Ring Of Honor’s second show at the Hammerstein Ballroom took place on August 2nd 2008, and has been hyped as the show of the year by most of the fans on their own company message board, and by wrestling fans elsewhere. So naturally I was interested in seeing it, knowing that ROH have turned New York into their “big show” market where they always look to deliver their best and most memorable shows.

We start with a backstage promo from ROH World Champion Nigel McGuiness, saying he’s beaten everybody, and now he’ll beat three people at the same time because he’s the best wrestler in the world, playing off the catchphrase of his biggest rival, Bryan Danielson. As always with Nigel, it’s an effective promo, getting over himself, his character, his opponents and his match. All in a couple of minutes. This stuff is easy when people are great and know what they’re doing.

The opening match saw Jay and Mark Briscoe beat Jigsaw and Ruckus in what was probably the closest thing to a squash match in Gabe-era ROH. For a big show, having The Briscoes’ music hit to open things really gets that “hyper opening match pop” that sometimes ROH misses on it’s lesser shows by starting out with midcarders and jobbers. I like the ruthlessness The Briscoes showed here, which seems like it’s heading for a heel turn in the near future. Of course Ruckus got his flippy stuff in, but that was a minor issue, as really The Briscoes destroyed the Vulture Squad and picked up an impressive win. From all perspectives this was an entertaining success.

Speaking of entertaining, Sweet N’ Sour Inc. came out after this match, and Larry Sweeney congratulates The Briscoes on their win and offers them a spot in his company, but they don’t take his business cards. Yes, the agent has business cards, another reason why he’s the greatest manager in wrestling today and somebody the WWE is really missing out on with their bias against male managers. Sweeney could’ve been the next Bobby Heenan if he was born a generation earlier.

Chris Hero then cuts a promo saying he’s done being entertaining and is now a serious wrestler. This move is not a good one, to say the least. His shouty promos suck, and his new style, especially with not changing his ridiculous ring gear, just doesn’t suit him at all. I want him back doing flips and arrogant heel stalling and such, not being Mr I Can Hit People Hard, because ROH has more than enough of those guys already. The fact that his match here is with Delirious doesn’t help matters, because that became ridiculously stale as a babyface gimmick, I’ve seen the same old shit for four years now and the joke has worn thin. Hero doing a Knock Out Kid gimmick where his kicks and strikes get two counts isn’t cool. When Mike Tyson was knocking motherfuckers out in the 1980s he knocked them the fuck out. And if you want a pro-wrestling analogy, so did Brock Lesnar when he first arrived in the WWE in 2002. The gimmick itself isn’t booked right, Hero isn’t the right guy to do it, Delirious isn’t the right opponent, so Larry Sweeney’s antics aside, this was just a complete disaster.

After the the match, Sweeney cuts a promo running down Roderick Strong for not joining Sweet N’ Sour Inc. which leads us to the next match as Strong takes on that stable’s Eddie Edwards. I like Roddy, but he’s up against one of the lesser members of the heel stable which includes Davey Richards, the tag team partner that turned on him, and you’d expect him to show some fire and some pissed off anger as he goes through the rest of the group to eventually get to Davey. So what does he start the match with? About five minutes of armbars and wristlocks. FUCK OFF. That shit might fly in a respectful double babyface match, or in an “I am the better man and I’m gonna show it” deal, but here it’s “guy who got betrayed is taking his first steps to revenge” and it doesn’t fit in one bit.

Eventually things heat up, and there’s even a screwjob ending as Sweeney distracts the ref, allowing Hero to run in and hit the rolling elbow and Edwards to get the pin with the Lionsault. I know in ROH it’s almost sacriledge to admit that run-in finishes are a good thing, but this is a case where it definitely was the right thing to do, as it presumably leads to a rematch and prolonging the wait for the first Davey/Roddy match.

Sweeney gets on the mic and gloats about SnS Inc. winning both their matches so far, before introducing NWA World Champion Adam Pearce. Pearce then cuts a promo, introducing the new red-lined NWA World Title belt, a la the design used by Harley Race, Jack Brisco and Giant Baba, before saying he’s better than all of them. Yeah, not believing that one, and I have really not liked the Race I’ve seen. Albright comes out and challenges Pearce to have their NWA World Title match right now.

