2010 – ROH: 8th Anniversary Show

We enter the second month of the year with my first live show experience for 2010! It’s Ring of Honor’s “8th Anniversary Show” (2/13/10) from Manhattan, NY. These annual celebrations of ROH’s existence have always been a highlight, so let’s see if that trend is kept alive!

-Brian Kendrick makes his one-night-only return to ROH in the opener against Roderick Strong. Kendrick is once again becoming the wrestler I was a huge fan of before, and that is splendid to see. He more than keeps up with Strong and the two put together a great little bout. Really solid way to start the show, I only wish we had more Kendrick in our ROH future.

-The Kings of Wrestling vs. The Bravado Brothers has SQUASH written all over it. Indeed, the finish is never really in question. But the match itself is pretty fun! Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli are fantastic as a team, and they’ve added a ton to their tandem arsenal since they last paired a few years ago. Getting to see them show off these fancy new moves is enjoyable. And truthfully, the Bravado Brothers look good too! They get some decent offense in at times, and take a beating pretty well when they need to. Overall this is good stuff.

-Here is the first “uh oh” moment for me regarding this DVD. Eddie Kingston and Necro Butcher vs. Joey Ryan and Erick Stevens. At the show, I recall being basically entertained by this no disqualifications match. It isn’t a wrestling clinic or anything, but it isn’t meant to be. Upon re-watching the bout, I really have a hard time seeing anything that can be described as enjoyable. Really, this is just kind of there, with four guys doing a whole lot of nothing to take up time on the card. The big spot of the match still comes off as crazy, and for some reason Joey Ryan is particularly amusing to me, but overall this is as middle of the road as it gets.

-And now for the second, much larger “uh oh” of the night. El Generico vs. Davey Richards. I loved this match live. Absolutely adored it. And yet here on DVD, I find myself lukewarm to a lot of it. Things like Generico being psyched out by his current situation with Steen and Richards’ interactions with the crowd came across great in person, but here they are mostly lost on me. And the in-ring work takes a really long time to get going. Once the bout jumps into second gear, things pick up amazingly and the action becomes intense. By the finish, this definitely felt like a really good match, but not quite the blow-away contest I remembered. May have to watch this again at some point, but right now my thumb is up without being ecstatic over it.

-The Dark City Fight Club has the potential to be one of the best teams in the industry today. Truly I believe that; however, they won’t get to that point with matches like the one they have here against the Briscoes. This should have been a great clash of powerful teams. Instead, it is boring. There really is no other word for it. Nothing exciting happens at all, and this will go down as one of the more forgettable tag title contests in ROH history. At least the post match developments are pretty entertaining.

-Decent match between Delirious, Kenny King, Steve Corino, and Rasche Brown. Basically about as good as I was expecting from this group. Corino isn’t a favorite of mine, but I can see why people like him. He definitely tries hard to keep things going. Kenny King continues to be solid even though he seems like he should be superb; Delirious is Delirious, there’s really nothing new to report; and Rasche Brown continues to make me scratch my head by how much I like the guy. Every fiber of my being says don’t be a Brown fan, and yet once he gets going, I can’t help but be entertained. Forget it, I’m not going to fight it or be ashamed anymore, consider me on the Rasche Brown bandwagon!

-It is a bit odd looking back at the Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen bout from this show. The Steen vs. Generico feud has shaped into one of the best in ROH history, but the developments here were weird. Or at least they played out very oddly. Can’t really explain it, as I’m ultimately glad Corino and Cabana became involved in this multilayered story, but seeing how that happened on this show, it feels completely off the mark. So Steen’s working for Corino, or something, and Cabana needs to mind his own business, and...yeah, I don’t even know what they’re trying to do here. I’ll just be glad that things develop nicely past this show and forget this mess ever happened.

-And then there’s the main event. Tyler Black vs. Austin Aries for the ROH World Title, and there must be a winner. Overall this is a good match, though again one that I enjoyed more live than on DVD. There is some decent action between the two, but nothing as great as some of their matches from back in 2008. The story line involving the three judges at ringside – Roderick Strong, Kenny King, and Jim Cornette, there in case the match goes to a draw and a winner needs to be decided on – came off better in person than on video. Again, this may be one of those matches that need another home viewing to reconcile with my initial feelings, but for now my heart is more mild than wild for this contest.

Overall it was an okay show that benefitted greatly from the live event buzz and atmosphere that ROH does so well. A factor that, often times, does not translate well to the filmed product. Unfortunately, it seems this DVD is one of those times.