Travicity
12-28-2010, 03:56 PM
Ring Of Honor wrapped up their July tour of the Midwest with this event in Chicago Ridge, which had a really stacked card that featured a lot of important matches. For starters, the final four first round matches in the Tag Wars 2010 tournament occured here, with the other two having taken place at the HDNet tapings in Philly shortly before this event. Sara Del Rey would face Amazing Kong for the first time since their bout at Supercard Of Honor V, former partners Austin Aries and Roderick Strong would revive their rivalry, the Kings Of Wrestling would face Generation Me in a dream match, and Kevin Steen would get his first shot at the ROH World Title in forever, as he challenged Tyler Black. In other words, there are no throwaway matches on this entire show,
Salvation: 7/24/2010 in Chicago Ridge, Illinois
We kick it off with the first opening round match in Tag Wars 2010 as Erick Stevens & Necro Butcher were conveniently bracketed with Grizzly Redwood & Skullkrusher Rasche Brown, who they just happened to be feuding with at the time. It's a real shame that Rasche Brown found his way out of ROH once Delirious took over as booker, I thought he was a tremendously entertaining guy to watch because was just a big, pissed off, believable badass that you loved to watch him just tear through people. He was getting a decent push, too, and even though he wasn't getting any title matches, he only ever lost maybe two or three matches during his time in the company and nobody ever had an easy time even when they did beat him. I guess Delirious just didn't have plans for him and that's just the way things go, but I felt like they could have gotten a lot more out of him if he had stuck around. I mean, the guy press slammed Erick Stevens in this match. Grizzly ended up playing babyface-in-peril as you might have expected, and he got color after Stevens press slammed him over the top rope to the floor and Necro punched him in the face on the way down. Grizzly finally made the hot tag and Rasche came in long enough to straight up kill Stevens with a roaring clothesline and a sitout chokeslam, but Stevens got a rollup out of nowhere with a handful of tights to pin Rasche and advance in the tournament. So I guess that would have been one of those few losses he suffered, and it was an interesting finish since I think we all would have expected Grizzly to take the fall.
The next match was a rematch two months in the making as Amazing Kong took on Sara Del Rey, with Kong looking to avenge her loss to Del Rey at Supercard Of Honor V when Del Rey used Chris Hero's loaded elbow pad to knock Kong out and get the win. I liked that these matches were even taking place because women's wrestling hadn't been a featured part of ROH for some time, so it was nice to see ROH take advantage of Kong's newfound availability and bring her in to work the top female wrestler on the indies. Plus, it was also nice to see Sara show what she can do, since I think a lot of newer fans who weren't around when SHIMMER was getting a lot of exposure through ROH might just see her as the girl who hangs out with the Kings Of Wrestling. I enjoy watching both of these ladies because they work a style that's so much more physical than a lot of the other girls that their matches against each other always turn into these knock down, drag out fights. At one point Sara was on the apron and tried suplexing Kong to the floor, but Kong blocked and knocked her off the apron, then went outside herself and hit a dive off the apron that wiped out Sara, the Kings Of Wrestling, and Shane Hagadorn. Speaking of the Kings, they were both liberally interfering in this one, and it's kind of strange even in professional wrestling to see how cavalier they were about attacking Kong, and the same goes for the Briscoes with Sara. Kong went to the second floor but Hero distracted the referee while Claudio got up on the apron and hit a big leaping bicycle kick on Kong and sent her crashing into the ring, and Sara went for the butterfly powerslam but Kong countered to a rollup for the win. Finish kind of came out of nowhere, but this wasn't the last time these two would see each other this year, so this was really just to put them at 1-1 going into the next stage of their feud.
