Another in our regular series of reviews covering RING OF HONOR DEE-VEE-DEEZ! For more information visit www.ROHWrestling.com and don't forget to buy a few DVD's of your own while there. This week we're covering "Final Battle 2003" from December 27th, 2003. You may say it's quite a gap to jump from Expect the Unexpected from March of that year all the way through December, but I have two responses to that line of thinking. (1.) ROH reviews on AngryMarks.com have never been strictly chronological, as we covered shows before last year's WrestleMania before reporting on ROH in Detroit. (2.) Much as I'd like to own every ROH DVD ever made, they don't give these things away for free. We'll try to fill in gaps from time to time but expect ROH reviews to jump around a bit, or even go off from shows taped for DVD to interview DVD's or "best of" compilations. With that out of the way, let's get this show on the road!
Gary Michael Capetta opens the DVD asking who they have for the interview during intermission and he's told it's the Briscoes. Capetta launches into a tirade about Jim Cornette hassling him for what he wrote in the book "BodySlams." He's interrupted by the Carnage Crew and they want to know "WHERE THE FUCK SPECIAL K IS." Calm down their Big John Dudd. They keep screaming that they're "ANGRY" and "FUCKING PISSED" and Capetta is totally mystified. Next we go to Samoa Joe introducing a new segment called "Samoa Joe's Ring." If you're wondering why it's Joe's ring, he won the ROH World Title exactly ONE WEEK after Expect the Unexpected and has held the belt ever since. "The Ring of Honor ring belongs to me, the champ. You're going to come in here and I'm going to show you a few of the things I like to do in the ring, maybe a few techniques. But FIRST..." and one of the Outcast Killaz interrupts. He thinks it's like "The Colt Cabana Show" but doesn't know why there aren't any desks or pictures of Chicago. Needless to say you can guess what happens next - Joe turns his ass into a human pretzel showing off his "techniques" and the guy flees in terror as Joe promises more of the same for Mark Briscoe. Good stuff!
* Bryan Danielson v. Jay Briscoe
This is a match I'd expect to see main event an ROH card these days as opposed to opening it. Even more ironic is the fact the Briscoes were the tag champions, much like they are today, and had been since November 1st of that year. The announce team welcomes us to the show and introduces themselves as Chris Lovey and CM Punk. CM PUNK! Fantastic. I hope he says he's better than every single wrestler on the card. Lovey in fact accuses Punk of trying to ruin their last 3 or 4 ROH cards, and says he feels safer knowing Punk is in the broadcast booth. While the two argue Danielson grounds Briscoe and starts applying his patented submission holds. He goes for a cattle mutilation early but Briscoe gets a rope break. Jay shoots off the ropes with a side headlock "clamped on like a vice" according to Punk but American Dragon picks him up to get out of it. Briscoe just drops a leg on him and goes right back to the headlock. Finally Dragon turns him over for a Boston crab but Briscoe gets the rope break as a "LET'S GO DRA-GON" and "LET'S GO BRI-SCOE" dueling chant breaks out. Punk complains that this is the "B card" and that people are only here to see the matches with Japanese wrestlers on tonight's show, and says he should go ruin this match too. Danielson hits a textbook dropkick and gets a 2 count.
