ROH Driven 2008 Review

DVD Bonus Matches

Grizzley Redwood vs. Chasyn Rance – ¾*
Just there to get Franklin’s new gimmick over. Crowd shit on it at first and then ate it up.

Daizee Haze vs. Madison Eagles – ½*
2 minutes. The ROH women’s division is the worst out of the “big 3.”

Rhett Titus vs. Josh Daniels - *1/4
And so concludes the worst bonus matches on ROH PPV history.

PPV

Austin Aries vs. Delirious - **3/4
Really good for 7 minutes. Pretty much a storyline advancer with Jacobs hurting his back before the main event here via murder death kill on Aries, but it was really, really strong.

Sara Del Rey vs. Jessie McKay – DUD
Squash.

Brent Albright & Erick Stevens vs. Adam Pearce & Eddie Edwards – ** 1/4
Again, really good, but really short. 6 minutes in fact. Fairly hot crowd so far as they were even hot for the the usually apathetic-drawing Stevens and Albright.

Chris Hero vs. Jerry Lynn – **3/4
More goodness. This is the first I’ve seen of Lynn in ROH (excluding the match in Houston) and I really forgot how good he is. The first word that comes to mind is professional. Hero lays the beatdown on old man Lynn before Jerry makes a nice comeback. Nothing you haven’t seen a million times, but it’s been used a million times for a reason and Lynn can pull it off better than most of those that have tried, even at 45 years old.

Bryan Danielson vs. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Go Shiozaki (Three Way Elimination Match) – ***1/4
MOTN so far. Claudio’s elimination is hilarious. After he’s gone, he literally just throws students in to each other and chunks them over his shoulder into the 2nd row with ease. The meat of the match is Danielson taking a beating, but he’s one of the best at that so this rules fairly hard.

Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. The Vulture Squad vs. The YRR vs. The Necro Butcher (Scramble Match) - **1/2
Short ans sweet spotfest. Noting to note really.

Nigel McGuinness vs. Roderick Strong (ROH World Title Match) - ***3/4
Wow. Great match as you’d come to expect from Nigel’s epic reign. Just Nigel beating Roderick to a pulp throughout with Strong refusing to fall in a title match again. Nigel’s really mastered the style that he uses. I’m gonna miss him. Strong comes oh so close as per with the guy, but once again Nigel is too strong and murders him with multiple offense for the pinfall. Not as good as Nigel’s defense against Claudio from the last PPV, but not far off.

Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico (World Tag Team Title Match) - ****1/2
Jimmy still has an injured back from the table spot earlier. Tyler is still pissed that Jimmy did such a selfish thing. Got a point tbh. Steenerico’s last shot at the belts. Generico plays the perfect face in peril here. You just feel he wants to make the tag more than anything. Generico does finally get the tag once the crowd gets behind him and becomes molten. Then it kicks into high gear. When the “worst” part of the match is El Generico taking a beating, you know the match is sweet. Monster nearfalls that the crowd buys non stop. The Swanton Bomb/Splash nearfall is one of the best in the company’s history. Total speed freak mode then erupts. Tons of emotion from the crowd and all four guys do a great job of playing off of it. Jacobs taking the pinfall makes sense with his injury, and Steenerico take the gold for the first time in ROH. Great stuff. I’d say it’s probably the 2nd best 2 on 2 tag match of the year. Too bad Steenerico’s reign never lived up to the chase.

Overall, one of their weakest PPV efforts at this point totally saved by the final 2 matches. The main event you should totally go out of your way for as it was truly a memorably moment in ROH history.