RB Report: ROH Motor City Madness 2007

Motor City Madness 2007
14th September, 2007
Detroit, Michigan

*The ever-wonderful Becky Bayless welcomes us to the show.

*Silas Young vs. Davey Richards
I’ve never seen Young before, but I think he wrestles for IWA or AAW or something. He’s a generic-looking guy. I’m sure he’ll fit right in. Actually, he looks EXACTLY like BJ Whitmer. They do nothing and eventually start striking each other. Davey rolls through a sunset flip and kicks Young down. Davey continues to slowly – and boringly – beat Young down. Come on, the opener is supposed to be hot and warm the audience up for the rest of the night. Crowd is dead, but responds to Davey’s heel stuff. Young gets a brief flurry of offence with Al Snow headbutts, a Delirious clothesline and a sickeningly botched backbreaker. “That hurt,”- fan. Yes, it probably did. Silas does an awesome headstand, split-legged moonsault out of the corner. Davey evades the missile dropkick. Chops and headbutts in the corner. Overhead belly-to-belly to Young, but he gets up quickly and Davey charges with a running forearm. Springboard missile dropkick. Davey should stop thinking he’s in mid-90’s NJPW. Kawada kicks. Now he’s in AJPW. “RUNNING KICK” – Richards. He tries to follow with the DR Driver, but Young counters. Davey won’t let him get on offence and follows a German suplex with the kimura. He releases the hold. Crossfaces. Kimura. Young taps(8:25).

Rating: **. Really solid match, I’d like to see Young brought in again to see what he can really do, this was just him getting squashed by Davey. Davey’s “I WATCH PURO COMPS LOL!” offence is starting to grate.

*The Briscoe Brothers cut the same promo they cut every show. They mention Project 161.

*Mitch Franklin and “Sugarfoot” Alex Payne vs. Kenny King and Chasyn Rance (w/ Valerie Malone)
King and Rance are part of a stable in FIP called the YRR. They look like the new-age Special K to me – not a good thing. Franklin is the current holder of the Top of the Class Trophy and has had a haircut. We quickly establish that the YRR are, indeed, heels. Yay, go them. SPINEBUSTER by King on Payne. Payne gets double-teamed. YRR are impressing. Payne manages to tag out to Franklin who is a HOUSE EN FUEGO~! He goes to the top rope, but King stops whatever he was going for with an enziguri. Rance sends him to the floor with a dropkick. Okay, that was awesome. Payne gets double-teamed and is pinned after a Rance-assisted Blue Thunder Bomb by King(3:01). They actually get a standing ovation from the crowd after a three minute match. Good stuff.

Rating: *1/2. Really great showcase for the YRR. Sick double-teams and spots here.

*Rance gets on the mic and says that they are the embodyment of everything the fans want to be – Young, Rich and Ready for action. The Final Countdown hits, cutting him off mid-sentence. Bryan Danielson comes out and he’s wearing an eye patch after – I think – breaking his orbital bone against Takeshi Morishima at Manhattan Mayhem 2. Crowd chants “YOU’RE GONNA GET YOUR FUCKING HEAD KICKED IN” towards YRR. He challenges them to matches right now. King is first.

*”American Dragon” Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny King
Dragon quickly takes it to the mat. Armbar. He transitions into a rear chinlock and wrenches it back. Bow and arrow surfboard. Half-crab. SURFBOARD OF FUCK! Rance tries to trip Danielson and King takes Danielson down before putting the boots to him. Danielson ducks a clothesline and a roaring forearm turns King inside-out. Triangle choke finishes him(4:13).

Rating: 1/2*. Fun squash.

*Bryan Danielson vs. Chasyn Rance
Rance attacks from behind. He forearms the injured eye of Danielson. Danielson hits a running knee strike and STOMPS THE SHIT outta Rance’s head for the TKO(0:43).

Rating: 1/4*. Also fun.

*Erick Stevens vs. “Mr. Wrestling” Kevin Steen vs. Roderick Strong vs. Delirious
The winner of this match gets a title shot against Takeshi Morishima later on in the evening. Steen really needs to go back to his old red and black singlet, because that thing he’s wearing these days is UGLY. Both Delirious and Stevens have problems with Strong. Stevens and Delirious ambush Strong from the bell. Steen pulls them off and goes off on Strong himself. Stevens sends Steen onto his head off of a shoulder block. Strong and Stevens go at it in the ring, while Delirious takes Steen on the outside. Strong goes low on Stevens and manages to hit a big fallaway slam on the big man. That’s a move you don’t see very often on the indys. Delirious takes Strong out with a back suplex. Leaping lariat by Delirious. Steen gouges at the eyes of Stevens on the floor. Steen gets in the ring and goes at it with Delirious. Delirious takes him to the top rope and goes for a superplex, but gets thrown off. Steen misses a swanton. Stevens takes everyone out. Big suplex to Steen. Steen sure is getting his back screwed up. Side slam gets two on Steen. Delirious sends Strong into the corner and hits the Panic Attack. Steen sends Delirious into the corner and hits a cannonball senton. Lots of stuff happens that I can’t keep up with. Eventually, all four men are out on the mat. Strong hits a Northern Lights bomb on Stevens. Steen attempts the Package Piledriver on Strong, but he counters. Strong takes a powerbomb anyway, but the pin is broke up by Delirious. He hits a big somersault to the outside on Steen. Everyone gets their signature moves in. Delirious and Stevens are left alone in the ring. They have a strike exchange. Delirious locks in the Cobra Clutch, but Stevens nails the Doctor Bomb and it’s over(13:00). Fans don’t seem to like that decision.

