Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Proving Ground 2009, Night Two

Ring of Honor — Proving Ground 2009, Night Two By J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook February 7, 2009 From Orlando, Fla. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. Kyle Durden catches up with the YRR. Nice to know that Sal is still a member after he was just some jobber on Night One. Rhett Titus: The fourth R is for Rhett. Durden: There’s not even a third R. Opening Match: Jerry Lynn vs. Shawn Osborne. Lynn is all about the fun here as he toys with Osborne through most of the early going. Osborne suckers Lynn into the corner and flapjacks him on the buckle. Osborne takes over with some really high-quality jobberiffic offense. Barry Horowitz, eat your heart out. Lynn comes back with some backdrops and the Cradle Piledriver at 8:53. Just a squash to get Lynn a win and Osborne some exposure. *1/2 The British Lions vs. Kenny King & Rhett Titus. The Lions are WWE developmental wrestlers who kick serious ass, but they’re on the small side, so I don’t know if we’ll ever see them make it to the big time. Then again, Miz and Morrison aren’t giants, and they did well for themselves. King predicts a quick night. The Lions dominate early with their fancy doubleteam maneuvers. Chris Gray gets crotched on the top rope, though, allowing King to hit a spinning enzuigiri. A heel doubleteam backfires, and Tommy Taylor gets the hot tag. The Lions pay the YRR back with a double crotching in the corners. King hits Gray with the Elijah Express. Big pop for that. The Lions go for a doubleteam on King, but Titus breaks it up. That sets up the Springboard Blockbuster Doomsday Device at 10:05. Good showing from the Lions, but King was MASSIVELY over as a babyface. They really underutilized him over the Florida shows. **1/2 Bison Smith vs. John Kermon. Oh my. The fans have a lust for jobber blood. The Claw Slam finishes at 0:37. 1/4* Brad Attitude gives an extremely babyfacish interview about how Austin Aries turned his back on the fans. Man, is that kind of attitude out of place in ROH. No pun intended. Grudge Match: Davey Richards (w/Larry Sweeney) vs. Kevin Steen. Lots of fun and games in this one as Steen makes fun of Richards for getting his ass kicked by Bobby Dempsey. Richards pulls that trick of spitting at his opponent and then running away. Sweeney considers nails Steen with a chair but chickens out. That distraction allows Richards to jump Steen from behind. Richards goes to work on the knee that the Wolves worked over in their tag match earlier in the year, but Steen blocks a charge and hits the cannonball. Steen can’t get the packaged piledriver nor the Sharpshooter due to the bad knee. They exchange snot rockets, and Davey absolutely CLOCKS him with a spin kick. That sets up the German suplex for two. Steen comes off the top with a Swanton, but Richards gets the knees up. That leads to a Texas Cloverleaf, but Steen holds out and reverses to a small package for the win at 12:18. Davey can’t believe he lost to such a flukish move. Richards looked great in working over the knee and showing personality while doing it. *** Tyler Black & Necro Butcher vs. Jimmy Jacobs & Delirious. The Age of the Fall attack during the former members’ entrance and get beat back. Delirious seeks hugs from Jimmy. Jimmy takes his usual tack with the Necro Butcher, bailing to the floor and throwing in a chair. It works about as well as it always does. The faces dominate early, including a sick stomp to Jimmy’s face from Tyler. Delirious knocks Necro off the top rope, allowing the AotF to take over on Tyler. Black fights back, and they work in the false tag spot. The real tag comes moments later, and Necro cleans house. A donnybrook erupts, leaving all four guys on the outside. They tease a double countout, but Delirious and Necro both dart in at the same time. Necro chokeslams him and hits the Tiger Driver, but Jacobs makes the save. Necro tries to chokeslam Jimmy off the apron, but Jimmy knocks him into the barricade. Inside, Tyler this Delirious with the bucklebomb, but Jimmy breaks up the superkick with a chairshot for the DQ at 14:40. Did what it set out to, which was make Tyler look like the second coming and Jimmy look like a chickenshit heel. **3/4 The fans start a great “Where’s his Oscar?” chant for Necro. Okay, that’s cute. D-Lo Brown admits to being Nigel McGuinness’ friend back in the day, but now he’s going to show him what a real champion looks