wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Bloodstained Honor
Loading...
| Ring of Honor — Bloodstained Honor DVD by J.D. Dunn This was ROH’s way of elevating both the World and Tag Titles by feuding the champions with one another. Jay Briscoe won a title shot in late 2003 at Beating the Odds, but he couldn’t defeat Joe. Jay’s brother Mark also tried unsuccessfully to wrest the title, even with the help of uber-manager Jim Cornette. What they did get was Joe’s attention, so he decided he’d get a partner and go after their tag titles. While Joe had the advantage in singles matches, tag team wrestling was where the Briscoes excelled, so despite the fact that Joe was able to recruit some impressive partners (Bryan Danielson and Jerry Lynn), he was never able to defeat them. Now, Jay Briscoe has one final chance to take the World Title from Joe. Jay immediately tries to scale the cage, but Joe drags him down and headbutts his wrist, trying to break it. Well, that’s a good strategy. Jay gets busted open early, and it’s a gusher. The storyline is set up pretty quickly as Jay tries to use his quickness on several occasions to avoid Joe and dart for the door. Joe, on the other hand, just wants to destroy Jay. In fact, Joe kicks open the door and, instead of just walking out, he chains them both in the ring just so he can deliver more punishment. Jay hits a backdrop superplex and goes up. Joe catches him, but Jay hits a Super Ace Crusher for a double KO spot. Jay low blows his way out of a Dragon Suplex. They battle it out on the top rope. Jay knocks Joe back in but collapses himself. Joe recovers and hits Jay with an Olé Kick, but a second one knocks a hole in the cage. Jay tries to scurry through the hole with help from Mark, but Joe drags him back in and applies the STF. Jay refuses to give up even though he has strands of dried blood hanging off his forehead. Jay boots him and HITS THE JAYDRILLER! Jay is out, though, and can’t cover. Mark Briscoe goes up to interfere, but AJ Styles runs down and gives him the Styles Clash on the floor. Jay goes up, but Joe recovers and catches him on the top of the cage. SUPER MUSCLE BUSTER! ONE, TWO, THREE! Joe retains and blows off the feud at 14:16. Jay was totally overmatched in there, but he used his resourcefulness to keep things interesting. The Jaydriller even had people believing for just a moment. His sickening blade job is truly a sight to behold as well. This one seems to have been forgotten because it’s from the era that people don’t like to talk about, but it’s definitely worth a look for a great example of a blowoff match. ****1/4 This is a home match for the Second City Saints and was part of a residual feud from CM Punk and Christopher Daniels after Daniels enlisted BJ Whitmer to attack Punk’s girlfriend Lucy (Daffney). The Prophecy stalls forever and threatens to leave. Finally, they get in and catch a whoopin’. They finally turn the tide and brawl with the SCS on the outside. Maff argues with a fan. Back in, the Prophecy take off their belts and start whipping Punk and Steel. Punk is busted open, and Maff chokes him with the belt. To the floor again, Punk and Steel storm back and toss Maff’s face into the barricade. Punk dives over the barricade and wipes out Maff and Whitmer. Back in, Punk hits a few Facewashes. Everyone’s bleeding at this point. Punk tries to crack open BJ’s skull and brings in a barbed-wire 2×4. Maff goes low on him, though, and BJ hits a Russian Leg Sweep with the 2×4. They smash it into Punk’s crotch. Steel gets more of the same. The Prophecy introduces a barbed-wire panel and drops Punk on it. They set up the barbed-wire board in the corner, and Maff puts Punk through the board with a cannonball. The match grinds to a halt as the ref frees Punk from the barbed-wire. All four men grab chairs and ready for the duel. The Prophecy hauls off and nails both of the Saints with chairshots. The Saints come back and hit their own. The Prophecy fire each other up and smash the Saints in the head. Punk and Steel hulk up and DESTROY Maff and Whitmer. The Prophecy fall to the floor and