Back to Tag Wars 2010, as our next opening round match saw the House Of Truth taking on the Briscoes, and this is another situation where I thought the House Of Truth was a great team with a bright future in the company, but Josh Raymond has abruptly decided to leave the business and Christin Able is injured so they're done as a team in ROH. That's too bad, because they showed a lot of promise when they were making appearances on Midwest events in 2009 and I was really happy to see them get a full time gig in 2010. There was nothing ROH could do about them flaming out, but it's still a real shame because they worked so well together and I could see them getting a run with the title if they had lasted. This was a great match and it really picked up at the end with some really innovative spots from the HoT like Raymond hitting a shooting star press into a spear off the top rope, and then the Briscoes setting Christin Able up for the Doomsday Device, but Able caught Mark in midair and hit a moonsault into a powerslam off of Jay's shoulders, which was one of the most insanely awesome moves I've ever seen. Briscoes came back though, and Mark hit a dive onto Able on the floor while Jay hit the Jay Driller on Raymond to pick up the win and advance.
Next up is a Pick Six match as (1)Roderick Strong faces his former partner Austin Aries with Strong trying to maintain his spot atop the Pick Six while Aries is trying to break back into title contention. Crowd was loudly cheering for Aries, and it's as fun as always to watch Aries heel the crowd even when he's getting cheers. I like that he gets it and he doesn't try to be a heel that's really a babyface even though he gets cheered over some of the other guys that are supposed to be getting the babyface reaction. You can never go wrong with a match between these two, they always seem to take it up a notch when they're wrestling each other and have put on a lot of quality matches in the past. Truth Martini got kicked out of ringside early on for grabbing Aries' ankle, but once again Roderick didn't see it and is unaware of Martini's continued interference in his matches. This was a little different than some of their past matches because they were both heels at this point, though Roderick seemed to be playing the de facto babyface and Aries controlled most of the match as a heel would until Roderick started making the babyface comeback beginning with a side suplex onto the top turnbuckle. Roderick rallied after that and got Aries in the Boston Crab, but Aries escaped and countered a backbreaker attempt to the crucifix bomb, but then Roderick reversed a brainbuster attempt to a backbreaker and hit the Sick Kick for the win. Hot finish to that one, and not a totally unexpected result since Roderick was heading down the home stretch to winning the World Title while Aries focus wasn't even on winning the title anymore since he was allegedly going the manager route at this point. Aries even got the microphone after the match and gave Roderick credit for beating the two-time ROH World Champion, and doing it without Truth Martini, and he said that all it took was the Greatest Man That Ever Lived to bring the best out of him. He then continued to cut a promo on Delirious saying that he kidnapped Daizee Haze last night and could have done whatever he wanted with her, but chose just to scare her and prove that Delirious can't do anything to protect her.
Finally, Aries introduced the All Night Express for their opening round match in Tag Wars 2010 against Jerry Lynn & Delirious. I talked about the heat between the two sides in the Hate - Chapter II review last week, so we'll skip all that and just go to the match. Lynn and Delirious rushed the ring and attacked Kenny King & Rhett Titus to jumpstart the match, but after that I didn't feel like this was a match where the babyfaces were so mad that they wanted to kill the heels for everything they've done to them. This was actually a pretty nondescript match that followed the usual formula, though we did get an amusing spot in the middle of the match where Aries, who had stepped out to the dressing room, came back out in what appeared to be Daizee Haze's ring gear. I guess the implication was that Daizee, whom Aries had kidnapped the previous evening, was still missing and this was designed to mess with Delirious' mind. This led to the babyface comeback segment at the end where King and Titus were on the outside and Delirious started to dive at them, but instead went out the other side of the ring and dove onto Aries. The distraction proved fatal, as he got back in the ring and fell victim to a Royal Flush backbreaker/top rope kneedrop combo, and the All Night Express advance in the tournament. Delirious attacked Aries again after the match and tore Daizee's tights off of Aries.
