ROH Supercard of Honor V Review

From August 20, 2010.

With the 8th Anniversary Show being a less than stellar event for ROH in New York, it was evident that a return to New York needed to have a worthwhile card and that is exactly what Supercard of Honor V gave us.

Match 1: The Briscoes vs. Kenny King & Rhett Titus
Kicking off the show is the right match in The Briscoes taking on Austin Aries' team of Kenny King & Rhett Titus. Both King & Titus are trying to impress the entire ROH locker room and all of the ROH fans by defeating arguably the best tag team in ROH history, The Briscoes. King & Titus did their usual antics during the match such as their cocky dance moves after they land a move or counter one against The Briscoes. The Briscoes would have none of it as every step King & Titus took, they took a bigger one. A lot of typical high impact moves by The Briscoes and a lot of innovative offense by King & Titus make this one a fun opener. Nothing really to write home about but still a great performance by all. The Briscoes pick up the one to which both King & Titus argue after the match before hugging it out and raising their hands. An interesting way to set the animosity between their team but also a great way to boost their popularity. They're the future of ROH and this was definitely a step in the right direction.
Winners: The Briscoes
Rating: ***

Match 2: Erick Stevens vs. Grizzly Redwood
Time for the regular trash of an ROH show! It's time for The Embassy! This time, it's a special challenge match which the lovable Grizzly Redwood took on as he faced the underrated Erick Stevens in a one on one match. Stevens looked very dominant in the beginning as he even toyed with Redwood's size but he completely took him for granted. Grizzly fought back a lot and managed to pull off some crisp looking moves. However, Stevens strength and size became too much for Redwood as Stevens landed a beautiful Doctor Bomb on Redwood to pick up the victory. After, The Embassy began the post match beating upon Redwood until Balls Mahoney came out to make the save. A surprisingly decent match but nothing too good to check out. I have no interest in Balls Mahoney and I have no interest in The Embassy.
Winner: Erick Stevens
Rating: *1/2

Match 3: Sara Del Rey vs. Amazing Kong
Making her return to Ring of Honor while coming to an array of interesting chants is Amazing Kong! Coming out with The Kings of Wrestling is her opponent, Shimmer's Sara Del Rey! I'm not interested in woman's wrestling but this one was and is an exception. The whole time I was watching, it felt like I was watching two veterans of the ring compete and it was such a great performance. Both wrestlers were landing move I had never seen women execute and it just felt so very fresh and rewarding to see something like this. While it was short on time, they still definitely put on a terrific match. The finish came when Hero slid in his loaded elbow pad to Del Rey who slammed a huge Roaring Elbow to the face of Kong.
Winner: Sara Del Rey
Rating: ***1/4

Match 4: Eddie Edwards vs. Christopher Daniels
Just one night after making his heavily anticipated return to Ring of Honor, Christopher Daniels challenged Davey Richards' partner in Eddie Edwards. In what I thought to be the sleeper hit of the night, these two put on a great match that really did put both men over. I think a lot of people were disappointed in the fact that Davey was touring in Japan but Eddie stepped up to the plate here and put on an action packed wrestling match against a veteran like Daniels. One of the main points of this match was to put Eddie over big time while still having Daniels pick up the win and they accomplished just that by making Eddie look like a terrorizing beast. Step for step and hold for hold, Eddie got down with Daniels by punishing him throughout the match with innovative moves like locking in his Achilles Tendon Lock on the top rope and even paying tribute to his tag partner by diving through the middle rope to the outside. Wherever Daniels took Eddie, Eddie was there. From top to bottom, this was a very good match that kicked off with some nice chain wrestling but the only major problem I had with this was Daniels' lack of selling from Eddie's attacks on his leg. It didn't make much sense to me that Daniels so easily hit the BME right after Eddie was focusing his attack on Daniels' leg. Even still, this was a very enjoyable match and definitely the sleeper hit of the night. After the match, Daniels puts over Ring of Honor and Eddie Edwards, classy move there.
Winner: Christopher Daniels
Rating: ***3/4

Match 5: Austin Aries vs. Delirious
After Aries destroyed Delirious' throat on ROH on HDNet, Delirious sought after revenge against Aries in the big city. However, Aries sought after a truce as he tried to put the matter away by offering golden snack cakes to Delirious in an absolutely epic promo. Delirious didn't accept the snack cakes and attacked Aries, who was dressed in a suit, and the match begun. Throughout the entire match, Delirious beat the living hell out of Aries until both Rhett Titus & Kenny King came out to help Aries out. They then try to once again destroy the throat of Delirious but Daizee Haze stopped them from doing so. Aries then picked up Haze and called for his guys to spike her down on the mat. Delirious then picked up the ring bell and tried to take out all three guys but they got away as Kenny King fended off Delirious with a broom. I'm not sure if Delirious got the win or not but I'm just gonna go ahead and say he won via disqualification. This was a great segment that really boosts their feud. Very entertaining stuff here.
Winner: Delirious
Rating: n/a

