D3AN~!!! Day 4: SAMMY~! MORTOS~! DRALISTICO~! CHEESEBURGER~! ISOM~! TITUS~!

DEAN~!!! 3 9/6/25

LFI (Sammy Guevara/Beast Mortos/Dralistico) vs Cheeseburger/Eli Isom/Rhett Titus

MD: Let's embrace the chaotic indie spirit of a random match popping up out of nowhere. We don't have a choice after all and embracing it would be a very DEAN thing to do. And why the hell not, right? Look, DEAN liked all of these guys. Yes, DEAN was great at finding things to like about almost anyone who had something to like, especially in the early 2020s, but he was also great at highlighting what those things were. More on this at the end because of Sammy's promo. 

This was definitely structured as an enhancement sort of match with name talent. Powers and Roma and Brunzell on a late 80s Superstars and that's okay. It meant that Isom could fire back a bit and give everything just a bit more dramatic weight. You know what to expect with Mortos (that headbutt) and Dralistico (throwing himself into his offense for good or ill, here good), but Sammy was the one to watch. 

Sammy's been paying his dues as Dustin's little buddy for the last year+, title belt or no, putting in the effort as a babyface. But now he gets to stretch and preen. They're still working it out. Him matching Rush's Tranquilo pose with his little bit of breakdancing works great. It didn't work quite as well with Mortos and Dralistico just standing beside him. Otherwise, they were a pretty well oiled machine here.

And of course the post-match promo was funny for what it was. Surreal to a degree to hear Sammy talk about Dean. Bobby Heenan is on record for giving someone advice in WCW that instead of saying they hated the fans, they should say they love them (the advice was not taken) and Sammy more or less did that here. Him referencing "pillars" in 2025 is a good bit. And then saying that he, and his stablemates were Dean's favorite wrestlers. Also a good bit. Sammy's online, of course. He's got that "Where are my five stars?" promo that he's never going to live down (Sorry), but I can't imagine him in these circles. So the fact that he didn't and wouldn't and couldn't know that DEAN was big on guys like Mortos and RUSH, but that he absolutely loved Sammy's JAS run with Tay, for instance, makes it even more funny. 

No, Sammy was not one of Dean's favorites, but in his own inestimable way, Dean loved wrestling more than anyone. And that meant he was going to find every awesome thing about Sammy and embrace them and shout it from the rooftops. There are absolutely things that Sammy does that I think are very good (and no, I'm not going to list them here), but I've written up a bunch of his matches with Dustin over the last year+ and while I’ve been fair and even-handed, I’ve not shouted anything from rooftops. So, though he didn't know any of this, though he was doing the right thing to get heat, what Sammy really did was remind me once again just what we lost when we lost the big guy. 

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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.

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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.

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