Kingston is Hell in Harlem and Poppin' in Queens

 Eddie Kingston vs. Necro Butcher CZW 10/14/06 - EPIC

PAS: This was Eddie's first defense of the CZW title and he was full heel with Robbie Mireno and Larry Legend running interference. Necro opens the match bumping Kingston all over ring side. Kingston takes a big time beating on the floor, getting chairs chucked reckless at him, landing awkwardly on folding chairs and guardrails, you rarely see Necro out bumped, but in this match he took a backset. Eddie is able to take back over by punching Necro right in his bare feet which is a tremendous transition, and he unloads a pretty big beating of his own. There is a great section where Kingston backs Necro into the corner with a Tenryu chop/jab combo and Necro fires out with a multiple potato punch head and body combo. They had maybe my favorite bar fight spot ever. Kingston is slumped on some stairs, Necro grabbing a chair to sit down, clocking Eddie in the face, and Eddie just throwing a missed concussed air punch, only to get smashed again.  Finish has Kingston getting powerbombed on set up wooden stairs, but having the pin broken up by Mireno pulling out the ref. While Necro is savaging Mireno, Kingston hits a backdrop driver on the stairs, with Necro's neck bending at a sick angle, and a clothesline for the win. This had a little bit of a pacing issue when Eddie was setting up the steps for the end, but a hellacious fight like this is always going to be special. 

Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. The Briscoe Brothers PWR 8/4/12 - GREAT

PAS: The show was in Delaware, and really worked like a returning hero, please the crowd tag. Briscoe's bump around Cide and Kingston early, they move into a shortish face in peril section, a crowd brawl, table spot and a near fall finish. This is a very 2000s formula tag, but there were a couple of fun tweaks. You can count on Kingston to add some spice, and I liked his convulsion selling after getting smushed on an unbreakable plastic table. I thought the structure of the match wasted Cide and Kingston, they didn't really get to demonstrate what makes them special, but a hot tag with an over hometown team is always going to work for me. 

Eddie Kingston/PAC/Pentagon El Zero Miedo vs. Brandon Cutler/Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 6/11/21 - FUN

ER: I kept liking and then disliking this match, but it ended on a high note and that always makes me like a match more. If there's going to be stuff I dislike, the worst spot for that stuff to happen is the home stretch. This had a good home stretch, and good moments, but also some guys I don't like doing things I don't like. I'm about as over Penta El Zero Miedo as I am any wrestler this side of Seth Rollins. He is now one of those guys that makes me wrinkle my nose when I find out he is in a match, especially if it's with guys I like. The important difference between Penta and Seth Rollins, however, is that Penta was one of my absolute favorite guys in wrestling to watch, during season 1 Lucha Underground. I never got that excited for Rollins, but Penta had me hooked for a year. But now I've disliked him for far longer than I ever liked him. If we were doing DVDVR 500s, Pentagon Jr. would be a guy in the Top 25 that one year, then down to the 270s the next, then down to the 490s one place below Shane McMahon. His offense is obnoxiously selfish, always requiring every person in the ring to stop what they're doing just to stand and feed his overcomplicated offense, that always requires way too many moving parts all moving at his expense. Guys kill themselves to take sluggishly executed Penta moves and maybe it just has to loop back around to being cool again in my head. 

Brandon Cutler also felt really out of place in this match. Kingston and PAC were bringing asskicker energy to things, the Young Bucks and their actually great gear (with matching silken tasseled hairline secret keepers) were working a good smug match controlling PAC, clearly building to a big Kingston and Penta hot tag...and Cutler was there working the match like he was Screech substituting for Slater against Valley. It wasn't an unentertaining presence, but he was bringing this indy wrestling Jim Cornette forced to be in a match vibes, and it all felt a little too distracting from some of the actual cool stuff that could have happened. I liked the finish with him missing a big springboard elbow and standing up into a Kingston backfist, but we could have used a couple less moments of him hamming his way through two other guy' moment. Kingston's involvement was the highlight and just kept getting better than longer he was in. He had a couple of great cut off spots to interrupt someone's highspot, and the build to him and PAC hitting stereo dives was fantastic. PAC is an unexpectedly fun Kingston ally, a guy I wouldn't have ever thought of as a Kingston tag guy, but I liked their rhythm here a lot and wouldn't mind seeing more of them together. Kingston pummeling someone into a PAC flying move is a cool way to set things up, and we can see they know how to build to a good finish. 

PAS: I actually liked Cutler in this match, that kind of Downtown Bruno forced into a match added a different flavor to something which would otherwise be another workrate trios. I thought it added to the cool stuff rather then distracting from it. It also gives Eddie a foil to work off of, and one of the great Eddie's is Eddie beating on a young guy, he doesn't Shane Storm him, but it is in that world. The high spots were fun, and I liked the hot tag. Good TV match for sure.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON 

Read more!

2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes vs. Dinastia Munoz

36. Rush/Dragon Lee vs. The Briscoes ROH 6/29

PAS: I watch the Briscoes like once every couple of years, and always wonder why I don't watch more Briscoes. I remember them as clean cut kids killing each other at CZW Best of the Best and am always a little taken back at their current Fentanyl dealer on work release look. This was a 2019 tag match, with lots of big spots and near falls, and not much traditional face in peril. These are four guys who can do a fun 2019 tag match, and we also got Mark Briscoe spewing blood. Rush may not work with blood in CMLL, but he is still a luchadore, and is great using Mark's plasma as body paint and doing a Pirata blood spray. Rush really comes off like a big star in ROH and I need to check out some of his singles stuff.  We got fun dives, big throws and a surprisingly conclusive finish.

ER: Our treatment of the Briscoes is kind of odd. We write up a LOT of guys but there are certain guys we love who also don't get a lot of print from us (like when I noticed recently that we had only written up our second James Mason match, even though both of us have been into that guy since first seeing him practically 20 years ago), and Briscoes clearly fit that bill. I think they easily rank as a top 5 tag team this decade, but they've also been stuck in a promotion that hasn't been interesting since Necro Butcher left a decade ago, shown on a TV channel with rightly zero affiliates anywhere near my state. They're undeniably great, just not on any streaming services or feeds that will cross my eyes, out of sight out of mind.

And this match was great. The Briscoes are a combination of The Moondogs and The Usos, except they're easily the best versions of both The Moondogs and The Usos. Briscoes are trucker's crank cut with bleach. And my god Rush. Rush looked like as much of a damn boss as he did a few years ago in CMLL, when he was first becoming a "do you know who I am" guy in his ring attitude and in real life. This thing was totally breathless, made my heart beat a little faster just sitting in a recliner watching it. Everything in it was done quickly, and with force, like a high speed prime Rock n Roll Express vs. a high speed prime Rock n Roll Express. Everybody in this match was throwing hard dropkicks to chests, with Rush laying them in like his family owned the fucking fed. Briscoes always do everything dialed to 10, yet they have a chawlip Fuck It vibe about it with a crazy eyed intensity that you avoid at a bar. Mark gets busted open, Rush body paints with his blood, Dragon Lee hits a wild rana to the floor, Mark hits a great lariat, both teams pop off quick as hell double teams, several of them fly into the guardrails harder than you'd want to hit a guardrail (Lee hits the hardest and sending them wedging into the front rows. It was great bell to bell. This 12 minute tag match (the first and only ROH match I've watched this year) was so good that just knowing it happened in this promotion made me more interested in seeking out recommended current ROH stuff. They employ the Briscoes and Dinastia Munoz, how bad could they be?


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes vs. EYFBO

76. Briscoes vs. EYFBO wXw 10/7

ER: Tons of fun, just go go go go with no stopping for breath, great way to start off night 2 of this tournament. Even though the Briscoes aren't too much bigger than EYFBO, they are able to convey a super overpowering aura in their matches, always coming off faster, stronger, crazier, and I thought EYFBO was good at finding their moments and bumping big for the Briscoes. We start with a kind of lucha style opening, arm drags and rope running and ranas, but once they kick into the next gear and start chaining together big moves and double teams they never look back. Match really got great once Jay got the hot tag and started throwing savage lariats, really throwing from the shoulder with huge follow through. Both teams keep one upping the other, everyone is throwing huge dropkicks in the corner, Draztik hits this crazy swanton into Mark slumped in the corner (vaulting off Ortiz), they set up some loony cutter in the corner with Mark stretched from the turnbuckle to the shoulder of Ortiz, and Draztik runs the length of Mark and flies off with a heavy crossbody on Jay. Mark takes out Ortiz with a cannonball off the ring apron, and Jay crushes Draztik with his best lariat of the match (which is saying something), and they really knock Draztik's block off with the Doomsday Device. This match couldn't have been more than 12 minutes but was a fantastic spotfest, not a second of slow down. I would have been burnt out already had I been there.

PAS: This was the best EYFBO match I have seen, as they have always felt like a team I should love but always fell short for me. This was total go-go stuff, reminded me of the great Garden State Gods JAPW matches in the mid-2000s. I have been watching the Briscoes since their earliest matches, and man have they fully gone in on their scraggly militia look. They look like they should hijacking Federal land for grazing rights. All of their stuff looked great, they have gotten so good at making little things look impactful, big highspots, but also great looking elbows and clotheslines. I haven't watched ROH in years, but I need to check out some more recent Briscoes.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose

15. Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose ROH 3/12

ER: It's hard to beat a good 6 man tag. You can get guys with loose allegiances, different styles, and different skillsets, but as long as things keep a certain pace you can hide a lot of weaknesses and have an insane amount of fun. Whether you credit the format or the wrestler, this is the best I've seen Moose look, the best I've seen Cheeseburger used, and the most fired up I've seen Jay Briscoe in over a year. Cheeseburger got to hit some shoteis, some splashes that were never seen as threatening, he got to do some Mikey Whipwreck avoidance spots where the larger guys would just hurt themselves (including a nice run where Moose flies into the ringpost and Hanson bronco busts the turnbuckles), and most importantly he gets used as a weapon. We get several great spots with him getting thrown into other guys, the craziest being him getting caught on a dive and then thrown back into the ring by War Machine, only to get caught by Jay which leads directly to Mark hitting a wild tope and then Jay taking out War Machine with an even meaner, faster, low tope. Jay was awesome in this, and his brawling segments with Rowe and Moose were the highlights. Rowe is clearly the worker in War Machine even though Hanson is featured more, and he and Jay kick the shit out of each other. Later on when Moose and Jay are taking turns kicking each other it's like Moose finally turned the corner into becoming a good worker. I mean it helps when Mark Brisoce flies insanely into your spinning lariat, but still Moose looked good. Cheeseburger gets a nice triple shotei spot, only to see everybody recover and all kick him at the same time from different angles. He gets tossed around a lot here, as he should be, but usually the tosses aren't so mean. Moose planting him with a low angle german after catching the alley oop from Hanson is worth the price of admission. 6 man tags are just the perfect structure for 6 guys of varying ability to go in and have a great 15 minutes of action, and this all held to that philosophy.

