Ring of Honor: Allied Forces
October 15, 2010
by SamoaRowe
-Since I’m going to pay Ring of Honor $7.99 a month for their Ringside Member club and not watch the television show until after it’s available for free to non-members, I suppose I should check out the other premium content. This little ROH show is available in (almost) it’s entirety to Ringside Members. Let’s see if it’s worth my time.
-From Dayton, OH. Our hosts are Kevin Kelly and Dave Prazak.
Mike Mondo vs. Mark Briscoe
You might remember Monod as “Mikey” from the Spirit Squad. He also just signed on officially with ROH, so that adds an extra layer of intrigue to this match for me. They trade some holds in the early going in a competitive fashion. They sprint through some quick, flippy spots. Mondo fires Mark up with some chest chops. Mark powers back with a neck breaker and vertical suplex. Mondo ties up Briscoe in the ropes for an easy drop-kick and knee strike. Mondo heels it up as he wears down poor Briscoe. Mondo blocks a springboard move and drives Mark into the barricade. Somersault senton by Mikey! We actually get some rest holds in there without the smarky ROH crowd turning on it. Now, that’s impressive. Mondo misses a flying head butt, allowing Mark to fight back with some redneck kung fu. Mark mounts a good comeback, complete with a dive to the floor. Mondo delivers a hurricanrana off the top for 2. Briscoe hits an overhead arm drag off the turnbuckles to pick up the win at 9:02. Standard opening match for ROH, though if this same match happened in WWE I’d probably wet myself, **¼.Winner: Mark Briscoe
-Lady Jojo wants the fans to think of her as vicious. Tonight, she’s going to beat Daizee Haze.
Lady Jojo vs. Daizee Haze
This was a half-hearted attempt by ROH to present a more robust women’s division, though it was really just another case of a directionless Daizee Haze vs. guest star of the month. They get a handshake, which isn’t too vicious of Jojo. Daizee has initial control, but Jojo stays in the game by viciously pulling the hair. Haze answers with a chinlock and pulls some her herself. Haze rolls with a leg scissors to try and get a sneaky pinfall. Jojo heels it up while wearing down poor Daizee. Haze chops back into the contest and repeatedly knocks Jojo off her feet. Missile drop-kick by Daizee gets 2. Jojo blocks a suplex but Haze counters back with a heart punch. Spinebuster by Jojo gets a dangerously close near fall. Daizee finally gets the bridged German suplex for the win at 8:00. For a second there, I really thought Jojo was going to score an upset. Good showing for both women, **.Winner: Daizee Haze
-Colt Cabana reminisces about his early days in ROH. Tonight, he’s facing the rookie, Andy Ridge. Cabana hopes Ridge learns something because he promises to screw with his head.
-Daizee Haze is recovering in the back. She respects Jojo’s courage in facing her, but it wasn’t the war that she was looking for. Haze craves war and she’ll keep searching until she finds it.
Andy “Right Leg” Ridge vs. Colt Cabana
Before the bell, Cabana chases Ridge around in comedic fashion. Cabana continues to play mind games as the match begins, luring Ridge into several embarrassing positions. Cabana makes light of Ridge’s offense, which has just got to be frustrating. Cabana slaps Ridge in the face and gets carried away with his shenanigans. Ridge slaps back, to which Cabana mockingly pretends to cry. Cabana asks referee Todd Sinclair to disqualify Ridge. Ridge speeds it up but Cabana yells STOP and grabs a headlock. Ridge finally delivers a stiff kick but Cabana answers with a butt shot. Cabana gets serious with some chops. Ridge surprises with a neck breaker and big boot! Ridge is all about the stiff kicks but Cabana is smarter. Ridge taps out immediately to the Billy Goat’s Curse at 8:32! This was lots of fun, **.Winner: Colt Cabana
-Cabana takes the microphone and tells Ridge he’s “getting there.” Cabana offers a handshake because he’s a classy guy.
-Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole are facing the biggest test of their young careers when they face off against Kevin Steen and Steve Corino. O’Reilly claims they can answer the violence and is stoked for their match.
Kevin Steen and Steve Corino vs. Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole
Steen is wearing El Generico’s mask and carrying a political advertisement for himself. Steen explains that he found the sign outside. Dayton’s Kevin Steen is running for magistrate, which is something like a judge, and that’s okay because ROH’s Kevin Steen has already judged everyone here! He plans to put the sign up in his bedroom while he’s making love. Steen explains he was having a difficult time finding a Halloween costume, but the Generico mask solved that problem. Fun stuff.
