Best of Three Falls

Dave and Mike Hogewood open the show with some highlights of Jimmy Jacobs vs. Tyler Black from last week, and then they talk about what’s coming up this week: ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness.

For the first match, the ref is miked much more loudly this week than last; you can hear him asking for every break, telling guys not to used closed fists, etc. This could give it a more sportslike feel, but nobody ever listens to the ref, anyway. There’s also one instance of blatant spot calling by the ref. I assume they record everything the ref says and then edit it later, and just didn’t catch that one. This is really variable, though: in the Payne vs. Castagnoli match, you can’t hear the ref at all. I wish they would pick one method and stick with it for awhile—and I’d like them to stick with the louder miked ref, personally. Give it a chance.

Nigel McGuinness cuts an interview backstage where he belittles interviewer Kyle Durden, and says that the only thing that matters is Nigel is the ROH World Champion. He says that he’s going to kill Jay Briscoe during the main event—not just once, but three times. I don’t think killing people is very sporting, is it, Nigel?

Oh, and speaking of sporting, by the end of this show, the handshake Code of Honor has been violated at least two times out of eight, so far on HDnet.

PRINCE NANA! He’s bringing in Bison Smith to take revenge on getting kicked out of ROH years ago.

All the matches were good; Haze vs. Del Rey was the worst, and it wasn’t horrible. There were a few missed spots early that knocked me out of the flow.

Overall, I think this show as more enjoyable than the first week. I’d still like to see the commentary improve: Dave Prazak is very subdued, both in terms of volume/excitement and in the amount he talks. And as mentioned, I’d like to be able to hear the refs in every match, consistently.

Match Results

1. Kevin Steen vs. Eddie Edwards
2. Daizee Haze vs. Sara Del Rey
3. Alex Payne. vs Claudio Castagnoli
4. Main Event: Jay Briscoe vs. Nigel McGuinness

Next week: Austin Aries vs. Bryan Danielson!

March 29th, 2009 | Tags: Ring of Honor, ROH, ROH on HDNet | Category: TV Reviews | Comments (1)

Preamble

I haven’t been watching Ring of Honor much over the last few years. I wasn’t particularly interested in Takeshi Morishima as champion and the overall number of DVDs I’d need to buy to follow the storylines I was interested in [such as the Age of the Fall] basically drove me away from the promotion — not in an active “I hate ROH now!” way, but in a more passive “I don’t have the time/money/energy to keep up with all of it.”

I’m hopeful that ROH on HDNet will allow me to keep up with storylines and the new wrestlers more easily, and that I can go back to buying ROH DVDs without it being a total guessing game [and without having to wait for reviews of each DVD and then buy them a month after they come out...]

ROH on HDNet, March 22 2009

They’ve brought back the Code of Honor, at least in the form of “handshakes before the match,” but they break it for the main event of the first show. Way to establish it.

Each wrestler gets a short 10 second pre-taped promo before each match, and as they enter the ring a few short facts about them display on the screen. Before the main event there is a “tale of the tape” that compares the wrestlers, but they didn’t do this for any other match.

Dave Prazak handles color commentary and Mike “The Hog” Hogewood does play-by-play. Kyle Durden does a few backstage interviews throughout the show. For the most part I didn’t think Prazak and The Hog were too bad of a combo. The Hog is obviously new to wrestling and relies on a lot of “that must hurt!” instead of calling actual moves and getting a little more detailed.

Considering the show is taped and then the commentary dubbed overtop, they fall victim to a common peeve of mine: one of the announcers talking about something relatively unimportant when something important in the ring starts to happen — and instead of the other interrupting with “Look! He’s caught in the koji clutch!” he just sits there and waits for the first announcer to finish. This just feels cheesy, especially since the announcers can watch the match first, take some notes on when important things happen, and then work the commentary from there. When dealing with these shorter-than-usual ROH matches, they need to make everything count.

They also opened the show with a little “in the studio” talking head bit from Prazak and Hogewood, and I didn’t enjoy that. The show doesn’t have enough of a sporting feel for that to be appropriate. Durden’s backstage segments also felt very pre-taped, not like they were actually happening in between the matches.

The “History of ROH” video was mostly good, but for a show that billed itself early as being about wrestling and sport, it sure showed a lot of wacky crazy spots as compared to actual wrestling. But that’s a small quibble; the video also included Flair, Heenan, Foley, and other such stars, to help give ROH credibility.

I don’t know if it was the crowd itself or the sound blaance, but the crowd seemed really quiet for most of the matches, and you could plainly see people not giving a crap; very unlike a typical rabid Ring of Honor crowd.

HDNet shot the action differently than a normal ROH show. They used the hard camera very sparingly, the ground cameras were run by professional cameramen, and they had a crane camera that provided a rotating view of the ring. I liked the crane camera, but occasionally it moved too much and actually seemed to be swooping away from the action. There were a couple times when the cameras didn’t quite catch the actionas they should, as well [most notably missing a chair spot in the Jacobs/Black match.] Overall, though, I liked the look of the show.

