BEATING THE ODDS

September 6, 2003

After getting beaten like a drum for most the year by CM Punk, Raven attempts to beat the odds with one more match. The Field of Honor (think the G-1 Climax or Champions Carnival, only with HONOR~!) begins, and the Briscoe Brothers man up and look to make a name for themselves.

Matt Stryker . . . makes up for his lack personality with a really fun match FOH with John Walters.

Jay and Mark Briscoe . . . beat the odds (get it?) By winning match they supposedly had little to chance of actually winning.

Trent Acid . . . earns his payday by working double duty in a decently fun scramble match and then a hateful brawl with Homicide.

COLT CABANA vs. JIMMY RAVE (Field of Honor Block B)

If nothing else, this is a good example of how much Colt improved during his stint in ROH. The idea is that Cabana wants to work over Rave’s back to set up the Colt .45, which he eventually uses to put Rave away, but Colt doesn’t do much more than throw out various spots. Rave looks OK here, but it probably helped that the onus really wasn’t on Rave to carry the offense, and even then, most of his good stuff comes in the last few minutes as he tries to pin Cabana with flash cradles and then tap him to the crossface. But Rave’s selling is good enough to show that Cabana’s work the back gameplan is working. The only really smart moment from Rave was his running knee when Cabana missed the senton. Beyond that, there’s some good comedy from Cabana, both in the ring and with him yelling at the fans, but, on the whole, this was forgettable.

SLYCK WAGNER BROWN vs. DIABLO SANTIAGO

This isn’t bad for what it is, which is an exhibition for Slyck to show his stuff in front of his hometown people. Diablo shows off a couple of nice spots himself, such as the fisherman’s neckbreaker, but this was all about Slyck showing off his power and agility. The finish, Slyck catching Diablo with a powerbomb for the pin, is out of nowhere but that’s most likely due to Diablo’s nose getting busted open, and considering a few of the shots he takes to the face, it’s not a surprise he got opened up.

MARCOS/DUNN vs. TRENT ACID/JOHNNY KASHMERE vs. JOEL MAXIMO/JOSE MAXIMO vs. IZZY/DIXIE

There isn’t anything especially unique here. It’s just a typical scramble match with all spots and no real story or structure to make anyone care about the outcome. The only real highlight of this is a nice exchange between Acid and Marcos, where Marcos seems to be a step ahead of Acid, but it’s gone as soon as it’s there. Other than that it’s business as usual with truckloads of spots and the prerequisite crazy dive to the floor on top of everyone else. I guess it’s notable that it doesn’t have the usual ending of one team stealing the pin after someone else does the work. Acid and Kashmere first take out Dunn and then finish off one of the Maximos, which makes the Backseats looks good rather than lucky.

MATT STRYKER vs. JOHN WALTERS (Field of Honor Block A)

For all the comments and jokes that could be made about the lack of personality between these two, they put together quite the fun match. The early work, before Stryker goes after Walters’ knee is filler, but it’s some cool filler (especially the spot with Walters outsmarting Stryker and tying him up in the ropes), and it paints the picture of nobody having a distinct advantage. Stryker starts working over the knee and this picks up. It was weird to see him use the Stryker lock so early, but they made it work with Walters nearly getting the rope break and Stryker switching to an STF. Walters’ selling here is also quite nice, and he’s good enough to remember to sell after he hits something big of his own, like the lung blower or the chokeslam on the knee.

There are also a couple of smart German suplex spots, the first being Walters getting dumped twice, and blocking the third rather than the standard standing switch and then Walters dumping Stryker deal, that Kurt Angle is so in love with. The other being Walters trying to hit Stryker with a German, and Stryker going to the knee to prevent it. Walters doing the sunset flip counter to the DVD is a nice touch as well, and in the end it goes back to his knee, when it gives out on him in mid-move and allows Stryker to cradle him for the pin. There are some odd moments that keep this from being more than just good, Walters’ Hurricane DDT near fall for no particular reason comes to mind, but, on the whole, this is a good little match. ***

DEVITO/LOC/JUSTIN CREDIBLE vs. DERANGED/HYDRO/ANGELDUST

As expected this is mostly worked by the formula, which isn’t bad, but it’s not terribly interesting either. Special K are little more than spot machines and bump machines, and they assume their role as the latter to start. The highlights being Devito knocking around Deranged and Justin’s series of suplexes on Angeldust. Slugger interferes to let Special K take over and work over Loc, and any heat for the match just dies. It picks up with the hot tag to Credible, but then they get too cute with the finish. Slugger interferes again and it backfires and he winds up walking out on Special K, and Justin is left alone with Deranged, but instead of going right to the finish after Becky gets knocked off the apron, they run through a boatload of near falls for both teams, for no particular reason, as well as the mandatory spot where someone (Angeldust in this case) dives to the floor onto a big pile of wrestlers. All of this only serves to go back to Justin and Deranged where Justin finishes him off with That’s Incredible from the second rope. The aftermath was fun, with Devito taking out the rest of Special K with the chair, although the spike piledriver to Becky was a bit much.

