Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Contention

Posted by J.D. Dunn on 12.23.2009

Jay Briscoe looks for some revenge against Davey Richards.

Ring of Honor — Contention

by J.D. Dunn
Twitter.com/jddunn411
Brightkite.com/jddunn411
Facebook.com/jddunn411
Examiner.com

June 12, 2009

From Manassas, Va.

Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard.

Opening Match, Six-Man Tag: Colt Cabana, Necro Butcher & Grizzly Redwood vs. Jimmy Rave, Claudio Castagnoli & Ernie Osiris (w/Prince Nana).
Colt should be in every opener. Colt or El Generico. The fans just eat his shtick up. Here, he does a funny bit where Jimmy Rave outwrestles him, so he takes his boots off to match Redwood and Butcher. All comedy stuff until Jimmy tosses the Necro Butcher into the post to turn things serious. Colt gets the hot tag, triggering a donnybrook. In all the chaos, Colt puts Osiris in the Billy Goat's Curse (with two handfuls of hair) and gets the submission at 12:55. Fun opener, but it doesn't seem like they know what to do with the Embassy. **1/2

Shawn Spears vs. Alex Payne.
Holy crap! They cloned Charlie Haas. I don't remember Spears looking like this, but then maybe I wasn't paying attention. The fans chant, "Who are you?" when Spears starts to dominate, and he shouts back, "Ask your mom!" drawing admiration from the fans. GIVE US HELL, QUIMBY! Sugarfoot makes the comeback but misses a frogsplash. That sets up Spears running Death Valley Driver at 8:28. Spears came in cold and got himself over by the end of it. He reminds me a little of Austin Aries. After the match, he assaults Payne, which oddly enough, becomes important later. **

Ric Flair talks about how he owns Manassas and recalls the olden days when hot chicks used to attend wrestling.

Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny King (w/Rhett Titus).
Just to prove that you can build a match around *anything* if you do it right, they get the crowd to pop when Danielson gets a freaking snapmare! In fact, they pop every time he does the snapmare, thanks to the story of the match. Danielson dominates, so Rhett interrupts the match with a rendition of his entrance song. That allows King to recover and nail Danielson with a clothesline. King's dominance is short-lived, however, as Danielson fires back with kicks and gets payback on Titus with a running knee. Danielson goes for the suplex, but Titus pulls the Bobby Heenan and yanks Danielson's legs out from under him. Danielson kicks out anyway. King schoolboys Danielson with a handful of ropes, but the ref catches him. Great series of nearfalls down the stretch as King repeatedly blocks all of Danielson's signature stuff. Eventually, he falls to the small package, though, at 13:01. It's wildly unorthodox to build a match around a move as simple as a snapmare, but then it popped the crowd, so it shows that it's all in how you do it. Much better showing by King than the last few shows, but then he was in there against the "best in the world." ***1/4

Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. The Young Bucks.
This kind of reminds me of those Hart Foundation vs. Rockers matches back in the early 1990s. Steen is even more of a dick than usual, which is funny because the Virginia crowd hates the Hardy clones. We get some carryover from the previous match as both Generico and Steen get calls to deliver vicious snapmares. The Jacksons eventually win over the crowd with their doubleteam combinations – easy as 1,2,3. It's all just "let us make a good showing" offense, though, and that's kind of obvious. They do look good, but at no point did I think they'd win. Steen and Generico cut short the comeback with Samoan Drops and finish with the Packaged Piledriver/Brainbuster at 13:46. Oh, sure. NOW the fans chant for the Bucks to come back. Before it was "kill the Hardyz." The Bucks continue to be one of the most fun teams to watch in all of North America, although a big part of the fun is watching them get killed. ***

Alex Payne is about to snap because people keep taking advantage of him.

Nigel McGuinness comes out to greet the fans. "Hi. I'm Shawn Spencer. This is my associate, Desmond Wolfe." He explains that he's as good as he ever will be, and he's been sitting out watching Ring of Honor, waiting for an opportunity to come back. I hate to tell him this, but if he's basing his return on the storylines he's watching, he's about six weeks too late. Nigel predicts Jerry Lynn's days as champion are numbered but doubts Austin Aries is the man to take the title from him. Aries comes out and says he's glad to see there's another man who knows how to dress besides him and Ric Flair. "The difference is you and I don't have to whore ourselves out to every indie wrestling promotion to afford the suit." OOOOOOH! Aries promises Nigel a shot *when* he becomes the two-time champ.