Match 6: 34th Street Last Man Standing Death - Kevin Steen vs. Colt Cabana
In what is most definitely the best thing going on in professional wrestling today, Kevin Steen's feud with El Generico has made him challenge Generico's friend in Colt Cabana to a 34th Street Last Man Standing Death match. Ordinarily, I'm not very high on these types of matches because the count to 10 from the referee makes things so slow and completely kills the pace. But both of these guys busted their asses off so for me to say something like that would be extremely disrespectful. What I really loved about this match was that both competitors displayed their hatred for each other magnificently and it really made you believe that they hated each other to the max. There were several brutal spots such as Steen ramming Cabana's head onto a ladder and the use of thumbtacks that just made me cringe in so many ways. The ending came when Steve Corino came out and used his son to dress up as El Generico to which Steen took advantage of and used a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and locked in a crossface with him. A sickening match filled with all sorts of violence while all making sense at the same time. Again, I hate to say it but it was really slow at times but with this type of performance, it's hard to complain about something like that.
Winner: Kevin Steen
Rating: ***3/4

Match 7: ROH World Tag Team Championships - The Kings of Wrestling (c) vs. The Motor City Machine Guns
This is probably the most anticipated and most hyped match of the night and for good reason. Making a rare appearance is The Motor City Machine Guns as they challenge The Kings of Wrestling for tag team glory. Coming out to grand entrances, both teams are set for battle with both Claudio Castagnoli & Chris Hero give each other a leaping coast to coast high five. Match starts off with Claudio and Shelly as Claudio hilariously sets Chris Sabin on the top turnbuckle as if he was some sort of infant. Not long after, mayhem ensues as both teams do their best to destroy each other whether that be Claudio landing a UFO or Shelley landing dives outside of the ring onto Hero & Castagnoli, mayhem ensued! During the course of this match, Hero landed the stiffest elbows I have ever seen including one early on in the match that seemingly knocked out Alex Shelley. The Guns landed their always fun and unique style of moves while The Kings landed their awesome hard hitting moves but both styles meshed together so wonderfully that you just get the idea that these teams were made to go up against one another. Once Shane Haggadorn gave Chris Hero his loaded elbow pad which Del Rey used in a previous match, The Briscoes come in to "make the save." The Briscoes beat the hell out of the tag champs while battling an array of boos and jeers from the crowd. A phenomenal match that was somewhat killed due to the interference by The Briscoes. It's a shame we couldn't get a clean finish out of this one but there's no reason I should really complain about this since we still got an excellent main event worthy match from these guys. One guy on the ROH forum said this was like having the best sex of your life until your mother walks in to ruin it. While I wouldn't go as far as saying that, the interference still sucked.
Winners: The Motor City Machine Guns
Rating: ****1/4

Match 8: ROH World Championship - Tyler Black (c) vs. Roderick Strong
Showing signs of a heel turn, Roderick has been blaming ROH management that he is constantly being screwed over. This first came about at The Big Bang! when his title shot against Black was ruined when Austin Aries was added to the mix. Now in the Manhattan Center in New York City, his one on one shot for the world title against Tyler Black has finally come in place. I wish I could say that this was an easy match to get into but it was so slow paced and in some cases, boring. I liked the technical parts of the match but what exactly was the point in it when Tyler just kept going back to his big moves? Roderick dominated Tyler for the better part of the match and even had the crowd going in his favor. Black knew that his title was up in the balance and in jeopardy so he fought relentlessly against Roderick and a hostile crowd. Things turned into a complete mess at the end when 3 referees were knocked out until Black hit a top rope God's Last Gift to end the match. After, Black offers to shake Roderick's hand to which Roderick doesn't accept and fights with Tyler to end the show. These two can and have had better matches but you wouldn't know it by watching this slow match. It was a fine match in that it really put over Tyler Black as the company's top dog and it also teases a future title match between the two. I guess those were the two real things that they wanted to accomplish and the screwy finish helped matters.
Winner: Tyler Black
Rating: ****

Overall Show Thoughts and Rating:
That was an outstanding effort by ROH in their return to New York but it just felt like it was lacking that emotion that gave Glory by Honor VIII that boost in rating. However, nearly every match on here was good with the only exception being a match involving Grizzly Redwood. A great show from top to bottom and one that really stands out in a year full of great shows from ROH.
Rating: 9/10