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ROH Final Battle 2008
Stuart Carapola Reporting
ROH returned to New York City on Saturday night, December 27th for Final Battle 2008, the seventh edition of the show. Really fun show with some interesting things going on.
-The show opened with Kenny Omega scoring a clean win over Claudio Castagnoli. Kenny's a charismatic kid who really seems to connect well with the crowd, I sense he's got a good future in ROH. On the other hand, I get the feeling like Claudio's probably on his way down the hill in ROH given how little he's been featured since the change to the new booking regime, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was gone from ROH by this time next year.
-Jerry Lynn won a Four Corner Survival Match that also included Chris Hero, Necro Butcher, and Rhett Titus when he pinned Hero after a Cradle Piledriver. Lynn's been getting great crowd reactions everywhere he's been since returning to ROH and tonight was no different. After the match, Lynn and Necro shook hands and showed one another respect, but as Necro went to head to the back, Jimmy Jacobs hopped the rail with a microphone and dared Necro to come in the ring and fight him. Of course this led to a 2-on-1 beatdown on Necro when Delirious ran out and hit Necro from behind, but Kevin Steen & El Generico ran out to make the save, leading to...
-Kevin Steen & El Generico defeated Jimmy Jacobs & Delirious to retain the ROH World Tag Team Title. Age Of The Fall spent much of the match working over Steen's knee, which had been injured the previous night when Davey Richards nailed him with a pipe, and then the injury was aggravated here. Daizee Haze, who was in Steen & Generico's corner, climbed in the ring to stop Delirious from using the steel spike, and when Jacobs tried to go after her, Delirious stopped him. This gave Steen & Generico enough of a break to recover and give Delirious the Package Piledriver/Brainbuster combo to retain. After the match, Jacobs began berating Delirious before walking out on him.
-Brent Albright, Roderick Strong, and Erick Stevens defeated the American Wolves & Go Shiozaki in a really wild New York City Street Fight. There was far too much going on in this match at all times for me to recap it all here, but it was a really wild, stiff brawl that ended when Go Shiozaki took several big moves from the babyface team before tapping out to Albright's Crowbar. After the babyfaces left, the American Wolves started yelling at Shiozaki, who they seemed to blame for the loss, and then left without him. The fans started chanting for Go and he waved at them in appreciation, but then remembered he's a heel and flipped them off before leaving.
-Jay & Mark Briscoe defeated Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima in what I have to consider a mild upset just because of Sasaki being one of their opponents. Sasaki no sold most of what the Briscoes did which was a little frustrating to watch, but he's a really big, thick guy so it's believable that it would take a hard shot to really rattle him. Nakajima was also very impressive, hitting a lot of the really nice, stiff kicks that he's sort of renowned for. The Briscoes came back and went for the Doomsday Device but Mark slipped off the rope and crashed, though they went for it again and hit it properly the second time.
I'm pretty sure Mark's mistake was intentional, because after the match the American Wolves came out and attacked the Briscoes, handcuffing Jay to the ropes and working over Mark's knee with a chair, and if this was all planned, I think it was a really cool way to play off of Mark's real-life penchant for getting himself hurt to to his somewhat reckless style and work it into an angle. Steen & Generico run out to make the save, and are soon joined by Albright, Strong, and Stevens. The whole lot of them run off the American Wolves, and then Albright got on the microphone and starting telling ROH owner Cary Silkin, who was sitting at ringside, that Sweet & Sour Inc is constantly interfering in matches and is ruining everything that Cary has worked to build for almost seven years, and the only way it's going to stop is if they get Sweet & Sour Inc in a steel cage. I don't exatly follow that logic, but Cary Silkin seemed to because he immediately told Albright he's got it.
-After intermission, Austin Aries defeated Tyler Black in a great match that easily got the most crowd heat out of anything going on that night. Tyler was about to go for the Phoenix Splash on Aries, but Jacobs came out to "encourage" Tyler, but ended up distracting him and allowing Aries to come back and hit the 450 splash for the win to become the #1 contender to the ROH World Title. After the match was over, Jacobs began berating Tyler and shoved him, but Tyler shoved him back and Jacobs went down on his butt. After a couple of tense minutes, they seemed to make up but Jacobs kicked him in the groin and put him in the End Time. Aries comes into the ring with a chair seemingly to run Jacobs off, but then he started smiling and turned around and smashed Black in the head with the chair. Aries invites Jacobs back into the ring and the two of them start working him over.
At this point, there was a very stupid incident where Aries was on his way to the back and a fan physically attacked Aries in some way. I couldn't quite see what happened from where I was sitting, but I did see Aries go after the guy, and let me tell you, you don't want to get on Austin Aries' bad side. Referee Paul Turner went out and got physically involved to neutralize the situation, and then it took him and about four other people to physically drag the guy over the rail and into the back. I'm not sure what happened with the guy when he got to the back, but I wouldn't have wanted to be in his shoes. When Turner came back out to the ring to referee the next match, he easily got the biggest pop of the night and one of the biggest pops I've ever seen at an ROH show, the fans started cheering for him and chanting "NEXT WORLD CHAMP!" Paul had the biggest smile on his face, which I found funny because he usually tries not to let much emotion out when he's working, but he did take a couple of bows and wave to the crowd. Let this be a lesson to all would-be funny guys: you do NOT want to overstep your bounds when attending a live wrestling show.
-After all that, we went to our ROH World Title Match, which saw Nigel McGuinness successfully defend the title against Naomichi Marufuji. This was a really good match, I really enjoy watching Marufuji wrestle because he's so innovative. With most guys, even if they have some cool moves, you end up seeing enough ofthem that you've pretty much seen all they've got, but even though I've seen Marufuji wrestle a bunch of times now, he's always pulling out new stuff I haven't seen and it's all really clever stuff. Nigel, in the meantime, has really grown into his role as the ROH World Champion and despite his rough start, I'd put him right up there as every bit as capable a champion as Joe and Danielson. Nigel put Marufuji away with the Rebound Lariat, and after the match Jerry Lynn came down to congratulate Nigel on his win, but Nigel grabbed the mic out of his hand and started running him down again. This time, Lynn got really mad and challenged Nigel to fight him, but Nigel not only backed off, but actually ran out through the crowd to get away from Lynn.
-The main event saw Bryan Danielson defeat Takeshi Morishima in a Fight Without Honor. This was a really brutal, bloody match that saw Morishima take a chain out from under the ring and use it to brutalize Danielson, both by wrapping the chain around his fist to punch Danielson as well as use it to choke him. Danielson didn't give up and fought back, using the chain to choke Morishima while stomping on his head, then wrapping it around his arm and giving him the MMA elbows with the chain, before finally putting him away with the Cattle Mutilation to finally, finally finally get that win over Morishima. After the match, Danielson is joined in the ring by several of the ROH babyfaces and Danielson tells the fans that this show had the biggest crowd in ROH history, and thanks the fans for supporting them for almost seven years, and tells them it will be worth it to the wrestlers as long as the fans keep coming.
This was a really good show and like the show in Philadelphia the night before, it was very well paced and didn't leave me feeling burned out by the end. The show, including intermission, was over in under four hours, which I think is a vast improvement over the sometimes five hour plus marathon shows we would get a lot in New York.
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