DVD Review2006 was a banner year for wrestling DVDs, including the Heroes of World Class documentary, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's Battle of Lost Angeles, , and WWE's AWA disc, but in terms of in-ring action no company had a better year than Ring of Honor. Headlined by the must-see Milestone Series, ROH produced a fantastic collection of the best in-ring wrestling product available. One of my personal favorite parts of the year was the doubleshot the company ran in the United Kingdom during August. It is truly something magic when a solid ROH show takes place in front of rabid fans and no one has been more red hot than these crazy Europeans.
The first show, Unified, from Liverpool, England, was headlined by one of ROH's best matches of the year. When you consider five of the top ten matches voted best of the year in the Wrestling Observer Awards issue were ROH matches, that's actually saying something. Bryan Danielson, in the middle of his lengthy reign as world champion, fought returning hometown hero Nigel McGuinness in order to unify the world and pure titles. Such a simple concept, two champions who had both held on to their titles for a year or so, battling it out in the middle of the ring to decide who was the better man and one true champion. As a fan, how could you not get excited about that? Of course, this is wrestling, and this very weekend I saw Gregory Helms lose the cruiserweight title that he had been wearing for over a year during a meaningless gauntlet match, one featuring Scotty 2 Hotty for God's sake. ROH is a constant reminder of exactly what wrestling could be if you eliminated the lazy booking.
Here's the underecard of Unified with some quick thoughts on each:
Four Corner Survival Match: Colt Cabana v. Spud v. Johnny Storm v. Matt Sydal - Nice little four way with a good mixture of comedy (courtesy of Colt Cabana, who also plays the surreally great Mat Classic character on MTV's Wrestling Society X show) and hyper fast spots courtesy of Spud, Storm, and Sydal. Spud was the on the receiving end of some cool looking spots by Sydal including a standing moonsault
and a match finishing shooting star press. I've read a lot of people talk trash about Spud, but he showed me a lot during this match along with Johnny Storm. After the match Chris Hero stormed the ring and the crowd went apeshit. Hero said he was there to ruin the evening before bailing when Cabana came back to the ring. I know he has plenty of
detractors, but there is just something I enjoy about Chris Hero, especially when he has a microphone in his hand.
Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana) v. Davey Richards - I'm still not sold on Davey Richards, but this twenty-plus minute match was something damn good, probably the best of the three I have seen these two men have (including the fantastic one at In Your Face.) I'm also glad to see Rave getting the huge push I have always felt he deserved. Don't listen to those B&V audio updates, the former Crown Jewel of West Ghana is a solid ROH character who has paid his dues. After this match was a priceless promo by the Briscoe Brothers. Mark and Jay need Jim Cornette as their mouthpiece in the worst way, but there is something interesting about their "white trash redneck"characters that have grown on me big time.
Claudio Castagnoli v. BJ Whitmer - Okay brawling match which went up a
notch when the two went into the crowd. The shit hit the fan when the match was over as Chris Hero hit the ring to put the boots to Whitmer until Cabana made the save. This also set up an IMPROMPTU MATCH~!
Colt Cabana v. Chris Hero - This match only went about 10 minutes, but was good while it lasted. New audio member of the F4Wonline.com Empire, Keith Lipinski, said the two men pretty much came up together in IWA Mid South, which would explain the familiarity. Hero fell victim to the Colt 45 and the crowd completely ate it up.
Tag Team Match: Doug Williams and Jody Fleisch (UK) v. SUWA and Go Shiozaki (Japan) - No one does tag team wrestling better than ROH and this match was no exception. I remember Williams and Fleisch from the early years of ROH and actually used to be a big fan of Fleisch. It must have cost a small fortune to keep bringing
those guys over from England. Going over twenty three minutes, these guys had a ton of great moments and I can't understate how much the crowd took everything up a little. The slow parts of any match can be overlooked when everyone in the audience was going insane as they are so excited that ROH came to their country. While there was no international grudge to be settled, these four men brought a lot to the table.
FWA British Heavyweight Title Match: Chad Collyer v. Robbie Brookside(champ) - This match is almost worth watching just to hear Jimmy Bower stop by the commentary booth and completely bury Chad Collyer. Bower is, of course, the alter ego of ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky. I'll go on record saying I have never
understood what anyone has seen in Collyer. I just don't get it. Match itself was okay, but nothing worth going out of your way to see.
