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****
The main reason I ordered this was to get a look at this guy everyone is talking about and that is The American Dragon Bryan Danielson. This guy is unbelievable and to me, he seems to have one of the top heel personas going. I have been reading on the net about all the great matches he has had in the past, so now my money is going for ROH DVD's.
In closing, one other reason why I loved this so much is that they put me back in high spirits with wrestling just when I was about to give up after the Benoit tragedy. They reminded me why I was a wrestling fan, and that is the fun and excitement of watching a real wrestling match. ROH saved wrestling for me and truly earned my respect.
Thanks
Kevin Buckler
Chynthiana, Kentucky
*****
Count me in as one of the people watching ROH for the first time tonight.
All I can say is wow! What a show. The tag match with the Briscoe Brothers was off the charts. Roderick Storm is a great heel. Morishima is a great champion and reminds me of Terry Gordy. Marafuji was very impressive as was Romero. The production was definitely below that of WWE, but that is to be expected. The announcing was very good and helped explained who the characters were and the history between guys, One thing I liked was that each character was identified with a graphic, so you knew who they were.
The crowd heat was reminiscent of ECW and shows that there is still a base for good wrestling in this country without stupid gimmicks, exploding limos or Snitsky.
Tom Mehs **** I watched ROH for the first time last night and I must say that it was all right. There was some great in ring action and I think everyone came out looking very good in their matches that were all competitive, except one. Joe in Canada (Formerly Korea)
The Opening match was a squash and made BJ Whitmer look like a job guy, and I know he is better than the let him show. I guess they just wanted to make Morishima look good. I like the way he works, it reminds me of a mix of Terry Gordy and Samoa Joe, but his finisher is a back suplex. I suspend my belief for so much, but it's hard to buy it as the finisher when you see what all the other guys on the show pull off, and kick out of.
Romero vs. Marufuji was decent, it was a really good back and forth match with lots of hard work and good sports. In what will be a theme for the night, these guys hit sick spots, that would have been a "career ender" 15 years ago, but they are kicking out on a one count. I am not taking anything away from what these guys can do in the ring, but when everyone is doing flips and high spots all over the place, it is not as special.
The tag title match was probably the best of the night, with lots of back and forth action. I was surprised by the look of the Briscoe Brothers when they came to the ring looking like a mix of London and Kendrick's tights and AJ Styles hooded vest. All 4 of the guys in the match were great and I look forward to seeing more of them. I have the same criticism at the previous match in terms of hitting big moves then always kicking out. In this match it was worse because the ref would always telegraph that it was going to be a 2 or broken up because of how slow he would count. That kind of made it less fun because I knew that couldn't be the finish because the ref was counting so damn slow. I am glad that WWE is working to improve that now, because if I didn't know the finish, I would have been even more pissed off that the ref was ruining the suspense of the match. I like how they set up the next match for the Briscoes and hope this time the ref doesn't do his best to let the fans know that the match will always continue.
Delirious is a great gimmick. I think it's hilarious that he speaks gibberish and is a great worker. His match with Strong was excellent and moved along their storyline. The ref did a better job in this match when counting the falls. I remember Strong from his cup of coffee in TNA and he had a much better showing here. He reminds me of James Gibson, and I think he has a very bright future. I would love to see this feud continue as these guys worked great together. I also really dug the Cobra Clutch stretch finisher, I popped when I saw that the first time.
I wasn't overly impressed with the main event. It was good that they showed that all of these guys want the belt, but to me it just seemed a lot like what some hate about Lucha. They would tap or pretty much miss a punch, then go off the ropes for a move. It just seems like these guys were going through the motions at times. Morisha is the monster, and doesn't sell very much, which I understand, but it wouldn't kill him to get knocked down every now and again. American Dragon, wow, he needs a tan, BADLY. Holy crap, was he white. I liked his cross face chicken wing that was actually locked on, as opposed to TNA where it is never synched in by sold like it will rip a guys arm off. KENTA looked good, but I was most impressed by Nigel. I think he will be a big star in ROH or TNA is they ever decide to push anyone that wasn't a WWE cast off.
Overall, I think the action in the ring was good, but they have a long way to go in terms of production. This reminded me of when I used to watch Border City Wrestling on public access cable. I will check out their next show and hope that they do better in the areas that I thought were lacking.