The match itself was fantastic, and if it’s an indication of the “1970s style” that Pearce was rumoured to want as ROH booker I hope he gets the chance to have the great workers in this company work the style. Because Pearce and Albright, two mid-level guys in terms of talent, and in terms of star-power in ROH, put on a heated match that made sense, engrossed the crowd from start to finish on a rollercoaster of emotions leading to a gigantic pop for the finish. And the most flashy spot was Albright being thrown off the top rope through a table, but it wasn’t done just for a pop, it was done to tease a countout, and also lead to Pearce getting a really dramatic nearfall after Albright crawled back into the ring by immediately hitting a piledriver.

Albright bleeding early really added to the sympathy he could get while selling, which is quite a feat when he’s clearly the bigger and stronger man. If there was one weakness I still didn’t feel fully into Albright’s babyface comeback, the facial expressions and body language were there, but his punches and clotheslines just look so weak, and you don’t want a comeback existing of solely headdrop suplexes, you need those basic moves when you first fire up in order to build to that.

This got “Match of The Year” hype at the time, and while I have seen better matches this year, this was still an excellent match in probably my favourite style of wrestling and is something I could watch all day long. Just fantastic.

Backstage, The Briscoes are drinking beer when Addicted To Love Rhett Titus (greatest name ever) comes up and shows him a video of a girl on his mobile phone, assumed to be Daizee Haze since he cockblocked Delirious when he tried to get with her months back.

Then a cameraman goes into Claudio Castagnoli’s locker room for an interview, but Claudio stresses out, saying he needs to focus on the World Title match, because he doesn’t know what he’d do if he doesn’t win the belt later.

Up next was more of an angle than a match, as the Triple Threat between Jimmy Jacobs, Necro Butcher and Austin Aries saw Necro finally stand up to Jacobs and turn on him. They built it really well too, with Necro and Jacobs coming out together and double teaming at the start, and they tease Necro turning a couple of times with miscommunication spots that look like they could lead to the turn based on a misunderstanding.

Then Jacobs cuts a promo in mid-match on Necro, berating him and reminding him who he works for, and still Necro won’t take the plunge and punch Jacobs. So Aries does the old Eddie Guerrero deal where he hits a chairshot then throws the chair to Jacobs and goes down himself. Thing is, Eddie didn’t come across like a dislikeable asshole as Aries does, so for me it lost some of the effectiveness, even if Necro finally turning babyface was overdue as well as the right thing to do. After Necro nailed Jacobs with a chairshot, he left and Aries hit the 450 splash to win.

The Motor City Machine Guns approach Daizee Haze backstage and act all sleazy towards her, before cutting a promo on “Steenerico” – and yes Alex Shelley actually did use that name for them.

Bryan Danielson cut a really terrible shouty backstage promo talking about how he would’ve ideally wanted a one-on-one match with Nigel McGuiness, but a four way is great because it’s unpredictable as he’s beaten everyone in the match and also everyone there has also beaten him.

Delirious comes to the ring to ask out Daizee Haze. Addicted To Love Rhett Titus interrupts, saying that he doesn’t want to go there because she’s used goods, and reveals that he’s done the old Rick Rude gimmick of airbrushing her face on his wrestling tights, which is always a great move. So Delirious beat him down and cleared the ring. Then after all that, Daizee said she just wants to be friends, even adding “it’s not you, it’s me.” What a cunt.

Up next was a match so awful I was struggling to stay awake even though I watched it in the middle of the afternoon. Go Shiozaki and Naomichi Marufuji apparently forgot what year it was, as in August 2008 they worked like it was ROH in 2002, and if I wanted to watch some 2002 ROH I would buy some old DVDs. It’s the very definition of “throw out two guys doing moves” and they even do the “go for the same move and counters leading to a stalemate” spot that became old hat when Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko were doing it. In 1995. Also, it’s only a month after Shiozaki turned heel, joining Sweet N Sour Inc. So of course none of the members of that stable were here for this match, Go did NOTHING to wrestle like a heel in any way whatsoever, and it was never even alluded to, like it was something you’re just not supposed to think about at all. Which begs the question, why fucking turn him heel in the first place if you’re not even going to use it to make a really fucking dull bland uninteresting match a little bit entertaining and watchable?

Some interference and antics at ringside from Sweeney, Hero, Del Ray, Dempsey etc would’ve added a lot to this match, and it would’ve given Marufuji a lot to work with in the body of the match and given it a better story if he’d fought against the odds to win. Instead we got two guys working even in a shit match that I will never watch again as long as I live because it was fucking terrible.

Tyler Black cuts an excellent backstage promo, both managing to get over his desire for the World Title and tie it into the Age Of The Fall’s message as well.

