Marketh.

The Good


Tag Teams

Kevin Steen & El Generico - These two were some of the most over acts of the year, whether they be a tag team or split. You were almost guaranteed a lively crowd when they were in the ring. You've got the amazingly comical, fun, loveable El Generico and the cocky, tough, joking Steen who is always hunting for ROH gold. Together they had one of the most well-booked angles of the year with their quest to gain the tag titles. After the Ladder War, a fair share of fans were dissapointed they didn't win the championships and this was capitalized on by dragging out their hunt to the point where the fans were begging for them to win. Some pointless, short title reigns occurred, including The Briscoes winning them again for seemingly no reason and the Age of the Fall treated the belts like their second priority (neither would even bring their belt out to the ring in a non-tag match. On Up For Grabs, they put on a fantastic performance as the whole show focused on them. They won the first match of the tag title tournament, but with Nigel and Steen in a rivalry, the bitter Nigel took out Steen's knee with a chair and Generico's arm was already bad from being furiously worked on. Both of them struggled to make it through their next match, as Pearce and Hero took advantage of their injuries and made them worse. Before they went to the ring for the final match, Steen put on a great, intense, passionate promo about how they'll do everything they can to win the belts, injuries and all. This would be an even harder challenge, as their opponents, the AOTF, had two very easy matches in order to get to the final: a squash with Delirious/Pelle and a DQ win against Team Work. They attacked Generico before the match started and took him out by practically breaking his arm, leaving Steen to fend for himself. He held his own but it was all doom and gloom until Generico made it back to a huge reception from the crowd and he and Steen attempted the Package Piledriver/Brainbuster combo on Jacobs, but Tyler Black got the sudden rollup/tights for the win, snatching the dream away at the last second. Trash then filled the ring and it was a brilliant heat-getting moment for AOTF and sympathy for Steenerico. A couple months later, at Driven 2008, Steenerico would finally get a proper title shot with all men fresh and 100%. This may have had the loudest crowd of the year, as they sang Ole! to rally behind Generico to get the hot tag, then when Steen & Generico finally accomplished their goal and won the championships, the fans were absolutely ecstatic and joined in the celebrations. It was possibly the best moment of 2008. If Steenerico ended their year there, it would've been perfect. Unfortunately, their title reign wasn't exactly eventful afterwards. Despite supposedly being the top team, The Briscoes were still booked as the best. They won dream matches against stars (LAX and Kensuke Office), while Steenerico didn't even get that. They beat The Briscoes twice, but there wasn't much variety in opponents for a tag division that was getting smaller. They weren't even getting booked on every show. At least, by the final doubleshot of 2008, a new team in the form of the American Wolves arrived and they might be their saving grace.

Steenerico's Best Matches:
vs Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino (Dragon Gate Challenge II)
vs BxB Hulk & SHINGO (Supercard of Honor III)
vs Nigel McGuinness & Claudio Castagnoli (Tag Wars 2008)
vs Davey Richards & Rocky Romero (A New Level)
vs Nigel McGuinness & Go Shiozaki (Up For Grabs)
vs Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black (Up For Grabs)
vs Motor City Machine Guns (Death Before Dishonor VI)
vs Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black (Driven 2008)
vs Chris Hero & Davey Richards vs LAX vs Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black (Return of the 187)
vs The Briscoes (Bound By Hate)

Team Work - The dream team of ROH's "ace" and the "best in the world" managed to put on several novelty matches and were quite the entertaining duo throughout the year. Aries and Danielson were originally meant to be a one-time team to enter a fourway match for the tag titles, but the fans were so impressed with their teamwork (hence the name) that I suppose Gabe figured some great matches could come out of them. After that, they decided to stick together and help each other. Dragon helped Aries out in his feud with AOTF and Aries helped Dragon to try to accomplish his goal of being ROH's first Triple Crown champion, although Aries wasn't a great partner since he'd rather get the team DQ'd to hurt Jimmy. They were out of the tag team division and were never a permanent team but they were still able to put on some great matches and that's why I think they count as a great part of the year. If it wasn't for Aries eventually turning heel, I'd have liked to see these two go on to win the titles from whomever beats Steenerico

Team Work's Best Matches:
vs Nigel McGuinness & Go Shiozaki (Double Feature Night 2)
vs Roderick Strong & Davey Richards (Up For Grabs)
vs Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black (Respect Is Earned II)
vs Motor City Machine Guns (Fueling the Fire)
vs Nigel McGuinness & Claudio Castagnoli (Night of the Butcher II)

Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black - I'm pretty mixed here. On the one hand, they had some great matches, played a big part in Steenerico's quest for the belts and were very good heat-getters. On the other, they had two bad/meh title reigns that will probably end up forgotten. They didn't even seem to care too much about the belts unless they had them; for example, when they lost the belts the first time, Jimmy said they were going to do everything it takes to get their power back. Then they pretty much just forgot about the titles until they won them the next time. Not to mention the circumstances surrounding their reigns. The first time they lost, they only had one defence and suffered a rollup pin. The team that won, the NRC, ended up losing to the already-injured Briscoes who then forfeited the belts, leading to the tournament in which the AOTF won them again. Now I don't see why they couldn't have just had a nice, lengthy run instead of having 3 forgettable runs. As for their positives, they were definitely a big part of the year as a team, in which they had a lot of high profile matches and even managed to go over Team Work, two of the most over guys in the promotion. Aside from Nigel, as a team they were the biggest heels and they always had heat, especially at Up For Grabs when they had trash thrown at them. Jimmy is a great talker and is also a great character who is a natural heat-getter, but in a non-hardcore environment, he's pretty average. So it's good that Tyler can make up for that aspect, especially when he's nothing special on the mic and he was the opposite of the most hated man in ROH.

AOTF's Best Matches:
vs The Briscoes vs BJ Whitmer & Brent Albright vs Jack Evans & Jigsaw (Proving Ground)
vs BxB Hulk & SHINGO (Dragon Gate Challenge II)
vs The Briscoes (Supercard of Honor III)
vs Motor City Machine Guns (Tag Wars 2008)
vs Kevin Steen & El Generico (Up For Grabs)
vs Team Work (Respect Is Earned II)
vs Kevin Steen & El Generico (Driven 2008)
vs Team Work (The French Connection)

American Wolves - Perhaps a bit of a surprising entry considering they only had two matches at all in 2008 and had only just formed, but when the tag division was getting noticeably smaller and was in need of a top heel team now that Jimmy and Tyler had split, Davey and Eddie Edwards were a great choice. These two had instant chemistry together and I can tell they'll soon be able to put on some great matches. On paper, they seem a bit mismatched. After all, the fans are a lot more familiar with Davey and he is a lot more over and higher up on the card, but I found myself instantly forgetting that once I saw them in their first match. They work like they're made for each other. I can see Davey going in and out of this team whenever he sees fit and still being a great singles and tag wrestler. They're both very intense and already have some cool double team moves. They've already been established quite well and made to look very strong after their first weekend, as they practically destroyed the top two face teams, The Briscoes and Steenerico. 2009 will be a big year for the Wolves, and if they don't take the tag belts, I would think Davey will almost definitely be in the main event scene.

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horrorfan_1986

Hmm...no Briscoes. Interesting.

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Marketh.

Lots of pointless AOTF brawls, lack of great matches, injuries, a useless title reign and still being booked on top. Add in the fact that by the end of 2007 I loved them, but by the end of last year I hated them. I can't think why I should put them in The Good.

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King Steventon

The Briscoes were a driving factor in GBH VII being horrible.

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horrorfan_1986

Well, only having one major tag team not in the Good is pretty good. I assume the other teams not in the Good section are just jobbers like the Vulture Squad.

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Marketh.

The Good


Feuds and Rivalries

Roderick Strong vs Erick Stevens - These two may have been treated like the midcarders they were for the second half of 2008, but before then whenever they were in the ring together, they were stars. They were always given the time they needed to put on a brutal and exciting match and these two always left the crowd happy, grateful for almost killing themselves. This feud was great because it was kept simple. Neither Strong nor Stevens are great on the mic, it's probably their weakest aspect, but they told the whole story in the ring. Every match the violence escalated, going from stiff forearms and chops, culminating in tables, ladders and chairs, all because one would want revenge on the other for winning the previous match. They simply wanted to kill each other because of the pain they caused. Their matches could have main evented any show because they were consistently great, I honestly can't think of a match they've had that went under ****. These are matches that need to be shown to fans wanting to get into ROH that like a good brawl.

Strong/Stevens' Best Matches:
FIP Redefined (I know, I know. But ROH still acknowledge the match happened and the FIP title still counted back then)
Supercard of Honor III
Fight Without Honor - Supercard of Honor III

I still think any of their matches are worth watching, though.


