ROH On HDNet Recap – 10/11/10

Ring of Honor World Champion Roderick Strong collides with “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels in a non-title main event this week on ROH On HDNet. Meanwhile Shane Hagadorn demands an apology from Davey Richards, Kevin Steen’s Pick Your Poison op How To Get Back Your Girl ponent is revealed, the Dark City Fight Club take on the All-Night Express with Austin Aries and more!

– What’s up everybody? I’m back again to recap ROH On HDNet and have decided to keep my new style because not only is it more enjoyable for me, but I feel last week’s recap was one of the best pieces I’ve produced for the site. On with the show!

Opening Segment

We begin with a replay of Davey Richards punching out Shane Hagadorn, as well as a recap of Eddie Edwards sending him to the back last week. This leads to Hagadorn cutting a promo directly to camera promising to confront Davey tonight.

Segment 1

Shane Hagadorn Confronts Davey Richards

Recap: Shane called Davey out to the ring and proceeded to verbally berate him, threatening that if Davey didn’t back down he would get his ass kicked. Richards laughed and attacked first, bringing out the Kings of Wrestling to beat him down two on one until Eddie Edwards hit the ring to even the odds and clear the ring. Hagadorn and the Kings bailed as the Wolves stood tall.

Review: A five minute segment well executed, good stuff here. I’m giving major props to Hagadorn here. I’ve barely heard him cut a real promo before, and in the last two weeks he’s cut a pair of really good ones. Not just with what he says, but the conviction he says it with and his good timing. Shane being so cocky made sense because of having the Kings up his sleeve and their attack and Edwards’ save leads to a set-up for the most anticipated tag team match in ROH history. Yes, I’m serious. These two were completely off each other’s radars all year due to their alliance via Hagadorn so no matter how much the fans wanted to see them go at it, it was never going to happen. Turning the Wolves face sets the match up nicely and I for one am sad that it is more than likely going to be a one-and-done affair.

Segment 2

Christopher Daniels Backstage Promo

Recap: Daniels admits he underestimated Roderick Strong in two recent encounters but promises it won’t happen again. He’s fine with it being non-title because it’s about pay back and proving he’s the best wrestler in the world.

Review: Not a lot to review here, a short but sweet promo by the Fallen Angel to continue his crusade to prove he’s the best in the world.

Segment 3

Austin Aries & All-Night Express Backstage Promo

Recap: Aries puts over King & Titus for being able to put Delirious and Jerry Lynn out of action and states they’re going to be ruthless and get all the way to the top and win the ROH World Tag Team Titles, going through every team there is to get there.

Review: With the reports that Aries is done with ROH, this was a fantastic way to begin to move him out of the back door and allow King & Titus to go on without him. He essentially conceded they’re better than him for managing to put his rival out of action and confirmed his number one priority is to help them to the top. I was a little concerned about how the ANX would do without A-Double at their side in 2011, and I still am, but less than I was.

Segment 4

The All-Night Express vs. The Dark City Fight Club

Recap: The All-Night Express defeated the Dark City Fight Club in a fairly even match. The DCFC started strong before King & Titus isolated Chavis and hit a series of nice little double team moves before Jon Davis got the hot tag and went it alone for a few minutes before things broke down, with all four men hitting high impact moves and King rolling Davis up for the clean pin.

Review: I viewed this match as the unofficial changing of the guard when it comes to who the number three team in the ROH tag team division is. The Fight Club are apparently taking a little break from ROH while King & Titus are going to have to sink or swim without their mentor, and it appears they’ll swim. They’ve done a fantastic job in coming up with unique double team moves that showcase their bravado and athleticism in the last year, and this match featured several good ones. The match proved who the better team is as Chavis & Davis continue to only manage mediocrity when they’re not destroying men far smaller than themselves. Chavis was almost a non-entity as he often is and I’m starting to think that if Jon Davis learns to somehow hit Project Mayhem on his own then they’d be better off bringing him back as a solo competitor. This match was fine – I wasn’t bored but it also didn’t do a whole lot for me. It was nice to see the Express go over clean though.

Segment 5

Roderick Strong & Truth Martini Backstage Interview

Recap: Truth Martini talks about conspiracies, comparing Roddy being forced to face Daniels tonight to Roswell and the JFK assassination. Strong asserts that Daniels shouldn’t blame Martini for his two losses and tonight he’s going to beat him again.
Review: Martini can talk, but he certainly says some strange things. Roderick isn’t that awful on the mic, it’s just the sound of his voice that makes people say he can’t cut promos in my opinion. Anyway, this just continued to build to tonight’s main event.

