Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Dedicated

Ring of Honor — Dedicated by J.D. Dunn Last time out, Homicide finally won a title, defeating the seemingly insurmountable Bryan Danielson. Chris Hero unveiled his new “agent” Larry Sweeney and severed ties with tag team partner Claudio Castagnoli. Now, it’s 2007 and time for ROH to capitalize on their best year. January 26, 2007 From Braintree, Mass. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. After a ten-bell salute to Doug Gentry, who died early that day, they turn it over to the returning Rebecca Bayless who gets an interview with Homicide and Julius Smokes. Homicide talks about how great it is to be champion. Larry Sweeney interrupts to cut a condescending promo on Homicide on behalf of Chris Hero. Hero jumps Homicide from behind, and he and his manager leave ‘Cide and Smokes laying. Rocky Romero makes the save, then turns on Homicide and asks where he was all those months that Romero was out. Smokes won’t let anything happen here, so Romero calls out new badass on the block, Davey Richards. Opening Match: Davey Richards vs. Rocky Romero: Think this one will have stiff kicks? Lots of jockeying for position early until Romero slaps Richards right in the face. Davey fakes him out and grabs a headlock. Romero takes over with a kick to the chest and drops a knee. They take it to the floor where Richards boots Romero into the audience. They go toe-to-toe with Richards screaming in Rocky’s face. Romero knocks him silly and tosses him into the railing. Back in, Richards comes back with kicks but gets caught in the Octopus. Romero firmly establishes himself as a heel, spitting in the face of referee Todd Sinclair. Even the Sinclair-haters think that’s going a bit far. Romero fires off a series of palm strikes but runs into a tilt-o-whirl backbreaker. Romero blocks a suplex and avoids a charge from Richards that sends Davey tumbling to the floor. Romero hits a suicida and gets two off a German Suplex. Richards tries a powerbomb, but Romero counters to a rana. In a neat reversal, Romero goes for the rana and gets powerbombed. A second one gets two for Richards. To the floor, Richards misses a roundhouse kick and hits the ringpost. OUCH! That opens him up for Romero’s ankle work. Cool spot as Richards tries a leapfrog, and Romero grabs him with leg takedown in midair. Richards hits an enzuigiri and goes for the DR Driver, but Romero counters to the Anklelock. Richards counters to a small package for two and locks in the Chimeralock. Romero counters to another Anklelock and scissors the legs for the submission at 18:54. Tense, hard-hitting match. With another minute or so of hot reversals, it could have been really good, but it’s a fine opener as is. ***3/4 Jimmy Rave brags about his new submission finisher and challenges the ROH champ. Jack Evans vs. Eddie Edwards. This is Evans’ first show in a couple months after touring with Dragon Gate. Edwards has no answer for Evans’ crazy offense early. Evans showboats a bit before going for a huracanrana on the floor. Edwards blocks and powerbombs Jack into the apron. CRAZY! Edwards takes over, and the match slows down considerably. Evans hits a nice back-kick and a springboard somersault plancha. Back in, Evans gets two off a springboard corkscrew splash. Another back-kick and a lightning legline get two. Edwards gets a legline of his own. Edwards blocks the handspring elbow and turns it into a facebuster for two. Jack blocks a superplex and finishes Edwards with the 630-splash at 8:30. It looks like Jack has finally learned to use his athleticism for more moves that injure the opponent rather than how he did it three years ago where he’d kill himself and if the opponent got hurt, so be it. **1/4 Adam Pearce & Shane Hagadorn vs. Delirious & Pelle Primeau. Pearce is such a great heel, especially for ROH. You know how people used to love to hate Ric Flair, and they absolutely hated Tully Blanchard. Pearce is Tully Blanchard. The heels attack but get beat back pretty quickly. Pearce, for whatever reason, has James Worthy-style goggles on. Primeau screws up something that is clipped out. Pearce knees him in the back to give the heels the advantage. Pelle plays tiny face-in-peril. Suddenly, Pearce realizes that Delirious isn’t on the apron and starts screaming for Hagadorn to look for him. Delirious emerges and yanks Pearce off the apron. It backfires as Pearce presses Delirious into the post. Inside, Pearce hits Pelle with the POUNCE! Well, a lame version of it anyway. Pelle makes a mini-comeback but runs right into a chokeslam. Hagadorn hits a sickening Tombstone variation, and the heels get a Demolition Decapitation. See, people joke about Pearce’s resemblance to Barry Darsow. Pelle comes back with a rana and a Tornado DDT. Delirious