ROH, Independent, & International DVD Review Thread

[Harthan]

I figured it was high time we got one of these. I know there's plenty of ROH fans on the boards with decent DVD collections, so why not share our thoughts on them together, get a little discussion of the shows going, and get a good place for recommendations? The thread's premise is pretty simple - if you've got a DVD from ROH, any independent, or any international promotion, you're welcome to post a review of it and your recommendation.

With that, where better to start than with the very first ROH show, The Era of Honor Begins?

The very first ROH show is an interesting product, in that, honestly, it’s not great. There’s a lot of poor matches and even some outright shit on this show. What did happen however, is this – ROH produced an incredible main event, and that is the hallmark of ROH to this very day. No matter what happens on the card, and more often than not on most shows, it’s good, you can almost always guarantee a top notch main event. While some say this show sets the precedent for ROH by declaring it wasn’t about sports entertainment, I disagree – I say it set the precedent for ROH because it established the tradition and legacy of amazing main events. And now, let’s get the show on the road.

Bear in mind I’m reviewing off a less than stellar version of the DVD which means I am lacking a few matches as well as most of the backstage segments, so we’re mostly looking at the top matches off this show.

The shows open with possibly the worst choice ROH could have made. The Christopher Street Connection, a pair of homosexuals, come out to the arena (I think it’s a gym, actually) and…well…I mean, honest to goodness. This is a company founded on the principle of no sports entertainment, right? And you open your show with two raging homosexuals, cutting what felt like a 10 minute promo, kissing men, and then making out in the ring? Ugh. This is an absolute atrocity until Da Hit Squad interferes, and brings up to regular old shit.

Da Hit Squad vs Christopher Street Connection

They make this an official match at one point or another. It’s crap, and they get over as faces for beating up gay guys and women. Whee. When your company is about not being sports entertainment, and you open the show with…sports entertainment, well. I understand what ROH was going for, but they did it all wrong.

Rating: 0/10

Jay Briscoe vs Amazing Red

Not much in the way of story here, but these guys are on opposite ends of an indy tag team feud with Jay & Mark vs the SAT of Red and the Maximos, but since Mark is 17 and Philadelphia law says he can’t wrestle until he’s 18…you get this singles contest. Some good old mat wrestling and exciting moves that you expect out of these twos, and a weird spot where Jay hits the Jay Driller (his finisher, for those that don’t know)…I mean, he hits it 100% clean, and Red kicks out. Just weird. Why undersell the move like that? Match comes to a finish with Red hitting an SSP and they shake hands afterwards. This is a damn fine match, and just about as good as it gets until the main event.

Rating: 6/10

Xavier vs Scoot Andrews

Andrews has one of the sillier gimmicks I’ve seen, in the “Black Nature Boy”. Seriously. Oh well, onto the match. No story here other than a good old wrestling match, and that’s what ROH is about, yeah? It’s about 10 minutes long, and honestly, there’s little of note. Just basic mat wrestling, a few big moves, some blown spots, and that’s it. Solid, basically competent stuff, but never that exciting.

Rating: 3/10

The Boogie Knights vs the Natural Born Sinners

I won’t lie, I fell asleep the first time through this match. It’s a pile of shit, and basically an eight minute squash as Boogalou and Homicide, the Sinners, really just decimate the Knights. The only important thing was the post match attack on HC Loc, which will eventually give rise to one of ROH’s more prominent tag teams, the Carnage Crew. But the match is basically a squash that goes on way too long, and the only excitement comes from a Tope Con Hilo and a rubber chicken. Yeah. Sinners are DQd by Loc, a former ECW guy, and then they attack him, etc., etc.

Rating: 1/10

Ultimate Ariel Elimination Match – Joel Maximo vs. Jose Maximo vs. Amazing Red vs. Quiet Storm vs. Chris Divine vs. Brian XL

Wow, this sounds exciting, right? It’s, well, it’s a big old spot fest, and it’s kind of poor. First off, it’s a weird as hell format – the guys are like, on two teams of three men, but they can all eliminate each other, and they’re tagging in, and I’m just confused. It’s a 15 minute contest of six guys flying around like crazy and really it’s never very entertaining. I’m all for big spots, but when the match consists of nothing but, and with a bunch of no names (no names in indy terms, that is), well…it’s not good. For those interested, Mikey Whipwreck is the ref, the Maximos and Red are a team, Divine and Storm are a team, and Brian XL is everyone’s bitch. This whole match is basically set up for Special K, and in and of itself, it’s the sort of thing that tries to be good, but isn’t, because they forget that while big spots are good, you need to connect them.

