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Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — The Conclusion

July 29, 2009 | Posted by J.D. Dunn
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Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — The Conclusion  

Ring of Honor — The Conclusion

by J.D. Dunn
Twitter.com/jddunn411
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Replies that I didn’t get to…

Plugs!: Check out thewrestlingpress.com who were nice enough to offer me a writing spot, but I’m a 411 man through and through.

Re: Punk/Daniels similar promos.

The Daniels promo and the Punk title win promo are from an old story. I heard it told in Natural Born Killers.

The story of the man and the snake (or, often, the boy and the snake) is several centuries old. The fact that two different guys (who happened to be feuding) used it in the same promotion is interesting to say the least. I chalk it up to Punk doing a callback and foreshadowing the return of Daniels soon after. Or maybe they’re both just Natural Born Killers fans.

I have not seen the ROH/JAPW show. Nor have I seen the Night of the Butcher pre-show with AJ Styles vs. Jimmy Rave.

I’ve yet to see the Davey/KENTA match but would you say it’s on par or better than the Y2J/Mysterio match at The Bash?

I’m going to wuss out on this and say that Davey vs. KENTA is a better match on its own merits. You could come in cold without having seen anything prior to that and enjoy it. Jericho vs. Mysterio is better from an overall storyline standpoint. You have to see the matches that built to it in order to get full enjoyment.

  • The theme of this show is “future vs. present” as some newbies are challenging the veterans to establish themselves. We’ll see how well that worked.
  • Meanwhile, CM Punk and Raven have been going at it for nearly a year. Tonight, it comes to a… well, a “conclusion” in a steel cage.
  • Also of note: CM Punk’s girlfriend Lucy (Shannon, aka Daffney, aka “the Governor”) was taken out a few shows ago, and he recently got a tip from Steve Corino that Christopher Daniels is somehow responsible.
  • November 28, 2003
  • From Fairfield, Conn.
  • Your hosts are Ray Murrow and Chris Lovey.

  • CM Punk is irate that someone dared take out Lucy. He loved her, and now she’s gone (actually under WWE Developmental Contract). Now, he’s going to ruin the show until he finds out what happened. Revenge!
  • Elsewhere, Colt Cabana jams out with Julius Smokes (“where the white women at?!!”).
  • Opening Match: The Backseat Boyz vs. The Outcast Killaz.
    The Killaz open hot, hitting a bunch of doubleteam maneuvers, but Kashmere breaks up something with a flying Yakuza kick. Trent Acid joins him for the T-Gimmick, and that’s all she wrote at 4:04. 1/2*

  • Punk returns and interrogates the Backseat Boyz. They deny involvement and walk out on him.
  • Homicide (w/Julius Smokes) vs. John Walters.
    Punk is still in the ring, so he makes fun of Walters for a while before leaving. Notice how he leaves before Homicide comes out. Homicide and Smokes try to intimidate Walters, but Walters ain’t havin’ it. He slaps Homicide in the face and stomps a mudhole. Homicide scratches Walters’ back and rips him open. Harsh. He works in the tope con hilo, but Walters hits the backpack chinbreaker back in. LUNGBLOWER! DRAGON SUPLEX! Walters can’t hold him, though. Homicide nails him with a lariat and finishes with the STF at 11:23. I didn’t really buy that Homicide had worked the neck enough for that finish, mostly because Walters wasn’t selling it, but the action was pretty intense. ***

  • After the match, Homicide calls out Steve Corino and threatens to end his career.
  • Matt Stryker promises wins.
  • Scramble Tag: Hotstuff Hernandez & Fast Eddie vs. The Spanish Announce Team vs. The Carnage Crew vs. Special K.
    Cloudy and Dixie are representing Special K. This is the usual scramble chaos only with Hotstuff absolutely making his name in ROH by DESTROYING THE LITTLE GUYS. CONSTRUCTICONS, MERGE FOR THE KILL! Cool monkey flip doubleteam from Hotstuff and Eddie. Finally, everyone learns that you have to team up against Hernandez… and then he just gets pissed off. A pile of brawlers congregates on the floor, so Hernandez powerbombs one of the Special K members onto them and then hits the over-the-top suicida. With Hernandez basically taking himself out of the match, that leaves the SAT alone with Cloudy. They hit Spanish Fly for the win at 8:56. Amazingly fun once Hernandez got in there. If you want to see a guy make a star out of himself, get this match. ***

