Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Honor Nation

Ring of Honor — Honor Nation by J.D. Dunn In one of those unfortunate coincidences, this show wound up going head-to-head with the World Series, part of which also emanated from Boston. As a result, the fans are kind of listless when it comes to the wrasslin’. October 5, 2007 From Boston, Mass. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. Delirious is not happy about having his mask stapled to his head. Opening Match: Brent Albright & Adam Pearce (w/BJ Whitmer & Shane Hagadorn) vs. Erick Stevens & Matt Cross. Pearce tries to establish his intellectual superiority with some mind games. The Resilience isn’t intimidated, though, hitting a nice series of doubleteam moves. You know, Stevens and Cross might have been a decent tag team if given some time to develop outside of the context of the No Remorse Corps feud. Cross looks for the early finish but gets shoved off the top rope and plays face-in-peril. Albright sets him on the top rope and just slaps him upside the head. Whitmer tosses Cross into the railing on the outside. Stevens gets the hot tag and hits Albright with the TKO. Cross wipes out Pearce with a somersault plancha. Stevens only gets two, though. Pearce breaks up another pinfall attempt by yanking Referee Todd Sinclair’s leg. Stevens tries a Choo-Choo on both guys, but they catch him and chokeslam him. Whitmer trips up Cross from the outside as Stevens presses Albright into a press slam. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Stevens stops to argue with the ref, so Albright pops up and armscissors him down. Stevens powers out of that but takes a shot from Pearce from behind. He’s so stunned that Albright is able to finish him off with the Half-Nelson Suplex at 12:07. Fun and energetic, but the H3 need to decide on a personality. **3/4 Whitmer tries to cut a promo after the match, but the fans shout him down with “Steve Corino” and “Shut the fuck up!” chants. He finally calls out Delirious for their match. BJ Whitmer vs. Delirious. Delirious cleans house on H3 and dominates Whitmer early. He hits a somersault plancha, but BJ blocks his headscissors and counters to a Waterwheel Slam. BJ humbles Delirious with the Camel Clutch, but the lizard man comes back with a DDT. ROCK BOTTOM! BAH BAH WHAT BAH BAH IS COOKIIIIIING?!! It only gets two. Delirious hits the Panic Attack THREE TIMES! He refuses to take the pin, though. He wants revenge for the whole “stapling his mask to his head” incident, so he grabs a chair and brings it in. Todd Sinclair takes it away from him, enabling Whitmer to recover and powerbomb Delirious into the corner. He boots Delirious down but misses a frogsplash. Delirious sets up for Shadows Over Hell, but Pearce crotches him on the top. That leads to BJ’s Adrenaline Spike (Owen Hart Piledriver) at 9:04. **1/2 Bryan Danielson thinks he’s the “ace” of the company, and he wants to prove it in his three-match series with Austin Aries. Four-Corner Survival: El Generico vs. Nigel McGuinness vs. Tyler Black vs. Hallowicked. Before the match, Jimmy Jacobs comes out and lays out the mission statement of the Age of the Fall – that being to rebuild society to conform to Jimmy’s standards. This is all very Manson Family-esque, especially when you consider Butcher’s “I told you if you let me out of my cage, I stack the bodies a mile high.” Anyhoo, the Briscoes come out and brawl with the Age all the way to the back. That turns things into a three-way match most of the way. The masked men team up against Nigel, mostly for survival purposes. Nigel nails Generico with the rebound lariat. A short-arm lariat puts Hallowicked down, and Generico asks Nigel to step aside so he can hit his Yakuza Kick. Nigel invites him in and then hits him with a lariat. Hallowicked ducks another lariat and backslides Nigel for two. Generico recovers but misses his Yakuza Kick. Nigel sets up Hallowicked for his flying lariat, but Generico nails Nigel with a running Yakuza kick. He tries to follow up with the Suicida DDT, but Nigel catches him with an uppercut and drops him with the Tower of London on the floor. Back in, Nigel misses the Jawbreaker Lariat but hits a lariat on the other side and finishes Hallowicked with the Tower of London at 8:10. Hallowicked is a jobber in ROH, and Generico is a tag wrestler, so Nigel was miles above both guys. They actually had decent chemistry in spite of that, though. **1/4 Kevin Steen has words for Takeshi Morishima… not that he’d understand them. Chris Hero (w/Sweet ‘n’ Sour Int’l.) vs. Claudio Castagnoli (w/Daizee Haze). Hero has remained incredibly over despite being jobbed out since the dissolution of the Kings of Wrestling. Hero gets upset because the fans are chanting for Bobby Dempsey, so he instructs the