PAS: This was a nice example of the strength of a six man tag, because outside of the Briscoes I am not sure if any of these guys are good wrestlers and I really enjoyed this. I had never seen Cheeseburger before, and he is Haiti Kid level skinny, he might weight less then 100 pounds and has no muscle development at all, I mean most tiny indy guys at least have some bulk to them. He does take a brutal beating and I liked how he avoided guys and made them hurt themselves, I am not sure I ever buy any offensive move as anything but a comedy spot though. War Machine look awesome, but there stuff should really be more violent, I want Ray Rowe to kill folks, and he just never does it for me. This did make me remember how much I love the Briscoes and I should make a wrestling resolution to watch more of them.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 11/11/15 Review

1. Cedric Alexander vs. ACH

Kevin Kelly puts over the unique concept of the wrestlers in Ring of Honor shaking hands before and after matches. God is that something they're still trying to promote? This match didn't do a whole lot for me, honor or no. It felt like a back handspring contest. I'm not sure who won, but there were a lot of handsprings. Also a lot of hiptosses with guys landing on the apron on their feet, a lot of "well-scouted signature offense". It all kinda runs together when there's no breathing room in a match. Veda Scott was really good in this, using herself as a human shield to block ACH's punt, allowing Cedric to hit a nice STO on the apron. She also held her ground when Cedric almost flip dove into her, with him having to hold the ropes to avoid hitting her "by mistake". I woulda got out of dodge and she stuck right in for the spot. There were a couple things I liked, ACH hit his cool rope run flip dive, Cedric throws a real nice running dropkick, and Cedric's blown springboard leading to the finish was really cool. I don't know if it was supposed to be blown, but he blew it spectacularly, catching a foot on the top and then bouncing chest first on the other side. It reminded me of all the great planned Hamrick blown spots. But the bulk of the match wasn't even move exchanging, it was reversal exchanging. At times it felt so far up its own ass, like actual moves weren't even being done because they were just focusing on reversing reversals of other reversals.

2. Will Ferrara vs. Caprice Coleman

This is maybe the quietest I've ever heard a ROH crowd. My were they silent during this. Coleman was real slow on offense. His standing leg drop and sliding leg drop to a seated Ferrara looked nice, but the set-up for all his stuff was slow, sluggish. Ferrara is blandish but Coleman didn't give him much to work with. For his part Will took two real nice "shoulder to the post" bumps in the corner, one on a missed charge and the other with Coleman tossing him. He's also good at putting over submissions. Last week against Strong he made me believe Strong was stretching him, and this week he made something Coleman did look deadly, so clearly this is just a great skill of his. Ooooooooo and after the match Nana gives him an envelope! It could possibly be coupons and newspaper clippings, like Rachel's mom cuts out and sends to her.

3. All Night Express vs. Briscoes

Hey, this was an All Night Express match that I liked! That isn't a thing that happens. But it happened right here! And it wasn't even all because I love the Briscoes, ANX also did some things I enjoyed! Titus hair flips a bunch but this might have been the best I've seen him. His share of the double team offense looked good, took Briscoes' stuff violently, flipped his hair some more, did some Martin Starr cosplay, hit a nice standing splash, more hair flips. I dug Mark starting things with some grappling. I want to see a character shift where he masters his redneck kung fu so moves on to a new challenge, and becomes a redneck RINGS worker. Mark's dives get crazier every week, dude really plays lunatic better than anybody else right now. I really liked the structure of this as ANX control Mark for awhile, Jay tags in and he and Mark go on a tear, King gets a run of kicks and suplexes, finishers get blocked, and then Jay hits a wicked Jay Driller and Mark hits a lung collapsing Froggy Bow. It's an easy way to fill 12 and both teams have the formula down. King took a weird bump off the apron and did a strange phantom knee injury for like 3 seconds. But yeah this was good. More stuff like this.

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/30/15 & 10/7/15 Review

9/30/15

1. Matt Sydal vs. KUSHIDA

Well this was pretty unlikeable. This was that perfect combination of uninteresting ringwork combined with constant crowd chanting. Crowd is chanting This is Awesome as the match begins, because you see, they're in on the gag. We jerk off with some bad matwork with one guy holding still so the other can do stuff, and then doing stuff while the other guy holds still. The strike exchanges were weak and the moves were really poorly set up. KUSHIDA has some slow motion handspring offense that doesn't look good if and when it connects, and requires Sydal to either stand there while a man does a handstand, or run face first into a man doing a handstand. KUSHIDA hits a decent flip dive at one point. Sydal still has a pretty shooting star press. Boy I did not like this.

2. Adam Page vs. Will Ferrara vs. Watanabe vs. Moose

Boy we are not doing well tonight. This was a rushed 4 way, starting out clunky then burning through some suplexes leading to the early finish. Page was a standout and this was probably the best I've seen him, showing some personality and setting up offense for others nicely. He also had a really great fallaway slam on Ferrara at one point. Ferrara has terrible strikes but is game to take a bump. Moose is always disappointing. There is still plenty of potential there, and he throws a nice back elbow here, but there's just always tons lacking. Watanabe is from Japan, LAND OF WORKRATE and thus he is awesome and we must all throw streamers at him. He never looks very good. Everybody threw suplexes. Colby Corino took a decent bump from the apron at one point, but he leaned way out of a Moose kick to get to that bump. Steve Corino continues to miss every emotional note, woodenly saying "Colby. Nooooooo. Get off of the apron." At least it was short?

3. Adam Cole vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Well this was disappointing. Cole is not great, and Nak really didn't try too hard. We had Cole doing a bunch of fairly engaging leg work, leading to Nak not caring much at all about the leg work. Some of Cole's superkicks to Nak's leg were alright. I especially liked one to the back of Nak's leg. But almost immediately after the legwork stopped, Nak was back up, throwing knees, doing suplexes, jumping around, being generally just fine. My time felt wasted.


Eh, Rachel was on the phone with her sister and she didn't want me to watch You're the Worst or The League without her, so what else was I going to do. But this show was three matches that could have been good, but none of them were.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10/7/15

Oh man this show is filmed at MCU Park in Brooklyn and it already looks so awesome. This needs to be done more often. Such a great venue and it reads super cool on TV.

1. Time Splitters vs. Briscoe Bros.

The Time Splitters...are not a team I would like to see again very soon. KUSHIDA is just really bad. Their comedy doesn't work, most of their actual ring work doesn't work, they just don't work. Shelley can at least throw a halfway decent punch. KUSHIDA is one of those guys who has really bad trademark offense, but it's made even worse because he doesn't make any of it look good. He's the one who picked this offense. You'd think he would know more than anyone that he has a shaky handstand and a bad looking jab. But then he goes and does bad handspring offense and just a terrible left jab combo. We get a too long super silly arm wringer segment which I'm sure is amusing to the live crowd and all but I'd rather see Briscoes kicking the hell out of them. And we do get that, we do. We just get so much KUSHIDA. Too much. He's junk. I'd rather just watch the Briscoes fight each other.

2. Watanabe vs. Cedric Alexander

Well hey this was the best I've seen Watanabe look! The match was JIP so who knows what kind of mess we missed, but Watanabe looked like a guy I would actually want to see here! Stiff senton, nice strikes (actual painful elbows! Funny how NJPW main event style always has interminable elbow exchanges, yet most of their guys have lousy elbow strikes), a couple of headbutts I didn't expect. Cedric knows how to miss big and I dug his thrust headbutt. Veda Scott is always amusing at ringside. Maybe Watanabe just likes working in the outdoors more? I had a copy (like a photocopy) of Farmer Burns' old "Lessons in Wrestling and Physical Culture" and it recommends to always do your calisthenics in an outdoor setting or at least next to an open window. It also recommended eating your daily steak next to an open window. And to use soothing syrups made from only the finest heroin. But still, I have seen many indoor Watanabe matches that were terrible. And now 100% of the outdoor Watanabe matches I've seen have been good. Science.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Kazuchika Okada

For a guy nicknamed Mr. ROH you think they would just spell his name ROHderick. Okada is very much not good but there were moments in this I enjoyed. Instead of their usual guardrail with metal signs on it, the infield had these flimsy plastic barriers (I guarantee there were some people upset that they paid for front row and were denied flat metal to slap their palms on) and at one point Roddy backdropped Okada onto a barrier, overshot a bit and dumped Okada on his head into the crowd. But man the way Okada builds matches is just annoying. He has no clue how to go back on offense. He just gets hit with a move for a nearfall, both men sell, then Okada just does his own move. We get a few strike exchanges, and Strong's strikes completely smoke Okada's, so Strong always gets the better of him, and then every time Strong then turns to run the ropes that's when Okada greets him with a dropkick or something else. This shit happens in every. single. Okada match. It's just lazy structure, and it's why I get sucked out of his way-too-long matches at the halfway point. At a certain point it switches into "opponent does shit until Okada just does his signature shit". Nothing means anything after awhile. Strong gets a nice nearfall with his running kick, people in the crowd can't believe it, thought it was over. But then Okada just gets up at the same time as Strong and hits a tombstone. Story of the match, story of the wrestler. Yuck.

Not a bad show, although I have now officially seen too many Okada matches. I don't like him. BUT I loved the outdoor setting of the tapings. Gives the show a nice fresh look and looks like they got a bunch of people there. Funny as I hated the look of WMIX, but grew to enjoy the look of outdoor shows more and more. I wonder what moment turned me. It could have been Onita riding in a boat to get to a ring. Or a WCW Spring break show with somebody falling into a pool. It may have been CW Anderson riding on the back of a tractor to a ring in the middle of a cornfield. Yeah. It was probably that one. But whatever it was, I love the outdoor show vibe. So, excellent marks for presentation.