start tossing chairs in, so Punk and Steel do the same, causing the fans in attendance to throw their chairs in, and we get a replay of the old ECW match with Foley and Funk. Once the rain of chairs is done, the teams get back in. Maff drops Punk on the chairs with a suplex, so Punk hits one of his own. To the floor, Maff stretches a ladder across the barricade and apron, but Steel jumps him and puts Maff on there instead. Punk comes off the top and splashes Maff on the ladder. That leaves Whitmer and Steel as the only two guys able to walk. There’s a table set up in the ring, so Steel sets up to splash BJ through it. BJ pops up and goes for the Super Exploder. Steel blocks and reverses to a SUPER TOMBSTONE THROUGH THE TABLE! ONE, TWO, THREE! The Saints pick up a hard-fought win in a sick and memorable match (27:41). We’ve seen most of the spots before in death matches, but there were a lot of little moments (and some not so little moments, like the chairs) that put this one well ahead of the also-rans. **** Punk laughed at the Embassy’s attempts to recruit Spanky, so the Embassy 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. Nana tries to use the “Rave is sick” excuse again so they can substitute Mike Kruel, 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 was ROH’s attempt to go toward a more conventional style of epic blowoff like the old NWA Wargames matches. These two factions wound up at each other’s throats when Roderick Strong wound up sticking up for Jade Chung. You know the rules. The first two guys wrestle for five minutes. After that, the team that wins a coin toss gets to send another guy in for a two-on-one. The one big change from the original Wargames is that it is elimination rules, and a wrestler can be eliminated at any time. Aries and Rave start, but Rave spends most of their segment running away from Aries. Aries gets sick of the running and dropkicks Rave, crotching him on the top rope. Aries just plays around with Rave until former GenNexter Alex Shelley runs down in a GenNext shirt to mock Aries. Aries dropkicks a chair into his chest to take the piss out of Shelley. Aries acquits himself well, hitting a springboard back elbow on both guys and then tossing them into the cage. The numbers are just too much, though, as Shelley and Rave team up with a spear/clothesline combo. They team up again for an assisted chinlock and then the old MPro chinlock/dropkick combo. High-flying newbie Matt Sydal evens things up for GenNext. He avoids Shelley’s knees and then shooting star presses off Rave’s back to pick up a two count. GenNext does a do-si-do Rocker-style into a double punch. They work in a really goofy double bow-and-arrow move that they must have picked up from AAA at some point. Abyss comes in for the Embassy, and boy does his monster gimmick ever work better in ROH where there are a plethora of sub six-footers. Sydal and Aries charge him, but Abyss no-sells and tosses them around like rag dolls. He hits an Argentine Rack Drop on Aries. Funny moment as Shelley offers a high five for the move and then leaves Abyss hanging, so Abyss gives himself an Embassy high five. Shelley brings a chair into the match and abuses Aries with it. GenNext is just getting nothing in there. Shelley humiliates Aries with that headscissor face jam thing that he does. Roderick Strong is next, and he cleans house, staggering Abyss with forearms long enough to try to break Shelley in half with multiple backbreakers. He sneaks up on Rave as the fans chant “break his back!” Strong tries, but Abyss has recovered. Strong goes for the double-knees, but Abyss is just too big. Abyss counters to a belly-to-belly to drop Strong on his head. Sydal bounces off the ropes, but Abyss catches him in a MONSTER Black Hole Slam for the first elimination at 22:25. Rave and Strong take it to the floor while Shelley directs Abyss to batter Aries back in the ring. A gloating Prince Nana walks down in his robe mocking the crowd. Shelley puts Aries in the tree-of-woe and hits an Aries-esque hanging dropkick. He rips at Aries’ open wound and lets Abyss taste his