Pro Wrestling Chronicle

The roving live report machine known to some as Metalbob is back from an awesome ROH PPV weekend. Robert Dolezil files his report on the first night, Friday night’s show in Dayton, Ohio

Ring of Honor

June 22, 2007
Dayton , OH
Report by Robert Dolezil

1) Kevin Steen & El Generico defeated the Irish Airborne with the package piledriver followed by a brain buster combo in 10:23 . This was a great match to open the crowd and was pretty fast paced with great dives from everyone. The match opened with dueling chants of “Irish Airborne” and “Mr. Wrestling.” The Steen & Generico finisher is great, Steen hits a package a piledriver and the opponent rolls after it right into El Generico so he can hit a brain buster. Fun match.

2) The next match up was the gauntlet series. The first two guys out are Jimmy Rave and Pelle Primeau. Primeau is WAY over in Dayton thanks to his gutsy and excellent performance in the great 6 Man Mayhem match he was in the last time ROH was in Dayton for the Fifth Year Festival. Okay action between Rave & Primeau and at the 5:30 mark Pelle tapped to Heel Hook the second Rave applied it. The next man is was Delirious who immediately hit a Chemical Imbalance 2 for the pin on Rave. The next man in was Adam Pearce, mediocre action ensued and Delirious would eventually roll up Pearce at the 12:30 mark. Next up was Chris Hero who came out with all of the Sweet N Sour Incorporated entourage. Sweeney even cut a promo in the middle of the gauntlet. After the promo the 2 wrestled for a little while and Hero picked up the win at the 22:03 mark. This whole match was very mediocre.

3) Brent Albright defeated BJ Whitmer when he reversed a super back suplex and landed on top of BJ as they went thru a table at the 12:30 mark. This was a NO DQ match, and both men started it off by brawling thru the crowd. Some more mediocre brawling ensued which led to the finish. Just an okay match. Whitmer continued his current gimmick of beating up Refs after the match.

4) Davey Richards & Roderick Strong defeated Erick Stevens & Matt Cross when Strong pinned Stevens with a Gibson Driver at the 12:30 mark. This was a very exciting match with nonstop action. Lots of stiff strikes from the Corps. Very fun. After the match Strong got on the mic and said, this is like the 34th time we’ve beat you guys, why don’t you just go run and hide like your leader. Then Austin Aries walked up to the guardrail and yelling at Strong. Strong was saying you’re not allowed here. Gabe Sapolsky then ran out and made motions to cut the mic and the cameras. Aries was forced to leave the ringside area.

5) Lacey (with Jimmy Jacobs) defeats Serena Deeb with an implant ddt at 6:15 .

6) KENTA defeats Rocky Romero with the Go 2 Sleep at 18:44 . This was an awesome match that featured tons of great hard striking and lots of armbars and armbar counters. KENTA was over huge in Dayton as this was his first time in the city, big “Lets Go KENTA” chants. The match started out with both men kind of feeling each other out throwing mild leg kicks back and forth most of which were being checked. Around the 3 minute mark both men started exchanging hard slaps to the face. More fast stiff kicks were exchanged. Romero would go for an armbar that would eventually be countered. For like the next 10 minutes there was just great hard hitting action. Later both men were on the top rope and Romero would hit his flipping armbar off the top rope which the crowd popped huge for. KENTA would eventually escape that and lock on an armbar of his own. The great finish sequence of this match saw Romero lock on another armbar on KENTA, KENTA then tried to get out it by standing up but Romero still had it locked on, so at this point Romero was on his back applying to KENTA who was standing up, KENTA lifts up Romero while still applying the armbar. It looks like KENTA is going to hit a powerbomb, but instead puts Romero on his shoulders and hits a Go 2 Sleep for the pin. Great match, that without question lived up to my highest expectations.

7) Bryan Danielson & Nigel McGuinness defeated ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima & Naomichi Marufuji in 24:15 when McGuinness pinned Morishima with the rebound lariat. This was an amazing match. This was one of the best tag team matches I have ever seen and it was without question the most brutal and hard-hitting tag team match I have ever seen in ROH. This entire match was filled with the hardest lariats I have ever seen thrown in the United States . This match was 24 minutes of hard hitting pro wrestling excellence. I can’t say enough about how excellent this match was. The last few minutes of this saw Nigel hit some hard standing lariats on Morishima that didn’t seem to have any effect. Morishima was going to go for a Super Back Drop Driver on McGuinness when Danielson broke it up. Marufuji then came in and hit Danielson and set him up in the tree of woe position and then Marufuji hit is turnbuckle to turnbuckle dropkick right to the face of Danielson. A minute later all 4 guys were in the middle of the ring striking each other and Marufuji superkicked Nigel sending him toward the ropes, Danielson took out Marufuji with a tackle/spear, and Nigel hit the rebound lariat on Morishima for the win. Just an amazingly brutal, awesome, and exciting tag team match.

The Briscoes defeat Matt Sydal & Claudio Castagnoli in 2 straight falls totaling 16:40 to retain the ROH World Tag Team titles. This match seemed kind of flat and not very exciting after the incredible tag match before it. Mark pinned Sydal to win the first fall at 4:49 with a moonsault. In the second fall, the match still didn’t really seem to pick up too much, and Mark hit a Cutthroat driver on Claudio to win the second fall. This match was just decent and was below the standard of most Briscoe Brothers tag matches.

The majority of this show was average ROH which is fine, but the 2 matches involving the Pro Wrestling NOAH regulars were off the charts. Buy this DVD just for KENTA vs Rocky Romero and the incredibly amazing tag match of Bryan Danielson & Nigel McGuinness vs Takeshi Morishima & Naomichi Marufuji.