Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Gold

Ring of Honor — Gold by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook This is ROH’s ‘golden anniversary’ (as in their 50th show), hence “Gold.” October 15, 2004 From Dayton, Ohio. Your hosts are Jimmy Bower and Mark Nulty. Matt Stryker promises wrestling because he’s in the Midwest and not death-defying spots, which is what those smelly East Coasters want. Opening Match: CM Punk vs. Homicide (w/Rocky Romero). The last time Punk was in Dayton, he wrestled Samoa Joe to a one-hour draw. Afterwards, Homicide attacked Joe, ruining the great moment Punk and Joe were supposed to have. Punk dominates early, and Homicide is forced to bail to avoid the facewash. Punk flies out on top of him. Back in, Punk gets a torture rack, but Romero distracts him, allowing Homicide to knock him to the floor. Homicide takes over, giving Nulty the chance to call a bodyslam a “crotch lift slam.” Perv. Punk blocks a huracanrana and hits the Pepsi Twist. Romero hops up on the apron, distracting the ref long enough for Homicide to go low and hit Punk with the belt. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Romero hops up on the apron again to prevent the Pepsi Plunge. That allows Homicide to nail Punk in the back of the head with a chair and finish him with the lariat to the neck at 17:13. Lest you think that ROH is immune to the “babyface automatically loses 20 IQ points” rule, here it is on display. Homicide was really fun to watch in 2004. He was kind of like a jackal – vicious, but cowardly at the same time. The match was good – even a step above their usual stuff together. ***1/2 Chad Collyer threatens to re-arrange Jay Lethal’s face. Matt Sydal (w/Daizee Haze) vs. Trent Acid. Sydal is now known as Evan Bourne and is one of the best things about ECW right now. Acid… isn’t. The story here is that Acid is arrogant because he’s the veteran, and this allows Sydal to keep sneaking in move after move. His corkscrew quebrada is beautiful. Acid gets in a few reverse DDTs, but he gets cocky and hauls Sydal up for another. Matt is able to reverse to a rollup for the shocking win at 8:24. Sydal showed why he eventually made it to the WWE and became a solid performer. ** Jimmy Jacobs & Delirious vs. Angel Dust & Dixie (w/Becky Bayless & Lacey). Jimmy Jacobs doesn’t try to hump Lacey’s leg. Interestingly, I think he was actually dating Becky Bayless at this point. Special K is under a silly self-imposed rule that they can’t live the gimmick until they start winning. It’s like fasting only with Oakenfold instead of food. Angel Dust gets freaked out by Delirious, but then who wouldn’t? The future Age of the Fall generally act like goofs as Jimmy does the “huss” thing in the middle of the ring while Delirious runs circles around him shouting “bah!” Did Hunter Thompson start booking shows? Becky and Lacey jaw with one another, triggering a chauvinistic rant from Nulty about how women are a poison in the locker room and general pains in the ass. Marge Simpson: Mmmph. It’s true, but he still shouldn’t say it. Delirious is your lizard-face-in-peril. Angel Dust hits a curbstomp (sort of), but Delirious blocks the springboard Ace Crusher. Jimmy gets the hot tag and cleans house. Delirious blocks Dixie, and Jimmy hits the Contra Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B+A, start) for the win at 8:40. Special K were starting to resemble real wrestlers at this point, and this was something akin to a real wrestling match. Jacobs and Delirious no doubt contributed to that. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was more interested in Becky and Lacey. **1/2 Post-match: Lacey blames Becky for the loss and walks out before incident. Chad Collyer vs. Jay Lethal. I think Lethal gave Collyer all of his drugs once he went straight. As with the Sydal/Acid match, this is very much transitional for ROH from Collyer, one of the perennial mid-carders for the better part of two years, to Lethal, a guy they saw as a potential main eventer. In fact, he was so good TNA snapped him up pretty quickly. He comes up short here, but it was such a good performance, marked by intelligent wrestling and not just a bunch of rehearsed spots, that it showed he was the breakout star of Special K. Collyer works his leg like a good little Malenko clone, though, and finishes with the Texas Cloverleaf at 12:51. Very Nitro-esque Malenko offense from Collyer, which I might like more than most. *** BJ Whitmer & Dan Maff vs. The Carnage Crew. This quickly gets out of hand as they go after each other with chairs. Then, when Sinclair disqualifies them all at 0:38, they go after him with the chairs. Ha ha. [N/R] Mick Foley storms out and offers to referee a match between them. He even brings a can full of plunder. BJ Whitmer & Dan Maff vs. The Carnage Crew. Typical Carnage Crew stuff, although Loc tries to pry open BJ Whitmer’s head using a tire iron. Whitmer and Maff set up a table, and Maff cannonballs Devito through it. That only gets two. GARBAGE CAN CONCHAIRTO! Devito’s still stuck in the can, so Maff & Whitmer take turns smashing him with chairs and get the pin at 11:35. About what you’d expect. These matches all have a kind of sameness to them. **1/4 Foley puts over ROH and says it’s every bit as good as WWE. Ricky Steamboat comes out to gladhand, and Mick takes exception to Steamboat running down his style of wrestling. Mick says it’s wrong for Steamboat