ROH On HDNet Recap: 09/13/10

Austin Aries and Delirious go at it in a lumberjack match, the American Wolves find themselves in a highly competitive battle with the Super Smash Bros, rising star Rhett Titus takes on the Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels, the House of Truth are in action, and more this week on ROH On HDNet.

Quick Results:

– Christopher Daniels def. Rhett Titus with the B.M.E.
– The House of Truth def. Aiden Chambers & Ricky Reyes.
– Davey Richards told Jim Cornette he would remain with ROH after 2010
– The American Wolves def. The Super Smash Bros. in a long competitive match after Edwards tapped Dos out.
– Austin Aries def. Delirious in a lumberjack match after Rhett Titus interfered while the lumberjacks brawled to distract the referee.

Full Results:

– Our shown opens with Kyle Durden talking to Grizzly Redwood, who is interrupted by Austin Aries wearing a t-shirt that reads “Make sexual advances, not war” Phenomenal. Write a number on a piece of paper and I will pay it to own one. Anyways, A-Double talks to the Grizz about his lumberjack match because Redwood is… wait for it… ROH’s only professional lumberjack. Marvellous. Grizzly refuses to work in Aries’ favour, so catches a weak beat-down. Aries threatens Delirious and Daizee.
– Cue opening titles!

Match 1 – Singles Match

Rhett Titus vs. Christopher Daniels

Preview: To improve at something you have to face people who are better than you. They don’t come much better than Daniels, and Titus is doing his damnedest to improve, so this match should go a long way in helping him reach solo star status. I look forward to it immensely.
Recap: Austin Aries is managing Titus. The ROH breaking news ticker tells us that Roddy won the world title as these two lock up to get started. No biggie eh? Daniels outsmarts Titus early, but Rhett hits a wonderful slingshot arm drag from the apron into the ring, takes Daniels down and rides him amateur style, which of course looks creepier coming from him. More so when he follows it by blowing a kiss. Daniels again uses his wisdom to get the better of Titus, stomping his head into the mat as Rhettski attempts a drop-down. Three jabs and a leg lariat from the Fallen Angel. He heads up top but Rhett uses the best dropkick in ROH to knock Daniels to the outside. Aries throws Daniels back in without roughing him up and Titus goes to work with a catapult up into the bottom rope and then some thrusting for good measure. Rhett wraps around a punch and hits a neckbreaker but can’t put Daniels away. Titus whips Daniels into the turnbuckles chest first and follows it with a nice lariat and then goes to a chin lock. Daniels eventually escapes and hits an STO to give himself time to recover. He follows a back body drop with a spinning wheel kick, and then adds in a diving hurricanrana from the second rope for good measure. Koji Clutch is locked in and Titus taps but Aries has the referee distracted. Standard heel accidentally wiping out his own manager spot, but Titus hits Daniels with a Sky High as he charges in for a near fall. Rhett tries to the Muff Driver, gets knocked into Aries, uranage, Best. Moonsault. Ever.
Winner: Christopher Daniels via Pin-Fall (Best Moonsault Ever)
Review: Nice little match here. Both guys looked good, and Titus didn’t look out of his depth when he was in control, much like with Jerry Lynn, which is very much a good thing for his development. Daniels continues to roll through the roster, but I can’t help feeling that if this match happened before Glory by Honor it would have been better to fuel their match.
– Mike Hogwood talks about Davey Richards’ interview with Cornette and says we will get to see a replay of it later on.

Match 2 – Tag Team Match

Ricky Reyes & Aiden Chambers vs. The House of Truth

Preview: The House of Truth have looked better every time I’ve seen them, and with their boy Roddy now the ROH World Champion, I’d expect only expect that push to go further. I think Ricky Reyes should be wrestling competitively somewhere, but we have him as a jobber here in ROH, and as jobbers go, he’s probably the best.
Recap: HOT now have a cheesy looped quote from A Few Good Men as the intro to their music. They also don’t follow the Code of Honor. Aiden Chambers takes command of Josh Raymond early with a running dropkick, but a little referee misdirection allows Christian Abel to enter the ring and hold Chambers in a bearhug while Raymond hits a lionsault. Love that move. Abel pounds away at Chambers and poses a lot, but a blind tag by Raymond backfires as Chambers confuses the two with lots of ducking and dodging and ends up getting the tag to Reyes while HOT run into each other. Reyes hits a DDT, some nice kicks, a running bulldog, an enzuigiri and the dreaded falcon arrow as part of his hot tag before tagging Chambers back in. They attempt a double team but Abel pulls Reyes out of the ring, takes him out with the guard rail, and Raymond tosses Chambers into the ring post. Wheelbarrow hold by Abel, diving double knee drop by Raymond. Over.
Winners: The House of Truth via Pin-Fall (Wheelbarrow Hold/Diving Knee Drop combo)
Review: That double-team finisher needs a name because it’s awesome. The House looked good, and their biggest improvement seems to be one of comfort. They aren’t blowing spots, and they aren’t looking awkward anymore. They have a more relaxed attitude and are wrestling the way they want to, and looking like stars doing it. The only problem is there isn’t a lot of room for them with the Kings at the top, and the All-Night Express as the second-tier heel team. Not much to say about the match, it was short and sweet.
– Now we get the replay of Davey’s promo from Glory by Honor IX. I gave my thoughts on the speech during my live recap of GBH9, but I’ll just reiterate this was a very emotional promo, and it goes a long way to humanise Richards and justify his face-turn. The fans were cheering him regardless, but it always helps to have a logical booking reason too. I’m also thrilled that he’ll be sticking around and remaining a huge part of the ROH landscape.
– And we move from Davey talking to Davey wrestling…

