wrestling / Video Reviews
Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Beating the Odds
May 25, 2008 | Posted by
7.5
The 411 Rating
Community Grade
Ring of Honor — Beating the Odds by J.D. Dunn Over the previous few months, the Prophecy defeated and disbanded the Group, leaving Samoa Joe to pursue his own interests (such as defending his title). Joe spent a few months fending off the Prophecy. CM Punk also had some problems with the Prophecy after spitting on Daniels’ offer to join the stable. His bad attitude came back to haunt him as someone took out his girlfriend Lucy. Now, Punk is on the hunt for who attacked her. ROH also announced the “Field of Honor,” a league-style tournament filled with midcarders. Eight wrestlers are divided into two blocks. Everyone in the block wrestles every other wrestler in the block, and the winner of Block A meets the winner of Block B in the finals. We interrupt the match to see footage of the Backseat Boys arriving two hours late to the arena and getting into a fight with Homicide and Julius Smokes. Homicide calls for “that faggot-ass nigger” to be fired. We come back to the match to Colt hitting a rolling cradle. Lovey tells us we didn’t miss anything interesting in this match during the cutaway. Well, that’s a ringing endorsement from the booker man. Cabana trips him up and goes to a surfboard. This is very awkward because Cabana is working heel and Rave is working face. Cabana hits a Canadian Backbreaker drop. Rave comes back with the tilt-o-whirl into the Crossface. Colt makes the ropes, though, and catches Jimmy with the Colt .45 at 13:06. The first five minutes were cut off (or at least interrupted), but this was nothing to write home about either way. ** The Killers come on to April before the match (can’t blame ’em), so Brown gets pissed and spears Oman out of his trunks. Diablo attacks from behind, but Brown comes back with a missile dropkick and the press slam into a moonsault. Diablo takes a breather and comes back with a Fallaway Slam into a bridge for two. A diving headbutt misses, and Slyk hits a vertical press. The swinging Bossman slam gets two, and the powerbomb finishes at 4:19. The match was a squash, but hey, if it gets April on my screen, I’m all for it. 3/4* Kashmere spears Jose into the barrier and tweaks his own neck. Dixie and Dunn buy them some time. Joel blocks a Tarantula from Izzy but gets ranad to the floor. Trent Acid beats the hell out of Marcos but gets rolled up. The SAT give Izzy their Horse Collar Facebuster. Kashmere spears Joel, and the Backseats work in the Dream Sequence. Jose drops Izzy on his head with a Northern Lights. They work in the trainwreck spot that finishes with Jose cutting off Izzy and hitting the Spanish Fly onto the pile. Back in, Joel drops Izzy on his head with Maximo Explosion. Trent Acid hops in and hits Joel with the high knee, allowing Kashmere to cover for the win at 8:50. These teams all have some great doubleteams, but the fact that they’re almost always booked in four-ways and brawls should tell you something about how they work normal matches. **1/2 Mat wrestling to start until Walters catches Stryker in the ropes and bends him back in a Tarantula-like maneuver. Stryker takes a powder to gather his thoughts, and they go back to the mat wrestling. Stryker gains an advantage and targets Walters’ leg. Stryker works it like he owns it until Walters collapses while getting Irish whipped across the ring. Walters hits a desperation lungblower, hurting his own knee but buying time. They slug it out, and Walters hits the Hurricane DDT for two. Walters blocks a Dragon Screw and rolls Stryker up for two. He hits a uranage backbreaker and hurts his own knee. That was a bad idea in retrospect. Stryker goes for the Death Valley Driver, but Walters rolls through to a sunset flip. Walters goes for a powerbomb, but his knee buckles, and Stryker falls on top for the pin at 12:32. See, that’s a perfectly acceptable simple ending, given the storyline of the match. Both guys may be devoid of personality, but they sure can put together a match. *** Becky whines that Special K always wrestles instead of going to raves. Lovey complains that she spends all the wrestling money on hotel rooms so she can do all the guys. Maybe it’s just me, but all of Lovey’s explanations