Next up is the final first round match in Tag Wars 2010, as the American Wolves face Colt Cabana & El Generico. The wolves hit kind of a tough spot around the middle of 2010 as there was more of a focus on the two of them working singles and only teaming occasionally, but I get the feeling after the events of Final Battle weekend that we're looking at them possibly getting back together for another run at the tag title. This was a terrific match, not just because everyeone worked their asses off to have a good match, but also because it was fun to watch the match swing back and forth between Cabana's comedy schtick and the Wolves doing their thing as serious ass kickers. At one point Cabana and Generico hit a version of the Hart Attack where Cabana held Davey so Generico could hit a Yakuza Kick, and then Cabana put Davey right in the Billy Goat's Curse while Generico held Eddie at bay. Eddie finally got in and broke up the hold but then Generico caught Davey coming off the ropes for his handspring elbow and turned it right into a half and half suplex. The crowd was really getting into it at this point, and then Generico knocked Davey off the apron with a Yakuza Kick and hit a Michinoku Driver on Eddie and only got 2. Cabana came in and hit Colt 45 on Eddie, but Davey broke it up so Generico nailed Davey and gave him the top rope brainbuster while Cabana got Eddie in the Billy Goat's Curse, and then added an extra level of brutality by punching Eddie in the back of the head until Eddie was forced to tap out. This was an amazing match, the crowd loved it and the Wolves lost but gave Cabana and Generico a great fight and Cabana and Generico had to nearly destroy them to beat them. Shane Hagadorn (who was not at ringside for this match) came out of the back and started yelling at the Wolves for losing, and Davey had finally had enough and spinkicked Hagadorn in the gut and started going after him and Eddie had to pull Davey off of Hagadorn before he killed him. Interestingly, the Davey/Hagadorn split happened both on this show and on HDNet, but was handled in two different ways.
Hagadorn was out for the next match as the Kings Of Wrestling faced Generation Me in a non-title match, and I liked that Hagadorn was still selling the beating he just took from Davey on his way to ringside for this one, and I think I forgot to mention it earlier, but Truth Martini did the same thing by selling abuse he took from the Briscoes as he came to the ring with Roderick Strong. It's the little things, guys. Interestingly, the Bucks were playing the babyface role tonight after going out of their way to cut a promo big timing ROH the night before. Truth is it didn't really make much of a difference once the match started because the fans are going to pop for them anyway, but it's interesting to see them flip the switch like that. This was another excellent match in an evening full of great matches, the Kings Of Wrestling have gotten so good it's scary, and they prove that they're more than just a great indy team by going out there and performing at a high level with outside teams like Generation Me, the Motor City Machine Guns, and Haas & Benjamin. That, and the fact that they're so often in the best match on any given ROH show really shows how far they've come since they first broke up at the end of 2006, and at this point they're right up in that elite group with Davey Richards, Roderick Strong, and the Briscoes that form the backbone of what Ring Of Honor is in 2010. Bucks made the hot tag and Jeremy came in and hit a nice Rey Mysterio Jr-style Frankensteiner into a cradle, but Claudio came back with the UFO and then the match went insane, with both teams taking turns hitting each other with knockout shot after knockout shot until all four guys went down. Max Buck springboarded off of Hero's back and dropkicked Claudio off the apron, and then sat Hero on the second rope so Jeremy could hit him with a 450 off the top rope. GenMe went for More Bang For Your Buck but Hero got the knees up on Jeremy and then Claudio caught Max as he tried to hit the moonsault and popped him up in the air and caught him with a European uppercut on the way down. Kings followed up immediately with KRS-ONE to pick up the win and send the Bucks packing back to TNA with an 0-2 record for the weekend.
Finally it's time for the main event, as Tyler Black defended the ROH World Title against Kevin Steen, who had been running in and attacking Tyler for several weeks after Tyler's matches. Steen had been getting a pretty strong push all year and at the time I said I would not be at all surprised to see him beat Tyler and win the title here. I thought that with Steen and Generico being the featured feud it had become and the way Steen had dominated the feud up to that point, it would have added another element to the feud and make it even more crucial than it already was. Of course, they ended up doing a mask vs career match to blow off the feud and main event Final Battle, so I guess in hindsight you really didn't need the title to add anything to it. They went to the outside almost immediately and started fighting around ringside, with Steen getting rammed into the guardrail and pushing it back a few feet, but then Steen came back and powerbombed Tyler onto the ring apron and then rammed him into the guardrail himself. I've been pretty vocal about my distaste for Tyler Black as a wrestler, I never thought he was a guy who should have gotten the ROH Title, but I will say that he's a lot more entertaining in matches that are more brawl than wrestling match. I don't think he has enough of a killer instinct to get over with the fans, but when he's duking it out with a guy and ramming him through guardrails, that comes off as more badass than what you usually get from him and makes him more exciting to watch.
