This review was commissioned by Lance Garrison over on my Ko-fi account. As of this writing commissions are still open, they’re going for $10 a pop. If you want to seek out my specific thoughts on a match that I haven’t gone into yet, this is the way to do it.
One thing that immediately stands out from older DVD-era Ring of Honor matches like this is just how hard commentary hammers home their specific marketing points at any given time. It’s especially noticeable on really early ROH shows like this because Gabe Sapolsky’s running play-by-play commentary, and as the booker of the company too, he’s very explicitly trying to put over certain themes and brand messaging at every single moment. It’s not so bad when it’s in service of the stories being presented. It helps to know, for example, that BJ Whitmer holds a grudge against CM Punk for some harsh comments made by the latter.
It’s way worse when Gabe’s basically appealing to the message boards and making cheap jabs. The most persistent example here would be that CM Punk vs. Raven is the “feud of the year” and an “ROH original.” Very much not-so-subtle digs there at TNA (edit: really IWC and MLW, thanks Ill) running some CM Punk/Raven angles of their own. It’s also just very funny to put this over as the “greatest feud of all time in ROH” given that the company isn’t even two years into its existence.
Fortunately for everyone, the work itself holds up much better than its packaging.
CM Punk hits a very fun sweet spot with his pre-match promo. Fashioning himself a voice for a minority has become par for the course as far as his larger career goes, but doing it here by comparing himself to Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. is just so funny in hindsight. Again, it’s the sweet spot of 2000s indie edginess–just tasteless enough to make one wince, but not explicitly bigoted enough to be cancel-worthy.
As for the match itself, it’s a really interesting mental exercise in getting the most out of a no disqualification-style tag. ROH through its history has always played fast and loose with the necessity of actual tags during these gimmicked bouts. One imagines some of the Briscoes/Steenerico crowd-sprawling brawls or even the chaos of some of the ROH/CZW tags as prime examples of how to make the more obvious all-out version of this work. But then there’s these examples that lean closer to a standard tag match like the Briscoes/Kings of Wrestling from 2010.
This match leans towards the latter. What makes it so astonishing is that, for the most part, they work around that interesting ways. They set the tone by having everyone adhere to the standard rules first (despite Raven introducing the stipulation to begin with, hush, don’t think about it too hard), before Punk introduces the weaponry as a scumbag move to turn the tide in favor of the heels. It’s not a bad way really to use the gimmick of the match to put over the heelish nature of the Saints in this match.
What makes it even sweeter though is that despite being the ones to introduce weaponry to proceedings, it’s the Saints who immediately take an absolute beating right after. When Raven grabs a chair to even the odds, Punk bolts out of the ring immediately and the babyfaces regain control by beating the piss out of Punk & Cabana in the crowd. We get a good pair of bladejobs from both Whitmer and Punk too, and it’s fun to see the heels commit to just being thrashed out in the crowd.
It’s how the heels transition out of this that’s so interesting. Punk crotches Raven on those famous metal barricades, and Cabana gets Whitmer caught up in the ropes. From there the heels isolate Whitmer, and the story of the match finds a nice middle ground between traditional tag and hardcore brawl. It becomes a game of isolation as both teams try to find ways to keep one man of a team down to avoid the perfectly legal tactic of someone just rushing in to break it up.
There’s so many great moments involved with how it plays this game, like the brief hope spots that Whitmer’s able to get during his isolation. Perhaps the best one is dodging an attempted facewash from Punk that sends the Punker sailing through the ropes to the floor. Mechanically, probably the best thing that Punk does all match. Again, the actual nitty gritty of the physicality has never, ever been Punk’s greatest asset, but having the right mindset always gets him by. Bleed, bump for the faces, never stop cheating to get the win.
Lots of great stuff here. Raven bringing in the ECW of it all with the crowd brawl, Punk and Cabana applying the general ideas of traditional tag wrestling, plus just that general ambition that drives so much of 2000s super indie wrestling. Overall, a little rough around the edges, but gets too much right to not praise.
