Dark Pegasus Video Review: Ring of Honor — Steel Cage Warfare

From Johnny Sorrow (re: Vendetta): “So I figured out what my problem with ROH is. After watching Vendetta, I realized that its way too AJPW. Nobody really sells anything. Somebody hits some swank move on somebody else and that just allows that person to go on offense. Then the victim makes the comeback and he goes on offense. Danielson and Strong had a 45 minute match. Danielson spent like 15 minutes working on Strong’s left leg which he didn’t really sell. He limped around on it when he was walking around, but it didn’t prevent him from hitting any moves. It seems like if Danielson shot Strong in the head, Strong would go down to one knee, shake his head to clear the cobwebs and head right back in. That just doesn’t work with guys that are 5’10 235. And it eliminates people giving a shit about comebacks because there is a comeback every five minutes or so. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good athletes and usually hit some nice moves, but they don’t have great matches. And Adam Pearce just sucks. Scrap Iron indeed.” I have to vehemently disagree with the assessment that Roderick didn’t sell the leg, as he wasn’t able to use his finisher – the Stronghold – at least twice in the match. I do understand the criticism of the forearm exchanges and things like that, but I compare it to boxing, where the blows are more likely to stagger you than to finish you off. It’s just taken up a notch. Pearce…well, he’s a love him or hate him kind of guy. I think he really came into his own as a heel in late 2006. Onward… Ring of Honor — Steel Cage Warfare by J.D. Dunn December 3, 2005 From New York, N.Y.. Your hosts are Dave Prazak and Jimmy Bower. Jay Lethal, who has apparently been working on his Steven Wright impression, explains how Samoa Joe helped him. He’s sick of being considered Joe’s protégé. Ha ha! ProtoJay! No bad blood, but Lethal wants to strike out on his own and challenge Joe. Jim Cornette puts over the GenNext vs. Embassy steel cage match tonight. He also makes a Nigel McGuinness vs. Claudio Castagnoli rematch at “Final Battle 2005” with two referees to keep an eye on Nigel. He bans the Rottweilers and Colt Cabana from interfering in the Corino vs. Homicide match later tonight. Opening Match: Dunn & Marcos vs. Jason Blade & Kid Mikaze. Dunn & Marcos actually squashed Blade & Mikaze at “A Night of Tribute.” Bower says the newbies will need a win here to ensure future bookings. Blade & Mikaze work in some good doubleteam offense, isolating Dunn, but Marcos shoves them to the floor. The RCE hits a stage dive on Blade & Mikaze and isolate Mikaze. Mikaze fights out of a headlock and knocks an unsuspecting Dunn to the floor. He takes Dunn out with a suicida as Blade blind tags himself in and hits Marcos with a crossbody for two. Actually, that would have been a good place to end. Blade slings Marcos into a lungblower from Mikaze. The RCE hit the Assisted Sliced Bread #2, but Mikaze saves Blade from the Electric Chair Senton, allowing Blade to plant Marcos with the Finlay Roll. Mikaze hits an inverted SSP (who thinks of this stuff?) to get the win at 10:57. ** Austin Aries says Generation Next was formed for business purposes, but now it’s become personal between Alex Shelley and him. Prince Nana rebuts that the Embassy will be dominant tonight. Top of the Class Trophy: Davey Andrews vs. Pelle Primeau. Andrews has shaved his head, making him look like Baby Snitsky. Then again, given Snitsky’s feelings toward babies, that opens a whole ‘nother can of worms. Pelle is basically the Spike Dudley of ROH, spastically firing off desperate slaps. Andrews no-sells and slaps Pelle silly, finishing with the Anaconda Vice at 1:27. 