ring announcer to tell the crowd they can cheer for Dempsey once he wrestles in 14 different countries like Hero. To top it all off, Hero practices a wristlock on Bobby Dempsey. See, the fans eat this kind of stuff up, but it seems like Gabe thinks it should just be the sideshow attraction, not the main event. Finally, after a good seven minutes of shtick, Hero loses a test of strength in overly dramatic fashion. Claudio hits THE SPRINTING CHINLOCK! Hero punches him and hurts his own hand. Claudio uppercuts him and mocks his poses. Claudio goes for a Boston Crab but sees Dempsey up on the apron, so he catapults Hero into him and hits the Giant Swing. That gets two. He tries the Crabwalk, but Sweeney latches on to his ankle long enough for Hero to boot him to the floor. Hero goes about methodically working Claudio over. Claudio comes back with a diving uppercut. And now he hits the Crabwalk Elbow. Bobby Dempsey breaks Hero’s fall as he gets booted to the floor. Claudio tries to follow him out with a suicida, but Bobby takes the brunt of it. Funny moment as Sweeney and Hero find a prescription bottle just laying on the floor, so they try to say Claudio is using steroids. Back in, Claudio gets out of the Hangman’s Clutch and goes for the Ricolabomb. Hero blocks and slips out of the Waterslide. Claudio dodges the flipping neckbreaker and boots Hero in the face. Hero reverses an uppercut to a backslide for two, but Claudio nails him with a springboard uppercut. Hero hits a Cravat Facebuster and turns him over into the Hangman’s Clutch. Claudio no-sells a missile dropkick and hits another European Uppercut for the win at 23:25. Hero’s pre-match antics were more entertaining than anything in the match itself. I’m not sure what happened here, but this was lethargic and dull. ** Jay Briscoe and Necro Butcher brawl through the crowd, setting up… Anything Goes: Jay Briscoe vs. The Necro Butcher. Butcher slams him on the floor, pissing Jay off. He rips off Necro’s wifebeater, thus taking his wardrobe down by 50-percent. They brawl to the ring, where Necro DDTs Jay and powerbombs him on some chairs. Jay blocks another powerbomb and DVDs Necro on a chair. That brings in Jimmy Jacobs to attack Jay. Mark Briscoe hobbles down and tosses his crutch to Jay. Jay fires off a few shots, but Tyler Black and Lacey jump Mark from behind. Jay is so distracted that Necro is able to hit the sideslam on an open chair and pick up the win at 5:02 (bell-to-bell time). The Age kidnaps Mark and drags him to the back. Mindless brawl was just here to set up the Age of the Fall segment later. *1/4 Larry Sweeney interrupts Rebecca Bayless to complain that Hero should have won during that backslide. He’s going to have Todd Sinclair’s job for this. Jay Briscoe runs in and asks where Mark is. Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black vs. Mitch Franklin & Ernie Osiris. The Age of the Fall needs wins to get a titles shot. They assault the jobbers and take things to the floor. Jacobs wipes out Osiris with a plancha. Mitch tries a suicida, but Tyler catches him and powerbombs him into the barricade. Back in, Jacobs slaps on the End Time, and Black hits the Small Package Driver at 1:49. 3/4* Best-of-Three Series, Match One: Bryan Danielson vs. Austin Aries. This is virtually guaranteed to shake the show out of the doldrums. Winner of the series gets a title shot and gets to claim that they are the staff “ace.” Danielson has taken off the eye patch for this match. Lots of little wrestling reversal battles to start. Aries headscissors Dragon, but Danielson reverses to the Indian Deathlock. Aries makes the ropes. Danielson puts Aries in the headscissors, and now Aries reverses to an Indian Deathlock. Danielson sunset flips Aries, but Austin rolls through and hits a dropkick. Dragon bails, but Aries follow shim out with an elbow. Back in, Aries hits the pendulum elbow and slaps on a chinlock. Danielson reverses to a sick kneebar, but Aries rolls through. Danielson snapmares him across the ring and applies a Guillotine Crucifix Crossface. Aries makes the ropes. Dragon goes up, but Aries knocks him to the floor. He hits a neckbreaker on the ropes and dives on Danielson with a suicida. Back in, Danielson hits a desperate flying gamengiri. Aries muffs a punt kick, and they exchange nearfalls. Aries sets up for the superplex, but Danielson knocks him off and hits a missile dropkick. Aries escapes Cattle Mutilation but catches the flurry of elbows. Aries powers out of that but eats a roaring elbow. Danielson kicks him in the arm and applies the Crossface Chickenwing. Aries survives and hits the Brainbuster. The 450-splash finds Danielson’s knees, and Danielson locks in the Triangle Choke! Aries powers out of it and tosses Danielson aside. Danielson goes right back