All the matches were perfectly watchable. The first three were all in roughly the six-minute range, and the main event just under 14. Not long by typical ROH standards, but putting 4 short matches on the show lets them get 8 guys out there each week — good for quickly introducing everyone to any new fans.

Jimmy Jacobs and Kenny King looked to be the standouts from this show. I must admit some love for Rhett “Addicted to Love” Titus’ gimmick as well; I can see him being just as hateable as Rick Rude was in the 80s.

After the matches, a teaser for next week’s debut of Nige McGuinness on the show aired.

Match Results

1. Delirious vs. Jerry Lynn
2. Sami Callihan vs. Kenny King
3. Brent Albright vs. Rhett Titus
4. Main Event: Tyler Black vs. Jimmy Jacobs

March 22nd, 2009 | Tags: Ring of Honor, ROH, ROH on HDNet | Category: TV Reviews | Leave a comment

Andrew “Test” Martin died on March 13th, 2009, at the age of 33 years old, less than a week from his 33th birthday. As of now, the cause of death is not released, but police say that foul play is not suspected.

Many wrestlers have died in the last 15 years, many of them too young. Martin’s death, however, strikes me as a bit different. Not because I was a big fan of his, but because Test began wrestling in 1997, and made his WWE [then WWF] debut in 1998. The year he started wrestling, Brian Pillman died; and the year he debuted in the WWF, Louie Spicolli died. During the early years of his career, Rick Rude and “British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith both died of heart issues.

Of course, many other wrestlers and ex-wrestlers died over those few years, but those four are wrestlers that Test — just over four years older than myself — would have grown up watching as a teenager. When guys like this started dropping dead and you’re following them into their risk-filled career, wouldn’t you take some extra time and thought to reflect on what killed those men so young, and try extra-hard not to get there?

Here’s clips from an interview with Test in 2007, where he talked about how he didn’t want to be a victim of the wrestling lifestyle … a few months after being released from the WWE after failing one of their “Wellness” tests.

March 15th, 2009 | Tags: death, tna, wwe | Category: Wrestling | Leave a comment

I have seen many wrestling matches in my life, and I cannot recall seeing a finish as contrived and weak looking as the finish to the Cena/Edge match that closed this week’s RAW. It looked like 8-year-olds tip-toeing through a dance performance for the xmas play at school.

March 3rd, 2009 | Category: WWE TV | Leave a comment

If TNA was earning a couple bucks royalties per title of the TNA Impact videogame, it sounds like Midway hasn’t paid them a dime [beyond the advance] yet—which based on the way licensing deals usually work, is probably true.

This means that out of the Midway deal, TNA got a video game that was roundly panned, little potential for a sequel from the same developer, and may not get paid or may only get pennies on the dollar.

Growth is painful. Hopefully TNA will learn from this experience and be able to make a better deal in the future.

February 14th, 2009 | Category: TNA News | Leave a comment

Figure Four Weekly / Wrestling Observer reports that Petey Williams and Lance Rock [Hoyt] have been released. I’m not happy to see people losing their jobs, but TNA has had an overflowing roster for far too long.

February 10th, 2009 | Category: TNA News | Leave a comment

Edit: New video from shanndylicious, much closer up and with better sound and a better view of Jericho punching a woman:

Posted to YouTube by Gizzaedge:

*** Jericho did not start this, I did not get the first part of the altercation.

This happened shortly after the end of Raw’s houseshow in Victoria BC Canada on 7 Feb 2009.

After Jericho drove out of the parking lot, a fan ran up to his SUV, starting knocking on the window and fingering him while yelling. Jericho opened the door and had the fan kick it shut. This is when I started recording.

The first little bit shows pretty much nothing, but it’s there. According to other bystanders, this fan had been verbally harassing Jericho prior to the show. It’s a shame that one fan had to ruin it for everyone, I hope he is found and charged.

The video really doesn’t show much; some fan reports say that a female fan also jumped up onto the hood of Jericho’s SUV preventing him from driving away and that started the fight, but other [longe, more detailed, and ultimately more accurate] reports say that a female fan didn’t get involved until after Jericho had an altercation with two other fans, one of whom kicked his car door.

February 7th, 2009 | Category: WWE News | Leave a comment

Just heard JR call Golddust “bizarre and controversial” as he entered the Royal Rumble. What year is it? 2009? Golddust’s heyday was in 1996. I was a big fan of the original Golddust character, because it was unlike anything else in WWE at the time. It’s still—or rather, it’s again—that way, but everyone has seen it before and it’s the type of gimmick that would only work once. I enjoy Golddust for what he is now, wacky comedy relief, but I can’t even pretend that he’s in any way bizarre.

January 31st, 2009 | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

I went to a friend’s on Saturday and watched the Affliction PPV. There was plenty of talk about next week’s UFC, and the Super Bowl. Not a single person mentioned the Royal Rumble, even though the party host is one of the biggest wrestling fans I know.

I had fun watching the Affliction show. Everyone was too loud so I didn’t hear any of the commentary, and there was enough chatter that some of the things I’d normally pay a lot of attention to (entrance quality, crowd noise, etc) just faded into the background as we got into the fights.

January 26th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment