ROH in Liverpool Night 1

Ring of Honor returned to the UK this weekend with a pair of phenomenal shows from the Liverpool Olympia. After last year's sold out shows in Liverpool and Broxbourne (which included 2 match of the year candidates), ROH returned to the UK to not only bring to a close it's 5th Anniversary Festival, but also to give the fans a real treat with the final two matches from ROH legend Samoa Joe.

With Takeshi Morishima capturing the belt and returning to Japan to defend it against Kenta in Pro Wrestling NOAH, this meant some shuffling of the advertised line-up was in order. Therefore, the show started with, what until a week or two before, was supposed to be one of the main events as former ROH champion Homicide took on Davey Richards in a special challenge match. Despite being humbled by the big man from Japan, Homicide was hugely over with the UK faithful and the fact he was accompanied by Julius Smokes (making his UK debut) only made the fan reaction even louder. Even if he hadn't turned heel and joined forces with Roderick Strong in the No Remorse Corps, Davey Richards would have been far from a fan favourite in this one, but fortunately his new cocky heel demeanour gave the fans a real good vs. evil encounter with the fans really getting on the case of Richards. As a monotone chant of 'Davey, Davey' filled the Olympia the two men in the ring could only look around in bemusement at the fans reaction to Richards - something must be working if he is getting this amount of heat already. As far as the match itself was concerned, it was fine for what it was, but Richards looked especially awkward at times nearly blowing several spots, however Homicide picked up the clean win in relatively quick fashion with a cop killer as he got ready for his match Joe the following night.

Next up was a SHIMMER showcase match featuring Allison Danger and Sara Del Ray. After a particularly heated opener, the fans weren't quite sure what to make of these 2 women but, despite a few disparaging comments from a few fans at the beginning, these two won the fans over with some great athletic wrestling. Del Ray looked especially impressive, kicking Danger around the ring with some vicious boots to the chest. Not to mention an impressive feat of strength where she lifted Danger up from the mat and into a reverse suplex for the pin.

Following this was tag team action featuring the Jimmys (Rave and Jacobs) taking on BJ Whitmer and UK favourite, Colt Cabana. With all 4 men being involved in more heated matches the following night, this match was probably the only real filler of the whole weekend, but it was still a lot of fun. Rave and Jacobs attacked Cabana and Whitmer before the bell, throwing them to the outside and brawling on the floor. Rave and Whitmer brawled up the stairs towards the balcony section and BJ teased throwing Jimmy off the stairs while Rave and Jacobs continued to brawl around the ring. Eventually the match would return to the ring and Team Jimmy would pick up the win with a contra code on BJ Whitmer. A decent match where everyone worked hard, but all 4 men would be in much better matches the next night.

It was then time for the UK debut of Delirious as he took on Matt Sydal in a 2/3 falls match. This feud has been simmering nicely in ROH with these two having some really strong matches towards the end of last year. However because this has not boiled down into a blood feud just yet, it was good to see a match-up based on good old-fashioned athletic competition and so made for a really great contest. I've never quite got the hype about Delirious, however from watching him this weekend I think I am beginning to understand. Everything he does is so well thought out and his 'gibberish' talking is balanced perfectly to include just enough real words to make you make sense of what he is saying. He and Sydal also work so well in the ring together and with Sydal debuting a new, cocky heel attitude, it made for a really fun match, which could well get lost in amongst the other great matches of this weekend. With Delirious claiming he would take the match 2 straight falls, Sydal would win the first with a low blow, before Delirious could tie it up at 1-1 by making Sydal tap to the Cobra Stretch. With Sydal beginning to heel it by pulling the strands off Delirious' mask this looked it could be the moment when Sydal went fully fledged heel, however he reigned it in and, despite winning the match with a ref bump into the ropes, hit Delirious with flux capacitor off the top rope to get the pin and win the match. Again, it was nice to see Sydal working as a heel without having to resort to a blood soaked heel turn to get that over. ROH fans are so anti-ref bumps and cheating that even a fan favourite like Sydal can get over as a heel just by going against the top babyfaces and bending the rules to his advantage. (One interesting this to note during this match was that Sydal came out carrying his Enter The Brave Gate title from Dragongate, and at some point in the journey over to the UK he managed to break it and so bits of the front of the belt kept falling off. Lets hope he isn't in too much trouble in Japan for breaking their title belt!!)