Segment 6

Pick Your Poison

Kevin Steen vs. Steve Corino

Recap: Generico and Cabana announced that they were forcing Steen to face his mentor Steve Corino, who wasn’t even dressed to wrestle. Steen instead knocked out the referee and declared he would under no circumstances fight Corino. Shockingly, he declared that he had quit ROH.

Review: This was genuinely bizarre. I had forgotten who Steen’s opponent was from reading the spoilers weeks ago and Corino was a brilliant choice from Cabana & Generico. Steerino did a great job on the mic as always, pointing out how they’d been censored by HDNet and mistreated by management. Steen’s claim that he’s quit the company is obviously not true, but it was certainly a great way out of having to face Corino, and if you think about it, it makes the stipulation for Final Battle make even more sense as he’s demonstrated willingness to step away from ROH. Generico must feel bad that he damn near killed himself trying to knock off Davey last week only for Steen to walk away from his challenge. I look forward to seeing how they bring Steen back.

Segment 7

Roderick Strong vs. Christopher Daniels

Recap: Daniels defeats Strong in a non-title match. The pair brawled early on before Roddy took control. Daniels eventually fired back, at one point hitting AJ Styles’ signature springboard moonsault into an inverted DDT, and then tossed Roddy out of the ring. This brought out the House of Truth to distract the referee, but Daniels attacked Truth Martini before he could use the Book of Truth. Strong hit the Sick Kick but the referee refused to count the pin due to the presence of the book. Daniels recovered and hit a uranage and the BME for the win.

Review: This was the worst main event since the Battle Royal for the vacant Pick 6 spot. They were stumbling all over each other while they brawled, Roddy essentially sat on Daniels for the middle stretch, and the wild flurry of offence from Daniels came far too late. The biggest offender of all was the finish however. Dave Prazak correctly pointed out that the referee should not have stopped counting the pin because he noticed the book. Only heel guest referees stop pins mid-count and considering Roderick didn’t even use the book as a weapon it actually made it look like what he’s been saying all year was true; he got screwed by ROH. Take away the Phenomenal DDT and the BME there was barely a move worth noting in the match. I’m rarely bored during ROH matches, but for a good portion of this main event I was exactly that.

Closing Segment

Daniels declares himself the next world champion and celebrates before leaving. We’re informed that next week Tyler Black will make his final ROH appearance as he takes on Davey Richards.

Overall Thoughts

– Last week I said very little, simply echoing my earlier sentiments about how good every single segment of the show was. Unfortunately this week I have a lot more to say.

– The opener was great and all things considered Hagadorn may have been this week’s MVP, handling himself superbly on the mic, and beginning the build for the dream tag team match between the Wolves and the Kings. The backstage interviews were all solid fillers, but the problem was that they were sandwiched around.

– The first match was decent with the ANX looking great as a team and a nice exchange of power moves at the end, but given what happened with Kevin Steen’s non-match it meant we didn’t get another match until the main event. The problem this creates is the opener seems worse in comparison as it wasn’t followed by anything to raise the quality of the episode.

– I was banking heavily on the main event saving the day here, making up for the lack of action but boy was I wrong. These two barely got into second gear and only did so in the closing minute. It was just ten minutes of irrelevant punches and stomps followed by an infuriating finish. I’m sure Roddy and Truth Martini will point to this as further evidence of the conspiracy against Roderick, but there would have been a better way to go about this, namely having Strong actually use the book to make the referee breaking the count justified. How often do we see referees ignore the sound of a weapon behind their back and go ahead and count a pin? It just made no sense to me. Still, Daniels got his win over the world champion and now gets a title match in November where the two will hopefully pick up the pace… not that they could go much slower than they did tonight.

– Last week’s episode was fantastic because of how well it managed time, squeezing in three good matches and some fantastic interviews and build in 60 minutes. This week we got more decent build and quality promos but a pair of lacklustre matches to accompany them. It’s never good to peak in the first five minutes, but this week ROH did just that in my opinion.

– Still, onwards and upwards, as we go from the worst main event in recent memory to what may be the best as Davey and Tyler go at it for the third and final time. Black’s swan song will be against his toughest rival, and I for one am looking forward to it tremendously!

How To Get Back Your Girl