Jay gets a forearm into Dragon's face, grabs onto the neck, works him over in the corner, Danielson gives him a back suplex but Jay hangs onto a headlock. Danielson counters out and works an arm forcing Briscoe to let go. More dueling chants. Now it's Danielson who has Briscoe in a headlock, except he's using a leg scissors. Briscoe does a handstand to get out and hooks Dragon's head again as Punk mocks Danielson as "the whitest man in America." Dragon goes for European uppercuts but Briscoe responds with a suplex and a hard lariat. 2 count. Briscoe chops Danielson and Dragon sells it for a good 20 seconds of getting pissed, then goes to a chop war which he wins with ease. Briscoe responds with a hangman's neckbreaker. Briscoe pulls him up for punches and chants break out again. Dragon with an enzuguiri and uppercuts, baseball slide and a tremendously well sold uppercut to Jay's head. Dragon picks him up for an airplane spin that goes on and on as Punk says he hopes Al Perez got a royalty payment for it. Dragon comes off the top rope but only gets a 2 count. Briscoe slaps Dragon in the face, they start paintbrushing each other, Dragon spits on him, Briscoe rakes the eyes, Briscoe hooks the head and starts to go for a vertical suplex but Dragon blocks it twice before he finally gets him up and hits the bow & arrow for 2. Briscoe unloads with a mafia kick and gets 2.5. Punk says if you're not there live you have no idea how electric the atmosphere is at an ROH show and I agree. Jay tries but can't set up the J-Driller, Dragon his the dragon suplex, goes for a pinfall, transitions from that into a cattle mutilation and Briscoe taps! WINNER: 'AMERICAN DRAGON' BRYAN DANIELSON. Trent Acid tries to make Mark Briscoe an offer he can't refuse backstage and Briscoe replies that he only does what Jim Cornette tells him to do and leaves. Moving on!
* John Walters v. Xavier (Fight Without Honor)
It would appear FWH means no handshakes, no rules, anything is legal - sort of like a no DQ falls count anywhere match. Walters jumps Xavier as he tries to come down the aisleway to the ring and the match is already underway. Xavier gets Walters in the ring and starts whipping him from pillar to post, Xavier slips out of a DDT attempt but gets powerslammed anyway. Walters works him over in the corner and the two start trading chops. Walters catches Xavier trying to dropkick him and catapults him over the top rope to the floor. Xavier gets whipped into the barricade right in front of a Philadelphia Flyers fan, who may now feel like he's at a hockey brawl especially given it's cold as shit in December. Walters gets back in the ring with a steel chair but it backfires as he misses and Xavier starts blasting him with knees. Xavier goes out of the ring to grab the chair as Prince Nana comes out to look on. Xavier kicks the chair into Walters face as Nana seems to smile and nod approvingly. X decks Walters with punches, lays the chair on his back, and then drops a knee on it. X goes outside and pulls a ladder out from under the ring. Punk: "I don't think Walters realizes what he's done! He may have bitten off a little more than he can chew." X sets the ladder on Walters in the corner but Walters throws it right in his face as he charges in presumably for a dropkick. Walters lays the ladder across the ropes, tries to shoot X off for a backdrop, X counter, Walters counters back, Xavier is POWERBOMBED ONTO THE LADDER AND THE LADDER BENDS IN HALF.
A "holy shit" chant breaks out. Walters goes outside the ring and bridges the remnants of the ladder between the guardrail and the apron, sets up for a DDT, Xavier escapes and kicks Walters off the apron through said ladder. X goes under the ring for a table as Walters sells his back. Xavier puts the ladder back up in the same spot as before, lays him out, goes top rope and does a double rope flip through the ladder springboard arabian press straight out of lucha libre! Another "holy shit" chant. Punk finally concludes Nana is out here to "advise" Xavier and if so he's doing a pretty good job. Punk: "Hey maybe I should go ruin this match!" Lovey: "I don't think you want any of these tables and ladders." I know I wouldn't! Xavier pummels Walters in the center of the ring, Walters hits two knees to the face and clothesline him to the floor, going over the top himself. The table comes back into play as Walters sets it up before charging Xavier with the ladder like a joust lance. X unfolds the steel chair, appears to be looking for the drop toe hold into the chair, Walters counters and scoops him up for a hurricane DDT into the chair! Walters cracks the chair into his head for good measure and X has a gusher going on his forehead. Walters goes for a facelock submission with Xavier draped over the steel chair. X is at least halfway up the Muta scale now as Walters hooks him over by the table for a suplex, X gives him a neckbreaker off the ropes and then does a double moonsault off the top through Walters AND the table. This is the second match on the card people, this is ridiculous! This would main event any indie show OTHER than ROH anywhere.