Ring of Honor World Tag Team Championship: The Briscoes v. Austin Aries and Roderick Strong (champs) - Now this is exactly what I'm talking about. Two absolutely amazing tag teams going all out in one hell of match. In fact, this may be the tag team feud of the last two years in terms of in-ring action. It is matches like this that make the WWE's complete lack of a tag team division drive me up the wall. I grew up during an era of wrestling where you couldn't help but run into a fun-to-watch tag teams
(my personal favorites include the Midnight Rockers, the Killer Bees, and The Machines) and it's sickening to see the majority of teams on TV today. Hell, WWE even has one particularly good team in Paul London and Brian Kendrick (two ROH alum, natch) and can't find anything close to a decent feud for them. Anyway, this match alone would have made the purchase of the DVD worthwhile as it clocks in with twenty five minutes of sick action. How these guys went all out the entire match is beyond me, but Dave Prazak's statement of, "You've just seen tag team wrestling at it's best" was spot-on.
THE MAIN EVENT: Throughout the DVD there were promos and video packages on both men, which really set the stage for an epic battle and, boy, did these two live up to that billing and then some. This encounter was the rubber match of their awesome series of matches including the match at the Weekend of Champions, and the Generation Next showdown. It came down to this match…there must be a winner, no time limit, etc. In short, there was going to be a decisive winner for once and all. Dragon's interaction with the fans was something to behold during the entire doubleshot and Danielson has truly turned himself into the greatest heel in wrestling. I don't think I will ever be able to forget the end of the match as Danielson just went 100% batshit insane and started hitting McGuinness with one punishing elbow to the face after another. It was nuts! I completely lost count of how many elbows Danielson hit, but eventually the referee called for the bell and awarded the match to Danielson. A draining match just to watch, let alone what these two men went through. A bravura performance
by both Danielson and McGuinness that, once again, was pushed into the stratosphere thanks to a crowd completely behind McGuinness the entire match. This was pro-wrestling at its finest, balls to the wall wrestling to produce incredible entertainment.
After the match, Danielson called this match one of the hardest he's ever had and offered Nigel a rematch. McGuinness accepted the match and in, a powerful promo later in the DVD, vowed to bring everything he had to St. Paul, Minnesota when the two lock up again in a two out of three falls match. I don't see how you couldn't look forward to that match after what these two just delivered.
The very next night the entire crew (sans Austin Aries, who suffered a rib injury during the war with the Briscoes) went to Broxbourne and were lucky to find the red hot fans had made the trip with them.
Anarchy in the U.K. is highlighted by not just one, but TWO championship defenses by Bryan Danielson. The first was a good little match against SUWA, but the second was another hard hitting battle with Roderick Strong. There is just something about Strong and Danielson that bring out the best in each other. I was lucky enough to see the two of them battle to a near 60 minute match in Chicago during the Milestone Series and this encounter was just as fun to watch. Strong was on the business end of seemingly 50 straight elbows to the face and then polished off with the Cattle Mutilation. Danielson was then able to grab both of his title belts and stand triumphant in the ring as the crowd loudly chanted "THANK YOU DRAGON!" These were the same fans giving Danielson shit just minutes before (and he was hilariously taunting them), but they were wrestling fans and Danielson had just performed a clinic.
The Briscoes stole the show on the undercard with a jaw dropping match against
Matt Sydal and Davey Richards. I said before that I wasn't much of a Richards' fan, but a couple more matches like this and I'll be jumping on the Davey bandwagon. In fact, this pair would make for a great heel team down the line. All the guys from Unified showed up in various matches and it is surreal to watch how much heat guys like Chris Hero and Jimmy Rave can draw from the crowd. These were the type 
of fans that were in New York to watch Manhattan Mayhem and in Chicago to see Lance Storm's comeback and God bless every single one of them.
OVERALL THOUGHTS: With the amount of DVDs and PPVs available in 2006, it is quite possible that you missed this offering from Ring of Honor. Believe me, this is one set of DVDs you are going to want to track down as they will remind you of how much fun wrestling fans should be having when they go to shows. Watching wrestling on TV these days is almost like watching a contest on who can be the biggest douchebag or come up with the lamest sign. Watching the ROH UK doubleshot is a trip back through time to the late 90s, when wrestling fans went to shows because of how much they loved what was going on in the ring. Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinnes, and The Briscoe Brothers share my MVP award for the weekend, but there are so many strong performances throughout both nights that it is very clear there was an inspired locker room and everyone brought their working shoes. Cick HERE to pick up Unified or click HERE to check out Anarchy in the UK. Or you can head on over to www.ROHwrestling.com for more information on these and other cool discs.
Derek Burgan has been writing for the Wrestling Observer/Figure 4 Weekly~! family since October, 2005. He previous worked as a right wing blogger. If you have any questions, corrections, feedback, comments and ideas, he can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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