King Steventon

Bryan Danielson vs Rocky Romero – PWG “Battle Of Los Angeles 2005”

This match reminded me of a match I would expect to see Danielson work in ROH 2002-2003. Most of it is on the mat with a few flashes of stand-up striking. It had a quasi-shoot style feel to it as the match revolved around both men working the mat, struggling for holds, working for counters, fighting to get submissions locked in, and so on. It was a very methodical. The stand-up striking was stiff, as you’d expect, with both men throwing wild kicks and chops.
Romero is a pretty shitty wrestler, he has no personality and is often another indy-aping-puro cliché. The type of wrestler who uses “strong style” with zero idea what it actually means. I have seen him do mat-based sections in matches with Joe, the Briscoes and several Japanese workers and it is usually sucky. Yet here, Danielson is able to control the match and carry the mat sections, essentially working around Romero and guiding him through sequences, with good results. Romero’s kicks still looked weak for a dude who is meant to be a “badass kicker”, but otherwise he looked very competent here.

Very good match.

__________________

KenTheKiller

I too dislike Romero.. a lot.

Glad Bryan got a decent match out of him though.

__________________

King Steventon

Bryan Danielson & Low Ki vs Samoa Joe & Jushin Liger – ROH “Weekend Of Thunder: Night 2”

More or less the same deal as the Danielson/Liger singles, only not as good. Liger runs through his stuff and gets the crowd into it whilest the ROH boys actually work. At times it felt like a game of one-upmanship with the three guys trying to steal the show. But still, I dunno… I’ve seen this praised in every corner of the internet and it really didn’t do much for me. Low Ki and Danielson were great heels here, especially Ki, who was the best guy in the match, but I honestly wasn’t into it when I watched it. Certainly not a bad match, no, not at all. It was decent. And that is that.

__________________

King Steventon

Bryan Danielson vs Chris Hero – PWG “Card Subject To Change”
This started off as a fun, light-hearted affair with lots of Hero ANTICS~ and Dragon mocking him. Some seriously funny spots early on, like Danielson charging into the ring then falling out the other side…. You have to see it to get it >_>. Danielson wearing himself out from rope running was also amusing. In between the comedy they did some very nice catch wrestling with lots of clever reversals and stuff.

Halfway through Dragon took a spill and got his leg caught, which leads into Hero working it over for a while. They eventually started laying it in with stiff chops, and Hero smartly went back to the leg to regain control. I liked Hero doing stuff like using his mafia kick to the leg and even slapping it a bit, you don’t see that sort of stuff a lot. Also thought the finish was good too with Hero trying and failing to use Danielson’s move against him. AEROPLANE SPIN, BITCHES.

The transition from fun comedy to seriousness and aggression was really well done, and it was well focused with the legwork. I think I’ve liked every match these two guys have had, and this certainly wasn’t the best, but it was still a damn good one and a hell of a lot of fun.

__________________

Marketh.

Sounds pretty good, I might try to find it. What do you think was the best match with these two? The one at Hell Freezes Over?

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

King Steventon

I like Hell Freezes Over, but their best is their TPI '05 match. I have the Card Subject To Change match, but it's in pretty average quality.

__________________

Capone

Their Hell Freezes over match bored the shit and the Undeniable match was just okay imo but I been thinking about their BOLA 2008 match. Heard great shit about it but allot of it overrated sometimes....what is your opinion about the match Steve?

__________________

King Steventon

I thought it was really good, but not great. It was mostly Hero working over Danielson's leg with lots of creative and innovative holds and lots of stiff shots being layed out. I say check it out.

The Hell Freezes Over match was more about atmoshere as much as anything that happened in the ring, so I can see why people didn't like it as much.

Bryan Danielson vs Austin Aries (Best Of 3 Series) – ROH “Glory By Honor VI”

This was the final match in the best of 3 series between the two aces of the company.

The match started with a lot standard chain wrestling stuff, nothing great or above what you would expect. They kept the tired “we are equal!” stuff to a minimum, which I was thankful for. Danielson controls a lot of the match early on, which is good because Danielson is really good at not falling into the routine of running through trademark moves, and there are some nice touches like one spot where he can’t lock in the surfboard so instead rakes the face of Aries over and over.
My only complaint about the match is that a lot of it felt like they were just filling time until the big finishing stretch. That said, the finishing stretch was pretty damn great. There’s one really epic moment where Danielson nips up after a dropkick and fires up, only for Aries to nip up immediately after. All of the submission nearfalls were also really well done and there were some great counters.

Not sure this is their best match, but pretty much all the Danielson/Aries matches are quality, and this was a really well done peer vs peer match and a perfect end to the series.

__________________

horrorfan_1986

Aries vs Dragon was the reason why I bought Night 1 over Night 2. It was a solid match, not their best, but not their worst. From their best of 3 series, I probably preferred their second match due to Dragon's comedy though.

__________________

King Steventon

What show was that from? I think I've only seen the third of the series.

__________________