Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Do or Die

Ring of Honor — Do or Die by J.D. Dunn May 31, 2003 From Philadelphia, Pa. Your hosts are Chris Lovey and CM Punk. Homicide talks about how he screwed up the early part of his life, costing himself a scholarship at the University of Miami. Now, he has to fight and sacrifice to give his son a better life, and that means defeating Samoa Joe for the ROH Title. Good promo. Special K gets bored of hanging out in the locker room, so they make their way up to the arena and try to hijack the ring for a rave. The buzzkill crew is still setting up and won’t let them out there, though. The ROH Top Five Contenders ROH Champ: Samoa Joe ROH Tag Champs: AJ Styles & Red #1 Contender’s Trophy Holder: Homicide. #2 Christopher Daniels #3 Paul London #4 Low Ki #5 CM Punk Opening Match: Dan Maff (w/Allison Danger) vs. BJ Whitmer. This is the debut of the two-tone hair on Danger. Obviously, this is pre-Prophecy for Whitmer. He gives Maff an early Exploder and whips him into the barricade a few times. Maff sells it like he fell off the Empire State Building onto a bed of nails. Back in, Maff hits a Facewash, but Whitmer comes back with knees. Maff catches him with a Half-Nelson Suplex. And another. Maff stops to jaw with the crowd. He reminds me of a poor man’s Umaga. BJ slips out of the Burning Hammer and drops Maff on his head. Maff grabs the ref as Allison Danger sneaks in and crotches BJ. That sets up the Burning Hammer from Maff at 9:11. Maff wasn’t really ready for a singles career at this point, and I think the fact that he only hit a few suplexes before the WWE-ish finish supports that. **1/4 Julius Smokes comes out to question why Maff would turn his back on Homicide and crew. The injured Low Ki also comes out, so Maff scurries off. Ki tells him to watch out if he’s going to wear the Prophecy colors. He also tells Julius Smokes that Smokes isn’t welcome in a promotion built around honor. Homicide runs down and makes nice because he can’t deal with this tonight. Trent Acid sneaks in and jumps Homicide from behind to further their Big Japan feud. That would lead to their overrated Wrestlerave match. We see highlights of Slugga and Hydro beating the Ringcrew Express. Not sure whatever happened to Slugga. Tony Mamaluke vs. Jason Cross. Cross had a few appearances in TNA before this. Mamaluke takes him down into a keylock, but Cross knocks him to the floor and dives out on top of him. He hits a somersault plancha for two. Mamaluke hits a rope-assisted DDT, but it only gets two. Nice sequence as Mamaluke hits a kneebreaker, a Dragon Screw, and locks in a Horse Collar all in one series. Cross makes the ropes. Cross comes back with a crazy flipping Tomikaze. Mamaluke steps up for a Tornado DDT but stops and applies a Guillotine Lock. Cross tosses him into the corner and hits Rolling Brainbusters for two. A third one sets up the Shooting Star Legdrop, but Mamaluke rolls out of the way. Cross hits a Dragon Suplex for two and goes up. Mamaluke shoves the ref into the ropes, crotching Cross. That sets up the superplex into the Guillotine Lock at 8:48. See, I hate it when there are half a dozen perfectly good finishers because the real finish is always so anticlimactic. It’s one thing if there’s a story behind it, but this was just a flurry of finishers. ** Rob Feinstein gives some instructions to Gabe the cameraman. Iceberg comes in and thanks Rob for the opportunity to wrestle in ROH. The Outcast Killers ask why he’s booked when they bust their asses, so Rob puts Oman in a match with Iceberg. Iceberg vs. Oman Tortuga (w/Diablo Santiago). Iceberg looks like a fatter Bam Bam Bigelow. He has a Zodiac symbol (the killer, not the silly astronomical fortune system) on his back. Iceberg kills Oman with power moves, drawing praise from CM Punk. The Schwein sets up a senton at 3:00. The fans chant, “Don’t come back” at Iceberg. Actually, I would have liked to have seen Joe take him out. 1/4* After the match, Iceberg grabs a shiv and prepares for some