Rating: 2/10

Michael Shane & Oz vs Spanky & Ikaika Loa

So basically this is a tale of two cities. Shane and Spanky are really good. Oz and Loa aren’t. The story is that the winner of the fall gets a contract. When Spanky and Shane wrestle each other, which fortunately is frequently, this is a nice match – when Oz and Loa get in there, it slows down. Loa isn’t half bad, actually, but Oz is pretty bad. It’s a nice tag match all in all with solid performances, and some good bits, but the presence of Oz and Loa bring down the efforts of Shane and Spanky to balance this out as solidly average.

Rating: 5/10

IWA Intercontinental Title – Eddie Guerrero vs Spanky

Okay, see, now the show gets good. This is the match everyone came to see. The IWA IC title comes on loan from a Puerto Rican promotion and is basically a rip off from the WWE IC title, belt and all. It’s very back and forth, Eddie taking control early, Crazy gets it back, then to Eddie, then to Crazy. It goes to the floor and this is where it gets hot, as Eddie hits a brainbuster on the floor and a slingshot somersault in the ring. Crazy gets him with a dropkick right to the back of the head, and an Asai moonsault. Some more hot stuff from Eddie, a backbreaker, suplexes, and then he goes to the top, Crazy gets out of the way, and rolls him up for a pretty shocking win. It’s a big deal to win the title, I guess, and he gets a lot of congratulations all around. It was a pretty good match but surprisingly short and abruptly ended, but it’s understandable considering that they wanted to showcase the main event more. A great match, just short and with a bit of a stunted finish.

Rating: 7/10

American Dragon vs Low Ki vs Christopher Daniels

This is a very quick, very exciting match with lots of big moves, but they balance it out with great chain and mat wrestling. It makes for an excellent product. I’m not gonna call every move they hit in 20 minutes here. It’s basically a stalemate to begin with and you get plenty of the “hit some moves, then stare at each other” in the early on. Daniels is ROH’s first legit heel since he refused the handshake and everyone is very angry with him over this, excepting Steve Corino, our color commentator, who’s in love with the guy. There’s a fun spot where Ki and Dragon just kick the shit out of Daniels, and they look pretty stiff. There’s a lot of big, unique moves “borrowed” from Japan and Mexico, which they all hit with precision, and that’s impressive, that they hit the vast majority of their stuff without any mistakes. The finish comes with Dragon holding Daniels in the Cattle Mutilation, which Low Ki breaks up with a Phoenix splash, then a Ki Krusher on Daniels for the win. After the match they all cut a little promo and Dragon is basically angry that he lost without being pinned, while Daniels is angry that he got teamed up on (and he does a lot), so they all agree to a Round Robin Challenge for the next show. This is a very exciting match with lots of neat spots, big moves, and precise execution. It flows very smoothly, and there’s not a lot of downtime, which makes this overall an exciting, fast paced, intelligent main event.

Rating: 9/10

Overall, this whole show is up and down. There is some really poor stuff, mostly in the early on, there’s a little bit of average stuff, but they finish up with two top notch matches, so it’s alright. The show balances out really well to the point where you can’t call it, as a final product, great, but the excellent main event and the IWA IC Championship contest even out the crappy earlier matches and overall produce a good show.

Final Rating: 7/10

 

[jmt225]

Great thread, Harthan. I have a good amount of ROH DVDs myself. I haven't watched one in God knows how long, but they're all so memorable that I'm sure I won't have a problem remembering most matches from the DVDs I review.

So, to start off, I'm going to go with the very first ROH DVD I ever bought, Death Before Dishonor.

