Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Here’s our own MetalBob’s full report on last night’s ROH show from Chicago.

Ring of Honor
January 26th 2008
Chicago Ridge IL

1) Austin Aries & Bryan Danielson defeat Erick Stevens & Jay Briscoe in 16 minutes to advance to the Ultimate Endurance tag title match. Good match with decent comedy stemming from Aries & Danielson deciding to work together as a team and doing old-school moves like a double hip toss and a boot in the corner. After Danielson & Aries agreed to work as a team, there comedic chants of “teamwork” from the crowd. Danielson really enjoyed to seem that as he had a huge grin on his face.

The match was good, but really didn’t seem to be worked seriously until the last few minutes. Jay Bricsoe and Erick Stevens really didn’t hit any key moves. There was a cool double team spot from Aries and Danielson where Danielson was giving Jay the mma elbows to the while Aries was kneeing Jay in the face. Danielson eventually got the win with a small package.

One of the things I noticed during this match was that Stevens is a lot smaller now than he was the last time I saw him live at Unscripted III on December 1st. Before, I would say he was both real strong looking with some fat on him. Now he has virtually no fat on him and looks a lot smaller.

2) Shane Hagadorn defeats Pelle Primeau in 5 minutes with brass knuckles. This pretty much speaks for itself. The only thing I remember is that during this five minute match, Pelle did manage to hit a double stomp off of the top rope who was on the apron.

3) Chris Hero & Sara Del Rey defeat “Sugarfoot” Alex Payne & Kyle Durden to retain the World Intergender Tag Team Championships. Sweet & Sour claimed that Sugarfoot counts as a woman.

Sweeney was hilarious as usual. Sweeney said that the Intergender Tag Team Titles are more prestigious than both the ROH World Tag Team Titles and the ROH World Title. This lead to Daizee Haze coming out and said the only real athlete in Sweet & Sour Inc. is Sara Del Ray. Jigsaw came out and joined Haze, and they wanted a shot at Hero and Del Ray’s belts, but Sweeney said they could have a match, but they couldn’t get the title shot since they weren’t in the Top 10 of the International Intergender tag team rankings.

4) Chris Hero & Sara Del Rey defeat Jigsaw & Daizee Haze. Decent match with Hero knocking Daizee out (but not for real) mid-match with a stiff elbow. That elbow wasn’t the finish, but it was the most memorable moment of the match for me. This match overall was real stiff, it was about ten minutes with some good action. Hero pinned Haze after beating on her for a bit.

5) Claudio Castagnoli vs. El Generico goes to a 20-minute draw. “Real good” match with a lot of near falls and big moves in the last five minutes, including Claudio attempting a super Ricola Bomb, Generico attempting to reverse it into a hurricanrana, and Claudio rolling all the way through on the way down. Claudio had Generico in the Neutralizer as time expired.

The first half of this match was pretty drawn out and a bit boring, but only a couple rude fans actually shouted boring. Claudio spent a large amount of time during the first half of the match working over El Generico’s leg.

The last 7 minutes or so of this match was just great. There were incredible near falls and amazing displays of athleticism between these two with the Riccola bomb counters and rolling thru hurricanrannas. The crowd was into this last part of the match and the tremendous crowd heat really helped the match.

6) Mark Briscoe defeats Joey Matthews with a Shooting Star Press in a good 16-minute match with Matthews doing a lot of stalling and heel tactics. The Age of the Fall accompanied Matthews to ringside, but left once the match started. The stalling and heel work drew chants of “you got fired” and other related chants. The entire first five minutes of the match was mostly Matthews getting into the ring, getting ready to luck up with Mark, and then just leaving the ring and repeating the whole process over and over. The match ending up being pretty good. Mark did his karate thrusts with chops 4 different times. Matthews was totally blown up at the end, and was sweating probably more than any wrestler I’ve ever seen. After the match, Matthews said he would like to say enjoyed wrestling in front a crowd that appreciates good wrestling, but said he can’t say that since the crowd was a bunch of trash.

Intermission – It was announced that Kota Ibushi is the Japanese star hinted at in this week’s News Wire, and he’ll be on the next Chicago Ridge show on April 19.

