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| The last stand of Kevin Steen? |
The best feud in wrestling this year, bar none, has been El Generico vs. Kevin Steen. This is an indisputable fact. ROH, Generico, Steen, Steve Corino and Colt Cabana put on a clinic on how to display pure, unadulterated hatred within a wrestling ring. Steen didn't get Generico fired to the point where Generico had to buy tickets each week. Generico didn't need to blackmail Steen with footage of him getting intimate with a female authority figure. It was built on Steen feeling like Generico was holding him back and spurning him as a friend. It was about Generico breaking out of his fun-loving, free-spirited shell and becoming hardened by hatred. It was simple, but it was brilliant.
That feud will end tomorrow night in New York City. ROH presents Final Battle, it's landmark, year-ending card, and Steen/Generico will be the headline match, as well it should. Yes, there is a World Championship match on the card, but this has been ROH's signature feud of the year. In a year where Tyler Black won the title, was underwhelming and then signed with the WWE, where Davey Richards was going to retire and then he wasn't going to retire and then spent a bunch of time in Japan, where Roderick Strong made an abrupt heel turn that may or may not turn out well, where Christopher Daniels and Homicide returned and Austin Aries left, nothing else stood out, made fans' spines tingle or bring the critical praise en masse like this feud has. Yes, some of the fanboys liked all the Black/Richards matches and such, and yeah, the Briscoes and Kings of Wrestling had a year-long feud too, but that kinda petered out after Papa Briscoe and Shane Hagadorn were inserted into it. But Steen and Generico always felt fresh. They always found a way to add more hatred into the mix. And now, it ends where it began last year, when Steen plastered Generico in the head with a steel chair, seemingly unprovoked.
The stakes for this match are huge. If Steen loses, he leaves ROH. If Generico loses, he must unmask for all the world to see his face. Steen already had unmasked him once at Glory by Honor, but Generico escaped with his face covered. This is a lucha de apuesta of epic proportions, as Steen had hit his stride in ROH in the last year, being a heel better than any heel in the business in 2010 excepting maybe, maybe Batista, who also left his company abruptly after hitting his stride. Generico without his mask is nothing. I mean, he'd have to start over again, and even though he is the Generic Luchador, even that intentional "blandness" is ingrained in his character, in his mask and anonymity. So you can bet that this main event doesn't need a title.
But who wins? I've heard rumblings that Steen wants to take a year or two off. Given that he works such a high-impact style, I don't blame him. I also don't think Generico is ever going to unmask, and a feud of this magnitude? The good guy has to win, right? So yeah, it'll be brutal, bloody and memorable, but I think Generico will win.
OF course, there are other matches. Davey Richards will make a challenge for the ROH World Championship against Roderick Strong. I thought DR was a lock to win the title here, but two things work against him. One, this match isn't going on last, and you'd think that they'd go with DR winning the title as the final moment of an iPPV rather than secondary to another big moment. Two, the feud really hasn't gone on as long as most top-level ROH feuds go. Richards winning has to be the end of a journey, and while overall, it has been a long journey for him, the battle against Strong could just be beginning. It should be a good match as long as Richards doesn't go all puroresu strong-style Fighting Spirit superman yeah! Strong is a very good worker who carefully treads the line between indie spot worker and in-ring storyteller.
The Tag Titles aren't being defended here, but the Kings of Wrestling will be on the card, teaming with the aforementioned Hagadorn against the Briscoe Family, Mark and Jay and their Papa. I'm not exactly looking forward to this match, but it beats yet another Briscoes title reign. The Briscoes are at the point where they either have to break up or go to the next level as a team, because what is there left for them to do other than feud with the All-Nite Express or another team for the titles once the Kings drop them? The Briscoes should win here to let them win the feud without the burden of the titles. The match should be good, but I hate that they have to put an old fart and a greenhorn Wrestle Academy student in the match for extra heat.
The Women of Honor will get a chance to shine in what I hope will be the kickoff of a more involved women's division in the company. Daizee Haze will team with Amazing Kong to take on the tandem of Sara del Rey and Serena Deeb. This might steal the show to be quite honest, as all four women can bring it in the ring. I get the feeling that it'll be Serena eating a pinfall in the match, but the women are so unpredictable at this point that I'm not sure who's going to win.
The two aforementioned returnees, Christopher Daniels and Homicide, will battle each other in what should be a nice little match. I'm not sure if they're recognizing Daniels as the Television Champion yet since the episode didn't run yet, so I don't know if this is a TV title match. However, I think it'll be pretty good. I'm not sure how many times their paths crossed in TNA or during what regimes, but to me, this still feels fresh given that Homicide was criminally misused in TNA for the last year he was there, and Daniels has a knack for getting good matches in any situation.
Kenny Omega was supposed to make an appearance here, but he got injured and had to be replaced. He was slated to take on Eddie Edwards, but now that'll be up to Sonjay Dutt, whose bacne hasn't been seen in ROH since last year's tapings. Colt Cabana will be wrestling TJ Perkins, formerly TJP in EVOLVE and Sykodelico in Lucha Libre USA, in what will be a seeming comedic mismatch in styles. However, Perkins' lucha influences are readily apparent, and Colt's European leanings mesh well with Mexican style if you ask me. Finally, the All-Nite Express of Kenny King and Rhett Titus will take on the greenhorn team of Kyle O'Reilly and Adam Cole.
This looks like a very solid lineup to me, but it's one of those cards where the main event is that huge that it'll overshadow everything, in my opinion. That's not a bad thing. I highly doubt that Generico/Steen will fail to deliver. There's too much heat and too much talent and rapport between the two guys for it to falter. I have high hopes for Final Battle, and it'll definitely be a DVD purchase for me. If you are planning on viewing it live, you can do it one of two ways. You can buy a ticket to go to the Manhattan Center and be there when doors open at 7 PM, or you can order on iPPV from GoFightLive. The latter option can be sketchy, as ROH has gotten a LOT of complaints about their iPPV service, but hopefully, if you can't make it to NYC and want to watch live, it'll work for you.
I think the card will definitely be worth it though. Steen. Generico. One last time, with feeling. It's gonna be a doozy.
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography
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