blood. Cool. It’s all Embassy here. Things look dire for GenNext until Jade Chung returns and says it will take more than a faux-Pedigree to keep her down. The Embassy chases her down and catches up with her, but Jack Evans uses the distraction to scale the cage and hit a 630-moonsault onto the pile (and nearly cracks his head open on the hardwood floor). That gives Strong and Aries enough time to recover. Strong and Evans team up on Abyss as Aries tosses Rave headfirst to the barrier. Back inside, GenNext isolates Abyss, and Strong gets that double-knee. Rave scurries in and tries to keep Evans from coming off the top. Strong yanks Rave back down and holds him up. Oh, my God! They can’t! THEY DID! Evans jumps off the top of the cage and springboards off Rave’s chest into a moonsault on Abyss in an Ode to the Bulldogs. I can’t believe they even tried that, and more impressively, I can’t believe it worked! ONE, TWO, THREE! Abyss is gone at 33:10. Evans is fired up and hits Shelley with the handspring elbow and Fisherman Buster to set up the 630-senton. Shelley gets his knees up to block, though, and finishes Evans with the second-rope Schwein at 35:52. So it’s a 3-on-2 for the Embassy, although Nana is basically sitting back and watching at this point. Aries backdrops out of the Greetings from Ghana (Pedigree) but staggers right into Shellshock. Roderick makes the save. Rave hits Ghanarhea, but it only gets two. Nana hits the butt splash on his own men and doesn’t even know it. Aries and Strong get fired up, looking like a sleeker version of Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson as they surround Nana. Rave and Shelley try to jump them from behind but wind up crashing into Nana. Rave stumbles back into Strong who hits backbreaker after backbreaker after backbreaker. HOLY SHIT! RAVE IS A BOWL OF JELLY! Strong applies the Stronghold (Liontamer) as Aries brainbusters Shelley on a chair. Rave gives it up as Aries gets the pin on Shelley for a near simultaneous elimination at 40:07. That leaves Nana against Aries and Strong. Strong and Aries just kick the ever-loving crap out of him, and Aries hits the 450-splash for the win at 41:39. And, in one sublime moment to truly finish the feud, Jade Chung comes back in and stands on Jimmy Rave’s back to use him as a foot stool after months of torment and abuse. This is one where you really have to know the back-story to get the full appreciation of the match, but the booking here was incredible, and the clash of personalities (especially Shelley & Aries) made this exactly what ROH critics say the promotion lacks — an emotional rollercoaster. Incredible match filled with memorable images (Jack’s moonsault, Strong tenderizing Rave’s spine, and Jade standing triumphant) and yet another MOTYC. ****1/2 “I Quit” rules here. Colt Cabana inadvertently disrespected Homicide by calling Homicide his “nizzle.” Homicide responded by dumping Drano down Cabana’s throat. Yeah, the Homicide in TNA is a pale imitation of the one in ROH. Cabana attacks in the aisle, and they brawl all the way around the ring. Homicide posts Cabana, busting him open. Cabana smashes a chair into Cabana’s face. He rips off a piece of barricade. Well, nothing healthy can come from this. He sets it up in the corner and whips Cabana into it. Cabana comes back with the butt-butt in the corner, but Homicide hits him with a flying Tornado DDT. That sets up the Tequila Sunrise (only better). Cabana reverses and tries to choke Homicide out with a reverse Goku-Raku Stretch. Homicide fights out and hits a lariat. Cabana is out of it, so Homicide gets a coat hanger from Smokes and tries to choke Cabana to death with it. The ref calls the match at 11:10 to save Cabana because he can’t/won’t quit on his own. Cabana says he never said “I Quit,” and if Homicide wants to win, he’ll have to kill him. The match restarts, and Homicide goes for the Cop Killer. Cabana reverses to a single-arm DDT. Cabana targets the shoulder with a nerve pinch and then tries to bite Homicide’s carotid artery out. See, there *is* psychology in a street fight. Cabana goes after