They head back into the ring and Tyler goes up top for a moonsault or the Phoenix Splash, but Steen shoves him off and he falls outside the ring and hits the guardrail. When he gets up, we see that he's bleeding and Steen goes after him like a shark and, in true sick bastard fashion, smears Tyler's blood all over himself like war paint. Steen gets the Crippler Crossface but Tyler makes the ropes, and they wind up out on the apron where Steen yells in Tyler's face, "Don't you understand? You can't do it! I'M BETTER THAN YOU!" I thought that was a nice touch, but Tyler responded by smacking him and hitting Peroxism on the apron. They head back in the ring and Steen gets the Sharpshooter but can't tap Tyler out, so he shuts down a Tyler comeback flurry with a pump handle neckbreaker. Steen goes to the top rope for a moonsault but Tyler gets underneath Steen and carries him clear across the ring to hit the Buckle Bomb and a superkick, but that only gets 2. Tyler superplexes Steen, but Steen rolls through and hits a fireman's carry into a gutbuster and a moonsault and the crowd all got to their feet because they thought it was the finish, but it was only a near fall. Steen and Tyler have a superkick exchange, and Tyler wins with three in a row but was so exhausted he couldn't go for the cover and the match continues. Steen goes to the top but Tyler hits a leaping enziguiri and Steen falls to the outside, but catches his foot in the ropes on the way down and ends up in the Tree Of Woe on the outside, so Tyler goes up top himself and hits a double stomp to the outside on Steen that puts him through a table in a really nasty looking spot. Tyler sends Steen back in the ring and Steen is now busted open and is on his knees, and he still has the cajones to spit at Tyler and sprays his blood all over him, to which Tyler responds with another superkick and God's Last Gift, but again that only gets 2. Tyler goes for the Phoenix Splash but Steen moves, gives Tyler the Buckle Bomb and a superkick and, with his face covered with blood, Steen hits a Package Piledriver and AGAIN only gets 2. Steen, crimson mask and all, stares at the referee in disbelief as the crowd chants "that was three" at the referee. Steen goes back to the top and Tyler goes up with him and they fight it out, Steen goes for a top rope Package Piledriver but Tyler escapes and gets a Frankensteiner, Steen rolls through into a sunset flip, but Tyler rolls through that and puts Steen in the Sharpshooter. Steen tries for the ropes but Tyler pulls him back to the middle of the ring and, in a scene reminiscent of Hart vs Austin at Wrestlemania 13, a blood soaked Steen was trapped in the Sharpshooter in the middle of the ring with nowhere to go, but unlike Austin, Steen tapped out to give Tyler a very hard fought win. Steen extends his hand to Tyler and Tyler is not initially receptive, but then shakes his hand and has words with Steen before heading out of the ring.
In an interesting backstage vignette to close the DVD, we see Steen, still covered in his own blood, talking with Steve Corino on his cell phone and saying that Tyler beat him and that Tyler was amazing, but that he was a changed man and saw it in his eyes, and then said that they've got him. Obviously Tyler left the company before that went wherever it was going to go, but this match was unbelievable, and was at least as good as Tyler-Davey in Toronto. Hell of a way to cap off a terrific show.
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This show kicked ass, easily the best of the three shows on this Midwest tour. Tyler Black vs Kevin Steen was off the charts, Kings Of Wrestling vs Generation Me and American Wolves vs Cabana & Generico were both amazing as well, and the first round Tag Wars 2010 matches added something to this show to make it special and also gave you a reason to want to get the DVDs of the August shows to see how the rest of the tournament would play out. The only complaint I have is that for as great as Tyler-Steen was, it was the only title match on a three night tour that had every ROH champion on it, and it goes back to what I wrote in my column last week about changes ROH might want to think about implementing in 2011. I really think they need to have more title defenses if they want to make the titles mean more, otherwise they just become vanity trophies for the champions to carry around.