1/4* Ricky Reyes, who is upset about not being booked while the young class is, challenges them all to an impromptu gauntlet. There goes Mitch Franklin. There goes some guy in a mask (Shane Hagadorn?). There goes Smash Bradley. There go the Dempseys. Andrews steps up and spears Reyes, but Ricky pummels him and smashes the trophy over his head. Roderick Strong promises revenge for what the Embassy did to Jade Chung. Jimmy Rave wants to cement his legacy tonight. This is a LOT of hype for Steel Cage Warfare. ROH Tag Team Titles: Tony Mamaluke & Sal Rinauro vs. Colt Cabana & Milano Collection AT. Colt signed an open contract and recruited Milano to counteract the champs’ Italianness. They don’t mention Colt and Rinauro’s team in FIP for some reason. Milano and Cabana spend most of the match making the champs look silly, which probably didn’t help their drawing power. Milano puts both Mamaluke and Rinauro in a simultaneous half-crab. Goofy. He ties Rinauro up in the Paradise Lock (tie up in the ropes) and delivers a flying dropkick. Cabana and Milano make a wish with Sal’s legs, but Mamaluke makes the save with a dropkick off the top. Mamaluke targets Milano’s leg with an Argentine Kneebreaker. Rinauro tries a springboard but gets cut off by an enzuigiri from Milano. Hot tag to Colt! Colt fends off both guys for a while Milano recovers. Colt gets tossed, though, allowing Mamaluke and Rinauro to hit a doubleteam spike DDT at 15:25. The fans boo the hell out of that result. The match was okay, but Mamaluke and Rinauro have no heat. **1/2 Matt Sydal recalls the Embassy screwing up his big breakout earlier in the year. Abyss responded by putting a cameraman in the hospital, so no comments from him. ROH World Title: Bryan Danielson vs. Rocky Romero (w/Julius Smokes & Ricky Reyes). Amazingly, they actually recall that Romero had a match request thanks to his win at the “Trios Tournament.” Even more amazingly, they go back a year to “Weekend of Thunder” when the Rottweilers attacked Danielson. Even more amazingly than that, they reference both guys coming out of the New Japan Dojo where Romero was able to make Danielson tap several times. This is a different Bryan Danielson, though. Romero spits at Danielson, which can’t be a good idea, in light of recent matches. Romero tries to work his style with lots of stiff kicks and submission moves, but Danielson remains patient and works his own style too. Romero reverses a Mexican Surfboard to an anklelock to get the early advantage. Danielson catches Romero’s leg and turns him over into a half-crab. He utilizes some effective strikes to knock Romero silly, but Rocky comes back with a Guillotine Choke. He doesn’t get the submission with that, so he starts mockingly kicking him and going for strikes. Danielson is able to avoid and come back with his own series of strikes. The half-crab finishes Romero at 15:29. This was just a stopover on the way to bigger matches, and everyone knew it. Still, Romero put up a decent fight. **1/2 After the match, Lance Storm interrupts Danielson’s preening and gets a pretty big ovation from the crowd. He says he respects Danielson for making a stand and wrestling the way *he* wants to and not the way the Man tells people to wrestle. Storm says he only came back to wrestle at One Night Stand because he got to wrestle Jericho the way he wanted, but if he was to come back for one more match, it would be against Danielson. Danielson asks everyone to stand up and appreciate Storm and then shakes his hand. This would lead to Storm coming back for one more match against Danielson at “Better Than Our Best.” Jack Evans (“from the Heavens”) says it’s unfair of ROH to put the Embassy in there with him. Alex Shelley calls the new GenNext a watered down version and promises to crucify Austin Aries. Samoa Joe vs. Jay Lethal. Long feeling-out process to start with Joe overpowering Lethal. They exchange armdrags and start avoiding each other’s offense (they know each other, you see). Lethal tries a crossbody, but Joe just walks away from him. Lethal takes over with a snapmare and dropkick to the back of Joe’s head. He hits a sloppy Russian legsweep and gets two off a moonsault. He gets two more off a jumping DDT. It just feels unrealistic for him to be getting this much offense in on Joe. Suddenly, Joe roars back with an atomic drop and a flying kick. Lethal charges right into a lightning legline. Lethal wraps Joe’s leg around the post and then goes to town on it with a chair as Prazak and Bower voice their disgust. The fans get on Lethal too with a “Fuck you, Lethal!” chant. Lethal spends the rest of the match mocking Joe and working over the leg, screaming about the Pure Title. Joe snaps off a powerslam and a lariat for two, triggering the big comeback. He can’t get the DVD, though, because of the bad knee. Good psychology there. Lethal hits a lariat and locks in the half-crab, screaming “Come on, Teacher!” Joe makes