DVD Review: Sean Hopkins Looks At Ring Of Honor Insanity Unleashed

Written by Sean Hopkins on Aug 30, 2009 - 5:24:37 PM

So, it's been a while since I posted one of these, and to make sure that doesn't happen again, I'm going to be altering my style a little bit. I'm not going to be doing play-by-play on these DVD reviews, and I'll actually be trying to keep them as spoiler free as possible. I will give my opinions on each individual match, and I will still grade each match on the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Middle/Thumbs Down Scale. I will also still grade each full show on the Buy Now/Wait for a Sale/OCD Collectors Only scale. The differences will be no play-by-play and no match results. Alright guys, let's get on to the review of Ring of Honor's Insanity Unleashed.

For storyline context, this show follows Stylin' and Profilin'

Bryan Danielson opens the DVD talking about some of the injuries he's incurred over the years. He says that for the most part, he's pretty sure that his opponents haven't been trying to hurt him, but he feels that with Bison Smith, Smith really wants to hurt him. Danielson says that that brings him to a point where he wants to hurt Bison, like he did with Morishima and Homicide. He says their recent match that ended in a count out wasn't enough and the next time they meet there will be damage.

Match #1: Flash Flanagan vs. Spyder Nate Webb

First and foremost, big time kudos to Nate Webb for using "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheetus, just because it really suits his look and it's been forever since I heard that song. I also want to mention how jarring it still is to hear Larry Zbyszko doing commentary for ROH. Flash Flanagan looks a little bit like a smaller version of Bison Smith, and he plays up his power game, a lot like Smith. This match was super quick, and neither man was really too impressive to be completely honest. Webb was sloppy and Flanagan was OK, but no one that I would be itching to see back in ROH. This match was not really the best way to start off an ROH DVD, and I'm a bit surprised these two didn't find themselves on the under card. Thumbs Down.

Kenny Omega is outside. He cuts a really bizarre promo where he talks about Claudio Castagnoli, Bryan Danielson and Elton John.

Match #2: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Bryan Danielson vs. Kenny Omega

Well, it's pretty unsurprising that this was a good match considering the participants involved. I have to admit I was even a fan of Omega's stop sign enzugiri spot in this match, even though that's something I'm not usually a huge fan of. Danielson and Omega added some comedy in this match, which just made the atmosphere nice and light. That of course changed as soon as Castagnoli tagged in and made the match a heck of a lot more competitive. I really enjoyed Dragon and Omega's teamwork that soon turned into an "every man for himself" type of attitude. The ending to this match was kind of surprising, but in a good way. All in all, this was a good match, and I kind of wish we had seen this in the opening slot as opposed to the outright bad Flanagan/Webb match. Thumbs Up.

Dave Prazak is outside with Jay Briscoe. Prazak says tonight Briscoe gets his hands on a member of S'n'S. Briscoe says that Hero better man up because Briscoe isn't going to get knocked out and if Hero isn't careful, he's going to be the one that ends up getting knocked out.

Match #3: Chris Hero vs. Jay Briscoe

Both of these guys have been having a pretty impressive 2009, so I have to admit that I went into this match with high expectations. The only real thing that I have to complain about is that I feel like the match could have been given more time, like about ten minutes more. I feel like both of these guys are more than capable of putting on a 20-minute match, and we just didn't get it here. What we did get was a pretty good exhibition match between these two. I really enjoy Briscoe as a singles wrestler, and I've always felt that Jay is much more the solid wrestler, while Mark has a tendency to be spotty and not as technically proficient as his brother (maybe that's why he gets injured so often). This match was kind of odd in that it didn't really play into any story lines or further anything (the only real link is that Chris Hero is part of the same organization as the American Wolves, the team that injured his brother), it was kind of just for fun. Other than the time constraints, this was a good little match. Thumbs Up.

Match #4 ROH World Tag Team Title Match: Kevin Steen and El Generico vs. "Addicted to Love" Rhett Titus and Kenny King

For the first half of this match, I genuinely thought this might turn into a squash, but luckily I was proved wrong. Titus and King put on a heck of a showing here, and Rhett Titus has come a long way since his days working security at ROH events. Kenny King is a breakout star that is just one big match away from making his way into the main event scene in ROH. Kevin Steen and El Generico are always fun to watch and for some reason I really think they have one of they best team dynamics in tag-team wrestling today. These four guys put on a great match that told an awesome story of hungry young challengers that just would not give up. I highly recommend it to fans of tag-team wrestling. Thumbs Up.