But that's a broader issue, and insofar as this particular show went, I really enjoyed it a lot. There was nothing bad at all, and I thought this was the strongest show since Death Before Dishonor VIII. Easy thumbs up for this one.
Next up: Champions' Challenge, featuring the semifinals of Tag Wars 2010 and Tyler Black vs Eddie Edwards in a first ever ROH World Champion vs ROH TV Champion match!
PWI
Salvation: 7/24/2010 in Chicago Ridge, Illinois
We kick it off with the first opening round match in Tag Wars 2010 as Erick Stevens & Necro Butcher were conveniently bracketed with Grizzly Redwood & Skullkrusher Rasche Brown, who they just happened to be feuding with at the time. It's a real shame that Rasche Brown found his way out of ROH once Delirious took over as booker, I thought he was a tremendously entertaining guy to watch because was just a big, pissed off, believable badass that you loved to watch him just tear through people. He was getting a decent push, too, and even though he wasn't getting any title matches, he only ever lost maybe two or three matches during his time in the company and nobody ever had an easy time even when they did beat him. I guess Delirious just didn't have plans for him and that's just the way things go, but I felt like they could have gotten a lot more out of him if he had stuck around. I mean, the guy press slammed Erick Stevens in this match. Grizzly ended up playing babyface-in-peril as you might have expected, and he got color after Stevens press slammed him over the top rope to the floor and Necro punched him in the face on the way down. Grizzly finally made the hot tag and Rasche came in long enough to straight up kill Stevens with a roaring clothesline and a sitout chokeslam, but Stevens got a rollup out of nowhere with a handful of tights to pin Rasche and advance in the tournament. So I guess that would have been one of those few losses he suffered, and it was an interesting finish since I think we all would have expected Grizzly to take the fall.
The next match was a rematch two months in the making as Amazing Kong took on Sara Del Rey, with Kong looking to avenge her loss to Del Rey at Supercard Of Honor V when Del Rey used Chris Hero's loaded elbow pad to knock Kong out and get the win. I liked that these matches were even taking place because women's wrestling hadn't been a featured part of ROH for some time, so it was nice to see ROH take advantage of Kong's newfound availability and bring her in to work the top female wrestler on the indies. Plus, it was also nice to see Sara show what she can do, since I think a lot of newer fans who weren't around when SHIMMER was getting a lot of exposure through ROH might just see her as the girl who hangs out with the Kings Of Wrestling. I enjoy watching both of these ladies because they work a style that's so much more physical than a lot of the other girls that their matches against each other always turn into these knock down, drag out fights. At one point Sara was on the apron and tried suplexing Kong to the floor, but Kong blocked and knocked her off the apron, then went outside herself and hit a dive off the apron that wiped out Sara, the Kings Of Wrestling, and Shane Hagadorn. Speaking of the Kings, they were both liberally interfering in this one, and it's kind of strange even in professional wrestling to see how cavalier they were about attacking Kong, and the same goes for the Briscoes with Sara. Kong went to the second floor but Hero distracted the referee while Claudio got up on the apron and hit a big leaping bicycle kick on Kong and sent her crashing into the ring, and Sara went for the butterfly powerslam but Kong countered to a rollup for the win. Finish kind of came out of nowhere, but this wasn't the last time these two would see each other this year, so this was really just to put them at 1-1 going into the next stage of their feud.
Back to Tag Wars 2010, as our next opening round match saw the House Of Truth taking on the Briscoes, and this is another situation where I thought the House Of Truth was a great team with a bright future in the company, but Josh Raymond has abruptly decided to leave the business and Christin Able is injured so they're done as a team in ROH. That's too bad, because they showed a lot of promise when they were making appearances on Midwest events in 2009 and I was really happy to see them get a full time gig in 2010. There was nothing ROH could do about them flaming out, but it's still a real shame because they worked so well together and I could see them getting a run with the title if they had lasted. This was a great match and it really picked up at the end with some really innovative spots from the HoT like Raymond hitting a shooting star press into a spear off the top rope, and then the Briscoes setting Christin Able up for the Doomsday Device, but Able caught Mark in midair and hit a moonsault into a powerslam off of Jay's shoulders, which was one of the most insanely awesome moves I've ever seen. Briscoes came back though, and Mark hit a dive onto Able on the floor while Jay hit the Jay Driller on Raymond to pick up the win and advance.
