ROH Breakout

ROH returns to Dayton with a Hero/Nigel cage match and a mystery partner for Age of the Fall!

1) Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. Matt Cross & Jigsaw - 4
Cross replaces the injured Ruckus and has grown his beard out and wore fatigues to the ring. He bore a scary resemblance to Fidel Castro. Jigsaw I wasn't too impressed with in his last outing in Dayton. Mind you, he went up against Chris Hero so that probably had something to do with it right there. This was basically a showcase match for the Briscoes to re-establish them in the hunt for the tag titles. Jigsaw and Cross worked well together as a makeshift team and I would like to see them team up more often. Briscoes won with the Jay Driller piledriver and then cut a promo on Age of the Fall.

2) Claudio Castagnoli vs. Adam Pearce - 3
Pretty average match here. Lots of "Repo Man, Repo Man" chants for Pearce. Shane Hagadorn came out with Pearce and had on a fake Delirious mask and a chain around his neck. I guess that was to build up the dog collar match with Pearce and Delirious the next night in Chicago. Claudio wins with the Ricola Bomb.

3) Austin Aries vs. Davey Richards vs. Erick Stevens - 6
This was for the FIP World Title, which is basically the secondary belt in ROH. DAVEY RICHARDS IS THE STIFFEST MOTHERF****R IN ROH!!!! His kicks in this bout were very Tajiri-esque. Aries kept swapping his allegiance to Richards and Stevens throughout the match. This was very solid with a lot of good structure. There were some good near falls and chops that would give any man instant heartburn. Stevens demonstrated his power moves and lack of fashion with his obstinent mohawk. Yo, Stevens, 1989 would like their hair style back. The end saw Stevens pin Richards with a doctor bomb and destroying Aries with a lariat. Drop the cheesecake and watch this match.

4) El Generico & Delirious vs. B.J. Whitmer & Brent Albright - No DQ Match - 6
I'll be damned if this wasn't the best Delirious match I've ever seen! This was chaos from start to finish. Delirious fought with a table briefly while trying to bridge the guardrail and the ring. Whitmer and Delirious brawled in the crowd right in front of the bleachers were I was sitting. Generico was paired off with Albright for most of the match. Shane Hagadorn interfered mid-way through but was countered by Pelle Primeau who got slaughtered by Albright. Hagadorn got the dreaded Muta Mist and ran to the back. Generico and Delirious actually make a decent team. This would've gotten a higher score had the finish not been as sloppy as the ref called a stop to the match after Generico was "knocked out".

5) Lacey vs. Daizee Haze - 2
Standard women's fare from ROH. Haze won with a cradle after about five minutes. AotF surrounded Haze who was then saved by the Briscoes who were then attacked by JOEY F'N MERCURY, who came from nowhere out of the crowd.

6) Roderick Strong & Rocky Romero vs. Jimmy Jacobs & Joey Mercury - 4
We're going to call him Mercury for the sake of argument here, since ROH never really recognized him by name. Prior to the bout, Mercury cut a long-winded "insider" promo about how he got released from WWE and how Jacobs came to his rescue. Mercury seemed as if he was still stuck in WWE mode. This actually is a major problem that I've noticed for most of those who leave the 'E and go to any other fed. There was a pretty sick spot where Jacobs dove onto Strong who was sitting on a chair. Strong and Richards picked up the submission victory in a match that for the most part was pretty damn mediocre.

7) Bryan Danielson vs. Tyler Black - 7
This was the first match I've seen from Black and he's kinda like Great Khali combined with Mike Awesome. Most of you are scratching your heads right now so allow me to elaborate. He's looks a bit like Khali in the face but has the agility of Awesome during his ECW title run. Black did some shit that a dude 6'8" shouldn't be able to legally do. He did a sick twisting splash deal from the top rope, a cool dive, and broke Danielson's Cattle Mutilation finisher twice! These guys basically beat the piss out of each other for twenty minutes. See this now!

Ok, normally I don't cover the intermission but I have to mention the overly-awful Q&A session they did with Austin Aries as the cage was being set up. The answers that he gave to the questions were pretty stupid and once there was an interesting question he blew it off. It was overly clear that he wanted nothing to do with the session and walked off in the middle of it by saying "I don't have time for this shit". Fine, I don't give a damn what you thought about Vince Russo anyway.

8) Nigel McGuinness vs. Chris Hero - Steel Cage Match - 4
This is for the ROH World Title and you can win by escape, pin, or submission. The main problem with this match, aside from the involvement of Hero, was that most of the match was built around escaping through the door. Hero worked over Nigel's knee during the time they weren't fighting for the door. WHERE THE F*** DID ALL THE HERO MARKS COME FROM??!!!! The whole damn place was going crazy for Hero and I don't understand why. He's nothing but a glorified backyard wrestler who couldn't draw a fly if he was rolled in a bin of shit. I was very vocal in my allegiance to Nigel but that didn't help the fact that the match sucked. Thankfully, Nigel won by narrowly beating Hero to the floor. I then bailed for a Denny's slamburger.

Overall, a much better offering than the show last November. I would recommend this for the three-way match, the No DQ tag, and the Danielson/Black match. Thumbs up.