X throws Walters back in and the two start punching again. X rolls to kick Walters in the face and grabs the chair again to whack Walters in the back. X rolls out and goes under the ROH apron as Nana looks on, and Nana helps Xavier by throwing the ladder into the ring for him. Punk: "I'm not Gary Michael Capetta but I can SURMISE something's going on between Xavier and Nana." Xavier sets up the ladder and tries to go up it with Walters but Walters hits double knees off the back off the top! The ref goes for the pin count and Nana pulls him out before he can make three! Walters brings the broken ladder into the ring and hobbles over to Xavier but Xavier hits him with an X breaker and gets 1-2-no!! Walters kicks out. The slugfest begins again as Walters keeps selling his left knee, both men go to the top rope, Walters is hooked for a Kiss Your X Goodbye but Xavier can't crawl over to make the cover. X finally gets up, puts the broken ladder through the ropes again, the ref is trying to tell him to stop, and X brings the unbroken ladder over and sets it up in front of it. Nana puts a steel chair on top of the broken ladder. Both men start climbing the tall ladder, this will only end badly...Walters slams X's head into the ladder and attempts a sunset flip powerbomb to the other side... WALTERS' LEGS HIT THE LADDER AND CHAIR BEFORE X EVEN COMES DOWN AND RICOCHET THE REMNANTS RIGHT INTO X'S FACE! This is un-fucking-REAL. Where is this going to end, or more to the point, WILL it ever end?!! Chris Lovey is screaming "OH WHAT A DISASTER!" He may be right. Walters drapes an arm over Xavier and sweet merciful Cthulhu this is finally over. WINNER: JOHN WALTERS.
He gets a big "Wal-ters" chant from the crowd afterwards and takes the mic. "For 4 months I chased you to earn my respect, and tonight I think it's safe to say I did that. This is Ring of Honor, we have a Code of Honor, do the right thing and shake my hand." Prince Nana takes the mic from him and says he already won for having the guts to step into the ring with a former champion. Nana announces that the Prophecy is over and the Embassy has begun, and Xavier takes the mic as Nana encourages him to shake his hand. Xavier says you did earn my respect, you're one tough son of a bitch, and says I'll gladly shake your hand and show you the respect you deserve. It's interesting that the Embassy gets off the ground here on relatively a babyface note, since I've always thought of them as heels, but then again they only just debuted here and now.
* Matt Stryker v. BJ Whitmer (Field of Honor Finals)
Wow, if ever there was an HWA match in ROH, this would be it. These two were the mainstays of every HWA show I ever watched; well that is before every show I watched ended up being a repeat of every OTHER show I watched and I just gave up on the whole thing. HWA did have some good matches though and usually one of these two guys was in them... or Nigel McGuinness... actually more McGuinness and Stryker than Whitmer. He's just sort of there to be an ugly SOB who can wrestler, like Gene Snitsky but less repulsive and more talented. Field of Honor is the Pure title before ROH had a Pure title and this is the last two survivors of the tournament coming together to decide who the best in the Field is. Chris Lovey claims BJ Whitmer is running a temperature of 100 degrees, while Stryker wrestled last night "in Ohio" and seperated his shoulder. "What's my whole point in this CM Punk?" CM Punk: "I have no idea!" I love it. It's a shame Lovey and Punk aren't still doing commentary. Stryker and Whitmer do the ROH 101 early, tests of strength, counters and reversals, arm drags, back away for respectful crowd applause, et cetera. Stryker grounds Whitmer and works on an elbow Lovey says has bone chips floating around in it. Meanwhile Punk claims he's doing this entire show with malaria!
Whitmer rallies the crowd for applause, Stryker hits an uppercut and then throws him through the ropes to the floor. Stryker hits the ropes and comes rebounding back at high velocity to flip over the top onto Whitmer outside. Whitmer recovers and whips Stryker into the ringpost. Whitmer drapes Stryker over the barricade, works him over, whips him into the ringpost AND the cameraman again, not to mention the refree who according to Punk "is always in somebody's way." Whitmer throws Stryker back in as Punk questions the medical credentials of Chris Lovey. "They took his temperature rectally no doubt!" Whitmer has Stryker in a submission and tries to rip the arm out of the shoulder. Punk: "Do you ever shut up! You talk about his elbow and bone chips and all this other stuff, but he gets in the ring every night with a big bullseye on his knee like a RETARD, who rides the yellow school bus, showing everybody exactly what they should hit!" Sure enough Stryker is going after the knee brace, and he's trying to rip it off, and Stryker even puts him in a lock before Whitmer forces a rope break. Punk: "He needs to take that off, not just for my amusement, but to help him win the match!"
