Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor – Midnight Express Reunion

Ring of Honor — Midnight Express Reunion
by J.D. Dunn

October 2, 2004.

From Philadelphia, Penn.

Your hosts are Jimmy Bower and Mark Nulty

RoH Tag Titles: The Havana Pitbulls (w/Julius Smokes) vs. Angel Dust & Izzy (w/Special K).
Izzy & Dixie were unsuccessful against the Pitbulls, so Izzy’s girlfriend Lacey, playing the Yoko of the group, said that Izzy would have more success if he had a better partner. Enter Angel Dust. Special K actually does manage to fluster the champs with their quickness and daredevil style. The Pitbulls take a breather on the outside before returning to their regularly scheduled programming, which includes kicking the everloving crap out of Special K. Izzy gets the hot tag and hits Dragon Dust. The announcers speculate about Izzy being blown up, implying that *he* and not Dixie were the weak link. Angel Dust hits Cradleshock on Romero, but Reyes makes the save. The Pitbulls toss Izzy and hit Angel Dust with the Havana Decapitation for the win at 11:28. After the match, Lacey blames Angel Dust for the loss, prompting a pull-apart brawl between her and Becky Bayless. **

Four-Corners Survival Match: Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana) vs. Trent Acid vs. Josh Daniels vs. BJ Whitmer.
Alison Danger walks down to root on everyone but BJ Whitmer (Maff is already out with an injury). Rave and Daniels start out with Daniels using his Dynamitish offense to dismantle the pretty boy. Nulty talks about Daniels not making it very far since leaving the Embassy. Say, why *hasn’t* Josh Daniels made more of an impact? Get on that, will you? It doesn’t take long before everyone just decides to throw the rules out and start hitting big moves. Whitmer hits Daniels with the Golden Gate Swing and an Exploder ’98, but Trent Acid takes him out with a boot. Acid sunset flips Rave, but Jimmy rolls through and hits a Shining Wizard to set up the “Rave Clash” for the win at 9:50. Alison hops in and begs any of the three other guys to kill Whitmer, but they all walk off, leaving her alone with Whitmer. Finally, the Carnage Crew runs down and attacks Whitmer. They put a garbage can over his head and take turns beating it in with baseball bats. Crazy beatdown. *1/2

Low Ki (w/Julius Smokes) vs. Jay Lethal.
Lethal gets no respect early as Low Ki works in his windmill kick and slaps Lethal around. Jay fires back with punches and a tope. Oddly enough, Low Ki sells a lot more as a heel than as a face. Back in, Lethal stays on top until Julius Smokes hops up on the apron to distract him. Lethal is forced into the plucky babyface roll as Smokes taunts Lethal’s moms on the outside. Ki slaps on a figure-four headlock and then toys with him in between deadly strikes. They take Lethal to the floor to beat him right in front of his mother. Ki stops to spit on her! OH SNAP! You don’t fuck with moms. Lethal makes the big comeback, and Mama Lethal slaps Ki in the face. Back in, Lethal dominates, but again Julius Smokes distracts him long enough for Ki to hit a Kappou Kick. Lethal makes a spirited attempt at a comeback, but Low Ki locks in the Dragon Clutch for the win at 14:22. Thankfully, the stuff with Mama Lethal didn’t overwhelm the match the way it would in WCW. Low Ki gets on the mic after the match says he has no respect for Lethal. **1/2

Homicide (w/Julius Smokes) vs. Nigel McGuinness.
This is an interest contrast in styles. Bower actually uses those exact words after I type that. Despite Homicide’s reputation as a loose cannon, he’s a very good wrestler. I actually type that moments after Nulty says the same thing. Crazy brain wavelengths, man. McGuinness opens up with a series of simple mat moves and begins to dominate on the mat, locking in a Harley Race-ish Side Indian Deathlock. Homicide rolls through to a Mr. Salty. Things pick up a bit as Homicide fakes out the fans on a tope and then goes for a simple double ax-handle off the apron. McGuinness tosses Homicide’s shoulder into the crowd barrier and goes to work on it one they get back in the ring. Nigel gets two off a German suplex, but Homicide goes low to block a second one. Homicde and Smokes then play red-light/green-light with the ref, taking turns working McGuinness over while the other one distracts the ref. McGuinness turns the match in his favor again with a belly-to-belly suplex off the top, which Nulty puzzlingly calls a Dragon suplex. I could see if he said “Gargoyle Suplex.” Homicide gets two off a T-Bone Bridge, but Nigel comes back with his handstand into a rope-assisted Stunner. Smokes puts Homicide’s leg on the ropes to break up the count and then clutches McGuinness’ leg long enough for Homicide to hit an Ace Crusher. Homicide follows up with a lariat, but it doesn’t have the same impact because of the earlier armwork. McGuinness blocks a second attempt and rolls out of the Cop Killah and hits a Hammerlock DDT. That sets up an armscissors, and McGuinness rolls Homicide over onto his back for the upset win at 20:00. Solid work from both guys as the story — set up by Bower’s commentary — was McGuinness’ European style confounding Homicide. Indeed, McGuinness dominated most of the match when it was a fair fight, weathered Homicide’s striking storm, and finished with a wrestling hold. ***

