Hello fans welcome back. Thanks for your support and more. As always just want to restate for any of the new readers that the 30 Days 30 Events series of blogs aren’t meant to be serious reviews with play by play commentary. They are merely the thoughts and opinions I want to share while I watch 30 events..well literally within 30 days. Next week is still looking bleak as I’m apparently driving back and forth from Medford, OR from Sacramento, CA. Not an easy drive but we’ll see what happens. Pray I get back as the roads might be a little icy.. just a little. Anyway as always thanks for the tweets and comments from you guys. Feel free to tell you friends let them know you support PWPonderings.com and more. Lets get to the show.
Claudio Castagnoli vs Kyle O’Reilly
A lot to tell in this match. Honor Takes Center Stage night 2, O’reilly & Adam Cole take the KoW to the limit, almost beating them 24 hours after the KoW lost the belts to the WGTT an night 1. Go to last night O’Reilly & Cole give it all to the current ROH Tag Champions WGTT and really show that they can hang ableit still lost. But Claudio you can tell here is taking Kyle seriously. Claudio knows that Kyle is not a guy he can overlook and he’s going to use his power advantage for all it’s worth. I like it and I do hope the best for O’Reilly in the future of ROH. Claudio gets the win though but it was a hard fought win so O’Reilly and Cole are still working their way up the ladder in a big way.
Mike Bennett vs Steve Corino
This is a feud that brought out some great promos from Corino & Bennett. But the real great part of this is that it brought back Jimmy Jacobs and completely swerved the fans. Everyone thought Mr. Wrestling Kevin Steen was making a return tonight and were clamoring for it. Anyway this is a fight that the fans have wanted to see for a while now and they want to see the evil man come out again. It’s all part of Corino trying to show he’s a changed man and I will say I admire the way ROH did this. It made Corino show how every day he’s trying to change and it brought out a different side of Bennett where he was no longer just a cocky guy, but he showed he has more facets that we haven’t seen. I get the feeling that the Canadian fans really don’t want Bennett to have kids as they boo for Corino getting hit in the head but cheer for him getting hit below the belt by the ring bell. Just some fun stuff for the crowds. The match though ends with a bitter sweet end as Bob comes in to interfere w/ Bennett getting the thumb in the bum but ends up getting it himself. The distraction allows Bennett to hit 2 side effects and the dreaded pile driver for the win. But it’s a post match pile driver that puts the exclamation point on this feud.
Double Pin Scramble match (winner has to get 2 pinfalls): Tommaso Ciampa vs Andy Ridge vs Rhett Titus vs Adam Cole vs Michael Elgin vs Grizzly Redwood
So apparently this is a new twist on their scramble matches in that now you have to get two pinfalls. It is also stated you can get eliminated if you get DQed. This is basically a showcase match. Ciampa or Elgin I assume are going to get the win. I expect the rest of the guys to get some good showings. Cole & Rhett in particular. Have I mentioned before that I really like multiman matches? I might have. Ciampa gets the first win with a pinfall over Cole. All the guys in this are smartly going for quick pins which makes sense. Roll ups and hard hitting action is the name of the game here. You won’t see any feeling out process’ or guys working over body parts. This is straight up who can in the craziness score the fastest pinfalls but also keep in mind the guys who are still on the ring aprons. Rhett Titus scores his first pinfall over Andy Ridge who really just got killed. Rhett has to be one of the most successful students of the ROH academy. We get the first dive of the match w/ Titus flying onto Ciampa & ELgin. Adam Cole is in the ring with Grizzly and in a spot that I just enjoyed way too much. Grizzly shoots Cole over the top rope which Titus was standing on and Titus gets ddt’ed onto the apron. Such fun. And here are the springboard-o-plenty spots as everyone including Michael Elgin go into the sea of men. A very impressive twisting suicida by Elgin which I have to say got him some huge chants. This man could be an interesting face if he ever decides to go that way. Cole starts pulling a Buck by super kicking everyone in every part of their body but it almost costs him getting pinned again by Ciampa. Titus interferes luckily or it would have been the end of the match.
Could I care any less about Grizzly Redwood in ROH? Don’t get me wrong I love the guy in CHIKARA but the man just does not need to be in ROH any more… ok that is a bit harsh as he has his comedic presence which I am sure I’d miss now that Cabana is gone. But still when he’s in a match, I barely notice he’s there. He tornado DDT’d Ridge and I thought it was outside interference until I remembered he was a part of this. But the end of this match just brought me back from my Griz-coma. Ciampa destroys Titus with strikes but they go over the edge. Elgin kills Elgin with a sky scraper slam followed by Elgin power bombing Ridge onto Titus & Ciampa on the outside. Elgin then double Alabama slams Cole & Griz at the same time and scores successive pins on them one after another. A great win and a great way to end the match. The 2011 SoTF winner is just a true beast. I have such high hopes for him.