Also, A+ on the sound mixing. Kelly and Corino were mixed WAY down so I could hardly hear them, making them so easy to tune out. I don't know if this was Destination America or ROH themselves, but mixing those two dunderheads down is just an excellent move all around. Great job gang!

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/23/15 Review

1. Silas Young vs. Michael Elgin

Elgin hasn't been on TV in awhile so he goes over pretty strong on Silas here, but Silas is more of a regular so might have been nice to give him more. Although when he did get more his stuff looked kind of weak, including an incredibly goofy slingshot double foot stomp...thing, that doesn't really look like it touches Elgin. But Young at least takes Elgin's stuff nicely, especially a massive powerbomb on the floor into the guardrail. Kevin Kelly was doing his horrible style of announcing, where he doesn't so much do play-by-play as he does just yell out random nouns that he sees. When Young went for a backbreaker on Elgin, Kelly just yelled "Surgically repaired KNEE of SILAS!" Not anything about the backbreaker, just decided to point out Young's knee, which had nothing to do with any part of the match. It's like he spends 80% of the match looking elsewhere, and then occasionally looks up and points out the first object he notices. Maybe it's some sort of creative writing thought exercise? Needed more underlying homosexual shame and rage, like the other Silas Young matches.

2. Caprice Coleman vs. ACH

Well this didn't do a whole lot for me. All thigh slaps all the time. Just a buncha slappy sounds with legs extended in kick like motions. Legs not touching opponent's bodies, but slappy sounds happening anyway. If a superkick missed in Philadelphia, would it still make a slapping sound? Always. Always.

3. RPG Vice & Kazuchika Okada vs. Hirooki Goto & Briscoe Bros.

This started out not very good, and by the end I was on board. Jay started with Okada and it's not shocking that Okada had bad looking strikes, but Jay looked like he was holding waaaaay back. No clue what was going on here because a few minutes later he's beating the hell out of Trent. Maybe Jay was just being a slow starter, because by the end he's tossing out headbutts and big lariats and looking like a monster. But if this match works, and eventually it does, it's because Mark was absolutely on fire throughout the entirety of this. I couldn't take my eyes off that crazy caveman. Yeah Trent can take a big bump and Goto threw a nice spinning heel kick in the corner, but this was the Mark Brisco show. All of Mark's palm strikes looked great, he flung himself into offense, all his combos looked cool while also looking like he was just making them up as he went. He looked awesome, one of my favorite Mark performances. And after Jay's stumble early with Okada, he went out on a wild note just killing Baretta. Briscoes make everything better.


This week's show went by quick, even if looking back I didn't love a lot about it. That's...good, right? All worth it for Mark Briscoe.

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/2/15 Review

1. Adam Page vs. Jay Briscoe

A match born out of DISRESPECT! How many times have they gone to that "no handshake" well? But whatever this segment worked. Jay kicked the hell out of Page, stomped his neck and hit a killer tope. Page throws a chair at him then hits the Rite of Passage on a bunch of chairs. Mark comes out throwing chairs and Colby Corino just has zero body chemistry whatsoever. But for a match ending the way it did this was the perfect time and made me want to see more.

"When I beat you...I get those BOYS". Silas Young as closeted gay predator has made him seem so much more interesting. He and Castle can run the Chris Keller/Beecher Oz arc and I could see it being feud of the year. Silas Young becoming one of Castle's boys could be glorious, but only if it ends in him eventually giving in to his desires. The heat and homophobia from the audience during Young and Castle's first kiss would be off the charts, but there will be an extra layer of the audience hating themselves for how good it makes them feel.

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Caprice Coleman

Eh, this was okay. Alexander isn't that good, a whole bunch thigh slaps and some bumps that don't really look connected to the move he's taking. I like his apron kick, that always seems to look good. And I like Veda Scott's goofy scowl faces. Peak was really the postmatch, with Moose decking Cedric with a wrench-loaded punch. Alexander crushed the selling. He charged right at Moose who timed the punch perfect, and Cedric just crumbled immediately and ended up draped over the bottom rope. It was real satisfying, like catching Bald Bull during his Bull Charge.

3. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Cheeseburger

For two guys who really aren't good, I really enjoyed this. You have to throw out all execution expectations. Most of the things these two do don't look good. There's always a disconnect with their bumps, strikes look poor, most of Cheeseburger's stuff whiffs, no actual emotion in either of their faces...but if you just go in expecting things to look poor and just watch the layout, this totally worked. Again, I really enjoyed it. Cheeseburger hits a neat somersault senton on a chair, Bob punches him a bunch in a headlock and rips at his nose, and we all build to that table spot from TV almost 3 months ago. They take their time setting it up which could seem ridiculous in other matches but felt appropriate here, really adding to things as you knew Bob was taking the bump through that table. And certainly, Bob takes a clumsy mapped out bump that in no way looked like the way a person would fall after getting limply punched. But again it totally worked within the context of who these two are. Bob takes a planned careful back bump that still sees him smack the back of his head, and for something bad this was overall very satisfying.

4. Hanson vs. Jay Lethal

So I actually enjoy Jay Lethal as fighting champion, defending both belts and doing it with braggadocio. I just don't really like Jay Lethal singles matches. So that's somewhat problematic. Still, his presentation and the way he carries himself is important, and he's been doing it well, so that counts. Hanson should be better. He should not do fucking springboards or cartwheels. Those things rarely look good anyway, but when you can't actually do them well...get this...they look even worse. Hanson just can't abandon them. And here they noticeably took away from the match. Just do a normal lariat, you don't need to get attention by being a larger man who can do a so-so cartwheel. His moonsault to knees was better, but it fell flat coming off his horrible handspring to whatever. Lethal's run to the finish was good and things were mapped out well throughout, but eh, neither guy does much for me. So I'm left in this weird conflicted area where I like neither guy, but they laid out their match in a nice way, and mostly stuck to it...so we'll just say it was solidly not bad-ish.

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 8/19 & 8/26/15 Review

1. Silas Young vs. Dalton Castle

Awesome little TV match, one of my very favorites since I started watching their weekly TV. Castle jumps him at the bell with headbutts and punches and it's clear right away these two just work real well together. Castle bumps big taking an awesome Jerry bump that didn't feel set up from a mile away, really felt integrated into the match nicely. He also bumps big into the railing and later takes a great tumble over the top, tackling Young. Young actually works more like an asshole here, as opposed to working like Chris Sabin...which I suppose is just working like a different kind of asshole. More backrakes, less flips. Both men move really well in there and everything was laid out great, nice build and logical progression. One of the eunuchs takes a big bump, and postmatch Young wants a stip added to a future match where HE gets possession of the eunuchs if he wins. I love it. Castle kept taunting him with flamboyance and it drives Young mad with seething passion. Him demanding the eunuchs is so obvious. He's accepting a dare that nobody at all was daring him to do. "Okay guys, FINE, I'll take the eunuchs." It's like Lindsey Graham saying he'd spend a night in a rest stop men's room if he wins any primaries. Nobody else is asking him to do it, clearly just a guy offering to do it. Silas Young's character makes so much more sense if you think of him as a closeted gay man.

2. Will Ferrara vs. Moose

They do the tale of the tape and Kevin Kelly actually says "No mention of heart, though". Ugh. This is the best I've seen Moose look, so this accomplished what it set out to do. He's still kinda sloppy and still seems lost, but the offense he chose to do worked, and he did neat things like take a spike tornado DDT on the floor. Plus the all white gear looked brilliant.

2. Young Bucks vs. RPG Vice

***NOTE: I'm not sure what happened to my write-up of this match. It got gone. It once was, but no longer is. Long story short, did not love it. Rocky Romero is horrible. Romero working schtick is unbearable. Bucks had a couple nice cut off moments, notably cutting off Trent during his apron ass hattery. Match went too long, Bucks weren't as violent and twerpish as they can be.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------


1. Bloodbound Warriors (Grey Wolf & Red Scorpion) vs. Briscoes

Never seen Bloodbound Warriors before, but they appear to be shortish God of War or Warhammer cosplayers, and they've clearly committed to it and instead of making gay-intensive Vines they've focused it into pro wrestling. GREY Wolf is covered almost entirely in RED body paint, which is confusing. He's also not very good. Mainly he staggers around selling for Jay, so it's not like he got to do a whole lot, but his staggering wasn't very good. Scorpion has a big HGH belly and was much better. He had a couple nice press slams and I like a good press slam. Mark took a head first press slam over the top off the apron, takes a wild bump into the railing, and later got flipped over the buckles to the floor. Mark was a maniac in this. Jay hits a wild tope on Wolf, both guys kick the hell out of Scorpion (with Mark hitting a huge pump elbow off the top and Scorpion getting dumped on the back of his head with a clothesline). This was really fun. I'd actually like to see BW back, just because they seem a bit different from some of the ultra super serious workers we usually see.

2. Donovan Dijak vs. Roderick Strong

This worked! Checking my pre-match predictions, and yep, I was in the "this won't work" camp. But it worked. Dijak has a ways to go, his "reeling" especially looks horrible. And since this match had plenty of strike exchanges it also had plenty of him reeling and just...looking stupid while waiting to be hit. He can break out some impressive fast sequences (his 360 pump kick looked killer) but doesn't have any of the little things yet. He could get there. Roddy has had a great year and looked good here. He smartly built the match up to some good nearfalls that tricked me. Truth actually had some of the only good stuff I've seen from him. There was a really nicely timed spot where Roddy jumps over potential Truth interference while on the apron, and then Dijak belts him. The timing in this was spot-on throughout. Really solid stuff. Dijak just needs to figure out what the hell to do with his body and face while waiting to be hit.

