wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Up For Grabs
August 14, 2008 | Posted by
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| Ring of Honor — Up For Grabs by J.D. Dunn Just to catch up (via the Videowire): -Brent Albright went nuts and destroyed Sweet ‘n’ Sour Inc. -Jimmy Jacobs said he was going to let Austin Aries live with -Jay Briscoe and Austin Aries won the ROH Tag Titles, but Jay Briscoe vacated them because he only wants to carry them with Mark. -Rhett Titus ruined Delirious’ attempts to ask out Daizee Haze. -Dave Prazak catches up with Austin Aries. Aries says Lacey realized she wasn’t so sure about the Age of the Fall after all because Jimmy is a piss-poor leader. Things are cool between Jay and him, and he wasn’t concerned with the belts then anyway. He promises he’ll be focused on the tag titles when he and Bryan Danielson enter the tournament. Prazak mentions “what Jimmy did to Lacey,” which causes Aries to storm out. -And, to wrap things up, we get a replay of the AotF footage where Jimmy stalks Lacey at her gym. Of course, it cuts out before anything really happens. And that’s where we stand. Jigsaw manages to hold his own against Hero, but he can’t muster much offense outside of a few armdrags. Hero avoids his dive, and they tag out. The heels isolate Jigsaw, and it turns into the Freebirds against the Young Pistols only not as gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Hero and Pearce to a lot of preening and playing to the crowd for heat. Hero thinks he has the pin off a Death Sentence Stomp, but Jigsaw summons the strength to kick out. Jigsaw manages to roll into hot tag, and Ruckus cleans house. His offense actually looks fairly believable, if overly ostentatious. It turns into a pier-six, though, and in all the chaos Hero is able to knock Ruckus with the Roaring Elbow at 12:05. Standard tag match formula with Pearce and Hero playing great dickish heels. Jigsaw did his best to generate sympathy, but the fans weren’t really buying it. **1/4 Poor Go. This is like when your girlfriend is a total bitch to everyone, and you can’t do anything about it because she’ll cut you off, so you just have to look on apologetically. This is especially disastrous when she does so to large men in traffic and then tells you, “Kick his ass, baby.” Metaphorically speaking, that’s what’s going on here. Nigel keeps pissing off Steen and the crowd and then making Go take the brunt of the offense. Nigel picks his spot and trips up Steen from the floor, but Generico has his back, flying out on Nigel with a plancha. Big pop for that. Steen and Generico bust out a backpack senton, but Nigel cuts off Generico’s Tornado DDT attempt with a lariat. Nigel and Go doggedly go after Generico’s arm. Generico avoids the Jawbreaker Lariat and tags Steen. Steen cleans house on Nigel, but Nigel hits the Tower of London. Shiozaki tags in and hits a Fisherman’s Buster. Nigel and Go hit a nice sequence ending with a German Suplex from Go. Generico makes the save. Generico tags in but gets dumped on his head by Nigel with about two minutes remaining. He gets two off a crossbody. Steen tags back in with about a minute left. Generico wipes out Go with a cannonball, leaving Steen get the submission victory on Nigel with the Sharpshooter. Steen and Generico move on at 19:22. Steen and Nigel’s little running side feud has been a highlight of the summer, and it helped carry this match to something very good. ***1/2 The Age of the Fall comes out extra vicious in this match, which is how I wish they would have looked in their first title reign. Of course, it’s easy to look vicious when you’re dominating Pelle Primeau. The formula goes like this: when Delirious is in, he dominates; when Pelle is in, he gets his ass kicked. Delirious gets a hot tag and cleans house, tossing Black and Jacobs into one another. Looks rather contrived, actually. Pelle tags himself in and tries his springboard senton on Black, but Black catches him and powerbombs him into the corner. That sets up God’s Last Gift (the Small Package Driver) at 7:58. This was not much more than an extended squash. ** Okay, now this should deliver. TEAMWORK~! uses, well, teamwork to doubleteam Richards until Danielson decides to take a shot at Roderick. IT’S TIME TO PLAY THE FEUD! The ensuing donnybrook gets a big pop, but Richards distracts Danielson long enough for Strong to sneak in and hit a Half-Nelson Backbreaker. Danielson plays face-in-peril for a token nod to tag team wrestling, but after that it’s a four-man fracas with no tags in sight. What’s awesome about these four is that they change up the usual spots with new twists. Danielson goes for the Cattle Mutilation, but when he flips over, Strong catches him naturally in the Stronghold. Aries knocks Davey to the floor and hits a heat-seeking sunset flip. Big pop for that. It