ROH ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW

ROH ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW 02/08/03

Jay Briscoe vs. Mark Briscoe

Not quite as awesome as their ROH singles match from 2002, but it's still a very good one. Has a very good sense of competition between the two brothers throughout, and they sure loved to brutalize one another with them stiff looking strikes & big bombs. A good time, for sure! ***1/4

Homicide vs. Steve Corino

This is more famous for the whole crowd-brawl angle rather than the match itself, but Homicide & Corino have a good little match here. It's pretty heated from start to finish with no dull moments -- Homicide was fiery all the way through, and Corino was his usual charming self, slowing things down at the right moments when controlling things. ***

CM Punk vs. CW Anderson

A pretty solid match. CW sure brought his own flavor into the scene at this point, and I liked what I saw of him here. His work over Punk's arm was solid, and overall his control periods were pretty good. Punk was good from underneath as well with his more fast paced comeback chains, which were a good contrast to CW's work. Not an overly memorable or a blowaway match by any means, but certainly not a bad one either. **1/2

Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe

Their first ever ROH 1-on-1 meeting from the month prior was already bordering on it, but this one I thought was totally great. It's just filled with fantastic wrestling, coming with great feeling of caution, urgency, one-upmanship & pride. In the early going, they just go at it, locking each other in submissions any chance they got, while also busting out those vicious strikes to one another for good measure. It's great stuff, and once we move on to Joe's control seg, it's also great stuff; he just completely brutalizes Danielson & it's awesome. Danielson has to fight from underneath from that point on, and as I'm sure most of us know, he is excellent at that role. All of his comebacks are terrific, and so are Joe's cut-offs of those, continuing the trend of violence that this match is full of. Pure excellence. Also a fun sidenote is that this was actually the first time Bryan used the ring-name of "Bryan Danielson" in ROH. ****

AJ Styles vs. Low Ki vs. Paul London

This match is just exceptionally good when it comes to 3-way spotfests. It starts with a big pace right from the get go, and it never lets up; the action stays incredibly exciting & compelling from bell to bell. They are so innovative & creative with the 3-person spots they do, and all the bigger spots in this match hit me as a viewer beautifully. And of course with this involving Low Ki & AJ Styles (London brings it as well though!), there's plenty of awesomely mean & intense striking involved as well. As of this viewing, I would honestly put this above the legendary Daniels/Danielson/Ki 3-way dance from The Era of Honor Begins. It's that good. ****1/4

Paul London vs. Xavier

This starts right after London beat Styles & Ki in that excellent 3-way dance, giving it a nice dynamic of exhausted-underdog London going against the asshole champ. London is still fiery with all of his work over Xavier, but he sells the exhaustion of that triple threat very well throughout, and his overall selling was pretty great as usual. Xavier is a good foil against that with his heel tactics and those vicious moments such as him busting London open, dumping him through a table, that nasty German Suplex to stop his momentum, etc. There's some really great nearfalls in the match too; it really felt like it was destined to be London's moment with those and how the thing was laid out, which then made the finish with Xavier reversing his roll-up into one of his own feel pretty underwhelming, but it is what it is, innit. It's a very good match for sure, even better than their also-very good meeting from Final Battle a few months prior. ***3/4