ROH on HDNet – Episode 088 – 27th December 2010

The last ROH on HDNet episode of last year saw the traditional format abandoned and show a succession of clips highlighting the ‘best moments’ of the year for ROH’s television show. It was a fun concept, allowed casual viewers to get a great snapshot of what the show is like, spotlighted some great wrestling moments and afforded me the opportunity to list my Top 10 Matches of the year, along with some (relatively) brief thoughts about the year that was. So with this, the last HDNet show of 2010, they’ve decided to repeat that. Mike Hogewood and Dave Prazak are in their studio to talk us through the highs and lows of the HDNet show this year. I’ll give a rundown of what’s on the show – and end with another year-ending discussion and reveal my Top 10 for the year.

This year the 'year-end' episode has special graphics, and Dave Prazak is showing it’s a more casual, informal episode by not wearing a tie. Naturally the first thing they spotlight is the TV Title Tournament, which saw Eddie Edwards crowd the first Television Champion after a memorable finale with his own tag partner Davey Richards. Highlights of the Edwards/Richards match are shown.

Throughout the show we’ll see a number of brief highlight packages spotlighting various memorable moments from the year. The first of those shows the All Night Express taking Delirious out of ROH and the Young Bucks’ last match on HDNet as they failed to take the Tag Titles from the Briscoes.

And showing clips from a Tag Title match leads us on to the reigning Tag Champions – the Kings Of Wrestling. Lots of highlights from their 8-month feud with the Briscoe are shown. Sadly it’s cut short before Final Battle so we don’t get to see Papa Briscoe in action, but we do get moments from the Kings vs Briscoes Tag Title match on HDNet from a few weeks ago. Sadly for the HDNet audience that was probably the worst of their three title clashes in 2010.

It would be impossible to show a ‘Best Of 2010’ package without talking about the Steen/Generico feud and it’s at this point Prazak and Hog bring it up. They run a couple of video packages of the entire feud, complete with highlights of the awesome Anything Goes Match they had on HDNet.

From there we focus on the World Title division. Sit-down interviews with Davey Richards and Christopher Daniels are replayed, and Tyler Black rightly gets a mention for his strong run with the belt. They air selected clips from Black/Richards III, which was broadcast on HDNet in October. It then moves to talk about Roderick Strong, with footage of him defending the belt against Davey at Final Battle shown.

The show ends with more Final Battle clips, then Dave Prazak and Hog making jokes of their catchphrases which was actually pretty funny and made me sitting through an entire episode of stuff I’ve already seen very much worthwhile.

Tape Rating - N/A - As with last year, I can’t really rate this. As a clipshow episode, to me obviously it means very little as I’ve seen every show. But to people who missed bits and pieces, or to people who had never seen ROH on HDNet before, this was probably an entertaining hour of television. I will say I thought they showed a wider variety of clips, and were able to recap far more storylines, way more efficiently in the 2009 version than they did here.

ROH 2010 Top 10 Matches
10) Davey Richards vs Christopher Daniels (****1/2 – Richards vs Daniels)
9) Kings Of Wrestling vs American Wolves (****1/2 – Tag Title Classic 2)
8) Kings Of Wrestling vs Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe (****1/2 – Death Before Dishonor 8)
7) Tyler Black vs Kevin Steen (****1/2 – Salvation)
6) Kings Of Wrestling vs Motor City Machine Guns (****1/2 – Supercard Of Honor 5)
5) Tyler Black vs Davey Richards (****1/2 – Tag Wars 2010)
4) Tyler Black vs Davey Richards (****1/2 – ROH on HDNet Episode 078)
3) Colt Cabana/El Generico vs Kevin Steen/Steve Corino (****1/2 – Bitter Friends Stiffer Enemies 2)
2) Tyler Black vs Davey Richards (***** – Death Before Dishonor 8)
1) El Generico vs Kevin Steen (***** – Final Battle 2010)

Honourable mentions to: Richards/Generico (8th Anniversary Show), Aries/Black (8th Anniversary Show), Richards/Omega (Epic Encounter 3), Black/Strong (Supercard Of Honor 5).