Next up is a Pick Six match as (1)Roderick Strong faces his former partner Austin Aries with Strong trying to maintain his spot atop the Pick Six while Aries is trying to break back into title contention. Crowd was loudly cheering for Aries, and it's as fun as always to watch Aries heel the crowd even when he's getting cheers. I like that he gets it and he doesn't try to be a heel that's really a babyface even though he gets cheered over some of the other guys that are supposed to be getting the babyface reaction. You can never go wrong with a match between these two, they always seem to take it up a notch when they're wrestling each other and have put on a lot of quality matches in the past. Truth Martini got kicked out of ringside early on for grabbing Aries' ankle, but once again Roderick didn't see it and is unaware of Martini's continued interference in his matches. This was a little different than some of their past matches because they were both heels at this point, though Roderick seemed to be playing the de facto babyface and Aries controlled most of the match as a heel would until Roderick started making the babyface comeback beginning with a side suplex onto the top turnbuckle. Roderick rallied after that and got Aries in the Boston Crab, but Aries escaped and countered a backbreaker attempt to the crucifix bomb, but then Roderick reversed a brainbuster attempt to a backbreaker and hit the Sick Kick for the win. Hot finish to that one, and not a totally unexpected result since Roderick was heading down the home stretch to winning the World Title while Aries focus wasn't even on winning the title anymore since he was allegedly going the manager route at this point. Aries even got the microphone after the match and gave Roderick credit for beating the two-time ROH World Champion, and doing it without Truth Martini, and he said that all it took was the Greatest Man That Ever Lived to bring the best out of him. He then continued to cut a promo on Delirious saying that he kidnapped Daizee Haze last night and could have done whatever he wanted with her, but chose just to scare her and prove that Delirious can't do anything to protect her.
Finally, Aries introduced the All Night Express for their opening round match in Tag Wars 2010 against Jerry Lynn & Delirious. I talked about the heat between the two sides in the Hate - Chapter II review last week, so we'll skip all that and just go to the match. Lynn and Delirious rushed the ring and attacked Kenny King & Rhett Titus to jumpstart the match, but after that I didn't feel like this was a match where the babyfaces were so mad that they wanted to kill the heels for everything they've done to them. This was actually a pretty nondescript match that followed the usual formula, though we did get an amusing spot in the middle of the match where Aries, who had stepped out to the dressing room, came back out in what appeared to be Daizee Haze's ring gear. I guess the implication was that Daizee, whom Aries had kidnapped the previous evening, was still missing and this was designed to mess with Delirious' mind. This led to the babyface comeback segment at the end where King and Titus were on the outside and Delirious started to dive at them, but instead went out the other side of the ring and dove onto Aries. The distraction proved fatal, as he got back in the ring and fell victim to a Royal Flush backbreaker/top rope kneedrop combo, and the All Night Express advance in the tournament. Delirious attacked Aries again after the match and tore Daizee's tights off of Aries.
Next up is the final first round match in Tag Wars 2010, as the American Wolves face Colt Cabana & El Generico. The wolves hit kind of a tough spot around the middle of 2010 as there was more of a focus on the two of them working singles and only teaming occasionally, but I get the feeling after the events of Final Battle weekend that we're looking at them possibly getting back together for another run at the tag title. This was a terrific match, not just because everyeone worked their asses off to have a good match, but also because it was fun to watch the match swing back and forth between Cabana's comedy schtick and the Wolves doing their thing as serious ass kickers. At one point Cabana and Generico hit a version of the Hart Attack where Cabana held Davey so Generico could hit a Yakuza Kick, and then Cabana put Davey right in the Billy Goat's Curse while Generico held Eddie at bay. Eddie finally got in and broke up the hold but then Generico caught Davey coming off the ropes for his handspring elbow and turned it right into a half and half suplex. The crowd was really getting into it at this point, and then Generico knocked Davey off the apron with a Yakuza Kick and hit a Michinoku Driver on Eddie and only got 2. Cabana came in and hit Colt 45 on Eddie, but Davey broke it up so Generico nailed Davey and gave him the top rope brainbuster while Cabana got Eddie in the Billy Goat's Curse, and then added an extra level of brutality by punching Eddie in the back of the head until Eddie was forced to tap out. This was an amazing match, the crowd loved it and the Wolves lost but gave Cabana and Generico a great fight and Cabana and Generico had to nearly destroy them to beat them. Shane Hagadorn (who was not at ringside for this match) came out of the back and started yelling at the Wolves for losing, and Davey had finally had enough and spinkicked Hagadorn in the gut and started going after him and Eddie had to pull Davey off of Hagadorn before he killed him. Interestingly, the Davey/Hagadorn split happened both on this show and on HDNet, but was handled in two different ways.