Match 3 – Tag Team Match

The American Wolves vs. The Super Smash Bros.

Preview: Feels like forever since the Wolves tagged up, so as much as I love the Smash Bros, I hope they get murdered here. Plain and simple.
Recap: It’s kind of strange seeing Davey killing the ring crew during his entrance as a face. Huge cheers for Davey are transitioned into huge cheers for Eddie at Richards’ behest, and are then transferred back again when Eddie asks. Aww. Davey walks away from a handshake and Eddie kicks Player Uno’s hand. I guess they only play nice with each other. Uno gets the better of a shoulder block exchange with Davey and then hits a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and actually gets booed. Tough crowd. Leg lariat to Edwards and a tag to Dos, and the Smash Bros hit flip dives in stereo to get the crowd to support them more. They bring Davey back in and Uno holds him in a side-walk slam as Dos springboards off the second rope and hits an inverted DDT at the same time. Davey manages to take out both Smash Bros with elbows, heads to the apron, punts Dos in the chest as he stands on the outside, and then hits a big diving front dropkick on Uno before making the tag to Edwards, but he soon falls victim to a standing moonsault and fist drop combo. He muscles Uno back to his corner and brings in Davey who delivers a kick to set Uno up for a double stomp off the top by Edwards. Another tag now and a nice snap suplex from Edwards. Davey is in again and he rolls through a Russian leg sweep and locks in a submission. Vintage Richards (literally). Davey wins a strike exchange, but Uno plants him with a swinging reverse STO. Dos tags in and hits a flying crossbody, and then hits his nip-up double Pele kick on the Wolves. Tilt-a-whirl DDT to Edwards, and then a flipping dragon suplex. Edwards finds himself on the outside and Uno barely connects on a moonsault off the apron to take him out. Davey tries to the rebound enzuigiri on Dos but Uno catches him and hits a German suplex. Uno holds Davey in the Gory special and Dos leaps off the top and hits a flipping cutter as Uno hits a Gory bomb. Ridiculously good move. Eddie saves the match. The Smash Bros set up their Alabama Slam/Backstabber finisher but Edwards flies over the top and dropkicks Dos out of the ring. He’s not done though as he hits a jumping leg lariat/knee strike to Uno for good measure. Eddie is on fire tonight. Doi 555 by Edwards and then a shining wizard of sorts. Nice counter sequence as Eddie looks for the Achilles Lock and Dos looks for pins, but ultimately he falls prey to the double-team version of the Alarm Clock and then the Superkick/German Suplex combo. Uno saves the match. Hurricarana to Edwards. Reverse hurricanrana to Richards! Huge right hand by Uno to Edwards, and then a big half nelson suplex. Dos misses a Frog Splash and gets his head taken off with a Richards lariat. Powerbomb/Backstabber combo. Dos kicks out but Edwards transitions immediately into the Achilles Lock. Davey plays defence, Dos taps out. Finally.
Winners: The American Wolves via Submission (Achilles Lock)
Review: The Wolves really feel like stars these days. As soon as the crowd hear that howl they get amped. There were a few problems here though as the crowd were not at all into cheering for the Smash Bros, and the Wolves worked as heels for short spells and it made things a little scrambled for a while. As soon as we settled into a longer sequence of trading big moves it got better, but I was still very surprised at how long it went, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Smash Bros really impressed me with their matches against Steenerico & The Briscoes last year, and they can add the Wolves to their resume now too. The Wolves get the win and rightfully so, but I’m not sure how thrilled I am with how much effort it took, and how close they came to losing. I expected them to rip right through the competition, but I can’t complain about the good competitive match we got out of it. Really good work from everybody, and Edwards shone.
– Now for a video recap of the Delirious/Aries feud. Seen most of this before, but it’s been touched up a little, and with more recent events taken into account also.