3. Future Shock (Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly) vs. Addiction

Frankie Kazarian's vest is ridiculous. It's trying soooooooooo HARD you guys. It's like he went into Spencer's Gifts and bought every single patch they had, then ironed them onto his vest in a super organized fashion. They run the full gamut of "bands who are well known enough to sell patches at the mall", so he's got the Rolling Stones on his shoulder and The Beatles on his back and Led Zeppelin on his side. Hey, man. I'm a man. A man with a vest. I am definitely a man who has patches of bands that every human listens to. So many inches of vest are filled up with these personality-free patches, all of them placed on the vest as properly as possible. It is truly a vest that was workshopped by moms. It might as well be one of my mom's old appliqué holiday vests, like the Christmas one with felt gingerbread men and candy canes. It's that awful. Except my mom loved her holiday vests. She had all of autumn and winter covered: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. They spoke to her personality and she would still be wearing them today if that damn Stacy and Clinton didn't constantly put them down on What Not to Wear. They've ruined the vests for her. Frankie Kazarian's vest tells me nothing about him, except that he has zero personal taste of his own. His vest looks like it was decorated by a 45 year old man who is in charge of decorating teen bedrooms on sitcoms. "Looks like that back wall could use another rock & roll poster, Gary."

And the announcer calls The Addiction the "World Tag Team Champions of the World". Why is this a thing? I'm pretty sure Corino called them this a couple weeks ago. The Ring of Honor Pro Wrestling Champions of the World of Ring of Honor Pro Wrestling.

And this match bleeeeeewwwwwww. For a guy who is known for his cold, bland, robotic execution, Daniels sure does execute a lot of things horribly. He's like one of those replicants from the show Humans who is at the end of his shelf life, so the muscle memory is there, he's just really horrible at doing all of his programmed commands and sometimes ends up lost in the forest, his A.I. caught on a low hanging branch. Here we get really awful thigh slaps, overshot moonsaults, clunkily moving into position for offense, all really bad. He did a slow tortured walk to try and catch O'Reilly on the ropes that was the just the worst community theater Frankenstein's Monster walk you've seen. At one point Cole/O'Reilly do a shitty legsweep/clothesline combo on Daniels and no physical connection is made by anybody. So you have three bodies all moving to their own beat, with Cole whiffing a legsweep, O'Reilly whiffing a clothesline and Daniels back bumping to nothing. If one segment could tell the story of the match.

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 7/22/15 Review

Episode 200 is a pretty special accomplishment no matter the program. Looks like we're going to look back on some very special clips to remind us of all the magic we've experienced over these 200 weeks.

Hanson vs. Styles seemed pretty fun from the highlights. I really liked the logic behind the Styles Clash set up, with Hanson up top and Styles hitting the Pele kick, then being able to grab Hanson in position from the top rope.

But they also show some real weird highlight clips to celebrate a 200th episode. They showed a Lance Storm singles match! Was Lance Storm vs. Mike Bennett a real highlight of the previous 4 years of television? That's...terrifying. Also, two ReDRagon matches. And a Donovan Dijak singles match. Those all seem like weird things to show as highlights of your prior 200 episodes. I know these are all guys still affiliated with the promotion, I get that. But...this did not make it look like I missed a whole lot by not watching the first 195 episodes of ROH TV. 200 episodes is clearly something worth celebrating, so it's just odd that they didn't actually do anything to celebrate it at all.

1. House of Truth (Jay Lethal, Donovan Dijak, J. Diesel & Truth Martini) vs. The Briscoes, Roderick Strong & ODB

"A match that could main event any building in the world"~Kevin Kelly

Yep. I mean, I guess it technically *could* main event any building in the world. He did not use any sort of "and also make money and/or be successful" qualifier.

And this match really was not good for the time allotted. Martini could have stolen any Jimmy Hart schtick to stooge while being stuck in a match, but really he brought nothing to the table. It shouldn't be a shock that Truth Martini brought nothing to an appearance, but this should have been a shining moment. How easy is it to be the puny manager forced into a match? You've seen all these spots a million times and they always work, but he just does nothing. He's like any other guy in a multi man, he's just not good and can't actually wrestle. Major missed opportunity. Roderick Strong looked really great in this, so things weren't a total waste. I always love seeing Briscoes but they were just kind of killing time here. We get each guy hitting a flip dive and Mark crashing into the guardrail, and then the match climaxes with House of Truth all surrounding ODB and awkwardly implying some sort of weird rape vibe as they all lick their lips and high five. Then she just hits really piss poor forearms to everybody's chest and *spoiler alert* she doesn't actually get raped on TV guys! Man most of this match stunk.

This was pretty easily the worst episode of ROH I've seen on Destination America. I'm sure there have been worse over 199 other episodes, but man this clunked.

Read more!

Ring of Honor on Destination America 6/3/15 Review

I'm happy to have more wrestling on my TV. Maybe I'm a luddite - well, I definitely am - but getting to watch something on my large HD TV screen will always win out over watching that same thing on my laptop. I've been mostly out of the ROH loop for the last year or two - there are no Sinclair stations in my area - so let's dive back in and watch, shall we?

I know these aren't filmed exclusively for DA, but it would be cool if this brings them any amount of new fans. And I can't imagine a better introduction to new fans than seeing the hate-filled scowl of Jay Briscoe and caveman insanity of Mark. I love Briscoe promos.

1. Will Ferrara vs. KUSHIDA

I had not seen Ferrara before, and that was probably a good thing. Will Ferrara was definitely a current day indie wrestler. Went through all the motions and movements of a wrestler, no substance whatsoever. There's this certain way a lot of newish indie workers move, this puffed chest/butt out style of movement, and he's got that down pat. He wimps out of his clothesline follow through and seems scared to hit people with his dropkick, but he knows chest puff/butt out style. KUSHIDA has popped up lately on the Friday NJPW show, and he's okay but also has a lot of weenie strikes. His springboard head graze is apparently a signature spot of his (I thought he was working a parody highflyer gimmick against Ricochet), and he throws these real lousy not punches/not forearms where he just kinda hits Ferrara's forehead with his wrist. Imagine the worst version of the way Robert Gibson would throw punches off a hot tag. Ferrara hits an impressive suicide dive tornado DDT but it doesn't really go anywhere. I do love the hoverboard lock as a finisher, looks nasty and Ferrara only briefly held on before wisely tapping. So I liked that, but a lot of this was....not much.

2. Silas Young vs. Watanabe

Young's "Last Real Man" persona rings a little hollow with me as I'm always just left wishing he was more of an asskicker. He's got a great 'stache, and a good mug, but doesn't really work stiff and really, just kind of scowls. It needs some work. Watanabe is a pretty low end NJPW guy who throws poor elbow strikes and sells moves by making exaggerated Eddie Murphy-as-Buckwheat faces. Young kicks him in the ear and Watanabe perks his head up, widens his eyes and purses his lips. Maybe it's more of a Church Lady reaction. He does it three different times here. Young takes a couple nice bumps here, bouncing off the apron after a clothesline and flipping over off a suplex on the floor, but Watanabe isn't very good and Young seems like he needs an actual asskicker in there with him to bring out his best.

3. Moose vs. Colby Corino

I'm a fan of a good squash and Corino manned into some stuff admirably here. Corino is scrawny enough that I cringed whenever he would get tossed around. He takes a big time bump into the guardrail, takes a powerbomb on the apron and one on the floor. I dig squashes in wrestling, especially on an ROH card so we don't just see 8 straight matches of do-si-do mirror sequences.

4. Donovan Dijak & J. Diesel vs. The Briscoes

This was a nice extended squash. Diesel works an amusing golden gloves boxing gimmick, Dijak is a guy with some height and not much else. I love all of Mark's strikes and his dropkicks are some of the best in wrestling. Jay is maybe the most intense dude in wrestling today, his scowls are downright mean. I wish I could have seen them work WAR. I love Briscoe matches when they just start going on a rampage, they both know how to ramp things up so damn well.


This was kind of a weird episode to debut to a wider audience. I know they just opted to show the Sinclair episode that already aired this week (which makes sense) but this was not a good episode in the least for new eyeballs. The homegrown guys looked like duds, and the two matches they pushed from the very beginning of the show didn't end up actually happening, which might look odd to new eyes. Not that anybody would have likely been clamoring for BJ Whitmer in a singles match, but it's strange to start a show advertising just two matches, and keep advertising them throughout the show, and then do a bait and switch on both of them. At least the Briscoes were featured, who are no doubt the best guys in the fed, so at least they had that on their side. Still, you have to assume somebody somewhere was seeing this for the first time. And that person just got to watch Will Ferrara.

Read more!

2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

8. Hardy Boys v. Briscoe Brothers OMEGA 4/26

PAS: Man I remember loving going down to North Carolina back in the day with Dean and Rippa and various other buddies, watching this match made me really nostalgic. Hardy's offense looks pretty dated in 2014, but they still have great timing and know how to build a tag match to a crescendo. Briscoes looked totally awesome here, I guess I need to go back and watch some ROH. I haven't seen Mark with hair before and it was really disconcerting, he looked great as a crazy hillbilly flyer, loved his Smothers Dojo karate stuff, and his wild dropkick through the ropes was awesome. Jay looked like a total backwoods psychopath, like he should be on a bridge in Nevada defending Cliven Bundy's sovereign property rights. Super hot OMEGA crowd bought into everything and the near fall section was legitimately thrilling. Such a treat, and it makes me want to search out all four guys.