gets the tag and cleans house on the heels. PANIC ATTACK! He hits the Shadows over Hell on Pearce, but Hagadorn is the legal man. Pearce charges, but Pelle low-bridges the ropes, sending him to the floor. Delirious finishes Hagadorn with the Cobra Stretch at 11:16. This was awkward at points, and it suffered from too much Pelle and not enough Delirious. *3/4 The Briscoe Bros. brag about their tour of NOAH. Mark predicts they’ll win in two straight falls tonight. MAN UP! No DQ, Mixed Tag: Colt Cabana, BJ Whitmer & Daizee Haze vs. Jimmy Jacobs, Brent Albright & Lacey. You know the drill. Whitmer and Jacobs were tag partners before Jimmy fell in love with their manager Lacey. Lacey hooked up with Colt in hopes of recruiting him, but Colt just wanted some lovin’. Jacobs stepped up to defend her “honor,” and Lacey hired Albright as her muscle. Daizee and Lacey hate each other just because. The heels attack before the bell, and everyone pairs off. It basically goes like this: four people in the ring while the other two brawl on the outside. They rotate in and out every coupe of minutes so it doesn’t get boring. Colt hits a quebrada on Albright and Jacobs and gives Lacey the Bionic Elbow. Lacey avoids the buttalanche but stumbles into Whitmer. They try to put her through a table, but Jacobs spears Whitmer to make the save. Haze knocks Lacey to the floor, and Whitmer powerbombs Jimmy in the corner. Albright returns and knocks Colt and BJ out with chairshots. Nice reversal sequence finishes with Albright hitting a wicked German Suplex on Daizee. Jimmy puts Daizee through a table with a senton, allowing Lacey to pick up the win at 10:46. Fun, energetic little match while it lasted. Daizee makes it up under her own power, earning a chant in her honor. **3/4 Samoa Joe vs. Nigel McGuiness. This is one that had been brewing for a while. Joe started calling out NOAH to send someone to face him. Nigel resented that because he works for NOAH. Well, it’s not much more complicated than that. Not everything has to be a Mamet play. Joe looks particularly amped tonight. Nigel slaps Joe right in the face, and Joe answers with a series of kicks. Joe hits the STJoe and a corner enzuigiri. Nigel gets knocked to the floor, and Joe follows with a suicida. Joe hits the Olé kick and tries to toss Nigel in, but Nigel rebounds with a lariat. Nigel begins to methodically work over the arm. Joe hits a series of jabs and a powerslam into an armbreaker. Joe fails to put Nigel away, and Nigel comes back with a handstand mulekick. Joe sets up for the Musclebuster, but Nigel flips out of it and hits a superkick. Joe boots him in the face, but Nigel hits a rebound lariat. The Tower of London gets two, but Joe is in the ropes. Joe blocks a second attempt and counters to the Coquina Clutch. Nigel rolls back over him for two, forcing Joe to break the hold. Nigel tries a handstand, but Joe boots him right in the face and hits the Musclebuster. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Nigel kicks out of the Musclebuster! LARIAT! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Nigel survives a stiff lariat too! Nigel counters another Musclebuster attempt to a sunset flip for two, but Joe kicks out and counters to the Coquina Clutch at 10:09. The fans are somewhat deflated after getting behind Nigel after he kicked out of the Musclebuster. After the match, Jimmy Rave runs out and applies the Stepover Anklelock to Joe. Nigel makes the save. ***1/2 Rebecca Bayless tries to get a backstage exclusive and finds Daizee Haze with a sickening goose-egg on her forehead. Rebecca’s reaction: holy shit! Well put. Colt says the kid gloves are off now. Four-Corner Survival: Christopher Daniels (w/Alison Danger) vs. Shingo vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Jason Blade. This is kind of an odd match in that none of the participants really had any feuds with each other. Jimmy, obviously, just started one with Joe, and he had an “I Quit” match coming up with Nigel. It shows in the match too. Rave plays the chickenshit heel role, getting his ass kicked by everyone else and letting Shingo do the dirty work. Blade winds up playing face-in-peril as the match turns into what all four-corner survivals turn into – a tag match. Daniels gets the hot tag and hits the Shoryuken on Rave. The Iconoclasm only gets two, and Shingo breaks up the Angel’s Wings. Shingo stops to pull in Alison Danger, but she hits a tilt-o-whirl headscissors on him. Rave is about to clock her, but Daniels makes the save and hits the uranage. Blade tags himself in during the BME and hits Rave with a missile dropkick. He tilt-o-whirls into a schoolboy rollup on Shingo. That gets two. Shingo knocks him silly with a lariat and hits a Pump-Handle Driver. Daniels makes the save but takes a TKO for