Main Event – Lumberjack Match

Austin Aries vs. Delirious

Preview: I really can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a lumberjack match… probably when Goldberg killed all the lumberjacks on his own to get to the ring, and I actually forget who was wrestling the match itself. I also don’t know why this match was booked, but it’s not a bad feud, so I’ll give it a chance.
Recap: Lumberjacks include the Embassy, pre-show talent, the Dark City Fight Club, Grizzly and various others. Red Poison Delirious! This makes me happy. The two brawl a little to start us off. Aries hits a weird roundhouse kick style move and then tries the Brainbuster but Delirious counters into the Cobra Clutch but Aries escapes. Choke Bomb from Delirious! Aries rolls to the outside and it seems one set of lumberjacks have been paid off as they don’t touch Aries and help him back in. Aries tosses Delirious out on the side of Rasche Brown and other faces, and they don’t touch him either. Delirious dropkicks Aries out of the ring and yet again nobody touches him. Back inside and Aries hits his shinbreaker/suplex combo. A few rest holds later and Aries tosses Delirious back amongst the faces, and decides to create some chaos with the heat seeking missile, taking out several wrestlers and causing some arguments amongst the lumberjacks. Big, big running dropkick in the corner by Aries and he goes for the Brainbuster but Delirious hits a swinging neckbreaker instead. Face comeback! Lucha body slam and a trio of jumping sentons to the back. Reverse STO to a kneeling Aries gets a near fall. Delirious tries a 10-punch but is pushed out of the ring. Aries wants the diving axe handle but Grizzly rolls Delirious back in. A-Double takes some time to argue with Grizz and then dives at Delirious but gets a headbutt to the stomach. Ouch. Delirious rams him in the gut again and Aries bails to the outside but Grizz tosses him back into the ring. Cobra Suplex! Panic Attack! Aries rolls out of the ring to his friendly lumberjacks so Delirious hits a flip dive from the top rope and wipes them all out. The lumberjacks start to beat Delirious down, so the faces attack them and we have a giant brawl. Both men are down in the ring and Rhett Titus sneaks in and hits a knee drop to the throat off the top rope while the referee isn’t looking. Aries then hoists Delirious up for a suplex but drops Delirious’ throat down on his shoulder in a strange but devastating looking finisher and gets the pin.
Winner: Austin Aries via Pin-Fall (Throat-Breaker?)
Review: I still don’t like lumberjack matches. They played almost no role in this, other than to cause a distraction at the end, which could have just as easily been achieved with Kenny King on one side and Titus attacking on the other. 10 guys being paid off to help Aries made vague sense, but it meant the faces didn’t attack Delirious just to balance things out, so why bother having them? I did like the devastating looking finisher though, and it gives them a reason to book a cage match as Aries has continually run away or had someone come in to help him and the cage will eliminate both of those options. This feud hasn’t been bad, but I’m glad it’s coming to an end.

– Next week: Austin Aries vs. Delirious in a steel cage match!

Overall Thoughts

– This was one of those shows that was more of a collection of random matches than anything cohesive. Titus and Daniels put on a very solid opener, no complaints there, they both looked great. The House of Truth won a squash in about 3 minutes. Fair enough, they’re being built up. The American Wolves and the Super Smash Bros. had the match of the night, and a contest that would have fitted in very well at a live event. It suffered a little from ill-defined heel and face roles, but it featured some great moves and the crowd loved it. We got Davey’s promo replayed to remind anyone who missed it that he’s here to stay, which needed to be done, but perhaps editing it down a tad would have been good. Then the main event furthered the Delirious/Aries rivalry with a pointless stipulation that will lead to a better one. I did like how Aries’ attack on Grizzly fed into the closing moments of the match as Grizz tried to screw A-Double over, but to no avail.

– I have a tendency to be heavy-handed with ROH, levying criticism against the shows in these overall reviews more than giving praise, but I do it out of love. I love this company. I love the roster. I love the history. I love their future. Thus my standards are very high, but only because I know they can and will reach them. I still think ROH On HDNet is better than Raw most weeks from an overall stand-point, and it’s certainly better than Impact, but there are times they seemingly shoot for greatness, and there are others where they just try not to be inoffensive, and this was one of those nights. Mediocrity is perfectly fine every now and then, especially when some of their competition fall short of that on a weekly basis, but I’m not going to lie and say this was a really good show.
– It was above average, and well worth your 60 minutes, but I think it suffered from having the Aries/Delirious feud as the focal point. When coming off a PPV, a TV show should focus on the main event scene, but of course taping schedules and not wanting to give away the ending of Tyler vs. Roddy prevent this. It’s a shame, because it will likely continue to happen until the schedule becomes more favourable.