Dueling chants break out as Stryker finally rips the brace free and applies a horse collar to Whitmer's knee, but BJ still gets a rope break. Whitmer falls out to the floor in pain. Stryker follows him out to the floor, picks him up, and slams his knee onto the timekeeper's table. Punk: "This match is still wide open, because Whitmer's shoulder is still bothering him, and one shot into the post could do it." Stryker whips Whitmer into the barricade as Punk complains that this is not a beauty contest in the ring. Stryker throws Whitmer back in and goes for a figure four leglock. Whitmer fights and fights, trying to turn it over, Stryker whacks him in the knee to block it, Whitmer eventually turns it anyway and forces Stryker to break with the ropes. Stryker drags him over to the ringpost and puts the figure four on him through the post to the floor! Stryker is nearly DQ'd by the ref for this. Punk: "This is a clean athletic match between two of the dirtiest people I've ever seen!" Stryker drags Whitmer back to the center for another horse collar, leading to another rope break. Stryker keeps on work work working the knee and the match is starting to drag, forcing me to take a big hit of Diet Pepsi Max. (Half the taste, twice the caffeine.) Whitmer sweeps Stryker out of desparation straight onto his head and both men are down. Punk: "Let's see if Hillbilly Jesus can capitalize!" Whitmer tries like hell to pop Stryker's shoulder out but guess what, Stryker gets to the ropes. And so it goes.
Whitmer hits an elbow to the back of Stryker's head. Punk: "Is that the elbow with the potato chips in it?" Modified camel clutch applied to Stryker, but he does not appear to be any more the humble for it. Chris Lovey finally outright STATES that Stryker separated the shoulder at an HWA show last night, what I was thinking all along. Stryker starts hitting running kicks to the knee of Whitmer. He wants to go for an exploder suplex but the shoulder is hurt and he can't do it. He's hitting left handed chops and uppercuts to avoid using his right arm. Stryker dumps Whitmer on his head and gets a 2 count. Stryker pulls him back up. Lovey: "Whitmer deserves all the credit in the world here." Punk: "Yeah yeah yeah, he died for your sins, Hillbilly Jesus." Stryker tries to pretzel up Whitmer on his bad knee right in the center of the ring and there's nowhere for BJ to go so he reluctantly taps out. WINNER AND FIELD OF HONOR CHAMPION: MATT STRYKER. I suppose this is a ** and 1/2 to *** match but it still feels like it dragged on and had neither the energy nor intensity of the first two.
* Samoa Joe {C} v. Mark Briscoe (Ring of Honor Championship)
Since this is the fourth match on the card and the last match before intermission and all of the Japanese matches begin, I'm splitting the review into two parts after the results are in. Of course I already have a pretty good idea HOW this match will end and what the result will be since Joe's reign as champion lasted almost two years, but getting there will be half of the fun. A half-hearted handshake starts the match before Joe overwhelms Mark Briscoe and hits the big boot into his face. Briscoe goes out and Joe sets up for the "OLE! OLE!" kick, but Briscoe gets back into the ring to get out of the way. Joe follows him back in, starts working over the left arm, and then slaps Mark in the back of his head. Briscoe tries to fight out in vain as Joe executes a fireman's carry into another armbar, but Briscoe hooks the ropes with his free arm to break.
Test of strength, Mark goes behind, Joe gets the arm again but Mark slips out and goes for Joe's back. Joe's having none of it and switches, slapping him in the face with his big beefy arms before putting on a crossface. Briscoe counters into twisting Joe's left arm, but Joe just pulls him over his back and Briscoe stands up wearily as the two seperate and glare at each other. Punk critiques Lovey's non-stop banter and wonders if he ages 12 years during Lovey's non-stop run-on sentence. Briscoe lariats Joe in the corner, whips him to the opposite corner for more of the same, then drags him to the same side corner for punches and whips him across for a lariat. Kick to Joe's back, slap to the face, the slap was a big mistake. Briscoe goes for the face wash with his boot and that's an even BIGGER mistake as Joe hits a palm strike so hard it knocks Briscoe clean out of the ring. The "OLE! OLE" kick is coming but Jay pulls his brother Mark out of harm's way. The crowd chants "FUCK HIM UP JOE-OH, FUCK HIM UP!" Joe opts to ignore it and get back in the ring with Mark.