The match finally starts with Corino squaring off against Cole. Lots of stalling by Corino. Cole dodges an arm drag, which surprises an overconfident Corino. Steen and O’Reilly get tags. Steen is ruthless, blowing his nose and slapping O’Reilly. Steen is caught off guard by a deceptively strong and quick O’Reilly. Corino tags in and trades kicks with O’Reilly. Cole and O’Reilly quicken the tags, keeping Corino off his game. Corino delivers a Colby Shock and tags in Steen to retake control. O’Reilly tries to mount a comeback, but Corino and Steen demonstrate their impressive kicking abilities. Cole gets a hot tag and nails Steen with a flying cross body. Cole sends Steen to the floor but gets caught in a dive. Steen fall away slams Cole into the barricade! Cole assumes the role of face in peril and gets worked over for a painful stretch. Davey Richards appears in the crowd, checking in on his protégés, Cole and O’Reilly. Corino takes this time to apply an abdominal stretch as well as a thumb in the butt. Steen pulls Corino off, fearing a DQ, allowing O’Reilly to break it up with a missile drop-kick. O’Reilly gets the hot tag and fires away with his educated feet. Cole sneaks in a suicide dive onto the evil men. Steen sneaks into the ring and eats a DDT from O’Reilly. Steen and Corino double team O’Reilly but still can’t get the win. Steen misses a moonsault and eats hard kicks from both Cole and O’Reilly. Steen eats a hard lariat but still kicks out! Steen throws Cole into the turnbuckle and gets the pin at 19:33. This was a nicely worked tag match that put Steen over as ruthless and elevated Cole and O’Reilly by showing they could hang with the monsters, ***½.
Winners: Kevin Steen and Steve Corino
-Steen poses with his trophy, the Generico mask. What a dick. Cole and O’Reilly remain in the ring long enough to receive a standing ovation from the crowd.
Ricky Reyes vs. The Metal Master
The Metal Master is Chad Collyer in a lucha mask. Chain wrestling sequence to start. They follow up with a chopping contest. Master targets the head. There’s a good deal of resting involved. Reyes fights back with a knee lift and begins targeting the back. The Master chops back into control but Reyes hits back with a flying elbow shot. Reyes directs The Master to ringside to dish out more punishment. Reyes is distracted by a loud fan in the front row. The fan jumps the guard rail and security drags him out. Despite all this, Reyes manages to keep wearing Collyer down with rest holds. Jeez, end this match already. Metal Master’s “metal mask” collides with Reyes’ skull. The Master delivers a bridged German suplex for 2. Reyes kicks out of a power slam. The match improves with a nifty countering sequence, with a nice false finish involving a dragon sleeper. Master hits a jackhammer but misses a diving head butt. Reyes thumbs the eyes and nails a swinging neck breaker for the win at 12:05. Way too long for a meaningless exhibition match. It picked up in the later minutes, but was painfully dull and by the numbers for the most part, *½.Winner: Ricky Reyes
-Rhett Titus pumps up Kenny King for his match against Homicide. Titus isn’t impressed that he’s facing Jay Briscoe. They are still congratulating themselves for taking out Delirious and Jerry Lynn. The fans used to consider them to be a joke but now they’re making names for themselves at the expense of the ROH legends.
Rhett Titus vs. Jay Briscoe
Slow start with the exchanging of holds. Jay outwrestles Titus, locking onto the head. Titus palms Jay’s face after a clean break. Jay becomes more aggressive and quickens the pace. Titus stops the match to showboat and Jay palms him back. Jay unloads on Titus but misses a double stomp. Jay shortly misses another double stomp and seems to really hurt himself this time. Titus smells blood and takes control of the contest. Titus has improved quite a bit, but his offense is still pretty vanilla. Jay drops Titus over the ropes and connects with a dive. Jay forgets to sell his hurt leg right about now. Hard Irish whip into the barricade by Jay but Titus reverses a second attempt. Titus uses the ring post to punish Briscoe. Titus goes to work on the freshly injured arm of Jay Briscoe, also forgetting that Jay’s leg was supposedly badly hurt earlier on. The psychology in this match is a real mess. Jay drops Titus face-first on the turnbuckles and nails a clothesline. Both men are in a daze as they trade shots. Briscoe is unable to get a pin with a spinebuster. Leaping leg drop by Titus only gets 2. Briscoe humps Rhett’s face on the ropes and eats turnbuckle as a result. Yeah, I just typed that. They’ve reached the final stretch and trade near falls. I honestly couldn’t care less who wins this, so there’s not a whole lot of drama to the moves. Titus drops Jay over the ropes onto a table! Sorry, a random high spot like that isn’t going to save this. Jay powers through everything Titus throws at him. The J-Driller ends it at 18:11. Long, boring, tedious, meaningless, and stupid. In other words, I cared not for this, *.Winner: Jay Briscoe
-Jay offers a handshake afterwards, but Titus just flips him off and storms off. Titus takes some time to smack around the ringside crew in the process. That’s more entertaining than anything Titus did in the match.