Rating: ***. The action was good and non-stop, but I really hate it in these matches where everyone hits about fifteen finishers in the space of a minute.

*Jimmy Jacobs (w/Lacey) vs. Chris Hero (w/ Larry Sweeney, Tank Toland, Sara Del Rey and Bobby Dempsey)
It would be at the PPV taping the very next night that Jimmy would reveal that he is the man behind Project 161 and reveal the Age of the Fall. HOLY TANK TOLAND SIGHTING, BATMAN! Jimmy is giving up a lot of size to Hero. They eventually start after much chicanery. Doesn’t take long for Hero to start his showboating. CHRIS IS AWESOME *CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAPCLAPCLAP*! Hero gets the announcer to get on the mic and say, “Chris Hero would like to see any of you idiots try that!” Awesome. Shoulder tackle and more showboating by Hero. Jacobs takes him down with an armbar. Hurricanrana and a satelite headscissors by Jimmy. Hero chain wrestles with himself and showboats. Lots. Toland’s excited. He gets sent out of the ring with a clothesline and Jimmy follows with a tope. Hero sends him into the steel barricade. Back in the ring. Hero slams him and hits a twisting senton for two before stomping on Jimmy’s hand. Hero stretches him. Hero jumps off the top rope with a SLAP TO THE HEAD! Jimmy HULKS UP! He blocks an O’Connor roll. Hero distracts the ref and Del Rey dishes out a kick to the best of Jimmy Jacobs. BIG chop by Hero. Hero gets speared. Jimmy unleashes a big flurry of offence. ‘Rana gets two. Roaring forearm by Hero. CRAVATE! Cravate-o-plasm! He goes to the top rope, but is crotched and put in a tree of woe. Running knee and a dropkick by Jacobs. Jimmy locks in the guillotine choke, but Hero manages to stand and slam Jacobs. Sweeney distracts the ref and Del Rey gets in. Lacey stops her and they go at it. Hero attempts something on Lacey, but Jimmy stops him and hits the Contra Code. He gets two when Sweeney pulls him out of the ring. Bobby Dempsey whackyness. Jimmy locks in the guillotine again and it’s all over(16:24).

Rating: *. Really dull and slow. I didn’t get into it, which is rare for a Chris Hero match. Just watching Chris Hero is incredibly fun, though.

*”The Generic Luchadore” El Generico vs. Naomichi Marafuji
As well as shaking hands, Generico also gives Marafuji a friendly hug, pre-match. Aww. They feel each other out and Marafuji shows why he’s one of the best. Neither man manages to gain an advantage in the opening minutes, so they go to a speedy exchange. Generico gets the better of it and sends Marafuji to the outside. He fakes him out on a dive and they go at it, slow, in the ring again. Generico pounds on Marafuji in the corner and hits a split-legged moonsault. Marafuji fights back and dropkicks Generico to the outside. Marafuji scolds a fan for helping Generico to his feet. Awesome. He throws Generico around ringside and hits a SICK dropkick on the floor before putting on a fan’s baseball cap. Back in the ring. Marafuji is controlling Generico with relative ease. Marafuji wears him down with a lengthy headlock. The fans get behind Generico and he manages to power out and land some chops. Marafuji sends him to the floor, however, and follows with a PLANCHA HEADLOCK! The headlock is very effective and Generico can’t muster the strength to power out. Marafuji mocking Generico is pretty funny. Marafuji is taking Generico very lightly. He gives him plenty of time to get back in the ring and then just locks him back in the headlock. Wacky submission. You know the only thing I don’t like about Marafuji? Those UGLY pants he wears. Generico’s comeback comes a bit late and the fans aren’t that into it. He nails a tope con hilo to Marafuji on the outside. Back in the ring, a big splash and Blue Thunder Bomb gets two. Generico’s control doesn’t last long as a clothesline turns him inside-out and a cross-arm German suplex gets two. They go at it toe-to-toe and Marafuji drives Generico’s face into the canvas. Kick to the head gets two. Tiger Driver into an armbar is transitioned into a triangle choke. Generico manages to hang in there after teasing a tap-out for a while. BIG superkick is followed by a Shiranui attempt. Generico blocks. He hits a Yakuza kick in the corner and gets two. Superkick by Marafuji and both men are down. Marafuji gets the fans behind him, but eats the big boot and a brainbuster. TWO-COUNT! Generico takes ages setting up his next move and he eats a kick when he flies off the top rope. He somehow manages to get his feet on the ropes after a Shiranui. Marafuji misses the coast-to-coast springboard dropkick. They battle up top, but Generico hasn’t done enough damage to be able to land the BRAINBUSTAH. Marafuji hits a super Shiranui and it’s OVER(20:25)!