the ropes and swats Lethal away on a springboard. A German suplex puts Lethal down, but Joe collapses under his weight on a Musclebuster attempt. Lethal finishes the big upset with a Dragon Suplex at 20:45. After the match, Lethal hasn’t had enough and stomps the hell out of Joe’s leg. *** Grudge Match: Homicide (w/Julius Smokes) vs. Steve Corino. Notice how all the grudge matches tend to involve Homicide. The hometown crowd is firmly on his side and won’t let Corino’s ring announcer get through is spiel uninterrupted. This would be the longest sustained feud in ROH history with their first match triggering a riot. Um, what else is there. Homicide stabbed Corino in the eye with a fork. He broke his eardrum. They nearly killed each other at “War of the Wire.” That should be enough for now. Alpha male posturing to start, and Homicide slaps Corino upside the head in the same manner that broke his eardrum in the first place. Homicide hits a tope on Corino, distracting Julius long enough for a husky masked assailant to attack him with a lead pipe. Julius’ goofy, Terry Funkish selling is so out of place in ROH. Homicide apparently dislocates his shoulder. Corino introduces a chair, barbed-wire, and handcuffs into the match, but Homicide forks him to keep him from handcuffing Homicide to the ropes. Homicide does a Mr. Blonde on Corino’s ear with the fork. STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU, BDDDDDT! He smashes Corino with the barbed-wire chair then tosses the chair into Corino’s face. Corino stomps his way back and rips at Homicide’s ear. Homicide blocks a piledriver through a table, though, and hits an Ace Crusher through the table! Both men are woozy. They brawl around the ring, and Corino sets up a piece of the ring barrier on some chairs back in the ring. Corino goes up but gets slammed through the steel barrier. Homicide picks up the chair and tosses it at Corino but takes out the referee. D’oh! This is ROH, dammit! An Ace Crusher puts Corino down, as Todd Sinclair replaces the regular ref. Homicide gets two. The masked man returns and clotheslines Homicide, putting Corino on top for the win at 16:30. Horrible booking at the end drags this one way down. The match was brutal, in fact a little too brutal as both guys were so hurt in the beginning that they had to work through intense pain for the rest of the match. Not as satisfactorily brutal as their “War of the Wire” match, and the ending basically means all their suffering was for naught. **3/4 Lacey says her boys have the night off, but when they come back, she’ll be expecting an ROH World Title in her stable. Steel Cage Warfare: Jimmy Rave, Alex Shelley, Abyss & Prince Nana vs. Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Matt Sydal & Jack Evans. This was ROH’s attempt to go toward a more conventional style of epic blowoff like the old NWA Wargames matches. These two factions wound up at each other’s throats when Roderick Strong wound up sticking up for Jade Chung. You know the rules. The first two guys wrestle for five minutes. After that, the team that wins a coin flip gets to send another guy in for a two-on-one. The one big change from the original Wargames is that it is elimination rules, and a wrestler can be eliminated at any time. Aries and Rave start, but Rave spends most of their segment running away from Aries. Aries gets sick of the running and dropkicks Rave, crotching him on the top rope. Aries just plays around with Rave until former GenNexter Alex Shelley runs down in a GenNext shirt to mock Aries. Aries dropkicks a chair into his chest to take the piss out of Shelley. Aries acquits himself well, hitting a springboard back elbow on both guys and then tossing them into the cage. The numbers are just too much, though, as Shelley and Rave team up with a spear/clothesline combo. They team up again for an assisted chinlock and then the old MPro chinlock/dropkick combo. High-flying newbie Matt Sydal evens things up for GenNext. He avoids Shelley’s knees and then shooting star presses off Rave’s back to pick up a two count. GenNext does a do-si-do Rocker-style into a double punch. They work in a really goofy double bow-and-arrow move that they must have picked up from AAA at some point. Abyss comes in for the Embassy, and boy does his monster gimmick ever work better in ROH where there are