like. D-Lo’s promo confidence is miles ahead of most ROH guys. Austin Aries vs. Brad Attitude. Aries embarrasses Attitude by outwrestling him early on and tells him to get out while he still can. Attitude comes back and does quite well for himself until Aries catches him going up and just shoves him off into the barricade. That sets up the heat-seeking suicida. Aries dismantles him for much of the match. Funny line as Prazak asks if Lenny Leonard as an “L-Double Manifesto.” The Brainbuster finishes at 11:37. Attitude looked decent in what was basically an extended squash. ** Brent Albright, Erick Stevens & Roderick Strong vs. Francisco Ciatso & The Dark City Fight Club. Ciatso and the DCFC are stablemates in Pro-Wrestling Riot. Funny moment as Albright accidentally kicks one of the HDNet cameras that were doing a run-through and Lenny Leonard cracks, “Now I’ll never get on HDNet.” Jon Davis busts out my favorite new spot: the POUNCE that no one sees coming. In this case, the poor victim is Roderick Strong, who gets checked into the boards. Roderick plays face-in-peril. The DCFC have gelled quite nicely as a team. Stevens gets the hot tag, and the Florida boys do a nice Hart Attack with a Yakuza. Roddy puts Ciatso in the Stronghold, and that’s all she wrote (13:44). The DCFC looked great in the loss, and it’s not surprising that they became featured once the TV deal was in place. **1/2 Bryan Danielson vs. El Generico. Funny start as Generico doesn’t understand the fans’ “You’re gonna get your fuckin’ head kicked in” chant because it’s in English and then he freaks out when he gets the translation from Todd Sinclair. Generico offers an unrequited hug, so the crowd badgers Danielson until he tells Generico he’s sorry… in Spanish. It’s not long before Danielson squanders that good will by being a condescending prick and not taking Generico seriously. Generico takes exception, but Danielson bends him like a pretzel anyway. Generico comes back with his usual and even takes a page out of Jimmy Jacobs’ book by nearly stealing a fluke pin. A pair of Yakuza Kicks knocks Danielson silly, but he’s able to slip out of the Turnbuckle Brainbuster. Generico makes the ropes to break up Cattle Mutilation. Now, Bison Smith runs down to bark at Danielson, so Bryan dropkicks him off the apron and hits a suicida to wipe him out. Danielson goes up, but Generico recovers and dropkicks him off. That sets up the Turnbuckle Brainbuster at 20:38. Great characterizations in this one with the two starting off as friends before Generico got progressively angrier with Danielson’s smugness. The Bison Smith interference was a great way to build that feud while still giving Generico a much-needed singles win. ***3/4 ROH World Title: Nigel McGuinness vs. D-Lo Brown. D-Lo entering to Trick Daddy’s “Let’s Go” is awesome. That’s good entrance music. Nigel confuses D-Lo for Savio Vega and rips both D-Lo and Barack Obama for not really being black. D-Lo shoots back that Nigel isn’t a real man. D-Lo bitchslaps him, and IT’S ON! Nigel bails and grabs his belt, which comes in handy when D-Lo tries a tope because he can just smash him in the head with it. Back in, D-Lo hits an Ace Crusher, but Nigel DDTs him on the floor. Nigel hopes for a countout, but D-Lo makes it in. D-Lo readies for a lariat, but Nigel nails him with his own for two. D-Lo comes back with the Sky High for two. A Super Sky High gets two more. Nigel catches him on top and goes for the Tower of London on the apron, but D-Lo blocks and DDTs him on the apron. FROGSPLASH! ONE! TWO! THR-NO! A leg lariat from D-Lo sets up the Jawbreaker from Nigel. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! They slug it out, and Nigel “accidentally” kicks D-Lo in the nuts. That sets up the Jawbreaker Lariat at 13:57. D-Lo still wrestles like it’s 1999, so this had a number of awkward points. Nothing really wrong with the match from a wrestling standpoint, but D-Lo’s loose offense just doesn’t seem to fit in. **3/4 Nigel gets on the mic to run down D-Lo and Jerry Lynn, so D-Lo gives him the swinging uranage (with Nigel calling it on the house mic).

The 411: A few gems, but it's an otherwise disappointing show. I like D-Lo, and maybe, with time, he'll be a nice addition to the roster, but here he stuck out like a sore thumb. The rest of the show was hit and miss, but never enough of a hit to guarantee a recommendation. Thumbs down for Proving Ground 2009, Night Two.
Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]