  • BJ Whitmer hopes for a match with Danny Maff.
  • Dan Maff says the Field of Honor is where he’s going to regain respect.
  • Christopher Daniels (w/Allison Danger) vs. Jimmy Rave.
    As much as the ROH faithful like to rail against silly gimmicks and want more wrestling, Jimmy Rave used to be a fine wrestler when he first arrived, and the fans were apathetic. Then, he joined the Embassy, got a silly gimmick, and the fans loved it. Maybe the new theory is that it has to be the right silly gimmick. Rave goes all Ricky Steamboat with an armdrag and goes after Daniels’ arm. He’s doing well until he decides to drop what he’s doing and goes after Allison Danger. Daniels throws him into the barricade and starts in on the back. He actually spears Rave from behind, which is pretty cool. Rave backdrops out of Angel’s Wings and hits the Shining Wizard. The STO backbreaker sets up a backdrop into a bridge from Rave. He turns around into a Flatliner, though. Rave comes back with the reverse DDT, and they exchange rollups. Daniels blocks the crossface and counters to the STO. That sets up the Last Rites at 13:29. Rave looked really good in there, and you can see why they were so high on him. He went down a different path, though, and it seemed to work just as well for him. ***1/2

  • CM Punk hops in the ring and demands to know what Daniels had to do with Lucy’s disappearance. Daniels says he’s not going to like the truth when he finds out.
  • In the back, Xavier talks about the Field of Honor, but John Walters interrupts and questions his integrity. Xavier agrees to fight Walters in Walters’ home town of Boston.
  • Steve Corino (w/Guillotine LeGrande) vs. Josh Daniels.
    Corino’s intro theme du jour: midget wrestlers (including Taz). Daniels is the dude who wrestles like the dude disguised as the Dynamite dude. Nothing against Eddie Edwards, but Daniels would make a great tag partner for Davey Richards. Daniels runs through his faux Dynamite offense early, and the rest of the match is him kicking out of Corino’s various finishers. LeGrande trips up Daniels from the outside, and Corino covers. Oh, but the ref caught him and refuses to count. Corino sets Daniels on top, but Homicide runs in and hits the flying Ace Crusher on Corino. That allows Daniels to hit the flying headbutt for the win at 10:48. Kind of a weird clash of styles as Daniels is all business and Corino is all about getting heat. The wrestling styles are different too. It served its purpose, though, which was to advance the Homicide/Corino feud and put Daniels over as a possible regular. The latter didn’t work out as well. **1/2

  • Corino is irate and storms the locker room to attack Homicide. He blames Gabe Sapolsky for it and walks out into the night, threatening to quit.
  • In the back, AJ Styles berates Jimmy Rave for not being motivated. Although given his logical analysis abilities, I’m not sure he’s someone who should be giving advice. Tonight, he partners with Samoa Joe, the ROH World Champ, as they take on the Briscoes for the tag titles. AJ is also a contender for the ROH title. AJ promises to win the tag titles tonight and the world title from Samoa Joe to become the first person to hold both titles.
  • CM Punk interrupts AJ and asks him about Lucy, but AJ blows him off.
  • Field of Honor (Block A Finals): Matt Stryker vs. Xavier.
    Stryker tries to make it a mat wrestling match, but that goes nowhere because Xavier is willing to cheat. Xavier hits a reverse suplex into a camel clutch, which would have been SO much cooler if he had floated over into a Dragon Sleeper in one motion. Stryker makes the big comeback and gets a moonsault for two. Stryker targets the leg and locks in the anklelock. Xavier makes the ropes and goes for an STO or uranage, but Stryker elbows out and counters to the DVD for the win at 13:48. This was an odd result, considering that the two main feuds of the block were Whitmer/Maff and Walters/Xavier. Stryker was just kind of floating around. Nothing really stood out about this match, but it wasn’t bad. Call it a competent **1/2

  • Field of Honor (Block B Finals, Triple Threat): BJ Whitmer vs. Colt Cabana vs. Dan Maff (w/Allison Danger).
    All three guys wound up tied at 2-1, so we get this. It’s typical “I’ll hit you, the other guy hits me, then you hit him” stuff but for the hilarious moment where Maff sets up for a cannonball on Whitmer and Colt casually puts his foot out and trips him. They work in a goofy Exploder/German Suplex triple spot. That sets up an even more improbably spot where BJ slips out of the Burning Hammer right into a DDT/Flatliner combo on Colt and Maff. Whitmer hits the Dragon Suplex on Colt only to be Half-Nelson Suplexed by Maff. DANGEROUS! Whitmer knocks Maff silly with a forearm, allowing him to hit the Wrist-Clutch Exploder on Cabana for the win at 7:47. Not a big fan of the triple threat, especially since the whole idea was a round robin to begin with. The compressed time just allowed them to hit a bunch of finishers. **1/4