comes down to Strong versus Danielson in the final minute. Danielson hits a lightning legline to set up the Triangle Choke at 19:22. Fine, creative match with lots of twists. The only drawback is that this was in the dying days of the No Remorse Corps, so not many people gave them any credence as a threat. **** Steen is still injured from the first round, so he has a hard time getting off the ground here. Hero and Pearce focus in on Steen’s leg. Generico tags in and gets more of the same, only they focus on the shoulder. The match breaks down as Pearce tries to distract the ref. Hagadorn hops on the apron with the briefcase in tow, but El Generico turns the tables and tosses Hero into it. Hero is knocked cold, so Generico gets the unlikely pin at 8:13. Sweeney blames Bobby Dempsey. The match was highly one-sided, and Steenerico’s win was more of a fluke than anything and didn’t really relate to anything that came before it. ** Aries snaps and attacks Jacobs. Jimmy grabs a chair, but Aries avoids it and kicks it back in his face. Aries uses the chair but gets caught and disqualified at 0:54. They’d repeat that same spot the following night at Respect is Earned II. [N/R] Larry Sweeney called “Sugarfoot” Payne “Sugartits” to set this up. They don’t really bring that up or anything, but he did. Hagadorn has shown some promise recently. This is pretty standard for a student squash, though. Hagadorn controls throughout until Payne makes the fired-up comeback. Sara Del Rey yanks Payne to the floor and gives him an Axe Kick. That sets up the STO from Hagadorn for the win at 5:47. * After seeing Edwards in 2CW, I see where the hype is coming from. He seems to be the most Benoit-ish of all the Benoit imitators on the indy scene. He doesn’t quite have Benoit’s later vicious streak, though. More like early Wild Pegasus stuff before Benoit packed on the pounds. Don’t believe me? Check out the hooking clothesline – or the missile dropkick. Edwards gets to showcase a lot of his stuff with Claudio intermittently breaking it up with his usual moves. Claudio catches Edwards out of nowhere with the press into the European Uppercut at 9:51. I would have liked this a lot more if it hadn’t been treated as a workout for Claudio. **1/2 Not surprisingly, this was total chaos. Necro drags this down to his level of wild, aimless brawling, only this time he has a couple of guys who can match him with power moves instead of the flippy stuff. Necro gets caught in the railing at one point. Albright slams his head into the barricade. I like that Necro is always able to come out of the outside skirmishes with the advantage. Back in, Stevens blocks the Necrocanrana. Stevens and Albright try to have an actual wrestling match, but Necro isn’t going to let that happen. He breaks up Albright’s submission hold and goes for the Tiger Driver. Albright blocks a Doctor Bomb and hits the Schwein. Necro saves, triggering a brawl between Necro and Albright. That allows Stevens to sneak in, knock Necro into Albright and hit the Doctorbomb on Necro for the win at 11:35. *** Big brawl to start as Prazak notes Steen and Generico want to finish it early because of their injuries. Steen takes out Tyler with a barricade powerbomb. That sets up a Fisherman’s Neckbreaker on Jacobs. Generico gets injured early on, leaving Steen to take on the Age of the Fall in a two-on-one handicap match. Black and Jacobs zero in on Steen’s leg. Jacobs even uses the Sharpshooter at one point. Steen fights back, but Jacobs clips his knee. Steen fights back again and tosses Black into Jacobs. He rolls Black up for two, but Black comes back with God’s Last Gift. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Steen kicks out! The Age of the Fall sets up for the assisted Contra Code, but here comes EL GENERICO! Generico makes the save with a Yakuza Kick and hits a nice Asai Moonsault to the floor. Back in, Steen hits the Packaged Piledriver to set up the Brainbuster, but Black sneaks in to roll up Generico at 16:51. That rips the heart out of the crowd. This had great drama, and it really works well in the context of the tournament. About as good as you can get from such a one-sided contest. ***1/2 |
The 411: ROH was highly criticized for their handling of the tag team titles for the first half of the year. As such, this might leave a bad taste in your mouth if you got sick of the revolving tag champs. The tournament is well-booked in the context of the ongoing storylines with Steen and Aries/Jacobs. The No Remorse Corps vs. TEAMWORK match is the standout, but there were a lot of throwaway matches in there too. I'd call it a mild recommendation for the wrestling and angle advancement toward the PPV. Mild thumbs up. |
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| Final Score: 7.0 [ Good ] legend |
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