Match #5: Bison Smith vs. Silas Young

This was really just an extended squash here, and that's not really too much of a spoiler. The only surprise there was the fact that the match lasted more than two minutes. If you read my weekly blog, you know my policy on squash matches. SQUASH.

Match #6: The American Wolves of Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards vs. Brent Albright and Roderick Strong

Well this match was a heck of a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be. The Wolves have become one of the hottest teams on the American tag team scene, but this match was from pretty early in their life as a team, so I wasn't too sure how great to expect the match to be. Plus this match has Brent Albright in it, and he's never really been the greatest wrestler in the world or anything, so I was really hoping for Davey and Roderick to pull off a good match here. Luckily, I didn't need to worry about anything, as all four men were able to deliver a fun, quick-paced match. The ending to this one was fun, and it was pretty cool to see it play off earlier events of the night. I don't think this one was quite as good as Steenerico vs. King and Titus, but it was still an awesome tag team match nonetheless. Which goes to show that ROH is second to none when it comes to putting on fantastic tag team matches with an absolutely phenomenal tag division. Thumbs Up.

Match #7 No DQ: Jimmy Jacobs vs. Delirious

I had mixed feelings about this match. This was the first in what ended up becoming a series of matches between these two and I don't know if this was necessarily the best way to start things off. The first half of this match was a little bit boring, and didn't really accomplish much outside of a short crowd brawling spot. They managed to turn up the intensity for the last half of the match, and the final spot was pretty damn cool. I still don't know though, for some reason this match just seemed to have a bit of a flat tone for me, and while the good parts were pretty good, the boring parts were just too uninteresting to gloss over. Thumbs Middle.

Main Event: Nigel McGuinness and Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black and Jerry Lynn

Well this was a pretty darn short match for an ROH main event. This one only clocked in at a little over 15 minutes, which could be due to McGuinness' injuries at the time of this match. I will say this, with the amount of time these four men were given, they were able to string along a pretty good match that had the crowd solidly behind them. I really wasn't expecting a whole lot when I looked at how much time was left for the match, but I was pleasantly surprised. Nigel and Aries particularly should be commended for their quite good teamwork and impressive double teams (Aries hitting a dropkick to the top of Black's head while McGuinness is holding him, then McGuinness immediately drops him with a tower of London was awesome). This DVD really was chock full of some good tag team action, and the amazing thing about ROH, is that even their randomly thrown together tag teams like Aries and McGuinness work well together and put on really good matches. I also really enjoyed the post match antics between Tyler Black and Jerry Lynn; their tease with the ROH World Title at the end of the match was a lot of fun. Thumbs Up.

Now I know this might be surprising to some people who are reading this review, but I think I'm going to have to give this show a Wait for a Sale stamp. While that may sound odd looking at the number of thumbs up matches, there are several other things to take into account.

There really were no feuds that were furthered here other than Jimmy Jacobs and Delirious' storyline. The American Wolves and Steenerico did have a little bit of interaction, but not more than they've been having in recent weeks. All of the other matches seem kind of randomly thrown together on the basis of "good guy(s) vs. bad guy(s)". While it's kind of fun to see a card of mostly for-fun exhibition matches, it's not really something to go out of your way to check out.

The match lengths really seemed a bit out of whack on this one, and I think a big reason for that was that there were too many matches. Nate Webb/Flash Flanagan was terrible, and should have never made it onto this DVD. Bison Smith/Silas Young really didn't need to happen either. I feel like if they're trying to build Bison up as a legitimate threat (the man was in a match with Bryan Danielson the previous night at Stylin' and Profilin'), these squash matches are going to do absolutely nothing for him, especially when they're against regional jobbers. These two matches could have been cut to give the main event more time, or Hero and Briscoe. There were just a couple of matches that I felt like had finally gotten going when they were over, and I was left wanting just a little bit more. And finally...

Larry Zbyszko. I never liked the man, and if you did then obviously this might not be such a drawback to you, but I feel like he should have left the wrestling business upon the death of WCW. I got the feeling that a lot of the time on commentary, Zbyszko was mainly just trying to get himself over, talking about beating up Scott Hall on Monday Nitro, and things like that. I really could care less about Larry Z's "illustrious" career when there's ROH wrestling going on in the ring. I'm sorry, I have loads of respect for previous generations of wrestlers, but Zbyszko shouldn't be trying to get himself over on commentary. He should be focusing on the talent in the ring, and when he does brag on himself, it's distracting, and that was a big drawback to this DVD for me.

I hope you can understand my points here, and I hope my review has helped guide you, in some way, in future ROH DVD purchases.

What is Digg?

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