wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Breakout
March 29, 2008 | Posted by
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| Ring of Honor — Breakout by J.D. Dunn Be sure to check out The Cool Kids’ Table for indy/Japanese reviews and podcasts from Brad and Jake and the occasional appearance from some 411ers. A good time is had by all… except when my name is dropped, and then there’s an audible groan, but other than that, a good time is had by all. 🙂 What in the hell is with Commandante Cross? Ruckus and Jack Evans are both physically unable to compete, so Matt Cross got the call as an honorary Vulture. Lots of sound and fury signifying nothing early on until Jigsaw blind tags himself in and stretches Mark with a headscissors Octopus and a Gory Stretch. Wow. Who would have thought that Jigsaw would be the one to calm things down? Mark comes back with a sick Triangle Headscissor Haas of Pain. Jigsaw hits stereo DDTs on the Briscoes and gets the hot tag to Cross. Jigsaw and Cross hit a nice superkick into the Code Red doubleteam. Mark drops Cross on his head, though, and Jay finishes with the Jaydriller at 12:15. Jigsaw and Cross didn’t get much respect here (nor should they, really). The Briscoes just kind of let them do their thing until it was time to go home. Too many convoluted spots and no real flow dragged this down. Pacing was good, though. **1/4 Claudio grabs a wristlock on Pearce and will not let go. Pearce tries to roll through, but Claudio rolls with him. Pearce tries to step through the ropes, but Claudio yanks him back in. Pearce tries to whip Claudio to the corner, but Claudio holds on and whips him down. Finally, Pearce just stomps on Claudio’s foot. See, that’s the kind of sequence that is missing in wrestling (and especially the indy circuit). It’s a “game-within-the-game” that doesn’t put anyone at risk and sets up the characters of both guys. Pearce and Hagadorn team up to hot shot Claudio, giving Pearce the advantage. Pearce works him over for a bit. No big moves of note, though. Claudio hulks up and hits the Giant Swing. Pearce blocks an uppercut and hits the Argentine Rack Bomb. That sets up a splash, and Pearce goes for his chain. Claudio catches him, though, and finishes with the Ricolabomb at 9:13. Solid match. Nothing spectacular. I like that it was rooted in story and didn’t really do anything to damage Pearce as he was defeated by his own arrogance. **1/2 Richards put Stevens out with an arm injury late in 2007, so there’s a personal issue here as well as the FIP Title. Aries is a babyface, but he was trending heel up to this show, so he’s probably a wild card. Stevens and Aries put aside their differences to team up against Richards. That lasts until Aries goes for a pin, and Stevens drags him off. The alliance fully dissolves when Aries double-crosses Stevens as he’s going for the avalanche. Aries and Richards try to one-up the other as they kick the crap out of Stevens. They don’t stay allies long, though, and Stevens is able to fight his way back into the match and hit a DOUBLE GERMAN SUPLEX! Aries knocks him to the floor, though, and hits the suicida. Richards tries to finish off Aries with a German Suplex while Stevens is incapacitated, but it only gets two. Stevens catches Richards and Aries and delivers the DOUBLE TKO! Richards Dragon Screws him and slaps on the Texas Cloverleaf, but Aries breaks it up. Horns of Aries, but Stevens breaks it up. Aries sets up for the Brainbuster on Richards, but Stevens knocks him out with a lariat shot. Richards is easy pickings for the Doctorbomb at 14:07. Stevens’ tough guy babyface act is wasted on the ROH faithful, but he would have done much better in FIP. Surprisingly – or maybe not – Richards was just fodder for the other two to play with. The real intrigue was whether or not Aries would go full heel, but it was still just more teasing. It did make the match more interesting, though, with Aries constantly teetering between an alliance with Stevens and Richards at different points. ***1/4 The H3 attack in the aisle, triggering a huge brawl all around the ring. Delirious and El Generico get their bearings and start to dominate. Hagadorn jumps in and STOs Delirious to break up his momentum. That brings out perennial Hagadorn foe Pelle Primeau to wipe out Hagadorn with a springboard splash. Delirious adds the dreaded BLACK MIST to incapacitate the man servant. The Hangmen catch up with Pelle and try to break him in half with doubleteam moves. Delirious pulls out a table and sets it between the ring apron and crowd barrier. The brawl spills out into the crowd, and Delirious gets tossed onto a chair. To ringside, Albright powerbombs Delirious through the table to take him out of the match for a while. Back in, the Hangmen try to finish off Generico with a frogsplash Decapitation, but it only gets two. Delirious makes the save, and Generico splashes Whitmer through a table. The Yakuza Kick sets up Shadows Over Hell, but Adam Pearce runs down, wraps his chain around Delirious’ neck and drags him to the back. That leaves Generico alone with Whitmer and Albright. He gets one desperation rollup, but Albright grabs Generico and knees him in the face until Todd Sinclair is forced to call the match at 19:03. Good booking there. Whitmer and Albright actually have some decent chemistry as a team, even when they’re not brawling. They just need a personality. STAT! The match was the usual wild, all-over brawl, but everything fit well with both the short and long-term booking. ***1/2 Lacey does a lot of choking early on. Alison helps out with more choking from the outside, but Daizee comes back with a missile dropkick for two. Lacey gets cocky, and Daizee jumps her from behind. Daizee finishes with a fluke rollup at 5:28. Not bad necessarily, but really this was just an excuse to get the Age of the Fall out there. *1/2 Matthews actually works a noticeably more mature and measured style than most of the guys in ROH, and it really helps settle down Romero’s worst tendencies – like, say, blitzing his opponent with kicks and high spots regardless of the context of the match. Roderick vaults Romero into a corner dropkick on both AotF members, but Jacobs and Matthews isolate Romero and work over his leg. Strong tags in, giving Romero a brief respite. Sadly, Rocky forgets about the legwork the rest of the way. The AotF hit a cool double superplex on Romero where they actually do it backwards. You have to see it to understand it. Roderick and Rocky block the Contra Code, and Roderick hits a press gutbuster on Jimmy. Matthews eats a corner knee from Romero but hits a Kobashi DDT. Roderick hits Matthews with a backbreaker. Jimmy runs in and goes for the Contra Code, but Roderick blocks. Jimmy improvises and turns it into the End Time. Roderick turns the move into a Tiger Driver and finishes with the Stronghold at 17:44. Started out okay, but they forgot about the first half and just went into their series of finishers like nothing happened in the first 10 minutes. Having the NRC go over here is one of the most bizarre, backwards decisions Gabe has made in recent memory. You take the Age of the Fall, who actually have momentum as characters, and job them to the No Remorse Corps, who have been wandering aimlessly for weeks. It seems like Gabe was trying to justify the existence of the NRC by putting them over an interesting team rather than making the NRC interesting themselves. And jobbing someone out as they’re introducing a new member is something straight out of the WWF/WCW Invasion storyline. **3/4 Black is looking to save face for the Age of the Fall and replicate Jimmy Jacobs’ upset win over Danielson late in 2007. Black at least brought his ball sack to the match, slapping Danielson around and shoving him right in the face after every counter. It’s kind of like Bugs Bunny when he fought that bull and kept slapping him in the face. If Black disappears underneath a giant sombrero, this match gets five stars. Danielson finally gets fed up and slaps Black around like Ike did Tina Turner. Not that I condone that. Danielson stretches Black out with a Mexican Surfboard into a Dragon Sleeper. Even Referee Paul Turner looks worried. A slingshot suplex gets two for Danielson, but Black hasn’t learned his lesson and shoves him in the face again. They take it to the floor where Tyler whips Danielson into the barrier and moonsaults him. Back in, Black slaps him around again and grounds Danielson with a chin hook. Dragon finally goes all Jackie Fargo on his ass and makes the big comeback. Black reverses a suplex and suplexes