This led us to intermission and we were welcomed back by British female worker Jetta and Jezebel who challenged Sara Del Ray and Allison Danger to a match the following night. As I said earlier, the UK fans were unsure of what to make of the SHIMMER girls earlier in the night, however with these two British girls heeling it up, they were in much more familiar water and were quite willing to give the girls plenty of grief.

The theme of British talent continued from here as UK high-flyer PAC took on FIP champ Roderick Strong. This was a lot of fans first exposure to PAC and by god did he deliver. Roderick is really coming into his role as the bullying heel since he broke off from tagging with Austin Aries. The story of the match was the bullying champ Strong taking on the plucky young up-and-comer PAC and it made for a great dynamic for the match Roddy is so great at working with lighter high flyers (see his match in FIP with Jack Evans) and so he was able to throw PAC around as well as work as a springboard for PAC's more athletic moves, some of which were just breath-taking! The highlight of which had to be a sick corkscrew shooting star press on to Roddy on the floor. However, unlike other British highfliers like Spud and Johnny Storm (who have also been give a chance in ROH) PAC works much more of an ROH style with some stiff offence worked into his arsenal and as such he was able to build a really fantastic match with Roddy and not just rely on a few crazy dives to get him over. By the time Roddy hit him with the Gibson driver for the pin, Pac was black and blue from the beating he had received, however his performance was enough to earn a 'Bring back PAC' chant from the UK fans. Now this may have seemed like a partisan crowd giving one of their own the thumbs up, but this was much more than just the Brits sticking up for one of their own. This was PAC winning over one of the most fickle wrestling crowds in the world and (hopefully) earning him more ROH bookings, because he sure as hell deserves it!

After a solid, but unspectacular opening half, the show really started kicking into high gear at this point as newly crowned ROH tag champs, the Briscoes, took on Shingo and Doi from the Dragon Gate promotion. The Briscoes had a classic against Roderick Strong and Austin Aries last year that I rated as my match of the year, and if such a thing is possible, I think they surpassed that here. In a simply outstanding tag team contest, Shingo and Doi defeated the Briscoes after 20+ minutes of some of the most high impact athletic wrestling I have ever seen. These guys just tore the roof off the Olympia with some jaw dropping double teams move as well as Mark Briscoe hitting a shooting star press off the top turnbuckle after running the ropes a la Kurt Angle which was just staggering. The shock of the title change after a 1-week reign for the Briscoes helped make a great match even more spectacular as no one in the crowd believed they would lose the belts so soon. However lose them they did and this open up a whole new chapter for the tag division. After the match, Jay got on the mic and it looked like we might be seeing a break up angle as he reminded his brother about their poor record of losing tag titles (bringing up their short run as NOAH Jr tag champs from last year). But instead of the break-up it was time for the brothers to 'Man Up' and so for one night only on Sunday, it would be Jay vs. Mark to try and get the Briscoe Brothers back to winning ways.

This left only one match to finish the show as ROH legend Samoa Joe (in his penultimate ROH match) went up against the UK's favourite son, Nigel McGuinness. If last year's Liverpool show was all about making McGuinness a star, tonight's show was about making him a superstar, as Nigel went toe-to-toe with Joe and put on a fantastic match. Despite both men being such crowd favourites, the match turned on one moment of pure emotional drama as Joe hit Nigel with a muscle buster on to the ring apron and it looked like Nigel was out of the match. As Joe got on the mic and explained to the crowd the dangers of being a pro-wrestler, the referees carried out Nigel, however Joe would not let him leave without a handshake. At this point Joe went full-on heel calling Nigel a 'pussy' for not shaking his hand and the crowd turned on Joe for his actions. Holding his head and neck, Nigel limped to the ring to shake shoes hand but slapped Joe full in the face as the crowd erupted. Joe unloaded all his offence on Nigel, including a vicious lariat and a muscle buster, however Nigel continued to kick out. Ultimately Joe would get Nigel in the choke for the win, however Nigel was the real winner in this match. After the victory Joe got on the mic and put over ROH and Nigel as being one of the guys who could carry the torch when he leaves. As the crowd chanted for Joe, Nigel and ROH, the two left together and a fantastic night of wrestling drew to a close.

Overall verdict: A-
"A much stronger show top to bottom than Unified with the top 4 matches all being very good to excellent. The tag match and main event were off the charts with great work and phenomenal drama made even more intense by a red-hot crowd!"