I’ll start first by talking about my annual Top 10. Perhaps it’s a testament to how improved ROH has been this year, but this was so tough. I spent well over an hour wrestling with the 14 matches above, trying to work out which order to put them in. I genuinely loved them all and had such a difficult time eliminating four, and then an even more trying time sorting them into a Top 10 countdown. Ultimately I tried to judge it on quality and how they personally resonated with me as a viewer and paying customer rather than as a reviewer/critic or whatever you want to call me. This year has seen perhaps as many legit MOTYC’s as any other (unless I’ve got really generous with my ratings this year) and the promotion should be congratulated for that.

Any other year something with the quality of Richards/Omega from Epic Encounter 3, the emotion of Aries/Tyler from the Anniversary Show or the sheer entertainment of Tyler/Roderick from Supercard Of Honor would have seen that match place high on the list. But here they don’t even make the cut which is quite incredible. The Kings Of Wrestling rightly have three matches on the list. They took an already strong Tag Team division and turned it into an even bigger draw – which many thought couldn’t be done. Moreso than any other team since the Briscoes in 2007, they made themselves into a SUPERSTAR team, and each major KOW match felt more like an EVENT. I know some people will disagree with me about putting Kings/Machine Guns so high on the list but, to me, that match was absolute perfection. Of course the finish soured it a little – but that was unavoidable politics between Ring Of Honor and TNA. The fact that ROH turned that into a positive by throwing the Briscoes in to further the Kings/Briscoes feud too in many ways ADDED to how great that match was.

And I have to stop to talk about the great years Tyler Black and Davey Richards had. Tyler has four matches in the Top 10 whilst Richards, for whom 2010 was a career best year, has five. Until Final Battle, it very much looked like they were taking home my ROH MOTY with their epic World Title match at Death Before Dishonor 8. That match remains an outstanding feat of story-telling, endurance and sheer physicality…and what’s incredible is that they actually replicated that quality for two subsequent rematches which also made the list. I found it hard to separate the Tag Wars and HDNet follow-ups – but ultimately decided to put the HDNet Match above the Charlotte one as it was their climactic encounter – and was held up as so outstanding that a whole episode of the TV show was built around it. Tyler, who’s run with the belt was more than a year overdue, was just starting to hit his stride as champion when WWE came calling…but even in his brief run with the belt he packed in some great matches. The Supercard Of Honor match with Strong is criminally underrated in my opinion, whilst the summer classic with Kevin Steen has somewhat been lost in the shuffle but remains a wonderful World Title bout in it’s own right.

And speaking of Kevin Steen – it was his ‘ feud of the year’ with El Generico that occupies two of the ‘Top 3’ spots. The Street Fight at Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies is absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately it happened so early in the year that, by Final Battle, with two subsequent rematches on HDNet and the Chain Match at Glory By Honor 9, people seemed to have forgotten about it. For my money it’s only a step beneath the match that would become my ROH MOTY – the ‘Final Battle at Final Battle’, non-sanctioned, Mask vs Career Fight Without Honor which pitted Steen against Generico for one last time. It was everything a feud-ending match should be. In my review I called it a violent ‘work of art’ and I stand by that. It deserves it’s 5* rating and is one of the finest matches in ROH history – both as a standalone match and as the collective embodiment and resolution to a year of bloody spots, brutal shots and hugely memorable moments.

So that was 2010 for Ring Of Honor. 2009 was a tough year for the company after they had an entirely forgettable first six months, lost key talent, saw rival promotions formed that threatened to steal talent and fans from them, and ended the year with an iPPV venture which almost failed on the back of an ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful Final Battle 60-minute draw. It was clear that 2010 was to be a ‘make or break’ year for the group, with rumours of financial problems, locker room unrest and more doing the dirtsheet rounds.

And that what makes the success of the year all the more remarkable. January passed without incident, with some solid television shows and a decent debut in Los Angeles…but from February things really kicked off. Although over a year too late, it was still a memorable moment when Tyler Black FINALLY became World Champion. His run with the belt, although curtailed prematurely, was excellent both in terms of match quality and in terms of how he dealt with his tumultuous relationship with the ROH fans – particularly in New York.