GenNext brags about taking spots.

8-Man Elimination: CM Punk, Ace Steele, John Walters & Jimmy Jacobs (w/Ricky Steamboat) vs. Alex Shelley, Austin Aries, Roderick Strong & Jack Evans.
Before the match, Steamboat gets on the stick and calls Mick Foley a stuntman for calling RoH “Ring of Hardcore.” He says it’s a privilege to be in Ring of Honor, which is based on athletics, not garbage wrestling. Fast start for this match, with Jacobs hitting a nice flying headlock takeover. They go MPro with Punk and Steele tying up Strong and posing with him and then getting a quadruple 10-punch pummel. The faces do the quadruple row-your-boat spot with the heels’ legs, but the ref gets distracted, and GenNext hits a quadruple team maneuver on Jacobs. GenNext gives Jacobs High Spirits years before the Spirit Squad would use the same move. Lots of nice teamwork from GenNext as they keep Jacobs isolated. Jacobs hits a convoluted Unprettier/Pedigree combo, but he can’t make the tag. Finally, the babyfaces have had enough of GenNext’s cheating, so they all try to get involved, but that distracts the ref long enough for Aries to hit Jacobs with a chair. Shelley eliminates Jacobs with Shellshock at 13:53.

Once the smoke clears from a big brawl, GenNext’s domination continues unabated — this time on CM Punk. Punk, though, is able backdrop Aries on Shelley and make the hot tag. Walters cleans house on GenNext, turning the tide back to the babyfaces. Steele tags in and finishes Jack Evans with Spinal Shock at 20:15.

Things start moving a lot faster as Aries sneaks in during a brawl and finishes Steele with a Crucifix Bomb at 20:48.

GenNext isolates Walters and continues their triple teaming. They try to involve a chair, but Punk runs in and takes it away, taking out all three GenNexters with it. Oh, but the ref turns and sees him using it and disqualifies him at 24:43.

Steamboat is pissed at Punk’s lack of discipline, especially after he gave his anti-hardcore promo. Punk jaws with him for a bit before walking out. Walters fights valiantly and knocks Aries and Shelley out with a double lungblower. He gives Strong a trio of lungblowers to eliminate him at 28:25.

Shelley and Aries jump Walters right away to make sure he can’t recover. Shelley beats down Walters while taunting Steamboat at ringside. Roderick Strong returns with a chair, but Steamboat hops in and keeps him from using it. Strong and Steamboat battle all the way to the back. Back inside, Walters slips out of a superplex and hits a super lungblower on Aries. Shelley makes the save and hits Shellshock, but Walters is in the ropes. Aries comes off the top with the 450-splash to finish Walters off after a spirited performance at 34:13. After the match, both Shelley and Aries announce their intentions to go after Samoa Joe’s world title. Therein lies the friction that would break up the group a few months later. This was a solid mix of new-school Michinoku Pro heatgetting and old-school NWA tag style. It was a case of too much happening at once with Steamboat-Foley, Steamboat-GX, Steamboat-Punk, Jacobs-Shelley, and Aries-Shelley all figuring in. ***