face-stabbin’. Instead, the Ringcrew Express makes the save. More clips. This time Persephonie defeats Alexis Laree, avenging her loss from the last show. Matt Stryker vs. Tom Carter. The fans are split 50/50. This is Carter’s first big singles match in ROH after years on the indy circuit as a high flyer. Spiffy mat wrestling opens, but neither guy can get an advantage. Stryker focuses on Carter’s arm early, but Carter keeps reversing. Carter grabs a cross armlock, but Stryker reverses to a bow-and-arrow. Carter makes the ropes and takes him down into an STF, but Stryker makes the ropes. Carter hits half-nelson facebuster and a senton for two. Stryker worms out of a facelock and hits a powerslam. Stryker catches his breath with a chinlock and kicks Carter’s kneecap to take advantage. Carter falls off the apron, so Stryker follows him with a pescado. Carter catches him going back in and DDTs him on the apron. Back in, Carter goes up for a frogsplash, but Stryker pops up and hits a belly-to-belly superplex. Carter comes back with a brainbuster and the frogsplash. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! They go into a flurry of rollup reversals for several nearfalls. They slug each other for the double KO. Stryker goes for the Death Valley Driver, but Carter reverses to a crucifix. Stryker rolls through and hits the DVD anyway. It only gets two, so Stryker sets Carter on top for a Super DVD. Carter reverses to an inverted DDT in midair. That gets two. Carter applies the Inverted Cloverleaf, but Stryker makes the ropes. Carter sandwiches Stryker’s leg and tries to snap it. Carter goes back to the Inverted Cloverleaf, but Stryker rolls through and picks up the pin at 18:25. This is the antithesis of the Mamaluke/Cross match as the transitions were smoother, and the story of the match was built to where no one was getting the win off a big move, so it really had to be a fluke. ***3/4 After the match, Carter refuses to shake hands and rips on the “marks” in the locker room. That’s soooo Feinstein Era. He promises to revitalize technical wrestling in the 2000s the same way that he did high flying in the 1990s. Stryker says he’ll give him a chance to prove it in a Submission Match at Wrestlerave. Allison Danger interrupts and offers Carter a spot in the Prophecy (which would have been pretty interesting). Instead, he shakes Stryker’s hand. The aforementioned match never went off because Carter’s wife had a baby. Chad Collyer wound up taking his place, and Carter never gained a foothold in ROH. In the back, Samoa Joe says he won’t let a common thug take his title. But that’s not why he’s here. Instead, he drags the cameraman with him to the Prophecy locker room where he jumps Maff from behind and leaves him laying. That would set up a title match at Wrestlerave. The Second City Saints (w/Lucy) vs. The Briscoe Bros. vs. Izzy & Dixie (w/Skanks) vs. The Carnage Crew. We JIP to Izzy getting his ass kicked. Lovey goes off on his “Special K would be great if they got off the drugs” spiel. Yeah, and once they dropped that gimmick, they all disappeared from ROH. I guess Lethal did okay for himself. Izzy hits Mark with a Dragon Dust. Punk and Jay are about to go at it, but the Carnage Crew attacks them. Punk and Izzy clean house, but Izzy makes the mistake of saying they should share a celebratory blunt, so Punk clotheslines him. Izzy and Dixie blow something. Cabana catches Izzy for a Doomsday Dropkick, but Izzy counters to a reverse huracanrana. The CC jump Special K and set up for the spiked piledriver. Dixie makes the save for Izzy, though. Special K dive out on top of them and then Jay hits a Fosbury Flop on the pile. Devito adds a moonsault off the top. The Saints wind up in the ring with Special K. Colt hits Colt .45 on Izzy, and Punk flops Dixie on top of him with the Pepsi Plunge at 11:05. This was just like the other four-way tags where most of the time the guys couldn’t get out of each other’s way. **1/2 Punk puts over his drug-free fans and compares them to Raven’s unwashed