La-Z-Booking

Supercard Of Honor IV left me feeling quite good about the Ring of Honor product and wrestling in general. What an unbelievable event that was, and surely the follow-up, Take No Prisoners 2009 (4/4/09), should be just as good, right?

Let’s go match by match through the show and find out:

-Actually really like the opener between Colt Cabana and Ace Steel. The student vs. teacher vibe is in full effect, and both men play it up very well. Good way to start the night.

-Remember that time I swooned over the six-man tag that pit Kevin Steen, Jay Briscoe, and Magno against Eddie Edwards, Chris Hero, and Incognito? The eight-man tag here, which adds El Generico and Davey Richards respectively to each team, didn’t quite elicit my love anywhere near as much. The contest comes off as common and uneventful. And short. Basically if you want to see most of these men do battle, go back and watch Supercard Of Honor IV where they did it right the first time.

-Have to admit, I really enjoyed Jimmy Jacobs vs. Necro Butcher here. There is lots of blood, lots of crazy spots, and lots of chemistry between the two that ties the match together.

-Not to undersell Claudio Castagnoli, Brent Albright, or Blue Demon, Jr., but if you were going to remove one element from the entertaining four-way from SOH IV to make it a three-way, El Generico should not have been it. Not much of anything happens between Claudio, Albright, and Demon, making for a completely forgettable match. But hey, you could just go watch the aforementioned bout from the night before! Common theme alert!

-Roderick Strong vs. Alex Koslov should be a much better contest. It is good, but it needed way more time to develop. Things feel rushed and overall not focused. Had the story been given a chance to grow, it likely would have been a highlight of the weekend as oppose to a mostly unremarkable outing. Both men were WAY better the night before.

-On paper, the four-way world title match between Jerry Lynn, Bryan Danielson, Erick Stevens and D’Lo Brown hardly sounded exciting. In execution, the bout plays out as mostly enjoyable. They pack a lot of action into a short period of time, which is nice, and everybody is allowed a spot or two to let them stand out. Good stuff.

-Tyler Black and Austin Aries standing on opposite sides of a tag team contest is nothing new to this weekend, but pairing them with KENTA and Katsuhiko Nakajima certainly keeps it from feeling like a repeat of the night before. The real story here is the competition between KENTA and Nakajima, two men who light up the ring every time they go kick-to-kick against each other. Black and Aries are both on top of their games here as well, but it is KENTA and Nakajima that bring this one to the next level. This is definitely the best match of the show. Great stuff.

Overall Take No Prisoners 2009 is a bit of a disappointment as much of the card feels hurried through and rehashed from literally the night before. This final taped pay-per-view effort from ROH feels lazy, and that is frustrating. If it weren’t for KENTA and Nakajima in the main event, there wouldn’t be a single “pay-per-view” quality bout to this pay-per-view show. That bothers me.