Smokes, so Homicide smashes him with a chair. Cabana is out of it again, so Homicide and Smokes tie Cabana in the corner so that he’s helpless. Homicide grabs the chair and just starts throwing it right into Cabana’s exposed face. The ref calls the match again at 16:20. Cabana still won’t accept that and calls Homicide back out, telling Homicide that his son will think he’s a pussy if he doesn’t come back and face him. PERSONAL~! Cabana fights off Smokes and Homicide, but Smokes dumps something in his eyes. That allows Homicide to piledrive Cabana through a table. Todd Sinclair stops the match AGAIN at 19:32. This time, Cabana is out and can’t restart the match, so Homicide demands a Fight Without Honor at the next show. See, if you’re going to do a non-finish to lead to another match, *this* is how you do it. This was bloody and brutal, and it told a great story. By the end, all the restarts were starting to border on self-parody, but they thankfully cut off when they did. Homicide looks like a sick, evil bastard. Cabana looks like the never-say-die babyface. All is right with the world. ***3/4 This is part of the ROH vs. CZW feud. Whitmer and Pearce actually solidified their positions during this feud. The ROH guys storm the ring, and Joe wipes out everyone with a suicida. Claudio Castagnoli runs down and steels Zandig’s barbed-wire bat. Prazak notes that he’s loyal to ROH even though he tags with Hero in CZW. That leaves CZW in disarray and Joe on the warpath. He tosses Hero into the crowd. Pearce hits a Statue of Liberty fist drop on Necro for two. Super Dragon and BJ wander through the crowd. Dragon gets in an argument with a fan, so Whitmer smashes him in the back with a chair. Pearce solicits a couple chairs from the fans and does the old headclap thing on Necro. In the ring, Joe sets up a couple chairs and drops Necro’s back on them. Ouch. It only gets two because the blood in Necro’s veins is made of pure Wild Turkey at this point. Hero, who has been lying low for the most part, returns and jumps Whitmer with the Cravat Neckbreaker. Necro tries to choke Joe out but stops to save Hero from a piledriver. Pearce and Necro slug it out, which goes badly for Pearce. More brawling, and Pearce spinebusters Hero (good one too). He splashes him for two, but Dragon makes the save. Dragon curbstomps Pearce but gets turned inside out by a lariat from Whitmer. Whitmer puts Dragon through a chair with an Exploder. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Necro recovers and nails BJ with a chair. Pearce starts hitting people with chairs, but Dragon tosses one at him to put an end to theat. In a particularly sick spot, Dragon double-stomps BJ’s head on an open chair, but it only gets two. Dragon takes Whitmer to the apron and gives him a Burning Hammer through a table. Zandig returns and beats down Joe (sure), and now Todd Sinclair and Bryce Remsberg (the respective ROH and CZW referees) get into it. Suddenly, Claudio Castagnoli returns and yanks Hero off Joe. He tells Joe he’ll hold Hero for a Joe move, but then he turns on Joe (and ROH) to rejoin CZW! The Hero’s Welcome finishes Pearce at 25:24. Unbridled carnage. Claudio’s turn was very Russo-esque complete with Prazak assuring us that he was very loyal to ROH. At least it made sense, though, in the context of indy wrestling because Claudio’s loyalties would naturally be split. Whitmer and Pearce were well-suited for this type of thing. **** Slugfest to start, and Cabana dominates until he decides to get him some of Lacey as well. That allows Jacobs to recover and attack him from behind. Jacobs and Lacey are about to mete out some punishment, but Daizee Haze runs down and drags Lacey to the back, making it a one-on-one. Cabana gets dropkicked while going for a ladder, but Colt sneaks some scissors out of his elbow pad and cuts Jimmy’s forehead open. Cabana misses a stab at Jacobs and gets the scissors stuck in the turnbuckle pad. Jimmy whacks him with a chair, but he can’t find his railroad spike. Turns out Colt was one step ahead as he pulls it out of his own boot and jabs Jimmy in the head. Jimmy