ROH Weekend of Thunder: Night 1

1) Ace Steel vs. Jimmy Rave – 4
2) Angeldust vs. Homicide vs. Fast Eddie vs. Dunn – Four Way Scramble Match – 4
3) Dan Maff & B.J. Whitmer vs. The Carnage Crew – Boston Street Fight – 3
4) Chad Collyer vs. Low Ki – 4
5) Nigel McGuinness & John Walters vs. Samoa Joe & Jay Lethal – 5
6) Shane Hagadorn & Davey Andrews vs. The Outcast Killaz – 1
7) Austin Aries vs. C.M. Punk – 5
8) Ricky Reyes & Rocky Romero vs. Roderick Strong & Jack Evans – 5
9) Bryan Danielson vs. Jushin Liger – 6

Rave has been opening ROH shows for the last two years and he’s stolen just about every move you can think of. His match here was marred by about 15 minutes of totally incessant mic work by Prince Nana before the match even started. The four way match was pretty cool. At least they were trying some spots. Fast Eddie had a deck of cards on his trunks and I had flashbacks to The Gambler on mid-90s episodes of WCW Saturday Night. A fan jumped the rail after the match and got the ever-loving shit beat out of him. The street fight was convoluted at best with the highlight being Allison Danger’s failure to throw a garbage can over the top rope. I was expecting a classic between Collyer and Low Ki and to say that I was disappointed would be putting it midly at best. Their styles seemed to clash a lot during the match. Collyer likes to work a slow, mat based style, while Low Ki continually works at a break-neck pace. In between conversations about Batman, Superman, and The Real Ghostbusters, the tag match with Samoa Joe looked pretty good. For a much as I like Nigel, Joe is the first person I’ve ever seen to put the boots to Nigel when he does that handstand on the top turnbuckle. The following tag match with the Outcast Killaz was nothing but trash as they dominated the two rookies from the ROH wrestling school.

Aries and Punk had an acceptable match. While it probably would’ve scored higher if I had been there live instead of trying to fight sleep while watching it at 2:30 in the morning, it was a good match nonetheless. Aries worked Punk’s knee for most of the second half of the match and hit some cool moves as well. The ring lights went out about halfway through the match and everyone pretty much agreed that ROH was behind on the electric bill again. Reyes and Romero had a nifty little tag match with Evans and Strong but it wasn’t really much to remember. While watching the match, we once again agreed that Jack Evans is one of the worst spot monkeys we’ve ever seen. I mean, even his kicks are spotty … and you know this, man! God help me if Jack Evans ever does a promo again. Liger and Danielson had a decent match that would’ve scored higher had the damn announcer stopper with his continuous overselling. He totally ruined what could’ve been a classic match had he not been yelling out the moves at the top of his lungs the whole match. It was a bland capper to a forgettable ROH show.