only to look at a garbage can and see garbage wrestling because it’s the heart and desire that went into the match. He dubs Ricky “the Softcore Dragon” because it’s the opposite of hardcore. Steamer drops Ric Flair’s name, prompting some anger from Mick. Mick says they’ll have to settle it in Chicago. Elsewhere, CM Punk gets a massage from Tracy Brooks’ breasts. He promises to bring the title home. Four-Corner Survival: Nigel McGuinness vs. Matt Stryker vs. Roderick Strong vs. Josh Daniels. It’s like a technical wrestling fan’s wet dream. Everyone finally gangs up on Roderick for being part of GenNext. I’m probably the only one, but I want to see a series between Josh Daniels and Roderick Strong. Roderick tries to pull the old playground trick, kneeling on all fours and anticipating Stryker will shove McGuinness over him. Instead, McGuinness grabs Stryker and snap suplexes him on Roderick. Wacky corner spot as Nigel goes for the Tower of London and gets speared, turning it into a sunset flip. It’s like Mousetrap. Daniels charges him, but Nigel blocks and turns it into the Tower of London at 16:38. Loved some of the weird spots they came up with. It actually felt too short. The crowd ate Nigel up with a spoon and sopped him up with a biscuit. **1/2 ROH World Title: Samoa Joe vs. Rocky Romero (w/Homicide). Romero slaps Joe in the face in lieu of the handshake. Wow. I’m sure there are stupider things you could do. I’d have to sit down and think about it. Homicide grabs Joe’s ankle early on, so the ref tosses him. Thank God. I knew this would be good if they got rid of all the side nonsense. We get a pretty cool UFC-ish match. Lots of strikes and submissions. Joe tends to win the strike battles… demonstratively. Awesome. Romero finally manages to rattle Joe enough to hit a springboard dropkick into his leg. That gives him an opening, but he can never mount any momentum. Romero catches him with a strike and tosses his mouthguard, so Joe just slaps him in the face. L.O.L. Romero tries another springboard, but Joe enzuigiris him off the rope. That sets up the Ole Kick. Back in, it only gets two, and Romero catches him clean with a roundhouse kick. A flurry leads to a high knee from Romero. ONE, TWO, THREE! Romero wins? Oh, nope. Sinclair sees Joe’s hand on the ropes. Joe recovers and hits a backdrop driver for two. Romero ranas him into a cross armlock, but Joe is in the ropes again. Romero tries it again, but Joe just powerbombs him and turns it over into the STF for the submission at 18:05. These two had great chemistry together and didn’t seem to care how stiff they got with those strikes. I’d like to see more of this style, but both guys have to have a tremendous amount of trust in one another – something that’s hard to achieve in the indies. An unsung match in Joe’s title reign. **** Six-Man War: Generation Next vs. CM Punk, Ace Steel & Jimmy Jacobs (w/Ricky Steamboat & Tracy Brooks). GenNext teases dissention as both Aries and Shelley challenge Joe. “Sirius” is such cool entrance music. Before the match, Aries hits on Tracy and gets slapped. Jack Evans threatens to choke a bitch. Ha ha! Jacobs is subbing for Colt Cabana, who is out with an injury. Jimmy fits just as well, if not better, though, because of his feud with Shelley. Shelley dominates the poor little guy. Jack busts a move on Punk but gets smacked around. Say, why did wrestlers stop doing that spot where they ram their opponent into all three levels of the turnbuckles. That was huge in the late 1980s, and the fans loved it. Steel hits Jack with an IED. Take that, Aries! Jimmy stomps Jacobs in the ribs and gets tossed. GenNext bails, so the Saints dive out on top of them and even let Jimmy get his own awkward crossbody. Back in, SPEAR on Jack. Aries helps Jack block the Contra Code. Jimmy is your face-in-peril until he hits a senton on Shelley. Punk and Aries get the hot tags and do a criss-cross. Aries sees Tracy Brooks standing there, so he DROPKICKS HER INTO THE BARRICADE! See, ladies, that’s why you at least give someone a fake number. Steamboat picks Tracy up and carries her to the back. Just be glad it wasn’t Elizabeth, Ricky. That move triggers a near riot between all six guys. Punk gets the worst of it, and Shelley Skullfucks him. Please note the capital “S” there. Aries and Shelley collide. FORESHADOWING! That allows Steel to get the hot tag and clean house on the heels. Punk tags back in and hits a German Suplex on Aries. Shelley breaks it up with a frogsplash, though. Roderick Strong tries to interfere, but Steamboat takes him out with REAL chops. That allows Punk to hit the Pepsi Plunge on Aries at 32:24. This did an excellent job of sowing the seeds of dissent among Aries and Shelley, something that would be very important later. Plus, it gave Jimmy Jacobs the chance to shine, which solidified him on the card and eventually led him to be one of the best heels in ROH. The match itself had some great moments, like Aries’ dropkick on Tracy and Jack getting his ass kicked from pillar to post. ***1/2 After the match, the faces all do the “Huss.” In the back, Ricky Steamboat selects Chad Collyer and Nigel McGuinness to represent Pure Wrestling.

The 411: Joe vs. Romero is an underrated slugfest, and the main event had tons of heat and intrigue thanks to the various story threads. The opener with Punk and Homicide is a plus as well. Solid thumbs up.
Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]