Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Death Before Dishonor VII, Night Two

Ring of Honor — Death Before Dishonor VII: Night Two by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Examiner.com July 25, 2009 From Toronto, Canada. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. D-Lo Brown is upset that the ROH camera crew interrupted the call to his wife. He is upset about having to go through the gauntlet, but he promises to be the next ROH world champ. Opening Match: Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. The Super Smash Bros. The Smash Bros. were impressive in a loss to the Briscoes the night before. These teams mirror each other somewhat with one lanky guy and one big guy. Steen, of course, is a total dick to the Smash Bros., but they hold their own with doubleteam maneuvers. Their 619/Avalanche combo is pretty cool. Player Dos works in his matrix into a back-handspring kick. The Sliced Bread/DDT is just too convoluted to be believable, but the Wheelbarrow/Lungblower is a perfectly acceptable finisher. AWESOME finishing sequence as Steen goes for the swanton only to hit Player Dos’s knees. Player Uno adds a doublestomp to the back of Steen’s head while he’s standing. Uno turns right around into a Yakuza Kick from Generico. Generico suplexes Player Uno, but Player Dos comes off the top with a splash for two. Steen puts Dos in the Sharpshooter, but he survives long enough for Uno to save him. Dos hits Steen with double knees, and Uno adds a jackknife rollup for the huge upset at 14:01. LOVED the final stretch. The last four minutes was filled with reversals and unexpected twists. ***1/4 Bison Smith (w/Prince Nana) vs. Frankie the Mobster. Frankie looks like a smaller Batista back in his demon days. I think he could be really over as a monster, but he acts (and is treated) like a joke. Plus, he’s in there with a *real* monster in Bison Smith. Bison actually busts out THE CLAW and then just shoves Frankie over the top. Frankie gets lots of desperate offense, but it’s mostly the Bison Smith Show starring Bison Smith, produced by Bison Smith with special musical guest Muse. He LAUNCHES himself over the barricade and wipes out Frankie. Screw it. I wanna see Bison Smith versus Takeshi Morishima in ROH. Book it! Frankie finally takes to hiding behind referee Todd Sinclair, so Smith chops Sinclair! That’s enough for the DQ at 8:15. Hey, works for me. Bison really does look like a monster, and Frankie’s gloating reaction to the “win” makes it worthwhile. More of an unmitigated slaughter, but an entertaining one. **1/4 Claudio Castagnoli joins us from the local landfill to compare Brent Albright to garbage. Toronto Gauntlet: D-Lo Brown vs. Jerry Lynn. Brown jumps Lynn and hits the rope-assisted DDT. Lynn doesn’t offer much resistance after that. The Lo Down misses, though, and Lynn roars back. D-Lo catches him and goes for the swinging uranage, but Lynn reverses to a Crucifix Bomb at 3:20. Jerry Lynn vs. Sonjay Dutt Dutt hits the ring and gets two off a standing shooting star. He hits shotgun knees and the pendulum kick. That sets up a springboard splash for two. Lynn can’t get the springboard sunset bomb, but he is able to switch it up to the TKO. The Cradle Piledriver finishes Dutt off at 7:19. Jerry Lynn vs. Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana). Jimmy hits the ring with a Shining Wizard. Lynn fights his way back but finally falls victim to Ghanarhea at 10:27. Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana) vs. Necro Butcher These two have issues from their brawl in the 8-man tag the night before. Necro beats Jimmy all the way around the ring and brutalizes him. Prince Nana grabs Necro by the foot, though, so he can’t get back in the ring. Jimmy get the cheap win by countout at 13:12. Necro throws a fit on his way out and blasts timekeeper Giuseppe DeLaurento with a chairshot. Sick. Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana) vs. Davey Richards (w/Shane Hagadorn). OH SNAP! No, I mean that’s the sound of Jimmy’s nose as Davey hits the handspring kick. TEXAS CLOVERLEAF! Leonard objects to Prazak calling Shane Hagadorn a genius wrestling mind. Rave chops back and spits in Davey’s face. Oooh, that’s. Not. Smart. Rave hits the STO to stop the momentum. Davey fights off a superplex but jumps right into a powerbomb for two. SHINING WIZARD! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Rave locks in the heel hook, but Davey squirms out of it. Jimmy misses a charge and posts himself. He schoolboys Davey, but Davey reverses to an armscissors. Jimmy escapes, but Davey has had enough. Missile dropkick! Alarm Clock! DR Driver! The Kimura finishes Rave and the gauntlet at 21:19. I don’t know that this sentence has ever been written or uttered, but “Damn, that match got better once Jimmy Rave got involved.” We got good angle advancement with the Necro Butcher segment and a surprisingly fantastic segment between Rave and Richards. I could go for a singles match between the two. Richards going over sets up the potentially awesome match with Austin Aries. Good stuff. ***1/4 Ric Flair recounts the history of Toronto wrestling and puts over Canadian women. European Rules: Claudio Castagnoli (w/Prince Nana) vs. Brent Albright. Round One: European rules are very similar to the old rules used in Stampede Wrestling where you get yellow cards for rule infractions or red cards (DQ) for major infractions. Rounds last three minutes, and you can’t hit your opponent unless they are standing. Albright dominates the first round, but Claudio is saved by the bell. Round Two: Claudio goes cerebral, backing Albright into the corner and then punching him with a closed fist as Todd Sinclair is trying to separate them. Albright gets frustrated and punches him back in full view of the ref. That’s a yellow card for Brent. Round Three: Claudio