7) Delirious defeats Adam Pearce in a dog collar match Delirious came out in his new red and black outfit looking super intense. Shane Hagadorn interfered with a chair, and Pearce bled. Delirious wins in 20 minutes with a frog splash through a table. Good brawl. As one might expect, there was lots of brawling at ringside and through the crowd. At one point Hagadorn and Pearce were going to double team Delirious, but he sprayed mist in their eyes. I wasn’t really looking forward to this match, but both guys played their parts real well and the match exceeded my expectations.

Delirious has new music that is very similar to his old music. With his new look and the hatred of the feud, Delirious was acting very intense the second he stepped through the curtain and was not being at all comedic.

8 ) Davey Richards & Rocky Romero win the World Tag Team Championships in an Ultimate Endurance Match. Lots of new looks here with Richards sporting a near-shaven head, Whitmer having black hair, and Albright wearing a “Shooter” singlet.

In the first fall, Richards pins Black with a bridging O’Conner roll to guarantee new champions. The first fall was probably about ten minutes and seemed to be booked pretty well. At one point, Danielson was in the ring and Jacobs got right in his face and they both just stared each other down. This got a decent reaction from the crowd since the last time they were in Chicago, Jacobs made Danielson pass out in a guillotine. There was lots of fast paced action with no tags being needed. Richards scored the flash pin on Black and totally stunned the crowd since the champs were eliminated first. Jacobs just looked at Black from the apron and threw his arms in the air with frustration.

In the second, Whitmer taps out to a triangle by Danielson about five minutes later. More back and forth action in this fall with Albright hitting a few suplexes. When Danielson actually submitted Whitmer, it was during a cool sport where all 6 guys were paired off and involved in different submission holds.

The third fall lasted about ten minutes. Highlights included NRC simultaneously using the Diablo armbar and the Kimura, but Danielson & Aries both escaping, and Danielson using his elbow strikes while Aries added in knee strikes. Richards rolls up Aries to win the titles and cap off an awesome final few minutes. There were really great near falls here with great reactions from the crowd. Danielson had a bandage around his left thigh, and both Richards and Romero were nailing him there with leg kicks. Danielson seemed to be doing most of the work for his team with Aries sometimes coming in for hot tags. The end came when Richards rolled up Aries to get the win concluding several minutes of great, heated action. Richards and Romero spent several minutes in the ring celebrating with the belts and standing on the middle turnbuckles, Steve Austin style. This was a real good match probably in the ***¾ to **** range.

9) Nigel McGuinness defeats Roderick Strong to retain the ROH World Championship in 27 minutes with the Jawbreaker Lariat. The first thing I noticed when Nigel came out is that his face was a lot thinner and he has lost a tremendous amount of muscle mass.

In the first few minutes of the match, both guys started unloading on each other with wicked strikes. Roderick was hitting his tremendous chops and Nigel was hitting some chops and lariats. After that was over, Nigel was doing a lot of work on Strong’s arm. At one point when Nigel had the advantage he gave Roderick a running European Uppercut in the corner. While Nigel was walking away from that, Roderick sprinted out of the corner and gave Nigel a huge half-nelson back-breaker which got a great reaction from the crowd. More great striking ensued. They brawled at ringside with lots of chop exchanges and with Roderick giving Nigel something like a sidewalk slam across the top of the barricades. Ouch. Roderick used some more back-breakers, the most back breakers that I can remember him using since his epic series of ROH World Title matches with Bryan Danielson. Near the end, Roderick hit a series of signature moves including his Roderick Strong style huge running yakuza kick and a Gibson Driver for a big near fall. Nigel hit a few big lariats which Roderick kicked out of. The end finally came with the Jawbreaker Lariat.

This was a fantastic match that I would rate at about ****¼. This was one of those very good ROH World Title matches that helped build the company’s reputation for having a great wrestling product with great matches. You really got the feeling this belt was very important to both the people that were fighting over it, and the spectators that were watching the match. This was a match that I would proudly use to show my friends what ROH wrestling is all about.

Overall, this show was very solid with 2 really good matches (Generico vs. Claudio, and the tag title match) and one excellent world title match.