The American Wolves take on the House of Truth in the main event of this week's episode of ROH TV, while the Young Bucks battle the Bravados, the All-Night Express confront Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin and we hear all about the infamous Kevin Steen. All that and more this week in Ring of Honor.
– Okay, the person who is putting together the video packages that air at the beginning of each episode to recap the previous week's action is officially the MVP of the production team. They made Lethal vs Bennett seem somewhat decent, they perfectly captured the excitement of the House of Truth/American Wolves stand-off, and now they've gone and made the bowling-shoe-ugly match between Haas & Benjamin and The C&C Wrestle Factory seem like something you should seek out. Kudos.
The Young Bucks vs. The Bravados
Recap: Making their return to ROH television after a two year absence, Matt and Nick Jackson, the Young Bucks, proved their tag team dominance, making reasonably light work of The Bravados. The California duo isolated Lancelot for most of the match, cutting the ring in half with their ever-impressive teamwork until he managed to escape their clutches and tag in Harlem who showed unheralded competence against his veteran opponents, sustaining a lengthy burst of offense and actually garnering a loud cheer from the crowd. However it was simply not meant to be on this night, as the Bucks quickly regained control with more double-teaming and within seconds it was all over as they hit More Bang For Your Buck for the win. Naturally the Bucks refused a handshake post-match.
Review: Harlem Bravado is a beast! No, seriously, if you only watch one thing from this week's episode, watch the hot tag from this match, because Harlem murdered the Bucks and got the crowd very much on their feet. The Bravados showed remarkable poise from the opening bell in fact, attacking the Bucks with previously unseen intensity, and that can be nothing but a good thing for the ROH tag division, as this once comedy team are looking fairly legitimate. The Bucks looked every bit as good as they did two years ago, and their time heeling it up to the max out in Reseda in addition to the honing that went on during their stay in TNA has given them a greater understanding of how to wrestle a television match. They're still facing that fundamental problem of being heels that do exciting, crowd-pleasing moves, but that will never change. For a sub-ten minute match, this was a whole lot of fun.
The All-Night Express Confront Haas & Benjamin
Recap: ROH World Tag Team Champions Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin were invited to the ring to speak on their grudge with the Briscoes, but were interrupted by Kenny King & Rhett Titus, the All-Night Express who accused the champions of ducking them, with Titus stating all the ANX need is an opportunity.
Review: Kenny King ran circles around the champs on the mic here, no two ways about it. If he isn't a main event singles star within two years, ROH will have failed, because you can't sleep on someone with a look, a ring-game and the ability to talk. Perhaps this is what was needed to inject some life back into the ANX after their popularity began to wain a couple of months ago, something to show their personality and swagger. What started as a way to make sure everyone knows Haas & Benjamin are on the roster turned into an intriguing development for a tag team division that has been dominated by the Briscoes and WGTT for quite a while, and whoever walks away with the gold at Final Battle will surely be faced with the ANX in early 2012.
Inside ROH: Kevin Steen's Many Misdeeds
Kevin Kelly talked us through Kevin Steen's history, starting with his tag team with El Generico all the way through their feud and to his recent law-suit. Anyone who didn't have a damn clue who this man the crowd were chanting about should now be suitably informed and probably fairly impressed as well, as this was an incredibly well made video. Has it taken a little too long to get the gears in motion to facilitate Steen's return? Probably. But I implore everyone who is desperate for him to come back to take a look at this video because not only did it include a great deal more content than you might expect and chronicle the feud of the year from 2010 pretty nicely, but it also made me kind of forget about how long it took for him to resurface and really breathed new life into the return angle. Great stuff, and we're going to hear from Jim Cornette about the issue next week.
– Jay Lethal and Mike Bennett spoke about that controversial finish to their match once again, with Lethal offering a rematch and Bennett taking it under the condition of a new referee, claiming Todd
Sinclair was either too slow or “related to Jay Lethal.” I… I don't know what to say… I laughed at something Mike Bennett said. Repent, this is truly the end of days.