ER: Really good tag made even better by a hot crowd, bringing a distinct OMEGA feel. And it made me regret not actively seeking out more Briscoes stuff over the last couple years as both guys seemed just as good - if not better - than ever (Shoot, it made me look around for Frank Parker and Roger Anderson stuff, too). Jay always came off really sinister to me, and the beard only adds to that militia vibe. Mark know looks like a hillbilly Dr. Zaius, or Bubba the Cave Duck from DuckTales. I love his use of total goofball antics to disarm an opponent, making it all the more unexpected when he boots you in the mouth. Somebody in the crowd gets it right when I hear him say to his friend "Man the Briscoes are really beating the shit out of the Hardys." It's weird getting excited about cutting off the ring and long heat segments and comebacks timed at just the perfect intervals for things not to drag, but for a classic tag formula it's something I haven't seen much of since the Hardys/MNM Royal Rumble match some 7 years ago. The first part of the match was really good, but then got great on the "reboot", with Matt going through another FIP segment and the Briscoes being total asskickers. I bought all the nearfalls (even the one just 10 minutes in or so), but the ones down the stretch really got me. Briscoes are really smart about saving vs. kicking out so things never get to overkill and neither team looks worse for it. The finish really worked for me as the timing of it was great. Matt gets the victory roll which felt like a) the smartest thing for him to do there, and b) a total Hail Mary desperation shot. You can easily see that not working, and just leading to an extended beat down before he eventually loses. But it works perfectly with the timing, as the big crash and burn off the Doomsday Device gives Matt barely enough time to eek out the three before it gets broken up. The only awkwardness with the match was the guys noticeably starting to fill time waiting for Jeff to get done with his mid-match costume change, but overall this was a classic tag formula that doesn't get done enough, with two teams that felt like a big deal. Awesome stuff.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Rifling Through the Trash: The Unfinished Segunda Caida

We here at Segunda Caida all watch a lot of wrestling. We also start a lot of projects. More projects than we can ever ever possibly finish. We start watching something, write about it, don't finish writing about it, and there it sits. We have about 80 unfinished drafts dating back 4 years. Some of them may get finished some day (IWA-MS show reviews, WAR show reviews), others are kind of pointless to ever finish (old CMLL TV write-ups, reviews of WWE Superstars episodes). Still these write ups all took at least SOME time out of our schedules, and it's only fair that we get SOME use out of them. I mean, we literally took time out of our lives to write about Ruckus and Cryme Tyme. That time shouldn't go to waste.

~More snippets from TomK reviewing ROH "Take No Prisoners" (left unfinished by Phil on 6/23/08):


Between matches they air backstage Age of the Fall promos. With premise being that half of AOF are in Orlando and other half in Philly. I really dig the whole AOF gimmick. A stable of WTO protestors who try to recruit in front of college dining hall isn’t a guaranteed win. But really everyone in it is great. You totally buy Jimmy Jacobs as guy who takes the Larouche pamphlets too seriously, Lacey can do letter perfect complaints about the patriarchy, Tyler Black is totally natural in this role on the mic and you totally buy Necro as this really well read blue collar guy who gets caught up with this group of college leftists. I’m normally a big fan of heel Zach Gowen mic work but his conceitedness ”I’m the greatest inspirational wrestler of all time, I beat the Big Show, made Vince bleed, tagged with Hogan against Piper, etc.” feels like it belongs in Sweet N Sour more than in AOF. But still dug him here. This was first time seeing Allison Wonderland on the mic and for college feminist, she doesn’t know her stuff as well as Lacey did but whatever. The basement space didn’t work for me visually and Jacobs’ stuff works better as guy recruiting than as guy already preaching to the converted.

Phil leaving you to do your joke about how the whole gimmick is too smart for wrestling fans who will never go to liberal arts college or if they do will be too into the anime club to notice anything else.


Briscoes v Necro Butcher/Joey Matthews

HOLY FUCK does Joey Mathews rule!!! I mean he really shouldn’t be doing face first bumps into props, but damn. It was amusing having the valet’s exchange moves in ring. Instead of a catfight spot felt more like they were using the valet’s in role of Scott Steiner wrestling in the ring while Ric brawled outside. It didn’t bother me other than I wanted to see more of the brawling. Necro’s punch to escape the doomsday device ruled. Damn this ruled. There wasn’t any real down time to set up spots, just a really high end street fight. Worth pointing out that even for this type of hardcore streetfight, I didn’t get the sense that there were any excessive kick outs. Felt like they were smartly saving “what will it take to put him away” spots for the underdog main event challenge.

Brent Albright v Erick Stevens

I guess you need a heat killer after that kind of Holy shit brawl. This killed my heat. It may have gone eight minutes but it felt like twenty.

~Snippets from Eric reviewing random matches from 2009 that weren't good enough for Phil to already review (left unfinished 1/17/10):


~Hart Dynasty vs. Cryme Tyme (Smackdown, 11/27/09)

Cryme Tyme are really not that good. Every match of theirs is a battle to see which of them is going to be more awful. JTG does these really distracting hand motions that I'm fairly certain is supposed to be miming "rolling the dice" but it comes off more "wildly ejaculating many dicks with no regard to my surroundings". Shad can throw some really limp shoulderblocks for a guy his size. So while those two stumble around, this match is completely about the Hart Dynasty. I have enjoyed the Hart Dynasty (even though it seems Cryme Tyme is the only fucking team I've ever seen them against...and I've seen alllllllll the matches in their best of 19 series), but November and December just saw them get really good. DH Smith is fairly underrated, and Tyson Kidd is really getting good. They really work like a team.

I don't remember "really" liking DH Smith or Tyson Kidd. The only thing I remember about Smith is that I think that in a year that Finlay got tons of long singles matches, the Smith match might have been his weakest one. Maybe the Boogeyman match. 

Read more!

ROH TV Workrate Report: 3/7/11

I read that there are only like 4 or 5 more episodes of ROH on HD Net, so I will possibly need another weekly show to review. Thoughts, anybody? Superstars? CMLL on LATV? AAA? I am open to suggestions.

1. Michael Elgin vs. Kyle O'Reilly in a SEMI-FINAL bout of the TPT! This could be a fun one. Big biel by Elgin (Biel? Beal? Beele? What is correct?) O'Reilly ducks some Martini interference and throws a nice elbow, but then Elgin shoulderblocks him HUGE right out of the air off a springboard dropkick! YES! O'Reilly recovers and gets a rolling armbar, but Elgin powers up and hits a fallaway slam!! We go into a strike exchange and Elgin seems to be holding back a bit but leans way into a nice dropkick. O'Reilly does some tumbling exercises and then hits a nice kick combo, but it doesn't damage Elgin too much. They battle out on the apron, exchanging yakuza kicks, an then Kyle climbs to the 2nd rope (Elgin still on the apron) and ranas Elgin to the floor, and Elgin spills out spectacularly. Definitely worthy of the replay. Elgin staggers into the corner of the guardrail, and O'Reilly does a MASSIVE running dropkick off the apron and just PLANTING his feet into Elgin's stomach. Elgin was stuck in the corner and O'Reilly really just went crashing through him. That was fucking killer. This match is fucking awesome so far. Back in the ring and O'Reilly hits a big missle dropkick. Elgin up and throwing some big whiffing Leonard Garcia haymakers, but then catches Kyle with an exploder and a spinebuster. Elgin goes for a clothesline, but O'Reilly kicks his arm, so Elgin wheels around and uses the other arm to level him with a MASSIVE clothesline (O'Reilly ragdolled and flipped all over onto his dome and is making me fall in love with him). I thought that was 3 so I completely BUY THE NEARFALL!! Elgin lifts him for another slam and O'Reilly reverses into a tornado DDT and Elgin PLANTS his head directly into the mat. Using the available keys on my keyboard, he took that DDT at a nasty 45 degree angle, like this --> /. He's the forward slash there. I BUY THE NEARFALL AGAIN and this match is all movezy and I'm loving it! Now Elgin is bringing the stiff elbows and back elbows and hits a NASTY cradle suplex on O'Reilly, just right on the head. Good lord. I BUY THE NEARFALL again and Elgin is just as shocked as I am. Elgin goes for a powebomb to end it all, but O'Reilly deadweights him and drags him down into a triangle, and is giving him 12-6 elbows in the triangle. Elgin powers back to his feet, but O'Reilly reverses into a sunset flip for the 3!

I completely thought Elgin was going to win this and face Bennett, but I don't care because that match was fun as FUCK. I know there's a weird rumor that Segunda Caida hates movez matches, but that ain't true at all, they just have to be done RIGHT and this one had that in spades. This built well and had plenty of believable nearfalls, but they never seemed overkill or ridiculous. When O'Reilly would kick out, he would BARELY get out before the 3, and there was no "sell like death but then get up and rope run a bunch". Both guys were on spaghetti legs and this was paced really, really well. Wonderful 8 minutes here, and easily my favorite ROH TV match since Necro stopped appearing. Fun fun stuff, you should go out of your way to see it.

I WAS eating a whole bunch of really delicious and sweet raspberries while watching that match, but I don't think it affected my outlook in any way. If you watch the Elgin/O'Reilly match and think it stinks, then it's probably because there was a raspberry party in my mouth and they can make anything fun. Go get yourself some Driscoll's organic raspberries. They're in season.

2. The other semi-final in the TPT, Mike Bennett vs. Andy Ridge. I did not like Andy Ridge before, but I give people 2nd chances. Right Leg Ridge is a pretty decent nickname. Nice shoulderblock to start by Bennett. Corino tells the camera that Bennett is really good at the basics. Some kicks by Ridge get two, and Bennett bails as Ridge misses a superkick. I loved the Chris Adams/Great Kabuki superkick match on the 80s Texas Set. ROH should bring in Nate Webb to work a superkick match. Or shit, just bring in Nate Webb. Back in and Bennett takes like 9 more kicks and is making really great faces while being kicked. Nice running dropkick to Bennett in the corner. Hogewood: "If I have one criticism of Ridge, he uses that right kick a lot." You dance with who brung you, Mike. Bennett finally scouts a right kick (after taking about 17 of them and nothing else) and transitions to control. Both guys throw decent elbows (Bennett's is really nice) and Ridge hits a nice running knee. Bennett blocks a superkick, goes for a piledriver, but Ridge gets a roll up for 2. Bennett dodges a superkick and hits his sit-out uranage slam for the win.

OK. That's two weeks in a row where Bennett's opponent took 90% of the match, and then Bennett just won out of nowhere with a sit-out slam that looks far less devastating than most ROH workers transition offense. It's like in ECW where Shane Douglas would use chairshots and weapons and then win with a belly to belly. In this match I only remember Bennett hitting a couple elbows and a vertical suplex. Ridge took 7 of the 8 minutes, then just got pinned. I was enjoying Bennett, but if this is going to be his regular match formula then his matches are going to get beyond old.