  • After the match, Maff again swears on father’s soul that the Prophecy had nothing to do with Lucy’s disappearance. BJ grabs the mic and tells Punk that no one gives a shit about Lucy and to stop stealing his thunder.
  • ROH Tag Team Titles: The Briscoe Bros. vs. Samoa Joe & AJ Styles.
    Wow, AJ could become the first guy to win the tag titles and world title. All he would have to do is win the tag titles along with Samoa Joe and then beat Joe, who would also be a tag champion, for the world title. That’s… very… impressive? That being said, I’m pretty hyped for this. Joe and AJ MURDERBALL the Briscoes early. Jay takes a HARSH STJoe, landing on the back of his neck. AJ springboards off Joe’s back and hits Mark with a DDT. The Briscoes clear out, so Joe and AJ fly out on them with stereo dives. Back in, Mark nails AJ with a lariat to take over. AJ plays face-in-peril. The Briscoes even work in the Killer Bees switch to cut off a tag. The never do clever stuff like that anymore. AJ hits the quebrada DDT into a double DDT on both Briscoes. HOT TAG TO JOE! Double enzuigiri on the champs. Joe tries to choke Jay out with the STF. Lovey finally corrects the record and says that Joe would be the first double champion. AJ breaks up the legdrop/SSP that the Briscoes are known for. Joe goes for locomotion suplexes. AJ accidentally nails Joe with a lariat, though. Oops. Mark hits the SSP on Joe to pick up the win at 15:45. The Briscoes actually wrestled like a real, coherent, honest-to-goodness tag team here. Joe and AJ brought their usual, and the result was a damned good match. ****

  • Post-match: AJ and Joe argue about who was at fault.
  • Steel Cage Match: CM Punk vs. Raven.
    This would be one of the reasons Punk got to the WWE as Raven spent the better part of 2003 doing anything and everything to make Punk a superstar in ROH. Punk steals a page out of Raven’s book early, hitting the drop toehold into the chair. He goes for Sabu’s triple-jump moonsault, though, and Raven just throws the chair at his face. Raven tosses Punk into the cage, busting him open. Quite the gusher there. Raven grabs a half-crab just so we can get the obligatory screaming shot. Punk comes back with a chairshot and drives the edge of the chair into his throat. Punk tries a flying elbowdrop, but Raven shields himself with a chair. Both guys take turns going for the door, but each time, they’re dragged back in. Punk goes up to the top of the cage but stops and turns. FLYING LEGDROP… MISSES! Raven misses a chairshot but hits one on the rebound. Punk hits a Raven Effect for two and blocks a charge to the corner. Punk goes for the door but decides to go up top instead. Oh, the hubris. Raven jumps up and crotches Punk on the open door, but Punk still has the presence of mind to step aside and slam the door on a groggy Raven. That allows Punk to drop down to the floor at 17:06. A lot of people point to the Dog-Collar Match as the high point of the feud, but I thought this was every bit as violence and well-thought-out as that match and just as much intensity. I’m not a fan of escape rules for matches like this, but it worked to put Punk over as a weasel. ****

  • Punk promises to find out who was behind Lucy’s attack.
  • In the back, Gary Michael Capetta holds the world’s least impressive news conference to announce the contract signing for a match between Matt Stryker and BJ Whitmer in the Field of Honor. Stryker says they’re friends, but Whitmer better get his mind off Punk and onto business.
  • Elsewhere, Special K is looking for a private room to screw Becky in, but they run across Raven, who is sulking. They offer him some drugs, but this is the new Raven, so he just tells them to leave the girl. FANTASTIC!
  • The 411: The last two matches definitely make the show. The Punk/Raven feud is what put Punk on the map in the first place, and it was probably the best feud of 2003 in terms of build, intensity and quality of matches. The tag match was great athleticism and built to a good match the following night for the ROH Title. The undercard is hit-or-miss, but enough hits not to drag the show down.

    Solid thumbs up.

     
    Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]  legend

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