BJ WHITMER vs. MARK BRISCOE

Mark apparently beat the odds by winning here, the commentators make sure to hammer that point home by constantly talking about Mark will beat the odds if he wins. Very subtle, guys. This isn’t so much a case of BJ and Mark working a match as it is them killing time before the finish. BJ works over Mark’s ribs for a bit, but the only really good spot is the gutbuster over the guardrail, he uses some technically sound, but unexciting holds, like the abdominal stretch. It also didn’t help that Mark’s comeback started with a diving SSP to the floor and then bouncing BJ off the rails, which was a nice revenge spot, but totally ignored his ribs. They both try to win with big moves, BJ’s Exploder and Mark’s uranage, and just to make sure to render the rib work a waste Mark misses a moonsault, but lands on his feet anyway. Mark winds up putting BJ away with a uranage off the top. In the end, this feels more like a video game than it does a wrestling match.

We interrupt this wrestling show so that Rob Feinstein can ask all the ROH fans watching this home release for any information on who attacked Lucy back in August. Because obviously the people who went to the show in Dayton were hanging out in the back afterwards and saw the whole thing. Logic, anyone?

TRENT ACID vs. HOMICIDE

As far as intensity and overall hate goes, this is second to none, the wrestling needed some work though. At the core, this isn’t all that different from the scramble matches, it’s just a giant collection of spots. The only thing that makes it different is that Acid beat ‘Cide in June, so some of their stuff has more meaning. On a visceral level, this is certainly fun to watch, especially after ‘Cide busts open Acid’s eye and Acid gets payback with a Backseat driver onto a chair and then later by busting open ‘Cide’s nose, or the crazy spot where Homicide slams Acid onto the guardrail from the apron. But for every fun thing like that, there’s something goofy like their NOAH-esque pop-up sequence while they trade off Yakuza kicks and then kick out at one, rather than making them into good near falls. Acid tries to win the same way he did in June, by escaping the Kudo driver and rolling up ‘Cide, but this time Homicide kicks out, kicks Acid low (avenging an earlier low kick from Acid) and plants him with the Kudo driver to finish him off. Again, it’s fun on a visceral level and the intensity helps, but it’s far from great. ***1/4

SAMOA JOE vs. AJ STYLES vs. JAY BRISCOE vs. CHRIS SABIN

The stipulation gives this a little more meaning than a typical ROH four-way, but on the whole it’s not much deeper than a typical ROH four-way. While Styles, Sabin, and Briscoe all have their own reason to want to win, they also want to make sure that Joe doesn’t. It doesn’t benefit Styles at all if Sabin loses to Joe, and isn’t able to challenge for the ROH Title while Joe is the champion. To that end, a few typical spots for these matches mean a bit more than normal, such as AJ blocking Joe’s running boot scrape with a lariat, incidentally saving Briscoe, but more importantly taking it to Joe to keep him from winning. It’s the same thing a bit later in the match when Joe avenges the lariat with the Ole kick, and Sabin tackles Joe to stop him.

The only weak link to the match seems to be Briscoe, as he’s the only one who gets worked over by all three for an extended time. And wouldn’t you know, Jay BEATS THE ODDS and winds up winning the match. But there’s no more build to the finish or any more discernable structure to this than there would be any other four-way match. Jay spikes Sabin with the Jay driller and gets the pin before AJ or Joe can break it up.

RAVEN vs. CM PUNK (Clockwork Orange House of Fun Steel Cage Match)

This is a fun main event, but underwhelming considering the participants and their blood feud. This should have at least equaled Homcide/Acid for intensity and hate, but it’s not even close. They’re content to stand there and get pasted with weapons, Raven much more than Punk. They also don’t follow Homicide and Acid off the deep end by losing their minds getting silly. The closest that they get is Raven’s seventeen knee lift shots to get the handcuff key from Punk, and Punk bumps like a pinball for them. Raven and Punk’s sequence of DDT counters was probably the best individual spot of the match, and there’s a smart touch when Punk tries to ape Raven’s drop toehold spot, but Raven dodges it and Punk takes the chair shot. There’s also some build to the finish, with Punk surviving the Raven Effect thanks to Cabana, and Raven ups the ante by taking Cabana out of the picture and then hitting the DDT off the top and through a table to finally get a win over Punk (no mention if Raven also beat the odds by winning tonight), but Punk avenges the beer incident from July by crucifying him on a straight edge symbol. ***

Conclusion: I’m pleasantly surprised, this was actually quite the fun ROH show. The only thing that’s completely skippable is the Whitmer/Briscoe match, everything else is fun in some form or another, even if it’s not as good as it could have been.