Jim Cornette, Dennis Condrey, Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane come out to thank everyone for their support over the years. Cornette says he wishes Ray Traylor (The Big Bossman in the WWF, Big Bubba Rogers in the NWA) could have been there. Prince Nana comes out to talk about how touching this is. Cornette says Nana’s about as sincere as a “Get Well” card from an undertaker and asks him to get to the point. Nana says he dipped into his bank account and got a loan from his uncle in Ghana (a nice play off Mama Cornette). He brought someone to Philly who knows the truth of the Midnight Express — Ricky Morton! Ricky calls the whole ceremony bullshit because everyone knows the Rock ‘n’ Rolls kicked the Midnights’ asses. Ricky puts over the Embassy as the future and says this ceremony should be celebrating the Rock ‘n’ Rolls. Cornette says the Midnights had the good sense to retire, prompting the Embassy to attack. The MX pretty much clean their clocks, leaving Ricky alone. Ricky feeds them Prince Nana and sprints to the back, which is what he should have done with Robert Gibson years ago. Fun stuff.

Ring of Honor World Title: Samoa Joe vs. Bryan Danielson.
Joe is no longer in the violent ass-kicker mode that he was when the two first met in early 2003. Here, he’s much more calm, confident and calculating — arguably a more cerebral wrestler. One could also argue that Danielson has been wrestling with a chip on his shoulder for most of 2004. Early in the match, Joe isn’t nearly as aggressive as he was in their earlier encounters. Danielson takes advantage of that early, snapping off a Dragon Screw. It seems like Danielson is just poking at Joe, looking for a weakness. Danielson offers a test of strength, which would seem to be a stupid idea, but there’s method to his madness as he’s just trying to get Joe angry enough to make a mistake. It nearly works as Joe throws a series of strikes, most of which whiff because Dragon is quick enough to avoid them. Nice strategy by Dragon. Joe finally catches up with him and backdrops Dragon to the floor, but Danielson blocks the Olay Kick and hits a springboard somersault plancha. Dragon hits his own Olay Dropkick. Back in, Danielson cuts off Joe’s flurry of strikes and grounds Joe with an abdominal stretch. Joe powers out of it and fires off a few more strikes before Danielson cuts him off again. Finally, Joe casually comes back with a press gutbuster. Danielson sells it like he’s got one of those Alien chestbursters in his gut. They trade strikes again with Joe blasting Danielson with an enzuigiri that sends him to the outside. Joe follows up with a tope and the Olay kick. Back in, Joe gets complacent, allowing Dragon to clip his leg from behind. Joe catches him in mid-air with the STO, but his knee is too injured to hold the STF. You can sense Joe getting desperate as he starts going for big moves to get the quick win so he can get the hell out of there. Danielson kicks out of the snap powerslam and Burning Lariat, though, weathering the storm and hitting a Dragon Suplex for one. He rolls it over into Cattle Mutilation, but Joe makes the ropes. They trade knees to the skull, but Joe catches him with a knee right to the face to knock Danielson loopy enough for the Coquina Clutch for the submission at 39:12. The crowd alternates between “Dragon” and “Joe” chants to show appreciation for both guys. CM Punk interrupts the lovefest to challenge Joe to a return match. Dragon also wants a rematch, but Generation Next runs down and attacks Punk. Joe and Danielson don’t really care much until Aries starts mouthing off to them too. Joe and Danielson join the fray, but The Rottweilers interrupt, turning the whole thing into a schmoz. Low Ki and Joe wind up in there together with Danielson trying to play peacekeeper. Joe is so pissed off that he accidentally elbows Dragon, so Dragon hits a roaring elbow to knock Joe to the floor. A light bulb goes off over Danielson’s head, and he decides to name Low Ki as his partner against Joe & Jushin Lyger at “Weekend of Thunder”! Joe really broke out of what could be considered a mild slump in the quality of his matches. Don’t get me wrong. Most wrestlers would kill to have the great series of matches Joe had in 2004, but he’d set the bar so high with ****+ matches that when he puts on a *** performance, you think he’s slipping. Danielson’s “let him punch himself out” strategy early echoed Punk’s at “World Title Classic,” only Danielson had more firepower to finish the job once Joe was weakened. Unfortunately for Danielson, he’s probably going to need a bigger boat because Joe has been able to weather everything thrown at him so far. ****

The 411: Disappointing undercard aside, once you hit McGuinness versus Homicide the quality picked up considerably. The elimination match had a lot of fun moments and tied together a lot of (maybe too many) threads. And finally, the main event delivered everything it promised as both guys left it all out there on the mat in an intelligent, athletic contest. Solid thumbs up for "Midnight Express Reunion."

Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]