Danielson to the floor. He adds a Fosbury Flop and the Wall of Death (press into a kick). It only gets two. They exchange rollups, and both guys go for crossbodies. It leads to a double KO spot. Black misses a swing, and Danielson rides him down into CATTLE MUTILATION! Tyler makes the ropes, so Danielson hits a backdrop superplex for two and gives him the trapped elbows. CATTLE MUTILATION! Black holds out and powers up enough to hit a Pélé. Oh, it just comes out of nowhere! The Paroxism (reverse DDT) only gets two, so Black goes up and hits a beautiful Sky Twister Press. ONE, TWO, THRE-Oh, but Danielson grabs him and reverses to a small package for the win at 23:22. Awesome breakout (hey!) performance from Black, and a great story. Black came in cocky and taunting Danielson. Danielson took it for a while, thinking he could always just make the little bitch tapout to get his revenge. Problem: Tyler refused to tapout and kept coming back and gaining strength, so Danielson realized he just had to forego his revenge for Black’s disrespect. By the end, he just wanted to escape with the win. Black looked good but occasionally wrestled out of control. Hopefully, he’ll settle down with time and experience. This was a star-making performance, though. ****1/4 Pinfall, submission or escape wins it. Guess which tack Hero tries. Nigel catches him and lays into him with uppercuts. Hero goes up, so Nigel just goes for the door. Hero freaks out and chases him down. Hero hits his head on the cage while trying to run the ropes, and it distracts him so much that Nigel is able to knock him silly with lariat. Nigel goes for the London Dungeon (stepover armbar). Hero makes the ropes, but it’s meaningless in a cage match. They take turns going for the door with Sweet ‘n’ Sour alternately freaking out and cheering depending on who’s in control. Hero has the bright idea of using a cravat, but that doesn’t last long. Nigel goes up, but Hero dropkicks him and crotches him, messing up Nigel’s knee. Hero takes that opening and works over Nigel’s leg. Tank Toland tosses in a chair, so Hero puts it on Nigel’s knee and stomps it. He one-ups that with a half-crab while sitting on the chair. The crowd chants for Bobby Dempsey, so Hero yells at them to pay attention to him. They humor him with a “Chris is awesome” chant. Hero steps up on the chair and locks in the cravat, but Nigel gives him an uppercut to counter. Hero gets busted open from the mesh. Hero goes up and kicks Nigel away, but he stops to pose on the top rope and crotches himself. Nigel sets up the chair and smashes Hero’s face into it with the Tower of London. Nigel goes for the door, but Sweeney hits him in the head with the door. Paul Turner ejects Sweet ‘n’ Sour, much to the consternation of Tank Toland. Hero goes over the top, but Nigel catches him and delivers the SUPERPLEX off the top of the cage. Bobby Dempsey sneaks back down to ringside as Nigel goes for the door. Bobby opens the door, ready to slam it on Nigel’s head, and the whole arena is just wondering how he’s going to screw it up. Hero sees Nigel going for the door and races to stop him, and THAT’S when Bobby slams the door. Of course, he nails Hero instead of Nigel. Poor Bobby. Nigel goes up the other side and drops down before Hero can get out the door. Nigel retains at 25:33. I always admire it when a match can weave a bunch of different threads together, and this match was no exception. Throughout the show, they were setting up Bobby as their “go-to” guy, which you just knew was going to backfire – it was just a question of how. Hero was his usual goofy self with the chair antics and posing, with his own hubris getting the better of him on several occasions. All Nigel had to do was hang back and play the outmatched babyface. ***3/4 |
The 411: I was lukewarm on the show going into the final two matches. The undercard has a decent brawl and a good three-way match, but some of the booking decisions regarding the Age of the Fall were so bad that it threatened to derail the show. The final two matches not only saved it, but made it one of the best ROH shows of the past few months. Thumbs up for Breakout |
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| Final Score: 8.0 [ Very Good ] legend |
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