Nigel McGuinness vs Kevin Steen - While the official feud may be over, I'm sure the rivalry will last much longer. The clash of egos between these two was destined to be fun, and who didn't enjoy Steen mocking the Jawbreaker Lariat and kicking Nigel in the balls during his sexually suggestive entrance? The matches these two had were some of the most entertaining of the year, culminating in a MOTYC (at the time). After Nigel cheated twice in the first two matches to win, something Nigel surprisingly hadn't done very much in his title reign, everyone was behind Steen, who was showing that he could very well be a future main eventer. Their final match at Northern Navigation was Steen's best singles performance of his ROH career, as he practically broke his back in two of the sickest spots of the year, but fought on and sold the pain extremely well while the Canadian crowd went absolutely nuts for him. Unfortunately, in the end, Nigel proved he could beat Steen cleanly and solidified himself as a dominant champion, but not without helping to make Steen look like a million bucks.

Nigel/Steen's Best Matches:
Injustice
Return Engagement
Steen & El Generico vs Nigel & Go Shiozaki (Up For Grabs)
Northern Navigation
Nigel vs Steen vs El Generico vs Go Shiozaki (The French Connection)

Nigel McGuinness vs Bryan Danielson - While not necessarily an actual feud, more of a continuation of their long-lasting competitive rivalry, this was a big part of the year. Elements of their rivalry existed throughout almost the entire year, starting off in a big way with Nigel's heel turn. Instead of the epic moment where Nigel finally conquered Dragon by defeating him for the first time, we got a different side of him where he whined about his concussion and threatened to drop the title if Dragon targeted his head. It was at the end of the match that Nigel hit Dragon's injured eye and cheated to win, thus cementing himself as the top heel in ROH. Nigel would spend most of his title run taunting Dragon, calling himself the "Best Wrestler in the World" and mocking him in his matches. In interviews, he would call him a "clam-digging virgin". With a lack of matches between them and trips to Japan, Dragon didn't have many opportunities to fight back. So Dragon wanted another chance at the title, but Nigel made it a stipulation that he wouldn't be allowed until Dragon defeated those Nigel defended his title against on PPV. A few months later, Dragon had beaten Go Shiozaki, Claudio Castagnoli and Tyler Black, earning his shot. In a definite MOTYC, they had one of their best matches at Rising Above 2008, in which Nigel targeted Dragon's injured knee and interference from Claudio attributed to Nigel beating him. By proving he can defeat Dragon more than once, Nigel had asserted his dominance as champion.

Dragon/Nigel's Best Matches:
Sixth Year Anniversary
Dragon & Austin Aries vs Nigel & Go Shiozaki (Double Feature Night 2)
Nigel vs Dragon vs Claudio Castagnoli vs Tyler Black (Death Before Dishonor VI)
Dragon & Austin Aries vs Nigel & Claudio Castagnoli (Night of the Butcher II)
Rising Above 2008
Dragon & Jerry Lynn vs Nigel & Claudio Castagnoli (Wrestling at the Gateway)

Bryan Danielson vs Tyler Black - The rivalry that made Tyler Black. While Tyler's match with Nigel McGuinness gained him a lot of popularity and fans, that may have not happened had it not been for his first match with Dragon. By showing Gabe that he could put on a very good, long bout with the top guy and make himself look great, Gabe probably became confident in Tyler's ability and decided to let him main event a PPV. The interesting thing about the matches between these two was that every loss Tyler had, was a gain. His popularity grew and every match afterwards he came closer to beating the top man, even pinning him in a tag match at Respect Is Earned II. He still hasn't beaten Dragon, but has managed to wrestle to two draws against him. By the time Tyler defeats Dragon, it will likely be a much more special moment than if he won the first time.

Dragon/Tyler's Best Matches:
Southern Navigation
Dragon & Austin Aries vs Tyler & Jimmy Jacobs (Respect Is Earned II)
New Horizons
Dragon & Austin Aries vs Tyler & Jimmy Jacobs (The French Connection)

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rpd

Some great reading so far. But I have to ask, how much more good are you going to write about until you get to....
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....the bad.

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Marketh.

I'll do a kinda Miscellaneous Good thing, then it's onto the bad, which I'm actually looking forward to so I can rant.

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Marketh.

Added Dragon/Nigel and Dragon/Tyler for Good rivalries. Next up will be a random collection of things I thought deserve to come in the Good category.

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Capone

You forgot the constant goodness of Roderick Strong
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You make me a sad panda.

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