face, and the Briscoes hit the Spiked Jaydriller at 19:12. This was okay just by the sheer talent level, but it didn’t really click like it could have. **3/4 |
The 411: This was another one of those first-night-of-a-doubleshot shows that had decent wrestling on it, but it felt like they were holding back the good stuff. And, as it turns out, they were. Nothing will blow you out of the water, but it's a top-to-bottom solid card. Mildly recommended. |
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| Final Score: 6.5 [ Average ] legend |
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