Tony Kozina is back on TV! I've always liked Kozina. Buuuuuuuutttttt, he's back on TV with Davey Richards. Davey does an actual decent interview, because he's not trying to cut one of his shitty promos, just kinda being interviewed by Cornette and casual definitely works better for him. Cornette tongues Davey's asshole and it makes all of us uncomfortable. Just blowing Davey and talking about his MMA and Pancrase abilities, as it shows him holding a surfboard on an opponent. I miss all those classic Bas vs. Frank Shamrock inverted surfboard battles. Apparently Kozina vs. Davey is next week, and I'll be honest....I'm kinda interested in seeing it. This segment was actually really well done, presenting Kozina and Davey as two guys who like each other, but who will also do whatever it takes to win their match. I hope Kozina just hammers him in the balls the whole match. It won't happen, but nevertheless I am kinda excited to see the match. I'm a sucker.

3. Main event is a 4 way which SHOULD be decent. Roderick Strong vs. Homicide vs. Generico vs. Jay Briscoe. The tasty juicy raspberries have put me in a super optimistic mood. Roddy does some amusing stalling to start. Jay looks far more menacing than Homicide, for the record. Generico hasn't been on TV for awhile. He and Jay kinda do-si-do with some wristlocks for awhile. They're really pacing this one to go long. Jay hits a great headscissors on a running Roderick. Generico and Homicide trade some arm drags...like for a minute. 5 minutes in and this thing feels like it's been on forever. The cameras can't cut quickly enough during Generico's punches. Must...eat more raspberries. Strong also decides to challenge the director by throwing many bad punches in a short amount of time. Where will the cameras cut to!? Homicide somehow throws even worse punches (what the FUCK happened to Homicide in the last year!?). His corner punches make Kofi Kingston snicker. Generico runs and and Homicide snaps out of it and punches him right in the face. FINALLY. Roddy is lying on the apron selling insane damage, but I seriously don't even remember him taking much offense. Briscoe bumps big into the corner off a suplex. Generico throws two of the lightest lariats I have seen. Good lord what is happening in this match. I swear I am not trying to be negative here. These guys are just moving in slow motion and trying not to break eggs here. Generico leans out of a superkick from Jay, then Jay gets tossed to the floor onto Homicide and Strong. Generico does a flip dive and manages to miss almost everybody. Not his fault. Bad catching job. Homicide was asleep at the wheel on that one. Homicide ranas Strong off the top. Generico slaps his thigh and Jay kindly decides to sell it. All 4 men are down selling the WAR they're in. J-Driller on Homicide. Generico brainbuster on Jay. Strong tags in and gets the pin.

Wow. That match was fucking horrible. In order of best to worst, I'd go Jay Briscoe, Roderick Strong, Homicide, Generico. Most of this match was just hot garbage. Everybody seemed just...off. Generico is fucking awful. His offense looks crummy and he always just seems out of position for things. Homicide had the Necro Butcher match a few months ago and literally everything else he's been involved with has been disappointing and bad. Strong looked good in moments, then lousy in others. Jay was consistently quality here.

But what a fucking disaster. It got 18+ minutes of time, and almost all 18 of it was one giant disjointed mess. It had minimal build throughout, bad execution, goofy selling...just crap.

It's for the best. When you're a kid, and your best friend is moving away, sometimes a few weeks before the move you might start arguing. Your friendship might dissolve over something silly. Subconsciously, you just don't want them to go, and you're trying to ease that pain by tricking yourself into hating that friend. "I don't care if he moves, he's being stupid anyway." It happens all throughout life. You get through tough breakups that way. If you miss the person, you find things you hate about them, you linger on those things. If you only lingered on the good things about some girl, you'll never get over her. It's torture. But it's how life works. People move on. Relationships end. You might not always want them to, but love is a two way street. If someone is further along then you, you just have to get over it at some point. There are other fish in the sea. Sometimes you don't realize how bad things had gotten until afterwards. It's easier to reflect. You realize you were disagreeing more, you used to be more attracted to her (and let's face it, your pants are fitting tighter too, buddy). She read Eat, Pray, Love and really identified with it. She really, really identified with the main character. She identified with an over-privileged white woman who whines a whole lot. Wow. How did you not see this sooner? She saw Sex & the City 2 in theaters? She sometimes uses the word "psychobabble" in regular sentences. Who the fuck is this person? There used to be things I loved about her, right? Have I changed? Has she changed? Have we both changed? Who am I?!

ROH has been doing a good job to make me not miss it. Everything I used to love about it is gone. I used to look forward to it, and we still have our moments. It's bittersweet. You see glimpses of why you used to love it, and it makes you miss the days that those moments happened constantly. It only magnifies how rare those moments now are.

People grow apart. People fall out of love. Not everything is supposed to last forever. You enjoy it while it's enjoyable, and you know when to cut and run. Nobody knows the right time to cut and run. You just ride every last enjoyable moment to the end and hope you aren't left too scarred afterwards.

You will love again.

Read more!

ROH TV Workrate Report: 12/20/10

Holiday Gauntlet!!!!! This could be really fun. $10,000 is on the line, baby! 16 names are entered, 8 will be drawn!!

1. Jay Briscoe vs. Steve Corino starts us off and this is about as good a way to start it off as I can think of and they start with about a million shoulderblocks that hit hard and look great. Corino hits a running chop into the corner and Briscoe no sells and Corino begs off and we are fully into this. Corino just plants Jay with a great STO, then locks on an abdominal stretch and I'm pretty sure he tried to thumb Jay's asshole and Jay was like "Nuh Uh" and then Jay reverses and tries to do the same to Corino and Todd Sinclair tells them to knock off the assplay. Jay goes on a run of offense including a nice big boot, Corino goes for a lariat and gets it blocked, then gets rolled up. Would've liked more out of this, but this is a gauntlet so you kinda know each match is gonna go 5-6 minutes.

2. Now we got Briscoe vs. Christopher Daniels which is infinitely less interesting. Daniels is like an old luchador where the older he gets, the higher the tights get. He's like Villano III now with a more hygienic forehead, but really really boring. Briscoe hits a nice rana but Daniels takes over with a chest breaker. He keeps holding Jay down and Briscoe transitions back to control with a superkick! Jay goes on a run of nice looking offense with a big lariat and a death valley driver, then hits a real cool STO into the turnbuckles but only gets two. Then Daniels just kinda gets the Angels Wings for the win. Lame. This is headed on a collision course for Davey vs. Daniels which sounds like the worst possible match up.

3. Rhett Titus vs. Daniels is next and they are losing me fast. Daniels is awesome selling Titus' music "Aw fuck!" he says, completely concerned about his chances. He sold it like the Undertaker was coming out, which is great so Daniels deserves some credit for that. Titus is a lot like Edge in that he looks like Edge facially, and has a whole different set of problematic offense. Both these guys are real bland to me, but they both try and masquerade as being interesting by doing overdone "whoooaaaa" facials. Rhett does a backrake to try and win me over, but for all the trying to be over-the-top, he just comes off so vanilla. Boring dropkicks and weak powerslam and rote heeling. And Daniels himself knows a thing or two about mechanically going through the motions. He wins with the Best Moonsault Ever which he still overshoots after all these years. Dominos realized it's pizza was shitty and changed it. What will it take to get Daniels to move his opponent 6" farther from the corner?

4. Oh fuck me we get Davey Richards vs. Daniels. Good lord. Davey comes out and he looks super pensive, not intense in the least. I know a thing about being pensive and this guy is pensive. We start with a super shitty shoulderblock and Davey howls afterwards. Oh jeez. Daniels and Davey are having a "Who can do a shittier side headlock" contest. Davey hits a ridiculous handspring enziguiri that Daniels deserves some credit for not making look incredibly retarded. This is a whole bunch of "fast action" with no real rhyme or reason, with tons of reversals that don't mean too much, just there to have a bunch of back-and-forth. Of course Davey wins this.

Todd Sinclair is STILL working every match of the gauntlet and he is starting to look like Chris Farley when he would do a bunch of cartwheels and his face would get all red and you would be like "Oh man he might die" and then he did.

5. Davey is probably going to go all the way through this now, isn't he. Good grief. Davey vs. Claudio is up and next and Davey starts with a nice tope and a missile dropkick, Claudio kicks out and gets a nice clothesline. He gets a rad press slam on Davey, followed with a gut wrench suplex and a big powerslam. Davey is already selling every fucking move like he's breathing his last breath, making those shitty John McClane faces that make way more sense when you have to walk barefoot over glass and you're trying to spend the holidays with your deteriorating family. It also makes it look beyond stupid whenever he sells death, then pops up to get a superplex, or sells death only to do a handspring enziguiri. Just using....eveeerrrry.....last breath....to struggle....to..your feet.....only to bouncy bounce handspring off the ropes wheeeee!!! Was the result ever in doubt?

6. Chris Hero vs. Davey could be alright, right? I love Hero, so fingers crossed. Hero starts with some awesome yakuza kicks but it doesn't matter because Davey is still alternating between deathbed impaled on a stake selling, and running-and-bouncing. The Davey kickouts get ridiculous the longer this goes on, as Hero nails every possible cool elbow smash and Davey keeps laughably and goofily fighting back, making tons of angry faces and is just impossible to take seriously. I get suckered in as I think the rolling elbow into the corner followed by a sitout powerbomb might win it for Hero, but of course it doesn't as Davey throws some more 2.9s into the match (I hope we get more next match!!!!) and wins with an inside cradle.

7. BUT Hero had loaded his elbow pad and blasts Davey in the back of the head with an elbow, so Davey does all this hilarious concussion selling that is not quite as good as Matt Mitrione's and pretty much just means bugged out eyes and thousand yard stares with an open mouth. Roderick Strong vs. Davey is our last match and we get a few silly Davey conquers all odds with overblown offense (I know if I had no strength and was seeing double and was near death, I would do a flapjack into a kick and try to lock on a ankle lock). Roddy chops the shit out of him and does a nice fireman's carry gutbuster and gets the running flying kick to finish.

I really don't mind guys coming back from unbeatable odds and using every last ounce of strength angles, but Davey was doing that from the Daniels match on through the whole show and it was just way too silly by the end. I really don't even mind superman characters, as I can get behind John Cena's selling. Davey just comes off too desperate at times, not in a "desperation move" kind of way, but a "I wish people liked me" kind of way. There were many many moments where the crowd could not be bothered to care during this gauntlet, but Davey seems so set in his ways during his matches that he can't respond to genuine emotion from fans. Sometimes fans want someone to fight the odds, sometimes they don't. They only decent responses were when he was playing off a legit good heel like Hero, and even then the reactions seemed to be entirely due to Hero.