Kenny King vs Davey Richards
Future meets the present in this match as Davey is already there. King I think will be a future ROH champion as he’s got the mic skills, the athleticism. He’s learning more and more every day and I think he is doing the small things now that make him stand out. Titus too and man if these two men every face each other.. damn. This is a good test for King and Davey. I always get the same opinion about Davey from many including a man whose opinion I respect and it’s not that Davey is a bad wrestler. It’s that he tells the same story in the ring all the time. I often find myself at a loss to bring up matches that weren’t just Davey fighting from behind with his “American Strong Style”. This though is Davey’s chance to help get a young talent over so lets see if he does that. So far in the match King has gotten in a fair amount of offense but it stil doesn’t seem like King at any point is the same or equal to Richards which is what I want to see or at least I want to see King get some semblence of offense. Towards the end of the match we did get that but it really did feel more the same. To be fair it showed Kenny’s toughness and that is always a plus about a guy going with Davey that if he can kick out or get out of a submission he generally looks stronger for it. Davey gets the win after probably the 5th submission attempt and no shame to King he gave it his all and the crowd responds to that.
Sweet N Sour Tribute Match to Larry Sweeney: Colt Cabana vs Delirious
Larry Sweeney had just recently passed at this time and the wrestling world was at a loss as to how to respond other than to remember all the great times. I can’t say how much I enjoyed Larry Sweeney and as a fan it was sad to hear of the demons he had to face on a daily basis mentally and physically. As an honor to a man I only had the pleasure of meeting once I’m posting a favorite video of mine of him here. This match just has to be taken in along with the memories.
Just for kicks here Sweeney going up against the King of the “empire”
ROH TV Champion Christopher Daniels vs El Generico
In typical fashion this entire match has been about Truth Martini interfering multiple times and Daniels showing that TNA has really gone to his head. It was his way out and thus Generico was getting some very good heat from the matches and to a degree coupled with the awesome feud with Steen this was a time when I thought ROH could have put the World title on him and it wouldn’t have looked out of place. Daniels I don’t think knew completely that he was on his way out again but he was working more on Impact so I figure it was just a matter of time. The point of this match was to set up a TV title shot for Generico and it only made me want to see them wrestle again.
ROH World Tag Team Titles: Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas vs. Jay and Mark Briscoe
This was basically the brawlers vs the technicians. Nothing fancy but a very good match for what it was. I literally did not take my eyes off the match while it was going on so that I can say is a good thing. It was reminiscent of the ROH I enjoyed back in 2005 that was just straight up wrestling and both teams made the belts seem like the most important thing in the world. If anything I can say that is positive about ROH consistently it is that they take their prizes seriously. They never make the belts seem unimportant and that in the end all the competitors are in ROH to win that gold. They aren’t there for any other reason, even the heels like Mike Bennett continue to state that they are there for one reason. The WGTT retain in a great match and The Briscoes return to the back bitter and probably going to kill the ANX who stopped them from cheating.
ROH World Title: Eddie Edwards vs. Chris Hero
An awesome tribute with pink trunks from Hero to his fallen friend Larry Sweeney. Hero though is a man who is more skilled than most and enough to be a great ROH champion. He was one of the best PWG champions and so seeing him go out here and truly take it to Edwards was a perfect match up for Edwards who still had to prove himself to some at this point. Hero gave him the match to prove himself. Hero was there but Eddie was strong enough to fight back. When Hero would get an advantage Edwards found a way to fight back and reverse his luck. Luckily Sinclair told Hagadorn & Del Rey that they were sent to the back but that was another thing he overcame. It’s a very back and forth match that while I wouldn’t say be the only reason to buy this DVD but it certainly up there. Edwards would retain in what I would deem spectacular fashion. A clear story in the latter half of this match was the damage Hero did to the left arm and Edwards going through the rest of the match without the use of his left arm mostly. Small detail to be told was Edwards almost losing when Davey came out to take Claudio out from ringside. Overall this is a match for any Hero fan and will make you a fan of Edwards along the way.
Overall this is a much better event than Revolution USA IMO and I would recommend getting this whether on sale or not but try to make it a sale 😉
Be sure take a look at Ryan Rozanski’s review of it if you want a more traditional review HERE
This looks like a really solid show, I just might have to find it. I haven’t seen a lot of those matches, and Hero vs. Edwards and the Sweeney tribute match is very intriguing.