of the heel/face alignments make me like the heels more. Oh, the Carnage Crew don’t like their jobs or wives. Fuck ’em. They made bad choices. Their lives suck, so they’re taking it out on people who are happy. Why am I rooting for them again? Justin Credible gets a huge pop for rolling verticals. See, now if he got that kind of reaction when he was ECW champion, the promotion might have lasted… a few more days. Deranged tells Slugga to get in and do his job as bodyguard, so Slugga reverse chokeslams Loc and gets back out. Devito plays “face”-in-peril for a while. Credible gets the hot tag, though, and the CC drop the Special K boys on their heads. The CC hit Deranged with a Splash Mountain Neckbreaker, but Slugga makes the save. Somehow that’s legal. Special K accidentally hits Slugga with a double missile dropkick. Devito and Loc add dropkicks of their own, and Justin finally knocks him out with a superkick (riiiiight). Julius Smokes comes out and convinces Slugga to leave with him. Apparently, they popped a cap in his ass and dumped him in the river because I don’t think he was seen after The Tradition Continues. Credible finishes Deranged with Just Incredible off the second rope (15:32). The morphing rules and lack of rooting interest just killed this for me. ** You’d think that this would be a fine opportunity for BJ to step up and get a rare singles win. Instead, Mark dominates the early going, hitting a spinning wheel kick and a crossbody for two. Whitmer hangs Briscoe out to dry and takes over, working his back. He rams Briscoe’s back into the apron. Back in, BJ gets two off a gutbuster and locks in an abdominal stretch. Whitmer gets impatient and just tosses Briscoe over the top to the floor. Mark blocks his slide out, though, and suplexes him on the floor to come back. He adds a Shooting Star Press to the floor. Briscoe whips him into the barricade a few times and hits a springboard dropkick back on the inside. BJ flips out of the Cutthroat Driver but gets t-boned over. Mark goes up, but his injured ribs slow him down. BJ catches him with a superplex for two. DRAGON SUPLEX! ONE, TWO, TH-NO! Mark reverses a whip and t-bones him over again, this time dropping him on his head for two. The moonsault misses, and Whitmer hits the Exploder. It only gets two. BJ fights out of a superplex, but Mark runs up the ropes and hits a T-Bone Superplex to pick up the upset win at 13:58. That’s an odd decision, but I guess they wanted to make BJ the underdog heading into the Field of Honor. The match was not bad but relied on too many finishers and too little substance. **1/2 A lot of people love the Wrestlerave match between these two, but I just couldn’t get into it. Lovey goes on and on about how great it is that the fans are getting this match unannounced because it was a main event just a few months earlier… and then he throws it over to Raven as the match gets underway. And what world-shaking nugget does Raven offer: Punk, I’m going to kill you. Well, that’s just dandy. Acid suplexes Homicide to the floor and then moonsaults on him in the crowd. Acid goes up and tries to springboard again, but Homicide catches him and slams him into the railing from the apron. SICK! He puts Trent in the chair and hits a rolling suicida. Back in, Homicide hits a running knee in the corner and cuts open his eye. Acid is dazed, so Homicide gives him a t-bone suplex. Acid shoves the ref and goes low. That sets up a Backseat Driver (Inverted Crucifix Bomb) that sends Homicide facefirst into an open chair. MORE SICK! They take turns hitting each other with boots to the head. Neither man will budge. STRONG STYLE! They finally nail each other in the face with big boots. Homicide blocks a Shining Wizard and hits a Dragon Screw into an STF. Trent makes the ropes. Homicide goes right back to it, but Trent makes the ropes again. Suddenly, Acid hits a rolling forearm that knocks Homicide loopy and bloodies his nose. Acid stands on top forever, though, so Homicide is able to recover and hit him with the Super Ace Crusher. Kashmere pulls the ref out to break up the count. He suckers Smokes into chasing him and leads him right into Trent Acid. Homicide blocks another Backseat Driver. Acid blocks the Cop Killer the first time, but Homicide tries it again and drops Trent on his