I've been a HUGE fan of Raven since I was in middle school, and when I found out he had some great matches with this guy named CM Punk in ROH and MLW, I immediately bought some DVDs from both companies and Death Before Dishonor turned out to be my very first Ring of Honor experience. And what a hell of a one it was.

Right from the start the show was different. There was this 'faction' called Special K who came out and through a rave. I was just sitting there thinking, "What the fuck is this?" And then it got even more nuts when Christopher Street Connection came out, and if you ever seen those guys, then you know why.

But anyway... the first match on the show was Low-Ki vs. Deranged. Now, this was my very first time seeing Low-Ki, but man oh man did this motherfucker leave an impression on me. This guy beat the living hell out of Deranged, who looked like a 12-year-old, by the way. To this day I don't think I've seen someone take a worse beating in a wrestling ring that didn't involve 'weapons' and what not. Ki's kicks and chops were just so fucking loud and brutal, and he was doing them to someone who looked like he weighed 90 pounds soaking wet. I legitimately felt bad for Deranged, but at the same time... I instantly became a fan of Low-Ki. He was just a bad motherfucker, and you couldn't help but to respect him.

The next few matches were forgettable, so I won't mention them. I'll just fast forward to the greatness that was BJ Whitmer vs. Dan Maff vs. Homicide vs. Colt Cabana in a Four Corner Survival Match to win the Number One Contender's Trophy. Tremendous, tremendous match and I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it at this point in my life when I first watched this DVD. It was my first time seeing any of these guys wrestle, and what a fucking treat it was. Homicide completely stole the show with simply his finisher the Cop Killer, and also with his version of the Topé con Hilo, which was something I had never seen up to that point, so I was blown away by it. Plus, I always loved New Jack and it was like seeing someone exactly like him, but yet could actually wrestle. Dan Maff was also very impressive, as it was unique seeing someone his size pull off the shit he could pull off. Colt Cabana was Cabana's silly self and I became a fan instantly, but he was also a great wrestler with an AWESOME Springboard Moonsault. And BJ Whitmer was just a man's man, who fought to the death. All in all it was just a great, fun match with crazy spots all over the place. It was a great way to be introduced to four guys who would eventually become favorites of mine in the sport (it's a shame what happened with Maff).

I must admit that I'm a huge fan of Jeff Hardy, so him being on the card played a huge role in me purchasing this DVD as well. He had a triple threat match against Krazy K & Joey Matthews and it was something else. I mean, quality wise it wasn't great, but the fans made the match entertaining from start to finish with their hatred for Jeff. At first, as a fan of his, it was kind of awkward, but then Jeff handled it so well and the crowd just wouldn't let up that became really fun to witness.

The Dog Collar match between CM Punk and Raven is one of my all time favorite matches. It has everything you could ever want in a professional wrestling match. It starts off with Punk cutting an AMAZING heel promo on Raven and the crowd, which gets him all kinds of heat. Raven comes out, and then him and Punk proceed to have an incredible, bloody, brutal match that ends up going all over the arena. And the finish with Tommy Dreamer coming to save the day.... just awesome. The crowd exploded, and so did I because I did not know he was there (Danny Doring also interfered in this one). And then, on top of that... Raven ties Punk up, and forces him to drink beer, after Punk's brilliant promo at the beginning match where he bragged about alcohol never touching his lips. It was all just classic, genius stuff and I loved every second of it. I credit this match and this match alone for becoming as big of fan as I did of Ring of Honor.

AJ Styles & Amazing Red vs. The Briscoes was my first Briscoes experience (I'd already seen Styles and Red perform in TNA prior to this), and it was good. Nowhere near as good as their match from Night of Champions and The Epic Encounter that I would see later on, but it was still a decent match. It was hard though for them to follow the epicness that was Punk/Raven.

And to be honest, so was the main event in Samoa Joe vs. Paul London. I had already known London at this point due to his run in WWE, but this was my first time seeing Samoa Joe, who was the ROH champion at the time. And this match wasn't just another title defense for Joe, but it was also London's last match before joining WWE, so it was a special night/match for both individuals. However, it wasn't as good of match as you'd expect. I think both wrestlers emotions got the best of them, and the match didn't live up to the hype. But it didn't matter; once it was done there was a beautiful send off for London, and the crowd was so into it, that you couldn't help but to be as well.

