ROH SCRAMBLE MADNESS

ROH SCRAMBLE MADNESS 11/16/02

Homicide vs. Samoa Joe

They go about 10-minutes, and while it doesn't reach the best-possible-sprint between these two levels, it's still a helluva good time. Very "strong style" influenced as Gabe spams on commentary for the entire duration of it. Lots of good strikes, slamming each other n' all that. My favorite moment of it all was Homicide's urgency in that real big first comeback he got; he went for the STF, but Joe kept on crawling away, so he frantically started busting out them nasty crossface shots. ***1/4

AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels

Their first ROH meeting at Road to the Title wasn't anything special (but a good match for sure), but this makes it look like a real standout. Of course this was technically good since it's these two, but goddamn it also was a bunch of absolutely NOTHING. Stuff happened, but really nothing happened. Gentleman's **

American Dragon vs. Doug Williams

A 30-Minute Iron Man match, and it's a really good, borderline great one. The first third or so is all about some good ol' scientific, technical wrestling w/ neither really establishing control over one another. It unsurprisingly of course rules since it's these two. Eventually Dragon starts getting a bit more mean w/ his work, and he starts sneakily doing some work over Williams' neck. It pays off big when he gets the first (& only) fall of the match to his name by delivering a couple of vicious Dragon Suplexes. That happened at around the 18-minute mark (shout-out to Gabe for informing us about that), and after that, the urgency keeps on rising & rising. Williams knows he is losing, and the clock is ticking, so he starts wrestling with bigger urgency than earlier in the match, and it's really good stuff. The little drama revolving around his big finish in the Chaos Theory rules w/ Dragon kicking out of one, and then surviving from the 2nd one with that rope-break. Awesome match -- the 30-minutes flew by, the wrestling was compelling throughout. I'd put it a notch above their also-awesome Road to the Title meeting. ***3/4