Kevin Steen and El Generico took another big step on their road towards winning the ROH World Tag Team Titles with a victory over TNA’s Motor City Machine Guns. It’s clear the guys are taking this tag team push more seriously, even to the point of colour co-ordinating their outfits, which I’d not seen done previously in their ROH run. It seems minor, but all great tag teams have dressed like a team not two individuals, and it actually really helps.

As for the match, I have stated many times that the ROH style of tag team match is not always my cup of tea, and more often than not it’s a match type I don’t really enjoy but this is an exception. When the Machine Guns did cut off Generico and work him over with several of their brilliant cool double-team moves, the heat lasted only a few minutes and so the hot tag got zero reaction. I don’t mean a minor pop, I mean silence. And that was just weird, considering the dives got a great reaction, the big moves got a great reaction, the nearfalls got great reactions, the comedy spots got great reactions too.

I thought Shelley and Sabin looked at home, almost relieved to be given the chance to work their match with no 3 minute TV time constraints, and they showed that when it comes to smooth double teaming they’re untouchable. Steen and Generico were fantastic as well, and the fact that they got a bigger reaction than the guest stars was yet another sign that they were ready for the belts. This was a success all round, the action never stopped, the moves were crisp, the drama was high and the right team went over.

The Briscoes are backstage drinking beer, and talk about getting back to kicking ass and taking names. Daizee Haze comes up to them and offers to help them out against Age Of The Fall. Well with Lacey out of the picture I guess Haze needs a never-ending feud with somebody else, in this case MsChif.

Kevin Steen and El Generico are backstage, and Steen tries to get Generico fired up to get more vicious and have more of a killer instinct as they go for the tag titles. Interesting promo to say the least, I like the leader/follower vibe the team has, but Steen’s shouty promos just don’t come across with the motivational effect that, say, John Cena’s do in a similar situation.

The main event was a Four Man Elimination Match for the ROH World Championship, with Nigel McGuiness defending against Tyler Black, Claudio Castagnoli and Bryan Danielson. One thing ROH does really well is make the big show main events (the New York shows, the PPVs, the annual shows) something special. I know they do introductions in the ring for every ROH World Title match, but in this atmosphere in this environment with these top guys it just came across as bigger somehow.

Aside from Claudio and Tyler, every other combination of guys in this match has some kind of recent history with each other, and in the case of Nigel and Danielson, although you know they’re saving themselves for a bigger singles match down the road so their interaction is kept to a minimum, in a way that actually adds to the heat for when they are in the ring together here, like the fans know they have to savour what they are getting. And it’s done perfectly, as Nigel early on kept only getting into the ring by blind tags while an opponent is down, and always trying to avoid Danielson, but after taking Tyler down once he spends too long gloating, so turns around to find Danielson taking him down with a top rope dropkick to a huge pop. Remember earlier in the review where I said Claudio flipped out in his interview, and it showed the signs of pressure mounting over being unable to win the ROH World Title? Well, that played off here as he was the first guy to be eliminated, as Danielson avoided an uppercut and surprised him with a small package to pin him.

Afterwards, the crowd turned on Claudio, doing the “Na na na na, hey hey hey Goodbye” song, and after a handshake he turned on Danielson with a big kick, powerbomb, and placing a chair over his head and stomping on it, twice, in amongst fighting off security. There’s a heel turn that makes sense, and can hopefully freshen up what was starting to be a stale babyface character. Then Nigel shows why he’s such an amazingly great prick heel, by propping up a deadweight Danielson and giving him one more lariat for the pin. This left Nigel and Tyler Black, and they went about 10 more minutes chock full of hot nearfalls like a WrestleMania main event. Interestingly, Naomichi Marufuji was shown stood in the entranceway watching the match.

One of the problems of having World Title matches on every show and doing these nearfalls in every World Title match is that, even though Nigel is such a great worker and a great heel champion that he can have the live crowd believing in the nearfalls and popping for kickouts, here it’s the second time Tyler has done this, and if he is going to win the title one day, as many think he both should do and will do, you wonder if people will believe the big nearfalls as they did here and on the Take No Prisoners PPV. But here it was fantastic, Tyler hits EVERYTHING, Nigel hits EVERYTHING, and each nearfalls builds and builds a fantastic and dramatic conclusion, before Nigel gets into a rage and hits the craziest, most bug-eyed, insane-man lariat he’d ever done, to put a great close to the show.

This main event was one of the best, if not the best, ROH match of 2008. Afterwards, Nigel gets on the mic to say he’s beaten everybody there is to beat, as Marufuji is still standing there at ringside, and the crowd both chants for Marufuji and throws garbage at Nigel, in a great scene to close the DVD.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com