two. Daniels blocks a lariat and floats over into the Koji Clutch on Shingo. Rave tags himself in, though, and applies the Stepover Anklelock to Daniels for the win at 12:27. **1/2 ROH World Title: Homicide (w/Julius Smokes) vs. Chris Hero (w/Larry Sweeney). Hero is using “Rock ‘n’ Roll, Part 2” as his entrance music, cementing his place in arena rock history. Did you know that the Colorado Rockies hockey team was the first sports franchise to use that music? Little FYI for ya there. Hero stalls forever before the match, even stopping to ask that the fans not use profanity. That continues well into the match as he pisses Homicide off good and proper. Hero stops to kick the crowd barrier in frustration and hurts his foot. Homicide gets sick of him and tosses Hero into the barrier. He tries to bite Hero’s ear off. Sweeney distracts ‘Cide, allowing Hero to jump him from behind and take over. Hero blocks a sunset flip. He hits a press into a senton and does that obnoxious back roll into an elbow move. Sweeney chokes Homicide out with a towel and gets chased off by Smokes. Homicide runs right into a snap powerslam for two. Hero falls to the floor on a back elbow, and Homicide fakes him out with a suicida attempt. The somersault bodyblock hits, though. Back in, Hero hits a Cravat Slam, which is funny because Sweeney set it up during the opening promo by talking about what an expert Hero is with a cravat. Hero misses a moonsault but slips out of the Cop Killa. Sweeney tries to interfere with the belt, but Smokes takes him out, allowing Homicide to finish with the Cop Killa at 18:39. This was pretty good, but I would have liked to have seen Homicide get more upset and irrational about Hero’s antics, making them pay off a little more. As it is, Hero just comes off as irritating for the sake of irritation. *** Jack Evans (“from the heavens”) promises that 2007 will be the year of Jack Evans…and you know this, mannnnn. 2/3 Falls: The Briscoe Brothers vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong. First Fall: Generation Next takes over early, isolating Mark’s knee. Jay tags in but tries to headscissor Austin Aries, and YOU CAN’T HEADSCISSOR AUSTIN ARIES! Jay and Roderick exchange stiff chops. A back-and-forth match ensues with each team dominating at certain points. Mark hits a nice springboard moonsault to get out of trouble. Jay tags in and cleans house. Mark takes out Aries on the floor, allowing Jay to get two on Roderick. Both Briscoes miss a charge and fall to the floor. Aries follows them out with a Warp-2.0 suicida. Back in, Strong gets a stallllling suplex, setting up a senton and splash from Aries. A GenNext doubleteam backfires as Roderick slingshots Jay into Aries. Mark reaches for the hot tag, but Aries springboards off Jay’s back and cuts him off. Nice! If this match had some well-defined heel/face roles, it would be awesome. As it is, people are kind of on their hands or half-heartedly participating in dueling chants. Jay fights out of a superplex and hits a blockbuster on Roderick. Mark gets the hot tag and unloads some of his REDNECK FU! Roderick breaks up a Briscoe doubleteam with a Bossman slam, and Aries hits a frogsplash. Cool spot as Mark tries to hit his springboard Ace Crusher on Roderick, but Roddy counters to a gutbuster in midair. GenNext teams up for the chop/brainbuster combo, but Jay cuts off the 450-splash, and the Briscoes finish Strong with the Spiked Jaydriller at 20:13. Second Fall: Roderick is out of it, so the Briscoes try to finish him early. TOTAL ELIMINATION! Aries makes the save and breaks up the Springboard Doomsday Device. Aries gets the hot tag and DVDs Mark on the apron! Roderick breaks up another Spiked Jaydriller and boots Jay right in the face. Strong hits the Waterwheel Slam, setting up the 450-splash from Aries. Jay breaks up the cover, and the Briscoes hit the Spiked Jaydriller on Aries to win in two straight falls at 25:14. Aries and Strong look upset with one another, especially getting blown out like that. Well, what are you gonna do? Sometimes you’re the dog; sometimes you’re the hydrant. These guys did some high-quality work for the last 10 minutes or so, but like I said, no one really cared who won in this one, and it hurt the heat. ***1/2 Homicide pokes Samoa Joe in the chest and says they’re going back to 2003. VIOLENCE!

The 411: This is a breezy little show to get fans back into ROH after a well-deserved month off for the promotion. Outside of the jobber tag match, nothing fell below average, and the usual suspects brought the goods. I was a little disappointed in the main event, but that's probably more due to lofty expectations than anything on their part. It's all enough to earn a thumbs up, though. Thumbs up for "Dedicated."

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]