Four-Corner Survival: Austin Aries vs. D-Lo Brown vs. Roderick Strong vs. Eddie Edwards (w/Shane Hagadorn).
It's supposed to be a four-way, but it boils down to a three-on-one handicap match. Leonard and Prazak take a shot at TNA, saying if they had any more guys in the match, they'd have to have some sort of stupid-shaped ring. The coalition dissolves when Edwards gets in the face of D-Lo and Aries. Things break down in a hurry with everyone hitting their signature moves. D-Lo hits the Sky High, so Aries tells him to hit the Lo Down. Aries, of course, double-crosses him and goes for the 450-splash. Edwards jumps Aries, but Aries slips out of the backpack chinbreaker and tosses him. That sets up the Heat-seeking missile, but Strong cuts him off with a flying Yakuza kick. BOO YAH! Aries quickly taps to the Stronghold to save himself for the title match the following night (8:03). A lot of fun while it lasted. Aries' weasel routine was underutilized during his pre-champ run. **3/4

Jimmy Jacobs vs. Sonjay Dutt.
Jimmy attacks before the bell and controls through much of the match outside of a brief flurry of high-flying offense from Dutt. That pretty much kills the match for me. Evil, emo Jimmy's offense is boring. I prefer tickle-me-Jimmy from 2006-ish. Dutt springboard but lands in the End Time. Dutt powers out. He looks suspiciously muscular now. Jimmy goes back to it, but Dutt counters to a Muscle Buster for two. Jimmy goes up but "loses his balance," and by that I mean he clearly just jumps and crotches himself for no reason. Even the live crowd doesn't buy that. He blocks a superplex, though, and finishes with the End Time at 11:04. Quite sloppy and uninspired. Jimmy was completely lost after the Age of the Fall – in both the shoot and kayfabe sense. **1/4

Jay Briscoe vs. Davey Richards (w/Shane Hagadorn).
Ooh, now this should be good. Richards gets knocked to the floor early and steals Giuseppe De Laurento's boot. The ref won't let him use it, though. Davey begs off and kisses Briscoe's Converse. I'm sure he's not wearing Converse, but how often do you get to make *that* The Last Dragon reference? Jay misses a charge and posts his shoulder. Davey goes to work on it, of course, in between jawing with the fans. Briscoe fights out of a superplex, but his splash finds Davey's knees. That sets up a sick running kick and German Suplex for two. They do that goofy spot where they boot each other in the face and then slug it out. More sluggery, and Davey goes for the cheap Flair pin. Briscoe counters that to the sunset flip pin, though, and gets the surprising win at 13:45. Could have used more heat on the ending down the stretch. Davey really is starting to resemble Chris Benoit circa 1995. Hopefully, he only copies the good Benoit stuff. ***1/4

After the match, Eddie Edwards runs in to attack Briscoe, but Steen & Generico make the save. Shame on the Wolves for not color coordinating, even if they were in singles matches.

Non-Title: Jerry Lynn vs. Tyler Black.
The crowd calls for snapmares. Lynn and Black actually seem kind of pissed about it, but then they get into it, and so does the crowd. Eventually, they get that out of their systems, and the actual wrestling begins. It's a bit on the boring side with all the "I respect you, man" offense. It gets good once they both go for crossbodies and nearly cut each other in half. Black takes over on the outside and hits his springboard clothesline. Lynn blocks the Turnbuckle Powerbomb and survives the Paroxysm. He gets HUGE heat for blocking a super snapmare, though. The schwein get two for Lynn. He goes for the piledriver, triggering a series of counters that ends with Black hitting the Bucklebomb. SUPERKICK! ONE, TWO, THREE! Black upsets Lynn at 24:09. Shame on Lynn for not delivering on the super snapmare. This was another in a long line of Lynn's babyface vs. babyface defenses that was fine from a wrestling standpoint, but where's my conflict? Lynn's whole reign looked like he was just waiting for someone to come along and take the belt from him. ***

After the match, Austin Aries thanks Black for making things easier for him.

The 411: A tough call unless you really enjoy a good snapmare. Most of the matches were good, but that's all they were - "good." Nothing stood out to make this a must-buy; there weren't any title defenses, and there are barely any angles. If you want a mildly diverting 2 1/2 hours, this is it, but don't expect anything engrossing.

Thumbs in the middle.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]