I just got less and less interested in this show the longer it went on. Individual spots worked for me, but the overarching story didn't interest me since it was made painfully obvious what was going to happen - which is not necessarily a bad thing - just poorly done with the main man Davey involved.

Read more!

Phil's Ongoing 2007 MOTY List

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Austin Aries ROH 12/29
2. Nigel McGuinness v. Bryan Danielson ROH 6/23
3. Nigel McGuinness v. Samoa Joe ROH 3/3
4. John Cena v. Umaga WWE 1/28
5. Eddie Kingston v. Chris Hero IWA-MS 9/29
6. Bryan Danielson v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 8/25
7. Nigel McGuinness v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 4/14
8. Chris Harris v. James Storm TNA 5/13
9. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/4
10. Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 2/16
11. Matt Hardy v. Finlay WWE 6/19
12. Briscoes v. Necro Butcher/Mad Man Pondo FIP 4/21
13. Shawn Micheals v. John Cena WWE 4/23
14. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/31
15. Solar 1/Mano Negra v. Negro Navarro/Black Terry Lucha Libre VIP 3/10
16. MNM v. Hardy Boyz WWE 1/28
17. Briscoes v. Ricky Marvin/Kontaro Suzuki NOAH 1/21
18. Bryan Danielson/Takeshi Morishima v. KENTA/Nigel McGuiness ROH 5/12
19. John Cena v. Great Khali 5/20
20. Mitsuhara Misawa v. Bison Smith NOAH 6/3
21. John Cena v. King Booker v. Bobby Lashley v. Mick Foley v. Randy Orton WWE 6/24
22. Necro Butcher v. Jay Briscoe ROH 10/5
23. Briscoes v. Murder City Machine Guns ROH 4/28
24. Finlay v. Undertaker WWE 3/6
25. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico ROH 4/14

Previously on the list

Necro Butcher v. Toby Klien CZW 1/13
Chris Benoit v. Chavo Guerrero WWE 1/16
Shinjiro Ohtani/Takao Omori/Kazunari Murakami v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi/Yoshiro Takayama Zero 1 1/19
BJ Whitmer v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 1/27
Colt Cabana v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 2/24
Nigel McGuiness v. Jimmy Rave ROH 3/4
Matt Sydal v. The Man Gravity Forgot PAC ROH 3/4
Matt Hardy v. Ken Kennedy WWE 3/13
Takeshi Sasaki v. Yuki Miyamoto BJW 3/14
Samoa Joe v. Eddie Kingston FSM 3/17
Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio NOAH 4/1
Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1
John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1
Chris Benoit v. MVP 4/10
Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13
Davey Richards/Roderick Strong v. Jack Evans/Delirious ROH 4/14
Mitsuhara Misawa v. Takuma Sano NOAH 4/28
John Cena v. Great Khali v. Umaga WWE 6/4

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Austin Aries ROH 12/29

No arguing with Nigel anymore, in 2007 he had four of my top ten matches, with four different opponents. This match is sitting at the top spot. Aries is a hell of an athlete, and put in a match with good pace, can be spectacular. Here he was amazing, taking enormous bumps, moving with tremendous speed, and hitting with real impact. This was Nigel's show though, as he has become really good at working a big main event style match. One of the things Nigel does during his big matches, is little restarts. Here Aries hits him with a tope to the back driving his head into the guardrail, and Nigel spend the next couple of minutes backpedaling avoiding Aries offense, it is a set of very cool counters and nice slowing down on a show which is all moving forward. Finish run is pretty great too, as there are just the right number of two counts, and it never gets into ROH overkill territory even with the huge moves. Just great wrestling.

12. Briscoes v. Necro Butcher/Mad Man Pondo FIP 4/21

This is about as good a garbage wrestling match as I have seen in a while. They built the match around 5 or 6 crazy spots, and they were all nuts and executed nicely. Pondo going headfirst into the garbage can of lightbulb tubes was especially crazy, as was Necro getting DVD through a table on the floor. There are two major flaws in most death matches, one flaw is that the in between stuff often looks bad, you sometimes get the sense that they are moving from spot to spot and everything else is just killing time, and the other problem is finish overkill, where the final spot doesn’t seem final, like the match could have ended at any point. This match avoided both of those, the regular brawling here was darn good (which is one of the reasons Necro is a class above other people working this style) and the crazy Mark Briscoe U-Haul dive felt like a finish to a match.

Read more!

The Wrestling What I Watched in 2007 Pt. 4, by S.L.L.

Nigel McGuinness vs. Jimmy Rave
ROH - 3/4/2007 - Liverpool, England
Fight Without Honor

Oh, Jimmy Rave, how I miss you. Well, I know you're not really gone, but working in TNA with Lance Hoyt is really as good as gone. I'm still amazed that after all the harping about ROH having a health plan when they started signing wrestlers to contracts, it turned out the plan was "if you get hurt and expect to be compensated for it in some way, leave". Well, not amazed, as that's the standard health plan for every wrestling promotion ever, but it makes you wonder why they bothered mentioning it in the first place. Jimmy's stooging here is so good, as it typically is. Liked his turning away and cowering after being backed into the corner. Not an uncommon spot, but Rave is such a great sniveling heel, it has a little extra something coming from him. Nigel controls early, before pulling out a chair from under the ring that gets dropkicked into his own leg. Rave starts slamming the leg into the apron, going to work on it and working towards the Heel Hook. Rave teases pulling Nigel's head into the post like in his match with Dragon from their last trip to Liverpool, but Nigel blocks and pulls Jimmy's shoulder in instead. Nigel slaps Jimmy silly, before pulling out a spare ring barricade. He sets it up across the apron and the other barricades, and Jimmy takes a nasty bump off of a flapjack onto it. Nigel goes back to the chair, but Jimmy takes his leg back out and hits a desperation knee. Nigel does a really good job selling the groin pull in this match, limping and grasping at it just right. Rave drops him with a swinging neckbreaker and sinks in a butterfly lock, but Nigel powers him into the corner. His leg injury slows him, though, and he can't maintain control long. Jimmy's appropriation of the Pedigree as a heel spot is still such an ingenious move. Surprised he didn't add the FU to his arsenal later in his run. Jimmy Rave's missile dropkick sends Nigel rolling back to his feet in the corner, allowing him to block a charge and power Jimmy overhead into the Tower of London for two. Jimmy blocks something onto the still bridged barricade, and turns it into an STO off the apron that bends the barricade in half. I thought judo was supposed to be gentle. Nigel sets the barricade back up on the apron, which is enough to stand it up since it's bent about 90 degrees now. Nigel Tower of Londons Jimmy gut first onto a set up chair, which might have been too nasty a spot at this point in the match for a two-count, but there you go. Nigel gets caught in a fluke takedown into the Heel Hook, which he very nearly taps to after realizing that he can't get a rope break in a Fight Without Honor. He manages to pull himself to his feet, and manages to chop Jimmy off, but downs the referee in the process. Nigel takes Jimmy to the apron, puts him on the top rope, steadies his wobbly legs, and drops him with a Tower of London that pulls Jimmy straight down onto the set-up barricade. And I mean straight down. He took the bump right on his forehead. It was Alzheimer's-inducingly crazy. Nigel rolls him back in for the cover, but the ref is still down (with a busted nose, apparently), and by the time his replacement hits the ring, Jimmy can kick out at two. Both men to their feet, slapfight ensues, Jimmy headbutts Nigel to stun him (which is just about the last thing I'd want to do there if I were him). Jimmy runs the ropes and hits a spear that sends Nigel staggering backwards into the ropes...and then coming out of said ropes with the Rebound Lariat. Jimmy ends his night of blunt physical trauma by underrotating on a backflip bump and landing on the back of his head before Nigel gets the three. Hell of a match, pretty much exactly what you want out of these two. Can't decide if this or the C.M. Punk cage match is Jimmy's best career match. Probably the cage match, as the drama was stronger there, and it had Prince Nana working ring side, which is always a plus. But it's close. And well, Nigel's been as good a worker as anyone in the world this year. This match was all about Jimmy eating hot firey death, but Nigel brought the goods, too, with his selling and babyface charisma. Real good stuff here, ROH always seems to bring the goods in Liverpool.

Jay Briscoe & Erick Stevens vs. El Generico & Kevin Steen, which becomes
The Briscoe Brothers vs. El Generico & Kevin Steen
ROH - 4/14/2007 - Edison, NJ