STO takedown by Samoa Joe! Chop to the back, kick to the front, big knee drop gets a two count. Punk: "You're not gonna beat anyone like that, I don't care who you are." Joe whips him to the corner for chops, beals him over for kicks to the back, slams his head into the canvas, and SITS on him for a two count. Joe headbutts him down to the ground in the corner. Punk: "Never headbutt a Samoan!" Another two count as Lovey accuses Joe of toying with Mark Briscoe. Joe steps over Mark for a full Boston crab and cinches it up tight. Mark still manages to get a rope break as Joe says "C'mon, let's go Mark!" Mark decides to go and hits a urinage putting Joe on his head! 2 count follows. Mark kicks him in the ribs a couple of times and an elbow to the throat. Punk: "You've got him grounded keep him grounded, and get to the corner for that shooting star press." Briscoe tries to get Joe up for a vertical suplex and finally hits it before covering for 2. Briscoe chops Joe but Joe comes back with a power slam and Mark goes out to the floor. Joe hits a topei on Mark on the outside, sets up the "OLE" and finally gets it. Joe picks up a cell phone and makes a call in the middle of the match and they make fun of the NFL gimmicks where T.O. pulled one out of the ringpost after scoring a touchdown.
Joe throws Mark back into the ring and does a rolling cradle with him before a near fall. Briscoe looks dazed and confused as Joe picks him up for a powerbomb and two count. Joe locks on the STF as Jay encourages him to fight through the pain. Mark gets to the ropes and forces another break. Joe and Mark exchange forearms and punches, and Mark acually hits a flurry that forces Joe to cover up, but Joe hits an even MORE brutal series of slaps worthy of E. Honda and Briscoe goes down to an enzuguiri. Joe pulls him back up but Mark hits a German suplex and a 2.5. Another suplex on Joe's head, another near fall. Mark blocks another suplex with a series of knees to the face and a big boot but Mark kicks out at 2.8. Joe hooks a dragon suplex but Mark gets out before 3. "JOE! JOE! JOE!" As Joe starts slapping the shit out of Mark again CM Punk leaves the broadcast booth, Joe applies the kokina clutch to Briscoe, the ref checks the arm three times and Briscoe is unable to respond. WINNER AND STILL RING OF HONOR CHAMPION: SAMOA JOE.
A gutty performance by Mark Briscoe, a fun match for Samoa Joe, anywhere from *** and 1/2 to almost ****. Joe shakes Briscoe's hand even though he's unconcious on the mat. CM Punk hits the ring. "Just like I told you, I am going to ruin this show!" Joe puts a hand in his face to shut him up and takes the mic. Joe: "Unless you came here for a fight, shut the fuck up! You don't ever disrespect this belt in my ring so I'll tell you what Punk, GET.. OUT.. OF MY RING." Punk and Joe stand face to face, Punk starts to back away, Joe offers him to step through the ropes and leave, Punk takes the mic back and circles around the other way. Punk: "I didn't come out here to disrespect you, your part of the show is over with, so why don't you leave MY ring!" Punk calls out Christopher Daniels. Joe takes the mic back. Joe: "You don't understand do you. If you don't leave right now you're going to have 99 problems, and that bitch won't be one!" Punk and Joe have another staredown. Crowd chants "FUCK HIM UP JOE-OH, FUCK HIM UP!" Joe lays out his belt in the middle of the ring and waits for Punk to step up, but Punk steps through the ropes to the apron. Crowd chants "CM Pussy" and Punk jumps down to the floor. Joe leaves the ring, having proved his point. We'll stop here, come back later for PART TWO of our review of this RING OF HONOR DEE-VEE-DEE~!