All in all, it was truly a great, great show, and remains one of my favorite ROH shows to this day. Yeah... there's sentimental value to it for me, but I really believe it's one of the best shows from ROH from that era, and I highly recommend anyone getting into ROH to check it out.

 

[OmegaDriver]

Cool thread dude

So I have some ROH dvd's but I'm gunna go in a different direction and review an indy promotion.

PWG. I absolutely love this promotion. In my opinion it is the abosolute best indy promotion in the United States. With that being said, I had a hard time finding a dvd to review so I decided to just start with the first ever PWG dvd I ever got, Threemendous.
I had seen PWG before but I was too into it becuase all I saw were youtube videos of comedy matches with Top Gun Talwar and Hook Bomberry, etc. And Tna guys wrestling. So I thought it was lame until a friend recomemended I check out their stuff more, and needless to say I fell in love lol.
And Threemendous was the first dvd I ever bought. It took place on July 16 2006 and it was PWG's third anniversary show.
Let's go throught the matches:

1.Disco Machine vs. Excalibur -winner claims the title of top PWG dvd commentator.
The match itself was nothing special. A little bit of back and fourth, Excalibur was pretty funny, and Disco Machine ended up winning with his Chokeslam Backbreaker. Again, nothing special.
4/10

2.Nemesis vs. Ronin
Pretty solid match. Ronin basically squashed Nemesis the entire time, hit a couple of his signature moves and got the win with death Valley Driver.
6/10

3.Colt Cabana vs. Top Gun Talwar
Classic comedy match. Some funny stuff. Pretty entertaining.
Cabana wins with a Reverse Bear Hug.
6/10
After the match the PWG champion Joey Ryan comes out and kicks the Ref out of the run beats down Top Gun with two piledrivers on a chair. The crowd chants "FUCK YOU JOEY!" the entire time.

4. The Dynasty (Scott Lost, Chris Bosh, and Scorpio Sky w/ Jade Chung) vs. Kevin Steen, Human Tornado, and Davey Richards w/Candice LaRae
Here comes the good stuff!
FUCKING BRILLIANT MATCH.
Six great wrestlers doing what they do best.
Sky gets involved with the crowd alot and threatens to beat people up, etc.
Chris Bosh is hilarious as usual. Scott Lost wrestles the shit out of Davey Richards throughout the match, great stuff. Kevin Steen is ok in the match. Human Tornado puts on some decent stuff too. Fantasic wrestling throughout the entire match, even a little bit of comedy here and there.
Worth the price of the dvd alone. Scorpio Sky gets the pin on Tornado with The Blackout DDT.
9/10

5.Tj Perkins vs. Roderick Strong
Incredible techinical wrestling display. Great match. Strong gets the win after the Death By Roderick, Sick Kick, Tiger Driver and the Strong Hold.
8/10

6.Cape Fear (El Generico and Quicksilver) vs. Kings Of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli)
Good solid match. Everyone involved puts on a great performance.
Hero and Claudio get the win with a powerbomb/michinoku driver II combo.
7/10

7. PWG Championship- Joey Ryan vs. B-boy (Steel Cage Match)
I'm not a fan of either of these guys, but I must say that they put on an excellent match. It was just the right ammount of hardcore and actual wrestling that made it watchable and entertaining. A couple of really good spots by B-boy and some crazy spots by Human Tornado (who did a run-in) and some run-ins by the Dynasty for Ryan.
Joey Ryan gets the win after pouring some chloroform on a rag and putting B-boy to sleep.
8/10

Some funny dvd extra's featuring El Generico and Colt Cabana.

Over all, a great show, at least 7 and a half/10

I recomemend it to everyone who likes PWG.

Thank you

 

[OmegaDriver]

Cool thread dude

So I have some ROH dvd's but I'm gunna go in a different direction and review an indy promotion.