Hagadorn was out for the next match as the Kings Of Wrestling faced Generation Me in a non-title match, and I liked that Hagadorn was still selling the beating he just took from Davey on his way to ringside for this one, and I think I forgot to mention it earlier, but Truth Martini did the same thing by selling abuse he took from the Briscoes as he came to the ring with Roderick Strong. It's the little things, guys. Interestingly, the Bucks were playing the babyface role tonight after going out of their way to cut a promo big timing ROH the night before. Truth is it didn't really make much of a difference once the match started because the fans are going to pop for them anyway, but it's interesting to see them flip the switch like that. This was another excellent match in an evening full of great matches, the Kings Of Wrestling have gotten so good it's scary, and they prove that they're more than just a great indy team by going out there and performing at a high level with outside teams like Generation Me, the Motor City Machine Guns, and Haas & Benjamin. That, and the fact that they're so often in the best match on any given ROH show really shows how far they've come since they first broke up at the end of 2006, and at this point they're right up in that elite group with Davey Richards, Roderick Strong, and the Briscoes that form the backbone of what Ring Of Honor is in 2010. Bucks made the hot tag and Jeremy came in and hit a nice Rey Mysterio Jr-style Frankensteiner into a cradle, but Claudio came back with the UFO and then the match went insane, with both teams taking turns hitting each other with knockout shot after knockout shot until all four guys went down. Max Buck springboarded off of Hero's back and dropkicked Claudio off the apron, and then sat Hero on the second rope so Jeremy could hit him with a 450 off the top rope. GenMe went for More Bang For Your Buck but Hero got the knees up on Jeremy and then Claudio caught Max as he tried to hit the moonsault and popped him up in the air and caught him with a European uppercut on the way down. Kings followed up immediately with KRS-ONE to pick up the win and send the Bucks packing back to TNA with an 0-2 record for the weekend.
Finally it's time for the main event, as Tyler Black defended the ROH World Title against Kevin Steen, who had been running in and attacking Tyler for several weeks after Tyler's matches. Steen had been getting a pretty strong push all year and at the time I said I would not be at all surprised to see him beat Tyler and win the title here. I thought that with Steen and Generico being the featured feud it had become and the way Steen had dominated the feud up to that point, it would have added another element to the feud and make it even more crucial than it already was. Of course, they ended up doing a mask vs career match to blow off the feud and main event Final Battle, so I guess in hindsight you really didn't need the title to add anything to it. They went to the outside almost immediately and started fighting around ringside, with Steen getting rammed into the guardrail and pushing it back a few feet, but then Steen came back and powerbombed Tyler onto the ring apron and then rammed him into the guardrail himself. I've been pretty vocal about my distaste for Tyler Black as a wrestler, I never thought he was a guy who should have gotten the ROH Title, but I will say that he's a lot more entertaining in matches that are more brawl than wrestling match. I don't think he has enough of a killer instinct to get over with the fans, but when he's duking it out with a guy and ramming him through guardrails, that comes off as more badass than what you usually get from him and makes him more exciting to watch.
