Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Fifth Year Festival (Dayton)

Ring of Honor — Fifth Year Festival (Dayton) by J.D. Dunn This show would be five years to the day after ROH opened its doors with The Era of Honor Begins. February 23, 2007 From Dayton, Ohio. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. Nigel McGuinness comes out to announce Morishima will not be giving a speech tonight. He’ll let his ringwork do the talking when he destroys BJ Whitmer. The Irish Airborne, who are quickly settling into the old Ringcrew Express role, come down and ask for an opportunity to prove themselves against Nigel and Morishima. That brings Morishima down, and he quickly dispatches them. But that’s not all because Lacey and her crew come down and advise Nigel not to interfere in their business. Nigel calls her a “slag,” but the distraction allows Jimmy Rave to clip Nigel from behind and apply the Stepover Toehold. Colt Cabana runs down to make the save, and we get our opening match. Opening Match: Colt Cabana & Nigel McGuinness vs. Brent Albright & Jimmy Jacobs (w/Lacey). Nigel’s leg is injured from the Rave attack, so Lacey’s team is easily able to isolate him and exploit it. Albright launches Jacobs into a dropkick, and Jacobs stomps away at the ankle. Nigel finally rolls through a backdrop suplex and hits Albright with a lariat. HOT TAG TO CABANA! Cabana dominates by himself and hits both guys with a butt-butt. A moonsault gets two on Jacobs. The numbers eventually overwhelm him, though, and Albright is able to hit a backdrop suplex. Albright hits the 619 knee, sending Cabana into a spear from Jacobs. They go for a spiked piledriver, but Nigel breaks it up and hits Jimmy with a Tower of London as Cabana hits a Schwein Neckbreaker on Albright. Jacobs breaks up another Tower of London. Nigel tries his usual rebound trick but gets ridden down into the Fujiwara Armbar by Albright. Jacobs holds off Cabana for a moment, but Colt finally just pushes him on top of the ref. Jacobs grabs a guitar string from Lacey and tries to choke Cabana out with it, but Nigel catches Jimmy with the lariat for the win at 13:07. Solid opener, but it didn’t really do anything to set up the Cabana/Jacobs match the way the previous weekend did. **1/2 BJ Whitmer says he thinks he’s earned his shot after all he did in 2006. This was another one of those irritating “talking to someone off-screen” promos that need to stop. Really off-putting, and it has nothing to do with Whitmer’s promo skills. Jimmy Rave vs. Sterling Keenan. Haven’t seen Keenan for a while. He’s definitely changed his look. Rave uses the hair a lot early, so Keenan tosses him across the ring by his locks. Keenan gets a Stinger Splash and a Tarantula Headscissors. A second charge misses, though. Keenan fights his way out of trouble but charges into a boot again. You’d think he’d learn. He hits a spinebuster into the Regal Stretch, but Jimmy makes the ropes. Jimmy staggers up, hits a Dragon Screw, and finishes with the Stepover Anklelock at 5:52. Keenan has a few good moves, but I don’t know that he has anything that sets him apart from twenty other indy wrestlers that they could sign. *1/2 Lacey (w/Jimmy Jacobs) vs. Daizee Haze. Daizee attacks with a flurry and hits a crossbody off the top. Lacey tosses her into the railing to take over, though. To the ring, Lacey controls while verbally abusing members of the crowd and arguing with the ref. Cool spot as Lacey blocks an Irish Whip and counters to a shinni no make. She settles for a backbreaker instead of the submission, though. Haze takes her up and hits a superplex for two. A German Suplex gets two, but Lacey distracts the ref long enough for Jimmy to sneak in and spear Daizee behind his back. Lacey covers for the win at 8:18. Okay, but too one-sided for most of the match. *1/4 Rebecca Bayless tries to get a word with Delirious who is chilling in the crowd while recovering from his concussion. Delirious doesn’t have much to say…or anything for that matter. Austin Aries says he’s still looking for new talent to combat the No Remorse Corps. Three-Way Dance: Christopher Daniels (w/Allison Danger) vs. Homicide vs. Jay Briscoe. Everyone here is an ROH original from the first show, so this match-up isn’t as arbitrary as it might seem. We get clips of what they were like on the first show. Kind of neat how they’ve all progressed. I’m not sure that what Allison is wearing would be legal. She has gotten considerably hotter since Daniels came back in 2005, and the lollipop thing just makes her that much hotter. It’s the usual three-way schmozz for the first ten minutes. Nothing really to recap. One guy hits a move. The third man hits a move on him. The first guy recovers and hits the third guy. Daniels does work in a cool Boston Crab/Chinlock on both guys. Homicide hits his rolling suicida, but Jay one-ups him with a somersault plancha. Back in, Homicide DDTs Jay off the top, but Daniels makes the save and DVDs him. Jay breaks up the Koji Clutch, and he and Daniels fight on the top rope. Daniels knocks him off, but Homicide immediately runs up and hits the Ace Crusher off the top for the win at 13:03. Mostly an exhibition to pay tribute to the opening show, but definitely not boring. **3/4 Open the Brave Gate Title: Matt Sydal vs. Austin Aries. Sydal goes for a headscissors early, but YOU CAN’T HEADSCISSOR AUSTIN ARIES! In this case, though, Aries eschews his usual dropkick and reverses to a headscissors of his own. Sydal tries a satellite headscissors, but Aries drops him on his face. Aries tweaks his ankle on a landing but stays on top with a rolling football tackle. Sydal catches him going up, though, and ties up the ankle in the ropes. Sydal rolls into a reverse anklelock, but Aries makes the ropes. CANNONBALL…misses. An atomic drop sends Sydal flying over the top, which is probably the first time that’s happened since the Honky Tonk Man retired. Sydal comes back with that AJ-ish quebrada into the legdrop