PWG. I absolutely love this promotion. In my opinion it is the abosolute best indy promotion in the United States. With that being said, I had a hard time finding a dvd to review so I decided to just start with the first ever PWG dvd I ever got, Threemendous.
I had seen PWG before but I was too into it becuase all I saw were youtube videos of comedy matches with Top Gun Talwar and Hook Bomberry, etc. And Tna guys wrestling. So I thought it was lame until a friend recomemended I check out their stuff more, and needless to say I fell in love lol.
And Threemendous was the first dvd I ever bought. It took place on July 16 2006 and it was PWG's third anniversary show.
Let's go throught the matches:

1.Disco Machine vs. Excalibur -winner claims the title of top PWG dvd commentator.
The match itself was nothing special. A little bit of back and fourth, Excalibur was pretty funny, and Disco Machine ended up winning with his Chokeslam Backbreaker. Again, nothing special.
4/10

2.Nemesis vs. Ronin
Pretty solid match. Ronin basically squashed Nemesis the entire time, hit a couple of his signature moves and got the win with death Valley Driver.
6/10

3.Colt Cabana vs. Top Gun Talwar
Classic comedy match. Some funny stuff. Pretty entertaining.
Cabana wins with a Reverse Bear Hug.
6/10
After the match the PWG champion Joey Ryan comes out and kicks the Ref out of the run beats down Top Gun with two piledrivers on a chair. The crowd chants "FUCK YOU JOEY!" the entire time.

4. The Dynasty (Scott Lost, Chris Bosh, and Scorpio Sky w/ Jade Chung) vs. Kevin Steen, Human Tornado, and Davey Richards w/Candice LaRae
Here comes the good stuff!
FUCKING BRILLIANT MATCH.
Six great wrestlers doing what they do best.
Sky gets involved with the crowd alot and threatens to beat people up, etc.
Chris Bosh is hilarious as usual. Scott Lost wrestles the shit out of Davey Richards throughout the match, great stuff. Kevin Steen is ok in the match. Human Tornado puts on some decent stuff too. Fantasic wrestling throughout the entire match, even a little bit of comedy here and there.
Worth the price of the dvd alone. Scorpio Sky gets the pin on Tornado with The Blackout DDT.
9/10

5.Tj Perkins vs. Roderick Strong
Incredible techinical wrestling display. Great match. Strong gets the win after the Death By Roderick, Sick Kick, Tiger Driver and the Strong Hold.
8/10

6.Cape Fear (El Generico and Quicksilver) vs. Kings Of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli)
Good solid match. Everyone involved puts on a great performance.
Hero and Claudio get the win with a powerbomb/michinoku driver II combo.
7/10

7. PWG Championship- Joey Ryan vs. B-boy (Steel Cage Match)
I'm not a fan of either of these guys, but I must say that they put on an excellent match. It was just the right ammount of hardcore and actual wrestling that made it watchable and entertaining. A couple of really good spots by B-boy and some crazy spots by Human Tornado (who did a run-in) and some run-ins by the Dynasty for Ryan.
Joey Ryan gets the win after pouring some chloroform on a rag and putting B-boy to sleep.
8/10

Some funny dvd extra's featuring El Generico and Colt Cabana.

Over all, a great show, at least 7 and a half/10

I recomemend it to everyone who likes PWG.

Thank you

 

[RawIsRamsey]

Some funny dvd extra's featuring El Generico and Colt Cabana.

Was that all the gay stuff? Where they were throwing money at Super Dragon reading, then in the end are turned off by a naked chick (I wanna say it was Daizee Haze, but I could be wrong). If so...the DVD is worth it for that alone.

If anything, I fully recommend this year's King Of Trios tournament from CHIKARA. From the awesomeness that was Team Uppercut (Claudio, Danielson, and DAVE FUCKING TAYLOR) to seeing the legendary Johnny Saint (who even busts out the LADY IN THE LAKE), the right guys going over (F.I.S.T. needed it) to the awesome 4-way that started night 2 (Austin Aries vs. Fire Ant vs. Matt Jackson vs. Player Dos), this show has it all (even Glacier!). The comedy stuff was actually not ridiculous (like, say, Los Ice Creams....ugh) and the wrestling was off the charts (Team Uppercut vs. Masters Of 1000 Holds has to be seen to be believed).