sacrifices a yellow card by attacking Brent during the break. Claudio works him over, but this time Brent gets saved by the bell. Round Four: Brent gets fired up during the break and destroys Claudio once the round starts. He catches Claudio in midair and hits a uranage backbreaker. Jimmy Rave hops up on the apron, so Brent goes after him. That allows Claudio to schoolboy him with a handful of tights for the win at 12:13. The European rules were too complex to explain and keep track of for the fans, so they didn’t really have any idea what was going on. Probably would have been better off just doing a Pure Rules match. *1/4 After the match, the entire Embassy attacks Brent and puts the boots to him. Necro, Colt Cabana and Grizzly Redwood make the save. In the locker room, Brent says he went through Claudio’s match, no it’s time for Claudio to go through his match – a steel cage match. Tyler Black vs. Tyson Dux. This was supposed to be Tyler vs. Nigel McGuinness, but Nigel is out with an arm stinger. Black has his way with him until Dux breaks up the springboard clothesline and knocks Tyler into the audience. Dux runs into a ganmengiri, and Tyler goes into his finishing sequence. Dux puts on the breaks, though, and hits a Death Valley Driver for two. Tyler kicks him in the head from the mat, though, and finishes with God’s Last Gift at 9:13. Pretty good showing from Dux in an impromptu match. Tyler is fun to watch when he’s just being Tyler Black (as he was here). When they overhype him, though, as Sliced Bread #3, that’s where people start to turn on him. **1/2 No DQ: Colt Cabana vs. Joey Ryan (w/Prince Nana). Colt and Joey agree to make it “No DQ” before the match. That backfires on Joey as he takes a face full of chair off a drop toehold. Cabana runs to the back and gets a hockey stick. Colt takes it away from him but gets speared by Ryan. Ryan tries to ring the bell in Colt’s face, but Colt rolls him up. Joey swings the ringbell hammer, but Colt blocks with the ringbell, and then they stop wrestling because they bell rang. Okay. That’s cute. Sinclair tells them to keep wrestling, so Colt rips Joey’s chest hair off and makes Sinclair hit him with a Flying Apple. Haha. Colt goes out and grabs a few bags of garbage from the parking lot. GARBAGE DAY! Colt pummels him with the garbage and ringbells his nuts. Back in, Colt wraps Ryan up in Nana’s scarf (nice callback to the night before) and smashes him in the head with a chair for the pin at 11:31. I’m a sucker for a good comedy match, and Colt is one of the best. Good spot for it on the card too. *** Austin Aries, Kenny King & Rhett Titus vs. Kenny Omega & The Briscoe Bros.. Aries rips the fans for being phony tough guys. He says he’ll give Kenny Omega a title shot… but not tonight. Instead, we get this six man. This match is entirely about making a big star out of Kenny King, and it succeeds in that. Omega looks like the Tyler Black of 2009, which means the fans will likely turn on him by mid-February… unless he turns heel. Then they’ll love him. He plays face-in-peril early on with Aries being a total dick. He boots Aries right out of the sky on an IED attempt, though. Mark gets the hot tag. REDNECK FU! King and Rhett go for the Doomsday Blockbuster, but Jay breaks it up. Aries hits the Heat-seeking missile only to get crossbodied by Omega. Aries goes low, which is WAY oversold by Omega. Aries no-sells the stop-sign enzuigiri. That sets up the Blockbuster/powerbomb combo on Omega. The Briscoes hit the Doomsday Device on Aries, though, so it’s down to four. Mark flies off onto King Titus with a cannonball. Aries tries to dive out too, but Omega cuts him off. Aries slips out of the Electric Chair and hits the IED and Brainbuster. Like all heels, he falls victim to hubris and pulls Omega up at two. Omega small packages him for the win at 16:06. Omega looked like a main eventer here, and it’s only a matter of time before he actually reaches that status as regular. ROH may have a problem with creating new stars as quickly as they’re losing them to TNA and the WWE, but Aries is certainly doing his best to make Omega look good. ***1/4 Lance Storm vs. Chris Hero (w/Shane Hagadorn). This match demonstrates one of the weaknesses of Lance Storm and why he never made it above midcard outside of ECW. Hero knocked him out cold on PPV a few years ago, and this is supposed to be the big grudge match where Storm gets his revenge. Instead, we get the usual technical exhibition we’ve come to expect from Storm. It’s very good in terms of technique, but where’s the hatred and violence, man? In fact, I can’t think of *any* big emotional blowoffs he was a part of. Hero hits the rolling elbow, but it only gets two. Storm fights back and rolls into the Canadian Mapleleaf. VINTAGE LANCE STORM! (Leonard actually says that). Hero makes the ropes and goes up. Storm catches him with the SUPER POWERSLAM! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Hagadorn slips the loaded elbowpad to Hero. Storm gets two off a backslide but gets rocked by the loaded elbowpad. A second one puts Lance out for good, and Hero gets the pin at 16:42. This was a spirited performance by Storm, and it felt more like the matches Ricky Steamboat had with Chris Jericho than a true grudge match. That desperate powerslam off the top was an emotional moment. ***1/2 Speaking of emotional moments, Storm gives a tearful thank you to all the fans who supported him. Classy way to go out.

The 411: Good, solid wrestling all up and down the card with no real weak points. Virtually everything hit the right note with Omega and Richards getting huge wins and Lance Storm giving the fans a gutty performance. Star ratings alone probably don't give an accurate portrayal of the pacing and atmosphere of the show. Excellent weekend for ROH. Thumbs up.
Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]