– Steve Corino interrupted Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness' attempt to hype the main event and mentioned that there was a monster among us and he had a solution to the whole problem, begging for 5 minutes of Jim Cornette's time so he can help fix things.
Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards vs. Roderick Strong & Michael Elgin
Recap: In an explosive clash of main event talents, it was the reunited American Wolves triumphing over the House of Truth in surprising fashion. With ROH World Champion seemingly defeated at the hands of Michael Elgin but with the referee tied up with Truth Martini, Eddie Edwards entered the ring and choked Elgin out with a Dragon Sleeper, allowing a recovered Richards to get the pin, despite having no clue how he managed to do so. The contest was very back and forth from the get-go, with all four men showing their skill and neither team able to dominate the other for longer than a few minutes. In the late going Michael Elgin demonstrated a previously unseen level of toughness, absorbing several of the Wolves' strongest attacks and kicking out of pin-fall attempts, and then delivering a bone-crunching knee strike to Richards and potentially having him pinned after a pair of powerbombs. But it would be Martini's inadvertent distraction and a move Edwards had never used before that would spell victory for the Wolves, perhaps a sign of Eddie's new coach's training.
Review: Like most television main events, the first ten minutes were a little pedestrian and the latter stages really came alive. Of course there's a difference between ROH pedestrian and WWE pedestrian, so the first half was hardly devoid of action, it was just slower. These four men have wrestled each other an awful lot in the last year, so they tried to show us some new sequences, such as a double diving codebreaker by Edwards, a hectic corner to corner to corner attack and a quadruple stomp from the Wolves. These were all fine ideas, but they came off a little shaky in execution, particularly the criss-cross corner attacks as the timing was a little too tricky and required some hesitation that took me out of it slightly. That's the most nitpicky of nitpicks though, as the action here was solid. The greatest achievement of this match was Michael Elgin looking like a monster though. When he took Davey's KO Kick and just spat in his face, and then kicked out of a Superkick and another KO Kick, I smiled. Elgin has been a supporting character thus far, but he's slowly evolving into a main event threat in his own right. The tease of Edwards' new coach teaching him such an effective technique was lovely, but it also seems to give credence to the idea that the coach is none other than Dan Severn as reported by ROH earlier this week. Please be a red-herring. Please be a red-herring. Please be a red-herring.
Overall Thoughts
– Two sets of tapings down now and this stands as my favorite episode to date. While previous episodes have separately boasted incredible vignettes, strong promos, an exciting opener or a solid main event, in my opinion this was the first one to feature all of those elements together. The Bucks and The Bravados flew around the ring and got the crowd on their feet. Kenny King reminded us he's one of the best stick-men in ROH. The Kevin Steen video was a treat. The main event developed the storyline between Eddie and Davey, with subtle friction from Eddie somewhat cheating, as well as advancing the the notion of Edwards having a secret coach, AND making Michael Elgin look like a star. All of that was achieved within a nicely wrestled match that was entertaining for the live crowd and the home viewing audience. Well done.
– That being said, I am begging ROH to request better cameras and/or a better lighting rig from SBG. The intensely bright overhead lighting made it extremely jarring whenever the camera was aimed upwards from the arena floor, and at times there was a strobe effect caused by the wrestlers moving in and out of the light. Less than stellar visual quality is easier to deal with when you're not being blinded by terrible lighting. Fix this please.
Plugs
– You can hear me, Chris and Ari's predictions for Survival of the Fittest and Glory by Honor X while there's still time on the latest Podcast of Honor.
– I was part of a history-making podcast reviewing Chikara's debut on iPPV, High Noon. The podcast featured myself, Jerome Cusson, Kevin Ford and Justin Houston together for the first time, and while it's long (2 hours in fact), I honestly believe it's one of the best podcasts in the history of the site, so please take a listen.
– Take a read of my live reviews of High Noon, as well as DGUSA's Bushido: Code of the Warrior and Freedom Fight events.