They head back into the ring and Tyler goes up top for a moonsault or the Phoenix Splash, but Steen shoves him off and he falls outside the ring and hits the guardrail. When he gets up, we see that he's bleeding and Steen goes after him like a shark and, in true sick bastard fashion, smears Tyler's blood all over himself like war paint. Steen gets the Crippler Crossface but Tyler makes the ropes, and they wind up out on the apron where Steen yells in Tyler's face, "Don't you understand? You can't do it! I'M BETTER THAN YOU!" I thought that was a nice touch, but Tyler responded by smacking him and hitting Peroxism on the apron. They head back in the ring and Steen gets the Sharpshooter but can't tap Tyler out, so he shuts down a Tyler comeback flurry with a pump handle neckbreaker. Steen goes to the top rope for a moonsault but Tyler gets underneath Steen and carries him clear across the ring to hit the Buckle Bomb and a superkick, but that only gets 2. Tyler superplexes Steen, but Steen rolls through and hits a fireman's carry into a gutbuster and a moonsault and the crowd all got to their feet because they thought it was the finish, but it was only a near fall. Steen and Tyler have a superkick exchange, and Tyler wins with three in a row but was so exhausted he couldn't go for the cover and the match continues. Steen goes to the top but Tyler hits a leaping enziguiri and Steen falls to the outside, but catches his foot in the ropes on the way down and ends up in the Tree Of Woe on the outside, so Tyler goes up top himself and hits a double stomp to the outside on Steen that puts him through a table in a really nasty looking spot. Tyler sends Steen back in the ring and Steen is now busted open and is on his knees, and he still has the cajones to spit at Tyler and sprays his blood all over him, to which Tyler responds with another superkick and God's Last Gift, but again that only gets 2. Tyler goes for the Phoenix Splash but Steen moves, gives Tyler the Buckle Bomb and a superkick and, with his face covered with blood, Steen hits a Package Piledriver and AGAIN only gets 2. Steen, crimson mask and all, stares at the referee in disbelief as the crowd chants "that was three" at the referee. Steen goes back to the top and Tyler goes up with him and they fight it out, Steen goes for a top rope Package Piledriver but Tyler escapes and gets a Frankensteiner, Steen rolls through into a sunset flip, but Tyler rolls through that and puts Steen in the Sharpshooter. Steen tries for the ropes but Tyler pulls him back to the middle of the ring and, in a scene reminiscent of Hart vs Austin at Wrestlemania 13, a blood soaked Steen was trapped in the Sharpshooter in the middle of the ring with nowhere to go, but unlike Austin, Steen tapped out to give Tyler a very hard fought win. Steen extends his hand to Tyler and Tyler is not initially receptive, but then shakes his hand and has words with Steen before heading out of the ring.
In an interesting backstage vignette to close the DVD, we see Steen, still covered in his own blood, talking with Steve Corino on his cell phone and saying that Tyler beat him and that Tyler was amazing, but that he was a changed man and saw it in his eyes, and then said that they've got him. Obviously Tyler left the company before that went wherever it was going to go, but this match was unbelievable, and was at least as good as Tyler-Davey in Toronto. Hell of a way to cap off a terrific show.
* * *
This show kicked ass, easily the best of the three shows on this Midwest tour. Tyler Black vs Kevin Steen was off the charts, Kings Of Wrestling vs Generation Me and American Wolves vs Cabana & Generico were both amazing as well, and the first round Tag Wars 2010 matches added something to this show to make it special and also gave you a reason to want to get the DVDs of the August shows to see how the rest of the tournament would play out. The only complaint I have is that for as great as Tyler-Steen was, it was the only title match on a three night tour that had every ROH champion on it, and it goes back to what I wrote in my column last week about changes ROH might want to think about implementing in 2011. I really think they need to have more title defenses if they want to make the titles mean more, otherwise they just become vanity trophies for the champions to carry around.
But that's a broader issue, and insofar as this particular show went, I really enjoyed it a lot. There was nothing bad at all, and I thought this was the strongest show since Death Before Dishonor VIII. Easy thumbs up for this one.
Next up: Champions' Challenge, featuring the semifinals of Tag Wars 2010 and Tyler Black vs Eddie Edwards in a first ever ROH World Champion vs ROH TV Champion match!
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