masses. He points out ECW’s Hat Guy in the crowd and makes fun of him for being poor. Punk mentions something about his old man, but Cabana takes the mic away from him for some tomfoolery. Sadly, Lucy turns down Cabana’s amorous advances, but he’s still enthusiastic about getting the fans on the Cabanaboat. In the back, Christopher Daniels interrupts BJ Whitmer’s interview time to complain about Samoa Joe. Daniels tells Whitmer he was in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight, and maybe one day he’d make a good Prophecy member. He challenges Joe to a fight through Gary Capetta. John Walters vs. Andy Anderson. Anderson is from Edmonton, but he wrestles in Puerto Rico. Both of these guys were unknown at the time, but Walters actually turned this into a brief ROH career. Walters gets a few rollups but gets caught with a Waterwheel Slam. Walters comes back with a springboard sunset bomb for two. A splash misses, and Anderson hits a Razor’s Edge for two. He goes up, but Walters hits a lungblower. The Full Throttle gets two for Walters. Anderson catches Walters and finishes him with the Helicopter Slam at 6:45. Not bad, but “Andy Anderson” isn’t a name you can really get behind. *1/4 CM Punk (w/Lucy) vs. Frankie Kazarian vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Christopher Daniels (w/Allison Danger). Rave was little more than an indy protégé of AJ Styles at this point. He chops Punk who bails out for a breather. Nothing interesting happens until Daniels and Punk tag in. Lots of mind games follow. They finally start to wrestle, but it’s a stalemate. Both guys miss dropkicks, but Punk hits a jawbreaker. Rave tags himself in, much to Punk’s chagrin. Punk jumps him and hits a brainbuster for two. He powerslams Rave and hooks the leg for two. Rave makes the comeback against Daniels, hitting a flying kick. Punk tags in but takes a Shining Wizard to the face. Daniels makes the save, but Rave tosses him and hits Punk with the tilt-o-whirl into the Crossface. Kazarian saves with a kick to the face. Rave hits Kazarian with a backdrop suplex for two. Finally, Daniels catches Rave on top and knocks him off the top to the floor to end the juggernaut run of Jimmy Rave. Punk grabs Daniels and delivers Welcome to Chicago, Motherfucker. Allison Danger trips up Punk, so Lucy trips Daniels. Oh, it’s on now! The ladies are about to go at it, but Punk and Daniels separate them. Daniels blocks the Shining Wizard but Kazarian takes him out with a bicycle kick. Kazarian superkicks Punk for two. Rave breaks up the Pepsi Plunge but takes a Flatliner from Kazarian. Daniels breaks up a pin but gets hit with the Ocean Cyclone Suplex by Kazarian. Kazarian sets up for the Wave of the Future, but Daniels reverses to an STO and hits the Last Rites at 20:25. Kazarian and Rave looked pretty good. Daniels and Punk provided the personality and flow. ***1/4 After the match, Daniels puts over Rave and Kazarian, but he says he’s most impressed by CM Punk because Punk wasn’t brainwashed by ROH. He offers Punk a spot in the Prophecy. Punk says Daniels is only offering him the spot because he’s afraid of him. Punk says he will join the Prophecy as long as Daniels shakes his hand. Well, of course, that’s a deal-breaker, so Daniels refuses. Punk and Daniels shout threats at each other as Punk walks up the aisle. The Backseat Boys vs. Slim J & Jody Fleisch (w/Skanks). Jody and Trent Acid do a little martial arts duel that ends in a stalemate. It’s not like they actually hit each other or anything. It was more like a capoeira segment. Upon closer inspection, one of the skanks at ringside is, indeed, Lacey. I don’t think she’d be named for several more months. The Backseats hit some nice doubleteams as Trent superkicks Jody into a Full Nelson Slam from Johnny Kashmere. They catch Slim J coming off the top and toss him into a powerbomb/neckbreaker combo. Special K tries to one-up them, hitting a partner-assisted inverse Tomikaze. A double suplex gets two. Fleisch misses his 720 DDT for the second time