Rating: ***1/4. This was a very, very good match. Marafuji has an always-exciting, fantastic move-set and Generico is always great. Action was good. Generico’s big comeback came a bit late though and the fans, as a result, weren’t as into it as they could have been. Also, up until the big boot-brainbuster combo, I never thought that Generico had done enough damage to Marafuji to put him away, even though he had already had a few nearfalls on him. Otherwise, great stuff.

*Becky Bayless is with the Resilience. Austin Aries talks about all three members getting title shots tonight. Erick Stevens says he’s worked his whole career for this moment. Morishima should not fail to take him seriously.

*BJ Whitmer and Brent Albright (w/Shane Hagadorn) vs. Claudio Castagnoli and Nigel McGuinness
What’s with Whitmer’s new ‘do? He and Albright are representing the Hangman Three. Whitmer looks RIDICULOUS! Whitmer and Albright refuse to shake hands and Nigel gives BJ a slap. Nigel and BJ have a nice little exchange. They trade lots of near-falls. Whitmer RUDOS-UP and Albright is in. He brings the pounding to Nigel and Nigel gets double-teamed. They work his arm as Claudio rallies the fans. Nigel makes the comeback all on his own and calmly tags in Claudio. NIGEL > MIDCARDERS! THEY BETTER REMEMBER THAT! Claudio does nothing and Nigel is back in to rub his main event status in the face of Whitmer. Claudio gets back in and works the arm of Whitmer. Hagadorn chokes Claudio on the outside as Whitmer and Albright distract the ref. Claudio gets double-teamed and takes a big knee to the head. Claudio continues to get beaten down. He eventually tags out. Nigel is a HOUSE ON FIRE. Well not quite, he can’t make it seem like his opponents are on the same level of him, now, can he? Lots of lariats. ALLITERATION~! Claudio no-sells everything by diving around like he’s Jack Evans or something. Nigel gets dumped and Claudio is isolated again. Albright counters Nigel’s lariat into the Crowbar. Nigel won’t tap and Claudio eventually stops it. More acrobatics. Hagadorn gets in, but takes a giant swing from Claudio. Lariat. Yawn. Whitmer slams Claudio around and does not even attempt to make a pin after two suplexes and a powerbomb. Nigel lariats him, but Albright dumps him on his head with the half-Nelson Suplex. He covers and gets the 1-2-3(16:32)! OMG WTF?!

Rating: **1/2. Fine match, nothing bad about it. Albright looked like a killer here. Nigel took pretty much no offence the entire match and then succumbed to his suplex. I’m really starting to get annoyed that every single match on an ROH show has to go this length. This match did not need to – and shouldn’t have – been sixteen minutes long.

*Rocky Romero vs. Jack Evans
Evans formed the Vulture Squad along with Julius Smokes and Ruckus at the previous show. Romero wastes no time and attacks Evans during his entrance. He beats the crap out of Jack and DANCES~! Evans uses his speed and the power of NO-SELLING to take control of the match and send Rocky to the floor. Evans gets on the mic. He makes this match a street fight. Romero grabs a chair, but Evans evades and kicks it in his face. I really hate Jack Evans. I hate watching him flop around, ruining every match he’s ever been in. I’ll give him credit, though, he does a good job of selling the beating that Rocky puts to him in the crowd. They brawl to the back of the building and Evans flips around some more. I can barely see shit until a spotlight is put on them. They fight back to ring-side and Evans misses a 450 off of the guardrail. Evans tries to go to the top rope way too many times, and Romero eventually has it scouted and neckbreakers him off the top. FINISH THAT BITCH, ROCKY! He hits Jack’s leg with a chair. Evans tries to charge, but he hurted his leg, :'(. Romero spits on the ref when he only counts a two. More chairshots to the leg. Evans continues to show heart by reversing a lot of Romero’s stuff, but he gets driven into a chair in the corner and powerbombed. Evans gets punished by a lengthy ankle lock. BIG kick to the head! Rocky brings a table into the ring. He tries to superplex Jack through it, but can’t so he just throws him off. Kicks put Rocky onto the table. Jack hits a knee drop onto him through the table and that earns Jack the victory(14:20).