DDT. Sydal blocks a sunset flip and dumps Aries on his head. Aries blocks the Here It Is Driver but gets rolled up for two. A brainbuster gets two for Aries. He goes up for the 450-splash, but Sydal headscissors him off and finishes with the SSP at 13:45. Another solid-but-unspectacular match. It kind of felt like Aries was wrestling down to Sydal rather than Sydal stepping up. **3/4 After the match, Roderick Strong and Davey Richards attack Aries with NO REMORSE! Delirious jumps the rail and makes the save in retaliation for FYF: Philly. In the back, Lacey tells Jimmy Jacobs to kill Cabana and she’ll…do whatever she whispered in his ear. Apparently, Lacey and Rebecca Bayless made up at some point, because Bayless reminds us that she used to be Becky Bayless in the endless 2004 feud with Lacey. Tank Toland (w/Larry Sweeney) vs. Mitch Franklin. Chris Hero is in Japan, so Sweeney introduces Toland as his new charge. Mitch Franklin busts out his awesome acting skills by standing there with mouth agape as Sweeney runs him down. Franklin gets in a few shots before Toland kills him dead with a Cradle Shock-style move at 1:57. 1/2* Six-Man Mayhem: Roderick Strong vs. Shingo vs. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Matt Cross vs. Mark Briscoe vs. Pelle Primeau. Strong opens with Pelle Primeau and wipes the floor with him. Mark hops in, triggering the requisite clusterfuck. Cool spot as Cross has the choice of diving out on either Castagnoli or Strong and Shingo, so he fakes a suicida on Castagnoli and hits the dive on the other side. They all work in a big six-way submission spot. Things settle down again, and everyone passes around Pelle like it’s an episode of Oz Strong actually comes back in for seconds with NO REMORSE! Oddly enough, Shingo and Strong form a tentative partnership despite the tension between Jack Evans and the No Remorse Corps. Finally, Pelle gets out of trouble with a headscissors on Claudio, and the place ERUPTS! Cross comes in, triggering another big schmozz. Pelle nearly gets the upset win before Claudio and Shingo trade blows. Cross puts down Briscoe with a DVD neckbreaker and a corkscrew moonsault, but Roderick breaks up the count. Mark tries to repay the favor by giving Roderick a Springboard Ace Crusher, but Strong avoids it and dropkicks him. Pelle makes the save but takes a press backbreaker. Austin Aries returns and chases Roderick off before he can capitalize. Briscoe “hits” a Shooting Star Press. By “hits,” I mean hits the floor in the general vicinity of Shingo. Cross tries to capitalize with a dive, but Claudio hops in and presses him into an uppercut for the win at 15:29. Wild, wall-to-wall action throughout. Pelle gets a much-deserved chant in his honor. That was quite the beating he took in there. ***1/2 Samoa Joe vs. Davey Richards. Let’s see how far Davey has come in a year. They do a lot of trading kicks, as you could probably have guessed. Davey works in that bridge into a kick to get out of a wristlock. Joe just walks away from the handspring flying kick. A kick to the head sends Davey to the floor, but he collects himself and hits a missile dropkick to send Joe out and follows with a suicida. Davey tries to set up for an Olé Kick, but Joe hits a real one and gets his leg stuck in the railing. He hits a second one, and the cameraman gets a great shot of Richards’ glassy-eyed reaction. A third one knocks Richards silly, but he hits a Tornado DDT on the apron. Back in, Davey blocks the Musclebuster and gets two off a sunset flip bomb. Joe catches him with a snap powerslam and works in the powerbomb-to-STF. Richards hits the handspring kick on the second try and gets two off a German Suplex. He goes for the O’Connor Roll, but Joe counters to the Coquina Clutch! Davey powers up and goes low to counter. NO REMORSE! Joe comes back with jabs, but Davey goes low again. SSP! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Davey takes him up again, presumably for another Tornado DDT, but Joe blocks and reverses to a MUSCLEBUSTER ON THE APRON! That’s enough to put Davey away at 19:45. Joe offers a handshake, but Davey spits at him and runs away with NO REMORSE! The usual MANLY~! match from these two. I liked the way they built moves from early in the match to the conclusion. Joe puts over the Dayton crowd on his way out. ***1/4 Recap of 2006. ROH World Title: Takeshi Morishima vs. BJ Whitmer. Morishima doesn’t bother with the ring intros, which was becoming “his thing.” He tosses BJ to the railing. Inside, he steps on BJ’s throat and stomps his chest. The champ bowls over Whitmer with rolling body blocks. BJ just can’t get anything going here. Morishima beats BJ down in the corner but stops to intimidate the ref, so BJ is able to dropkick him in the knee. Morishima heads to the outside where BJ hits a tope. Morishima recovers and hits a POWERBOMB ON THE FLOOR! Back in, it only gets two. Morishima missile dropkicks him, but he can’t finish BJ off. BJ comes back with a frogsplash for two. He ducks a lariat and hits the EXPLODER! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! BJ sets up for the Wrist-Clutch Exploder, but Morishima elbows out and hits the Bossman Slam. Whitmer comes back with the German Suplex and a lariat. Morishima avoids another one and hits the Backdrop Driver. ONE, TWO, TH-NO! LARIAT! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Morishima gets sick of this and finishes with another Backdrop Driver at 14:11. Basically an extended squash with a few BJ nearfalls thrown in for good measure. **1/4 The Briscoes promise to become three-time champs. MAN UP! Austin Aries offers a spot in his new group to…be continued?

The 411: As disappointing as Philly was, I think it still tops Dayton. Joe/Richards was good, as was the six-man, but everything else was a squash or to set up something better down the road. Can't recommend this one either. Thumbs down for "Fifth Year Festival: Dayton."
Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]