a plethora of sub six-footers. Sydal and Aries charge him, but Abyss no-sells and tosses them around like rag dolls. He hits an Argentine Rack Drop on Aries. Funny moment as Shelley offers a high five for the move and then leaves Abyss hanging, so Abyss gives himself a high five. Shelley brings a chair into the match and abuses Aries with it. GenNext is just getting nothing in there. Shelley humiliates Aries with that headscissor face jam thing that he does. Roderick Strong is next, and he cleans house, staggering Abyss with forearms long enough to try to break Shelley in half with multiple backbreakers. He sneaks up on Rave as the fans chant “break his back!” Strong tries, but Abyss has recovered. Strong goes for the double-knees, but Abyss is just too big. Abyss counters to a belly-to-belly to drop Strong on his head. Sydal bounces off the ropes, but Abyss catches him in a MONSTER Black Hole Slam for the first elimination at 22:25. Rave and Strong take it to the floor while Shelley directs Abyss to batter Aries back in the ring. A gloating Prince Nana walks down in his robe mocking the crowd. Shelley puts Aries in the tree-of-woe and hits an Aries-esque hanging dropkick. He rips at Aries’ open wound and lets Abyss taste his blood. Cool. It’s all Embassy here. Things look dire for GenNext until Jade Chung returns and says it will take more than a faux-Pedigree to keep her down. The Embassy chases her down and catches up with her, but Jack Evans uses the distraction to scale the cage and hit a 630-moonsault onto the pile (and nearly cracks his head open on the hardwood floor). That gives Strong and Aries enough time to recover. Strong and Evans team up on Abyss as Aries tosses Rave headfirst to the barrier. Back inside, GenNext isolates Abyss, and Strong gets that double-knee. Rave scurries in and tries to keep Evans from coming off the top. Strong yanks Rave back down and holds him up. Oh, my God! They can’t! THEY DID! Evans jumps off the top of the cage and springboards off Rave’s chest into a moonsault on Abyss in an Ode to the Bulldogs. I can’t believe they even tried that, and more impressively, I can’t believe it worked! ONE, TWO, THREE! Abyss is gone at 33:10. Evans is fired up and hits Shelley with the handspring elbow and Fisherman Buster to set up the 630-senton. Shelley gets his knees up to block, though, and finishes Evans with the second-rope Schwein at 35:52. So it’s a 3-on-2 for the Embassy, although Nana is basically sitting back and watching at this point. Aries backdrops out of the Greetings from Ghana (Pedigree) but staggers right into Shellshock. Roderick makes the save. Rave hits Ghanarhea, but it only gets two. Nana hits the butt splash on his own men and doesn’t even know it. Aries and Strong get fired up, looking like a sleeker version of Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson as they surround Nana. Rave and Shelley try to jump them from behind but wind up crashing into Nana. Rave stumbles back into Strong who hits backbreaker after backbreaker after backbreaker. HOLY SHIT! RAVE IS A BOWL OF JELLY! Strong applies the Stronghold (Liontamer) as Aries brainbusters Shelley on a chair. Rave gives it up as Aries gets the pin on Shelley for a near simultaneous elimination at 40:07. That leaves Nana against Aries and Strong. Strong and Aries just kick the everloving crap out of him, and Aries hits the 450-splash for the win at 41:39. And, in one sublime moment to truly finish the feud, Jade Chung comes back in and stands on Jimmy Rave’s back to use him as a foot stool after months of torment and abuse. This is one where you really have to know the backstory to get the full appreciation of the match, but the booking here was incredible, and the clash of personalities (especially Shelley & Aries) made this exactly what ROH critics say the promotion lacks — an emotional rollercoaster. Incredible match filled with memorable images (Jack’s moonsault, Strong tenderizing Rave’s spine, and Jade standing triumphant) and yet another MOTYC. ****1/2

The 411: A staggering majority of the show is dedicated to hyping the main event, and thankfully it lived up to the hype. I was set to go thumbs down, but the cage match wound up being a show saver of the highest proportions. Mild thumbs up for the cage match.
Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]