Rating: ***. Good match. I can’t stand Evans, but Rocky is really coming into his own as the cocky, dickhead heel. Evans’ selling was pretty good and the action was fun, but the out-of-nowhere finish didn’t really do much for me.

*ROH World Heavyweight Championship
Takeshi Morishima (c) vs. Erick Stevens
Someone NEEDS to send me an mp3 of Morishima’s theme song. Shit’s awesome. Both of these guys are BIG heavyweights, so this should be a hard-hitting slug-fest. They quickly establish that both have similar strength. Stevens needs to quit playing to the crowd so often. Morishima manages to take control with his fat ass. Stevens is still feeling the effects of his match earlier in the evening, as he’s allowing Morishima to slowly and methodically just pound him into dust. You know what I like most about this match so far? Most of Morishima’s offence revolves around his ass. Stevens avoids the missile dropkick. When I say avoid, I mean Morishima jumped like two feet short and missed. Stevens displays his immense strength by powerslamming Morishima. Stevens targets the legs which Bryan Danielson managed to weaken in his match against Morishima at Manhattan Mayhem 2. Stevens can’t keep his strength up for long and that allows Morishima to sit on him. He manages to hit a TKO out of nowhere and gets a close two-count. LARIATS! GERMAN SUPLEX! ONE-TWO-NO! DOCTOR FUCKING BOMB! ONE-TWO-NOOOO! Holy cow, that was awesome. Morishima goes for the Backdrop Driver, but it gets countered. Stevens eats a pair of sick lariat and they both fail to put him away. BACK DROP DRIVAH! 1-2-3(10:53).

In a rare show of respect, Morishima helps Stevens up and shakes his hand. Nice touch. Stevens has managed to get the previously-hostile crowd on his side, as they chant “ERICK STEVENS!”

Rating: ***1/2. Damn great match. Stevens trying to put Morishima away a couple of minutes before the end was great, great, great. Stevens probably gained himself lots of new fans that he didn’t previously have, myself included.

*Shill for some Full Impact Pro DVD.

*ROH World Tag Team Championships
The Briscoe Brothers (Jay and Mark Briscoe) vs. The Resilience (Austin Aries and Matt Cross)
It’s actually ridiculous how much I’m NOT looking forward to this one. I feel like crying when I see that this is the main event and there’s still twenty-five minutes left on the DVD. I find myself hating the Briscoes a lot these days, Cross sucks HARD and I just can’t make myself care about Aries since he came back. Let’s see if they can prove me wrong. Handshakes for everyone. Jay and Aries start. They do some non-descript stuff. Aries busts out a couple of big moves early – STO and twisting elbow drop. Jay is up two seconds later and jumping around. Come on, man, you were just slammed hard onto your head, sell it. Mark in. He hits a springboard senton into Aries and shows that he also has the strength to land a vertical suplex on him. He tries to slow the pace down and tags in his brother. He and Aries slug it out. Horrendously ugly spot as Aries manages to take out both Briscoes. Cross comes in and does lots of speedy stuff. YAY, FLIPS! If I had to say one good thing about Cross, it’s that he manages to fit the flips into the match a hell of a lot better than Jack Evans does. Aries rebounds quickly from his five-minute beating and has an exchange with Jay. He cuts the ring in half and beats Jay down. Jay gets double-teamed for a while. He eventually manages to tag out. Cross gets biel’d across the ring. For some reason, the ref allows them to double-team Cross for absolutely AGES! Cross channels Cheech and cartwheels across the ropes to tag out to Aries. He wipes out both Briscoe Brothers. Cross hits a split-legged corkscrew moonsault minutes after spending about five minutes getting the crap beaten out of him. Aries counters the Doomsday Device, but takes the backbreaker/springboard knee drop combo. Aries and Cross take control and Aries and Mark are left on their own. Aries lands the brainbuster, but Jay shoves him off when he goes for the 450. However, Cross lands an SSP, but only gets two. Cross’ selling of a kick to the face by Jay is hilarious. Jay tags himself in. Jay Driller countered. Spike Jay Driller ends it(19:13).

Rating: **. Well, that was a whole load of nothing. What annoyed me about this match is that the Briscoes take forever double-teaming their opponents and the ref doesn’t even make an attempt to stop them. If both Briscoes are allowed in, why doesn’t Cross or Aries get in when their partner has been getting beaten down for an age? Selling was a huge problem in this match, too. Obviously, with the length of the match, there was a lot of cool stuff, but “a lot of cool stuff” does not make a good wrestling match.

The 411: Decent show. Stevens-Morishima and Marafuji-Generico were great. The main event really should not have been main event. Better than some other ROH shows from this year, but a lot weaker than many others.
Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]