I’m back, fashionably late, with the second half of my review of Ring Of Honor’s First Anniversary show. If you haven’t read the first part, scroll on down and do that. If you have read the first part, why haven’t you gotten in touch with me to tell me how great it was? Anyway, I suppose I’ll just get right into the second half of the show.

Dunn & Marcos vs. The Outkast Killahs

Except not really. These two teams came into the ring and were about to wrestle, when they were interrupted by Gary Michael Capetta, who told us that someone from Steve Corino’s group wanted to speak, and whatever that group wants, they get. It isn’t really explained why they have so much influence, but then it hasn’t really been explained why Gary Michael Capetta gets paid to be a mic stand who asks stupid questions, either. Out came CW Anderson, who, after disposing of the two jobber tag teams singlehandedly, took the long way to saying he was issuing an open challenge to anyone in the back. This brought out CM Punk, who in turn brought out questions regarding the whereabouts of his scheduled opponent, the artist soon to be formerly known as Reckless Youth. (It turns out Youth was in a car accident, but isn’t seriously hurt.)

CM Punk vs. CW Anderson

Honestly, this match made very little impression on me aside from my thinking it was a rather poor choice to get the crowd back into the show after the previous angle. Not as poor a choice as I thought Dunn & Marcos vs. Outkast Killahs was going to be, but still. Anderson isn’t exactly over with the crowd, and Punk didn’t bother to introduce himself, so, looking like a regular dude in gym shorts as he does, some of the crowd didn’t seem to know who he was. He seemed determined to suck up to the crowd, though, shouting “NYC!” on more than one occasion despite being from the Midwest. It made me wonder if he was overdoing it on purpose as a preface to a turn to his much praised heel character. His straight-edge character wouldn’t likely have difficulty drawing heat from ROH’s base audience of drunken and high Philadelphians. I am probably reading too much into it. Anyway, Punk ended up winning by reversing an attempted spinebuster into a sunset flip.

American Dragon Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe

And now we get into the meat of the card. These two wrestled in January in Pittsburgh, with Joe emerging victorious. I did not see that match. This match started out in fairly predictable and logical fashion, with the smaller Dragon attempted to take the big man off of his feet to the mat where he could use superior mat skills and neutralize Joe’s size advantage. This didn’t last too long, though, as Joe was able to gain openings to get back to his feet and begin pounding on Dragon. Joe dominated the match for a significant amount of time using simple but effective offense which emphasized his size and power advantage. His offensive attack didn’t make any reference to the Emerald Frosion that won him the previous match with Dragon, as he focused his attack primarily on Dragon’s back. When he wasn’t standing up and pounding away on Dragon with brutal forearms, chops and slaps, he used power moves like the powerbomb, or submissions that worked the back, like a particularly nasty Boston Crab variation that seemed to bend Dragon’s back at a 90 degree angle. Dragon’s comebacks mostly abandoned the matwork strategy of early in the match, choosing to try to trade brutal strikes with Joe whenever an opening or a bit of fighting spirit presented itself. This, of course, took a while to be effective. Dragon will elbow a man in the face as stiff as just about anybody, but even he must eventually yield to the overwhelming brutality of Joe. Because of this, the match seemed one-sided for a large portion of time. Dragon was just picking his spots whenever possible to inflict a bit of damage before the thunderous hands and feet of Joe put him on the mat again. This built well, as early in the match Dragon was using fairly simple strikes for brief periods, and over the course of the match, Joe began to wear down and allow him longer periods of offense until he was eventually able to bring out the big guns like the rolling elbow.

While the majority of the match built very well and was brutally stiff and intense, the part of the match that has me somewhat scratching my head as to what to think of the whole thing is the finish. It looked to me like Joe went for a powerbomb, Dragon tried to grab his head as if to reverse it, perhaps Kidman his way out of it, but his hands slipped and he got powerbombed. Then Joe leaned over and Dragon rolled him up with an inside cradle. A rollup finish wouldn’t be illogical after all of Dragon’s offense failed to make up for the size difference and Dragon was left with no choice but to try to sneak a win and get out with his skull and spine intact. But it just seemed from my vantage point that they were going for something else and resorted to the rollup finish when it didn’t work out, so I don’t really know how to connect the finish to the rest of the match. Even with the finish I don’t quite get it was a very good match, and probably my favorite on the show. They didn’t do anything especially complicated, but what they did progressed logically. The simple but brutal offense employed by Joe at all times and Dragon at most times was appropriate given the escalating hatred in this feud that’s now spanned three ROH matches, including the four-way from December. Maybe it’s just the finish that’s given me this impression, but this match seems to beg for another rematch. I just hope they do it in my neck of the woods.

You know that part up there where I said "second half"? Yeah, this review is going to have three halves. I'm not so much bad at math as I am slow at writing.

Coming soon: Paul London, babyface extraordinaire! Xavier, the Champ! Mikey Whipwreck, shitty wrestling teacher! Joe Bradley, fan of public transportation! And some more!  ¶ joe | 2:49 AM |