crotches Cabana with the middle rope and busts him open with the railroad spike. Huge heat as Jimmy wipes the blood off his face with the Chicago flag. Jimmy goes for the Contra Code, but Colt blocks, grabs the scissors out of the buckle, and stabs Jimmy in the head. Hired gun Brent Albright runs down and gives Colt a suplex, but BJ Whitmer evens things up. Colt hits Jacobs with an Asai Moonsault. Colt sets up the ladder in between the railing and apron and goes up, but Lacey returns and shoves him off the top. They put Cabana on a ladder, and Jimmy sentons Colt off the ladder! Lacey loves it. Jimmy sets up to spear Colt through a table, but Colt dives out of the way. COLT .45 TO JACOBS! COLT .45 TO LACEY! He puts Lacey on top of Jimmy and gets the pin at 22:54. Very WWE-ish match, like something you’d see the McMahons taking part in at WrestleMania. Nothing wrong with that, and it’s good to see Colt get some revenge after months of taking abuse to the groin. ***3/4 Steen looks like he’s coming ready for business, so this should be violent. Big-ass brawl in the aisle to start. Jay and Steen brawl into the crowd. Mark hops off the top onto Generico, who was in the crowd. Steen is waiting for him with a chairshot, though, which would have looked much more effective had Mark not started clearing out debris for the next spot immediately after taking it. Generico flapjacks Mark’s face on a chair and gets jumped by Jay. Generico seems to hurt his shoulder at some point. Steen brainbusters Mark on a chair. Cool spot as Steen knocks Jay silly with a chairshot and prepares to hit him with a dive off the barrier, but Mark spies him from the crowd and runs in to hit him with an Ace Crusher. Steen wakes up and launches a section of the barrier at the Briscoes, but they duck out of the way. Jay and Steen brawl near the timekeeper’s table, and Steen hits him with an errant shoe. Where in the hell did that come from? Generico Michinoku Drivers Mark on that piece of barrier as Jay puts Steen through the table. Steen sets up to Package Piledriver Jay through another table, but Jay blocks. Steen and Jay finally make into the ring and slug it out. Steen draws blood and wipes it all over his face. Ew. Generico and Mark hop in, and they all hit big moves, drawing a big pop from the crowd. Everyone recovers and grabs chairs. They all hit each other with chairshots in a goofy spot. Mark recovers and tries to Cutthroat Driver Generico through a couple of chairs. Generico blocks and goes for a Brainbuster, but Jay breaks it up. The Briscoes toss Generico through the chairs in a crazy spot. Steen jumps in and Fisherman’s Busters Mark through a chair. The Briscoes hit a Splash Mountain Neckbreaker doubleteam on Generico! ONE, TWO, THRE-Steen pulls the ref out but gets wiped out by Mark’s over-the-top plancha. The Briscoes hit the Springboard Doomsday Device on Generico. Steen makes the save again. Mark crawls up a ladder, but Generico turns the tables on him with a Springboard Ace Crusher. The Jaydriller is blocked by Steen, and he goes right to Jay’s nuts with a knee. That sets up the Packaged Piledriver on the ladder at 18:18. Great fucking brawl. If not for some contrived spots (Mark actually had to have the ref hold the ladder for him at one point) and a bit of overkill on the dangerous stuff, this would be a surefire contender for MOTY. ****1/4 |
The 411: Bloodstained Honor focuses more on the big feuds in ROH history, so from a storyline standpoint, it's a very valuable primer. Most of the blowoffs are fantastic, and there are a number of ****+ matches stuffed in there. Highly recommended, especially over ROH's other national offering - Stars of Honor. Thumbs way up. |
 |
| Final Score: 9.0 [ Amazing ] legend |
More Trending Stories
- Backstage Update on Status of WWE NXT’s Eddy Thorpe, Absence From Main NXT TV
- Bruce Prichard on Michael Hayes Wanting to Use Britney Spears for Kevin Federline’s Feud With John Cena
- The Undertaker Thinks WWE Is Testing the Waters With Edgier Content Elements
- Matt Hardy Says CM Punk’s WWE Promo Led To Jeff Hardy Joining TNA In 2010
