1) Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Irish Airborne – 4
2) Gauntlet Series w/ Jimmy Rave, Delirious, Pelle Primeau, Adam Pearce, and Chris Hero – 2
3) B.J. Whitmer vs. Brent Albright – No DQ Match – 4
4) Roderick Strong & Davey Richards vs. Erick Stevens & Matt Cross – 5
5) Serena Deeb vs. Lacey – 3
6) KENTA vs. Rocky Romero – 7
7) Takeshi Morishima & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Bryan Danielson & Nigel McGuinness – 8
8) Claudio Castagnoli & Matt Sydal vs. Mark & Jay Briscoe – Best of Three Falls Match – 4
The Good
- Whitmer bumping good in the match against Albright. He damn near breaks his neck when Albright suplexes him to the outside and then takes a wild table spot at the finish.
- Romero stepping up his game against KENTA in a hell of a match. KENTA used all of his trademarks, most of which have since been stolen by C.M. Punk, and gained the victory. Afterwards, Richards and Strong come out and eventually assist Romero in a beat-down. Romero looked really good and if he could keep up these caliber of matches, he could be a strong player for ROH in the future.
- Morishima, Marufuji, Danielson, and McGuinness beating the holy hell out of each other in one of the best tag matches I’ve ever seen live. The match started off technical then chaos broke loose about halfway through the match. All four were working stiff as shit and Morishima wasn’t selling a damn thing. McGuinness scored the fall on Morishima and gained a shot at the ROH World title in the process.
The Bad
- The Briscoes main eventing the show. The match fell flat on its face, especially since everyone knew the Briscoes were going over in two straight. Trying to follow the two ROH vs. NOAH matches was an uphill climb and everyone just gave up about halfway through. The crowd was burnt out and whoever thought it was a good idea to main event with Claudio needs to be rewarded with castration.
- The tag match with Strong & Richards against Stevens & Cross started kind of sloppy but everything came together in the end. Austin Aries showed up in the crowd at the end, much to the surprise of everyone, and started yelling at Strong. I guess Aries is back in ROH.
- The Irish Airborne, a.k.a. Jake & Dave Crist, looked about as American as ever. As my buddy Tim put it, “If these guys are Irish, then I’m a fucking Chinaman.” El Generico was basically a blue version of Delirious with talent. This was the first time that I’d seen Steen live and he could also be a future player in ROH. It was a pretty simplistic opener that got the crowd ramped up for the rest of the show.
The Ugly
- The Gauntlet series match. When Jimmy Rave looks the best out of all five guys, three of which (Primeau, Pearce, Delirious) are nothing but scrubs. Chris Hero, to me, is nothing more than a glorified backyard wrestler. Directly across from where I was sitting, I saw an old lady with an afro wearing a Hero t-shirt and I instanly theorized that it was his mother. I’ve never been exactly sure how Delirious is as over as he is because he’s a green … um, thing … with no talent.
- The women’s match wasn’t much and served as a vehicle to get Lacey over Serena from OVW. There was a run-in from an unknown woman and then Daizee Haze with no shoes.
Final Thoughts
- The first half of the show was entertaining, especially the opener. The second half was incredible. Seeing the NOAH stars in person was a thrill and something I’ll probably never be able to experience again. The Briscoes match should’ve been lower on the card, mainly because it fell flat on its face. The overall feeling was that it wasn’t as good as the previous show in February. Had the NOAH stars not been on the card, then I would’ve probably give this a thumbs down. However, seeing Marufuji, Morishima, and KENTA live makes me give this a marginal recommedation.
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