Hey, The Briscoes and Kevin Steen! I wonder if dudes will get dropped on their heads in this match. This is part two of the best of 9,000,000 series between the Briscoes and Steenerico, which, if I remember correctly, the Briscoes won 8,999,999 to 1. As it happens, this was the 1. A friend of mine made the observation that WWE has been doing this weird thing of late where a guy becomes #1 contender to a title, loses to the champ, but then keeps the contendership for some reason and keeps challenging for months on end before they finally win the belt. Think MVP vs. Benoit, Matt Hardy vs. MVP, and Batista vs. three different guys over the course of a year. And really, ROH has been doing the exact same thing this year, particularly with Nigel vs. Morishima and this feud, probably the most egregious example. The big difference here, of course, is that the eternal challengers never actually took the belts this time. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse. It's less predictable, but then it also makes you wonder what the point of dragging it out that long was. Still, if the matches are as good as people say they were, I suppose I can't complain. Still, it's weird booking. At least when the WWE does it, you get the sense it's because they run 800 PPVs a day, and they don't have much time to develop new rivalries in the several seconds between them. With ROH, it just makes it seem like their roster is shallow. Yes, yes, I know, their roster is pretty shallow right now, but you don't have to rub it in our faces. So, yeah, the match. Erick Stevens is pretty good. I was at the show on Long Island the night before this, where Aries brought Stevens into The Resilience (and where he announced the name "The Resilience", which drew a collective "WHAT!?" from the audience), and Stevens sort of accidentally turned into a local hero overnight with the "Choo-Choo!" bit. I'm from Huntington Station. My entire town's identity is built around the LIRR. Most of Long Island can get down with a train-themed wrestler. He also hits dudes hard and seems to have a good grasp on basic crowd control, so I'm happy to see that he's making it to some degree. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that before the No Remorse Corps ran in and Stevens got powerbombed onto the gaurdrail by Roderick Strong. Strong then casually turns to the camera and tells the viewing audience to "buy the shirt". I know it's not cool to like the No Remorse Corps, but I'd be lying if I didn't say they can do some fun heel shtick. Steen and Generico go to work on Jay, including a nice standing moonsault by Generico and a nasty standing Harlem Hangover by Steen. Deuling "Mr. Wrestling/Let's Go Briscoe" chant leads to Steen cupping his ear and covering Jay's in time, which was cute. This has been surprisingly tame vis-a-vis Fire Pro offense so far, which is fine by me, since they're about to be joined by a dude recovering from serious head trauma, and these guys' basic offense all looks really good. Crowd rallies behind Jay, who elbows out of a chinlock, runs the ropes, ducks a clothesline, rolls under another, and hits a superkick that Steen takes a great turning falling redwood bump off of. Think Bald Bull in "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!" when you down him with a jab to the face. Jay has to pull double duty as house afire, dropkicking Generico, sending Steen out of the ring, and then dropping Generico again with a release gourdbuster. Jay gets Generico up into a military press, but Generico slips behind him and pushes him to Steen, who tosses him up flapjack-style and catches him with a powerbomb. Generico looks to get the tag as Mark Briscoe runs out from the crowd and inserts himself into the match. Steen waves "hello" as he slingshots double stomps Jay. What a great dick this guy is. Steenerico goes for Doomsday Something, but Jay punches his way out, pushes Steen into the corner to crotch Generico on the top turnbuckle, and then tosses Steen overhead with a release German suplex before getting the hot tag to Mark. Mark hits a springboard dropkick before going house afire with his Tracy Smothers-inspired redneck chop-sockey offense. Jay looks for a J-Driller on Generico, but Generico escapes into and armbar, runs up the ropes and leaps off into a swinging DDT. Steen comes in and decides it's time to make with the headdroppery, scoring a Ki Krusher onto his own knee, which was as mean-looking as you might imagine. Mark Briscoe takes a lot of blows to the head in his match, including eating a half-nelson suplex, a yakuza kick, and another half-nelson suplex from Generico in quick succession, and while my conscious mind can recognize how stupid he is for doing this, years of wrestling fandom have left me dead inside to the point where I can't register the level of disgust that I kinda feel I should be able to. Steen pulls Mark to the outside and throws him head first into the guardrail, which Mark bumps off of and lands on the back of his head on the concrete. Jesus. Jay tries to help Mark up, but Steen bowls right into him, driving him into the guardrail. He throws Mark back into the ring and drops him with the Package Piledriver, which is like the seventh or eighth nastiest blow to Mark's dome in this match, before before rolling him to Generico for the winning brainbuster. It was a great match, don't get me wrong. Generico has become really, really good as of late, the Briscoes are great when they reel it in enough, and Steen's improved a lot, and he did some great heeling here. But I feel like a bad person after watching this match. I mean, I guess I should feel that way after every wrestling match, but this just rubs it in your face.

Read more!

Phil's Ongoing 2007 MOTY List

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Bryan Danielson ROH 6/23
2. Nigel McGuinness v. Samoa Joe ROH 3/3
3. John Cena v. Umaga WWE 1/28
4. Eddie Kingston v. Chris Hero IWA-MS 9/29
5. Bryan Danielson v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 8/25
6. Nigel McGuinness v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 4/14
7. Chris Harris v. James Storm TNA 5/13
8. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/4
9. Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 2/16
10. Matt Hardy v. Finlay WWE 6/19
11. Shawn Micheals v. John Cena WWE 4/23
12. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer ROH 3/31
13. Solar 1/Mano Negra v. Negro Navarro/Black Terry Lucha Libre VIP 3/10
14. MNM v. Hardy Boyz WWE 1/28
15. Briscoes v. Ricky Marvin/Kontaro Suzuki NOAH 1/21
16. Bryan Danielson/Takeshi Morishima v. KENTA/Nigel McGuiness ROH 5/12
17. John Cena v. Great Khali 5/20
18. Mitsuhara Misawa v. Bison Smith NOAH 6/3
19. John Cena v. King Booker v. Bobby Lashley v. Mick Foley v. Randy Orton WWE 6/24
20. Necro Butcher v. Jay Briscoe ROH
21. Briscoes v. Murder City Machine Guns ROH 4/28
22. Finlay v. Undertaker 3/6 WWE
23. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico ROH 4/14
24. Colt Cabana v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 2/24
25. Takeshi Sasaki v. Yuki Miyamoto BJW 3/14



Previously on the list

Necro Butcher v. Toby Klien CZW 1/13
Chris Benoit v. Chavo Guerrero WWE 1/16
Shinjiro Ohtani/Takao Omori/Kazunari Murakami v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi/Yoshiro Takayama Zero 1 1/19
BJ Whitmer v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 1/27
Nigel McGuiness v. Jimmy Rave ROH 3/4
Matt Sydal v. The Man Gravity Forgo PAC ROH 3/4
Matt Hardy v. Ken Kennedy WWE 3/13
Samoa Joe v. Eddie Kingston FSM 3/17
Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio NOAH 4/1
Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1
John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1
Chris Benoit v. MVP 4/10
Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13
Davey Richards/Roderick Strong v. Jack Evans/Delirious ROH 4/14
Mitsuhara Misawa v. Takuma Sano NOAH 4/28
John Cena v. Great Khali v. Umaga WWE 6/4

1. Nigel McGuinness v. Bryan Danielson ROH 6/23

Man alive, this is how you end a PPV. These guys have a real formula worked out with each other, and it is really great to see how they adjust that formula in their different matches. I loved all of the opening matwork, all of the stuff with Nigel in the guard, and Danielson digging his knuckles into the temple was spectacular, I loved how they did the MMA spots, but made them pro-wrestlingy. I thought the selling in this match was actually pretty top shelf. Nigel often works restarts into his big matches, but here he kind of did mini-restarts throughout the match, toughing his way through moves he normally does easier. The fighting into the Tower of London was especially awesome. This match really felt like it was the stylistic offspring of all of those Regal v. Benoit matches, like this was the main event match those two never got to have with each other. Of course it is hard to watch both of these guys slam their heads into each other until they bleed without thinking about ghosts. Still great art is often tinged with tragedy, and this is the best piece of wrestling art this year.

4. Eddie Kingston v. Chris Hero IWA-MS 9/29

2007 is the clearly the year of the Last Man Standing match. I still prefer an old fashioned Texas Death Match, but that is mainly because I am official old and cantakerous. Last Man Standing does allow you to hit big crazy moves without preposterous kick outs, and man alive did these two take advantage of that. The nerd in me really loves this feud because they run it in so many promotions. These guys hate each other, and will try to kill each other where ever they are, it's like Dusty and Funk, if they are in a promotion together, they are making each other bleed. They start out brawling from the locker into the crowd, and they are really laying into each other in super awkward ways, throwing chairs recklessly, punching each other in the nose, headbutts. They both keep grasping for the other persons eyes to break holds, it wasn't a wrestling eye rake, but more like a bar fight eye rake. Kingston is a really great in ring shitalker and he is always badmouthing Hero, "kill me motherfucker, you better kill me." He also does a great job with wobbly half concussed selling, Hero is also great doing his indy horseshit gimmick in a sick brawl, I loved the Cloverleaf while sitting in a chair. After they get into the ring the white hot death ensues, and there are sick bumps galore. Hero doing the Hero's welcome off the top with the chair around Kingston's neck, Hero double stomping a rail on Kingston. The finish was Kingston hitting three backdrop drivers on Hero, with the third on a propped up guard rail which is just uncalled for. Ended when it should, filled with horrific violence, this is all you could possibly ask for.

5. Bryan Danielson v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 8/25

Morishima has been kind of a weird guy in 2007, completely inconsistant, he has been in a lot of very good matches, matches on this list, and things that just missed making it, however he can also be in some train wrecks. Weirdly alot of his worst matches came against guys he trained with in Japan, the KENTA abortion for the title, some really lackluster tags. This was the best match of his career, and it feels like a Bryan Danielson show. Morishima is at his best when he is a fat dude kicking peoples ass, and at his worst when he works like a junior who is retaining water. One reason this update has taken so long is that I have been engrossed in Mid-South and UWF for the 80's project. They have a ton of big bumping big dudes. Terry Gordy bumpes huge, One Man Gang bumps huge, even Kamala will fly all over the ring. What really seperates One Man Gang from Morishima at his worst, is that when the Gang bumps for a Duggan punch it feels like the felling of a redwood, sure the bump is impressive looking, but so is an avalanche. While Morishima when he works with juniors has these athletic bumps, that look like athletic bumps. He bumps for KENTA the same way Marifuji does, he will also bump early and often so they don't mean very much. What makes this match so great, is that he worked this like the One Man Gang. He is a giant dude who will kill you, and you had better chop away at, if you have any chance of knocking off his feet.

The early Marco Ruas leg kicks by Dragon were great, and I dug the fuck out of Morishima wincing but moving forward. Then the ass beating commenced. Dragon has a ton of over finisher, so he can really mix a bunch of believable near falls. Still Morishima was killing him, nutty lariet, sick backdrop suplex, plus in some ways the injury added to the match. Morishima looked like a killer here which is how he should pretty much always look.

20. Necro Butcher v. Jay Briscoe ROH 10/6

The Age of Fall's entrance music is women screaming, and I wonder how many erections that popped among the social degenerate Jersey ROH fans. Jay's new neck tattoo is #1 and the best. The match itself was pretty godamn great, both guys beat the everloving shit out of each other and I liked how they brawled to each part of the crowd, giving every fan a chance to get run over. Necro takes his requisite five insane bumps. Still the thing that ruled the most was their end of the match punch exchange, Necro's right hand looked Pavlikesque. Jay really needed to bring it a little more on the comeback, it's the Necro Butcher, punch him in the face. For a guy who a large minority of the ROH board hates, and works nothing like the ROH archtype style, it amuses me how often Necro Butcher works main events. I actually have to give Gabe some credit there, and I am all in favor of Necro mained ROH cards.

Read more!