in the match, and he and Acid get bogged down in some spot gone horribly awry. Kashmere gets the hot tag and spears both members of Special K. Kashmere drops Slim J on his head with a modified Cradle Shock. The Dream Sequence follows, but Fleisch breaks it up with a sloppy 720 DDT. You know, sometimes just a regular DDT is fine. Slim J recovers and hits a sloppy springboard reverse DDT. You know, sometimes just a regular DDT is fine. Hydro, Dixie and Slugga join us at ringside. Fleisch and Slim J climb up to a scaffolding and hit moonsaults onto their opponents. Well, that was superfluous. Fleisch blew out his knee on the landing, making the move doubly stupid. Back to the ring, Slim J covers Kashmere, but the ref doesn’t get there in time to count. Fleisch tries to go up but can’t. Match… grinding… to a halt. Slim J takes forever going up, so the Backseats recover and hit the Super T-Gimmick at 15:50. Is it really worth blowing you’re your knee to pop the crowd once in a midcard match when you can learn to work a proper match and do it every night of the week with minimal injury? The first half of the match was vastly superior to the latter half. **3/4 ROH World Title: Samoa Joe vs. Homicide (w/Julius Smokes). At Frontiers of Honor over in England, Joe defended the ROH Title, turning from a Northeast regional title into a World title, so this would be the first time the ROH World Title has been defended in the U.S.. Joe goes after Homicide’s arm, but Homicide dropkicks him in the face and clubs him upside the head. Joe gets in Homicide’s face, so Homicide simply pokes him in the eyes. Homicide hits a running knee in the corner but tries again and gets caught with the STJoe. Homicide catches Joe with an Exploder, dropping him right on his head. Ouch. Joe gets pissed and slings Homicide into the railing off a baseball slide. Joe sets up for the Olé Kick, but Homicide blocks it. Joe belly-to-bellies him on the floor instead. The Olé Kick hits on the second try, and a third try puts Homicide’s head through the barrier. Smokes threatens to stab Joe’s ass. Back in, Joe hits a pair of German Suplexes and drops Homicide on his head with a Straight-Jacket Suplex. Homicide staggers up and fights back, hitting a Tornado DDT. To the floor, Smokes puts Joe on a table, and Homicide SMASHES him through it with a rolling suicida. Back in, Joe comes back with a powerbomb and the STF. He drops his gum and puts it back in his mouth. Ew. He is hardcore. Low Ki wanders out to encourage Homicide. Joe starts kneeing Homicide in the face and catches him with a nasty one that nearly knocks Homicide out. Low Ki shouts encouragement and slaps Homicide in the face to wake him up. Homicide roars back and hits a doublestomp for two. He snap suplexes Joe and drops him on his head. Joe is out of it, so the ref considers calling the match. Homicide tosses him back in and hits a few kicks. Joe is getting fired up, though. On the outside, Smokes and Low Ki get into an argument about something. Homicide notices and gets distracted long enough for Joe to pick him up for the SUPER MUSCLEBUSTER at 18:16. This reminded me of Flair-Luger back in the day with Sting on the outside rooting on his buddy. More profanity and head-dropping, though. ***3/4 After the match, Joe stares down Low Ki and shakes the hand of the unconscious Homicide. In the back, Joe shoes us the shiner he got in the match and says it’s on to the Prophecy now. Out in the empty ring, Christopher Daniels calls out Joe and gets just what he asked for. The ring crew and refs break up the brawl, though. Once in the back, Daniels challenges the Group to a six-man tag with the Prophecy at Night of the Grudges.

The 411: Like a lot of early ROH, they had a number of excellent matches of different types – technical wrestler, flying, brawling. The seeds of Joe vs. Homicide and Punk vs. Daniels were planted here, so you also have some historical significance. Plus, the debut of Lacey! Thumbs up for Do or Die.
Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]