I criticised Adam Pearce and ROH for booking some of the most forgettable shows they’ve ever done in the first half of 2009. Those DVD’s are part of my ROH collection but I can honestly say that shows like ‘Eliminating The Competition’, ‘Stylin’ & Profilin’, ‘Insanity Unleashed’ and ‘Steel City Clash’ will gather dust on my shelf and probably never be watched again. Which again, makes the turnaround in quality of the shows they released on DVD even more pleasurable. Sure there were a few sub-par efforts (Gold Rush, Civil Warfare, Bluegrass Brawl and Survival Of The Fittest all got pretty harsh critical responses) but ROH were finally back to churning out quality releases on a consistent basis. The 8th Anniversary Show was strong…and the subsequent return to New York at Supercard Of Honor was one of the shows of the year. Markets like Dayton, Chicago, Charlotte, Collinsville and Toronto were given solid shows even when they weren’t one of the ‘major’ ROH events (Epic Encounter 3 in Canada, Pick Your Poison in Dayton, Bitter Friends Stiffer Enemies 2 or Salvation in Chicago, Tag Wars 2010 in Charlotte or Hate Chapter 2 in Collinsville)…and suddenly it became a lot harder for the ‘selective’ ROH viewer to skip shows again.

And the venture into iPPV was a resounding success critically and financially – if not in terms of production as each one was blighted by feed issues, VQ problems and HORRIBLE audio. But by all accounts they were doing decent buyrates, and growing with each one too. Even The Big Bang and Glory By Honor 9, considered the ‘lesser’ of the four iPPV’s in 2010 produced lots of great wrestling, and memorable moments like Kings/Briscoes, Kings/WGTT, the Black/Aries/Strong triple threat in Charlotte and Roddy’s eventual title win at Glory By Honor. Whilst in Death Before Dishonor 8 and Final Battle 2010 ROH put on two major candidates for ‘show of the year’ in the eyes of many fans and writers alike.

On the creative front there was much to admire too – a particularly impressive feat when you consider they changed booker during the summer. The Steen/Generico feud, of course, stands out above everything else ROH did this year. The booking of the feud (a combined effort of both Adam Pearce and Delirious), coupled with an unparalleled commitment to their respective characters from each wrestler made it a legitimate feud for the ages. But all around the card there was something going on. The Kings Of Wrestling became huge draws as Tag Champions, particularly in a great feud with the Briscoes who, after being in the promotion since 2002, continue to produce quality matches on a regular basis. Adam Pearce, for all that he got it wrong at Final Battle 2009, should be commended for booking the majority of Tyler Black’s excellent run as World Champion. We saw two familiar faces return from TNA as Christopher Daniels and Homicide both came back to the promotion they helped to found at the Murphy Rec Center years ago. And the year ended very promisingly with the decks cleared of stale talent and a huge emphasis on bringing new talent in (Cole, O’Reilly, Elgin, Bennett etc) and giving existing talent (Ridge, Bravados, ANX greater opportunities).

If 2009 was a consolidating year – a year when just staying in business was a commendable achievement in trying circumstances, then ROH should genuinely be congratulated on a strong return to form in 2010. It wasn’t all perfect of course – with the middle of the year seeing the HDNet show becoming almost insufferably mundane, getting caught in a funk which, in truth, the show never recovered even with improved content quality once Delirious came in. HDNet eventually dropped the show after the initial 2-year deal expired in March 2011, but rumours about the termination had been going round well before it was officially announced. Although things looked to be improving towards the end of the year, ROH’s undercard spent much of the year still bogged down with a number of talents who just couldn’t draw and were NOT getting over with existing fans either – particularly in Prince Nana’s Embassy faction. And we end the year with Roderick Strong as World Champion, with the stench of ‘transitional champion’ all over him and question marks over his suitability to ‘carry the ball’ in a company where there are guys who are better workers, better talkers and way more popular with the fanbase. But no promotion gets everything right – particularly one which runs as many live events as ROH does, has a weekly television show to promote and an iPPV venture to push.

I genuinely believe that 2009 was a dark year for ROH. Although it had some great moments, creatively the company stalled, the quality nosedived and very little from that year stands up against stuff from the ‘glory years’ of ROH from 2004-2007. At the start of the year I think the vultures were circling the promotion waiting for it to die. As a company ROH simply HAD to get it right this year…and they nailed it more often than not. Multiple great shows, multiple great matches, multiple great feuds and multiple great moments which DO stack up against the Gabe era ROH stuff. They regained their consistency, they rebuilt the roster and they end the year with a renewed vigour and a revitalised fanbase…even if 2011 would clearly show that it didn’t go far enough to produce the financials that Cary Silkin and co. were looking for, or create a product that HDNet would deem suitable to keep on their network. For the first time in three years, ROH end a year and can look back on it thinking they did more right than they did wrong.
 

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