Kenny King vs. Homicide
It’s been too long since Homicide actually tried to murder someone. Maybe that’ll change tonight. They spend the first minute playing to the crowd but Homicide is aggressive once it starts. King stalls for time at ringside. Homicide strikes again but King gets an opening after the referee separates them. Homicide tears off a metal barricade sign and places it in the ring. They brawl at ringside, with Homicide taking liberties with the rules. Back to the ring, Homicide offers a handshake only to poke the eyes instead. Homicide enjoys the advantage for a good stretch until King hits a spinebuster out of nowhere. King focuses on wearing down Homicide but just can’t seem to put him away. King pushes the limits too, utilizing the metal ROH sign along the way. King misses a springboard leg drop and has quite an ugly landing. Homicide forges a comeback with a flying shoulder block. King kicks out after the Three Amigos. Neckbreaker by Homicide gets 2. Homicide jams his thumb into King’s ear but King answers with a knee strike. Homicide counters with the STF! Rhett Titus runs in and jumps on the apron. Homicide misses a lunge but dodges King to roll him up for 2. Spinning kick by King isn’t enough. They reverse finishers but King applies the sleeper. Ace crusher by Homicide comes out of nowhere and finishes at 16:38. Middling match here, **.Winner: Homicide
-Titus storms the ring and the All Night Express attempts to put Homicide down with a spike Piledriver. Fortunately, Jay Briscoe runs in wielding a chair. The ANX shield themselves with the metal ROH sign as they back up the entrance way. Homicide is ungrateful and shouts at Jay for his unnecessary save. The ROH students flood the ring to keep them from fighting. Homicide grabs a mic and calls Jay a pussy. Jay reminds Homicide that this isn’t TNA. Ouch. Typically, that sparks a “ROH” chant from the crowd. You’ve got to love Dayton, you give them a lousy show and they still chant your company’s name.
ROH Tag Team Championship:
Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli © (with Shane Hagadorn) vs. Davey Richards and Christopher Daniels
Hero starts against Daniels in a chain wrestling contest. They quicken the pace with Hero running into a hip toss. The match restarts with Daniels retaining the upper hand. Daniels gleefully outsmarts Hero, who expects to leapfrog over the Fallen Angel. Richards tags and is all business, going to work on Castagnoli. Claudio fights back with a hard suplex. Hero tags and trades hard shots with Richards. Daniels and Richards manage to keep Hero isolated for a stretch. Daniels slips while jumping off the back of Richards, but I suppose that’s excusable since they aren’t regular partners. Hagadorn grabs Davey’s legs, allowing Hero to nail a power slam and turn the momentum around. Richards is trapped as the KOW cut the ring in half. This includes Claudio swinging Richards into a Hero drop-kick. Richards counters a delayed vertical suplex from Claudio with knee strikes to the head. Daniels gets the hot tag and cleans house on the KOW. Sadly, the KOW overwhelm Daniels. Hero holds Daniels in place for a springboard European uppercut! A death blow from Hero is only 2! Daniels fights back with an STO and tags in Richards. Davey wipes out the KOW with a sharp suicide dive! Davey outwrestles Claudio and applies the ankle lock. Claudio elevates Davey for a mid-air uppercut! The Ricola Bomb is countered! Claudio spins Davey on his shoulders and slams him (knocking Daniels off the apron in the process, which is just awesome). Richards no-sells and delivers a German suplex off a super kick from Daniels. Things break down with all four men in the ring hitting finishers until everyone is down. Hero nails a sit-down power bomb on Daniels. Richards and Daniels are foiled by Hero, who knocks them down with rolling elbow shots. Angels Wings on Hero! Davey goes for the ankle lock on Claudio while Daniels plants Hero. Hero knocks Daniels into Richards, sending him to the floor. The KRS-1 finishes Daniels at 25:16 while Richards is nowhere to be seen. Great effort from everyone involved, even if the finishing sequence was silly, ****.Winners and still ROH Tag Team Champions: Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli
-Richards and Daniels argue about what just happened in the ring. Chris Hero takes the microphone and puts himself and Castagnoli over as the greatest tag team of all time. Hero says that Richards and Daniels are great singles wrestlers but no two men can compete against the KOW… especially when they’re such bitches. Richards responds by reminding the KOW that he’s part of one of the best tag teams with Eddie Edwards. Tonight, personal issues got in the way, but when they head to Plymouth, MA, he’s going to challenge them again with Edwards. The KOW depart, leaving Richards to turn his attention to Daniels. Richards recalls his early days in ROH when he felt star struck to be in a locker room with guys like Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels. Now, things have changed, and Richards plans on taking Daniels out on his way to becoming World Champion. Big “next world champ” from the live crowd. Daniels admits that Richards is one of the best wrestlers he’s ever faced. Daniels is proud that on their first outing as a team they almost won the tag titles. However, Daniels is eager to face Richards and find out who the best man really is. Richards closes the show by pandering to the live audience.
-Backstage, Daniels puts over how smart the Kings of Wrestling were in their match. Daniels hypes his match against Richards some, basically repeating what he said in the ring.
Final Thoughts: This was a totally skippable show, which makes sense because I think all but the most hardcore ROH fans did skip it. I enjoyed the main event quite a bit but almost everything else was filler. If you’re a Ringside Member, go watch the Steen/Corino vs. Futureshock and KOW vs. Daniels/Richards matches by themselves, it’ll save you from sitting through roughly three hours of filler didn’t end up meaning a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Thumbs down.
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