head for the win at 14:33. I liked this much more than their Wrestlerave bout because of they dropped much of the silliness of the first one – note that the ref got pulled out here; he didn’t just stop to argue with J-Train for no reason. Plus, although there were a few moments when things were no-sold for no good reason (Homicide going face first into the chair for one), it at least felt like it was building upward to a climax instead of just a series of moves drawn out of a hat at random. Good match. ***3/4 This is non-title, but the winner gets a future title shot. If Joe pins any of the other guys, they never get a title shot as long as he’s champion. Joe has his Samoan floral skirt on in an… interesting attire choice. Lovey tells us that all of his other attire is dirty. TMI! We get Joe versus AJ early, which is interesting because it’s a battle between the ROH World Champion and NWA World Champion. Hard to believe there was a time before they’d met. Everyone takes turn missing knee and elbow drops. AJ tags Sabin with his phenomenal dropkick. Joe puts Jay in the Samoan Crab, but AJ makes the save. AJ tags himself in and applies the Mutalock. Sabin breaks it up. Joe works Jay over and goes for the Facewash, but AJ tags himself in via clothesline. Jay is just taking an asskicking here. Sabin misses a splash, though, allowing Jay to recover. AJ and Joe tag in, which goes badly for AJ. Joe sets up for the Olé Kick, but Sabin shoulderblocks him out of nowhere to break it up. Jay dives out on all three guys, but that just gets the attention of Samoa Joe, which is the last thing he probably wanted. Back in, Joe STJoes Jay, powerbombs him and turns him over into the STF. AJ comes back in and hits his Quebrada DDT on Joe. Sabin returns and gives AJ the Cradle Shock. Jay gives Sabin Splash Mountain but falls victim to the Rolling Cradle from Joe. AJ tries a springboard and slips off the top rope. Sabin jumps him and nearly takes the Styles Clash. AJ hangs with it and hits the Clash, but Joe kicks him in the face. Joe lariats Sabin, but Jay boots both Joe and AJ so they can’t cover. Joe and AJ try to enzuigiri one other but knock each other out. That allows Jay to finish Sabin with the Jaydriller at 21:15. Jay would use this to springboard the Briscoes into a feud with Samoa Joe. The match was fun, but I think they’d sometimes be better served to do a parejas increibles style tag match instead of so many four-way matches. ***1/2 The Clockwork Orange stipulation means that there are weapons hung from the cage for the wrestlers to use. Punk was actually a Raven disciple in TNA at the time, which was never adequately explained by either organization. Punk quickly gets busted open, and Raven strangles him with a chain. Punk is REALLY bleeding here. Raven drags his face across one entire wall of the mesh, but Punk desperately tosses him into the cage. Punk handcuffs Raven to the ropes and jabs him with the handle of a shovel. Psst, use the other end, Triple H. Punk taunts Raven with the keys, so of course Raven nails him with several punches and steals back the keys. Raven gets loose and DDTs Punk. Colt Cabana tosses in a chair, nailing the ref and breaking up the pinfall attempt. He slams the door on Raven’s head for good measure. Punk gets his own DDT for two. He tries to drop toehold Raven into a chair, but Raven just grabs it and throws it into Punk’s face for two. Cabana tries to get involved, but Raven nails him with a chairshot. Raven sets up a table, and they fight on the top rope. Punk gets rammed into the cage and falls back through the table. Raven covers for two. Raven sets up another table, takes Punk up, and DDTs him through the table! DANGERROUSSS! Obviously, that’s enough for the win at 11:53. Hey, notice how Raven WON his specialty match. Imagine that. The match was on par with most of their others, but it felt a bit rushed at only 12 minutes. ***1/4 |
The 411: Raven finally got a win to escalate the feud with Punk, so this is an essential part of that grudge. The undercard had a couple of good matches with the four-way and the Homicide/Acid brawl. This era is usually remembered for making Punk a star, though, and shows like this demonstrate why. Thumbs up. |
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Final Score: 7.5 [ Good ] legend |