Still, that's not to say that I wasted my money. It was a fantastic show. There were three dark matches before bell-time, and they were amusing time-wasters. The highlight of those was a match between a clearly gay team called The Sect and another team of local favorites featuring a guy called Mox.
First billed match of the evening went to a tag match, Rhett Titus and Kenny King against Erick Stevens and Kenny Omega. Titus and King worked the "I'm too sexy" angle, doing thrusts like Rick Rude. Hot tag match, well-worked, and Titus and King got the duke.
Next up was a three-way match, presumably the main event to the first taping portion - Roderick Strong against Jay Briscoe against D'Lo Brown. It was a great match, a hot match. The crowd was split three ways. There was one contingient rooting for Briscoe, whom, by the way, is from Delaware and plays up the redneck angle. Yeah, that's real Southern. And I wonder how the black family who sat in front of me thought about the arena cheering for a guy wearing the Confederate flag on his trunks. Dunno. Aaanyway. That contingient was also very antagonistic towards D'Lo. D'Lo also had his cheering section. Me? I rooted for Strong. Strong won after reversing a Sky High into a pinning combo. Very strong match.
Five minute break and then we come back with tag action. Prince Nana and Eddie Osiris escort their Embassy buddies, Claudio Castagnioli and Jimmy Rave out to meet Colt Cabana and Brent Albright. Okay match. It was carried mostly by Castagnioli and Cabana. I don't know about you, but Albright isn't that good. Either that, or I caught him on a bad night. He seemed very sloppy, very choppy. Anyway, it devolves into a schmozz with Castagnioli hitting the Ricola Bomb after some interference. Vicious post-match attack with Albright getting busted open, but Necro Butcher and Grizzly Redwood (!!!) made the save. Later on, after a Necro Butcher squash, Cabana, Redwood (!!!) and Albright offered Necro Butcher a spot on their team to take on the Embassy. He accepted. Like at King of Trios, Necro was one of the more over faces of the night, and I can see why. He may look goofy, but the dude has animal charisma.
Speaking of animal charisma, Delirious has it in spades. He worked a squash against Silas Young. Crazy pops, crazy offense, and after the match, he cut a promo in gibberish, much to the delight of the crowd.
After that, it gets pretty hazy for me, so I'll just run down highlight matches. The next big memorable match was El Generico with Kevin Steen in his corner against Davey Richards, with Eddie Edwards, Sara Del Rey and some bearded dude in a cast whose name I didn't catch. This was a phenomenal match. Generico, who was clearly the most over face of the night, came out guns blazing with an Olé Kick and he dominated the offense early. It settled into a nice groove later on, with shenanigans involved from both camps. It got pretty bad at the end, and really, I guess I was more pissed at being robbed seeing a BRAINBUSTAAAAAAHHHH~! live than I was with the schmozzy ending. Oh well, I guess they had to do the cluster at the end because of TV, but still, it would have been nice to have seen a clean finish to the match. It was like the Cena/Jericho match from RAW in England. Wrestling blue balls.
Anyway, that led straight into the next break. After that ended, they played "Also Sprach Zarathrusta" to tease Ric Flair, but it was Austin Aries. He came out and cut a BLISTERING heel promo on the crowd. This guy has so much charisma it's not even funny. Last time I saw him at King of Trios, he wrestled and didn't talk, letting his charisma show that way. This time, he talked and didn't wrestle, and still, he oozes it out of every pore. It's a damn shame that the WWE has such a thing against smaller guys, because he'd be the most over guy on the roster, easily. He's becoming one of my favorites.
First match after the break was Steen/Edwards, with partners banned from ringside, presumably as a result of what transpired before with the schmozz at the end of Generico/Richards. Another pretty good match. Steen is sort of like Vader-light, literally. Great big man worker, but he's a bit less heavy than good ol' Leon White. Match ended with the beareded manager in a cast distracting the ref and Edwards going for the chairshot. Steen grabs it off him, clocks him and hits him with a fat-man swanton.
A couple of squashes later, and it's the main event, a returning Nigel McGuinness took on his ancient rival Tyler Black. This was the match of the night. McGuinness is another guy that I think should be working in the WWE. He has the look, he's a great worker with great ring presence. Great back and forth match, McGuinness working the arm, Black coming back with all he's got. The match finish was great. McGuinness hit his Tower of London and then dragged Black to the middle of the ring to make him tap with his armbar/camel clutch hybrid he calls the London Dungeon. Black fights out of it and amazingly hits God's Last Gift for the pinfall victory. After the match, the rivals shake hands, and everyone goes home happy.
All in all, I can see where ROH gets their rep as "American puro" from, but I guess with TV, they've let some of the WWE-style bait and switch booking creep in. I guess that's alright, and if I wanted all clean finishes, maybe I could go to a "house show" or PPV event.
Notable by their absences, by the way, were Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, Jerry Lynn and Chris Hero. However, the show didn't suffer without them there. There were enough good wrestlers there - Black, Brown, McGuinness, Strong, Generico, Steen and Richards - to put on a good show.
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