to it and adds the elbows, but Aries reverses to a Muta Chinlock and knees Danielson in the head. He goes back to the Muta Chinlock and picks up the submission win at 24:39. A worthy successor to their previous classics. It didn’t pick up until late in the match, though. ***1/2 In the back, Aries admits he owes a lot of his success to Danielson. Six-Man Tag Team Scramble: The No Remorse Corps vs. The Vulture Squad. This is the debut of Jigsaw with the V-Squad as “the final piece of the puzzle” (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk). Jigsaw confounds Roderick with his speed. Ruckus does the same to Richards. Evans busts out one of the most amazing moves I’ve ever seen as he narrowly avoids a big boot with a back handspring. The Vultures jump Strong with a series of splash variations. The NRC isolates Evans. Richards holds Evans in the tree-of-woe as Strong launches Romero into him. Roderick bends him in a Tarantula neck wrench against the ropes. Jack rolls through a Doomsday Device and dives into the tag (which was really unnecessary because all he had to do was fall out of the ring with the rules). Ruckus gets the tag but gets belly-to-bellied by Richards. A German Suplex gets two. Jigsaw takes down Richards with a top-rope rana. That leads to a Tornado DDT. Jack winds up taking a lot more punishment, though. The V-Squad makes the save. Roderick ducks to the floor, so Jigsaw hits a rolling plancha. More dives follow, of course, until Jack has to one-up everyone with a springboard corkscrew plancha. Back in, everyone hits a flurry of moves. Roderick presses Jigsaw into an Alarm Clock from Richards. Ruckus hits a handspring elbow and gets booted in the face. Romero takes the Double Knee Stomp to the face. Ruckus adds the front flip coast-to-coast, and Jack finishes with the 450-splash at 14:47. The heat segment was a bit silly, given the rules of the match, but the final stretch gave you what the Vulture Squad promises – lots of flippy moves and crazy spots. *** In the back, the Vulture Squad delivers a promo. Jigsaw talks! ROH World Title: Takeshi Morishima vs. Kevin Steen. Steen attacks before the introductions, but Morishima no-sells him. They slap it out, and Steen knocks him to the floor with a shoulderblock. Steen takes over on the outside and slingshots into a senton for two. The frontflip legdrop gets two more. Morishima comes back with the hip attack. Lenny Leonard has a Tony Schiavone moment as he notes that Morishima’s travel schedule has to be hard on him because his body isn’t built for air travel. Steen zeroes in on Morishima’s leg, hitting it with a chair and slamming it into the barricade. He really goes to town on it too, to the point where Morishima can’t even stand. The fans actually start to get behind Morishima, pissing Steen off. Morishima comes back like some crazed grizzly bear and hits a Bossman Slam. He hits the Ole Buttbump on the floor and a cartwheel avalanche back on the inside. Now the fans get behind Steen. Fickle Beantown bastards. A running boot turns Steen into a quivering bowl of jelly. Morishima knocks down the referee for chastising him. Steen uses that delay to recover and hit a springboard crossbody. A sloppy Dragon Screw wrenches Morishima’s knee, but the champ drops Steen on his head. He tries a missile dropkick, but Steen avoids and applies the Scorpion Deathlock (why they don’t call it a Sharpshooter, I’m not sure). Morishima makes the ropes. El Generico runs down to give Steen some encouragement. Morishima collapses, allowing Steen to hit the swanton and a frogsplash. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! The moonsault misses but Steen catches him with a superplex. Morishima no-sells but runs into a spinebuster. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Steen sets up for the Packaged Piledriver, but he can’t get him up. Morishima backdrops him over and NAILS him with a clothesline as Steen tries to hulk up. Another clothesline gets two. That leads to a Backdrop Driver at 18:32. I was highly impressed by Steen here. Most of his good matches in ROH had been tags and brawls. This was a well-built wrestling match, and Steen did earn his moniker as “Mr. Wrestling.” ***1/2 After the match, Generico tries to help him up, but Steen is still pissed about their loss to the Briscoes, so he shoves him down and walks out.

The 411: The first half is dull and filled with uninteresting matches. The second half features a trio of good matches. Only Danielson and Aries is what I'd call a must-see, though, because it features the two best wrestlers in the promotion and because it directly leads to the next two matches (I guess that's a bit of a spoiler as to how the second match ends). Neutral feelings.
Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]