This review was commissioned by Ok_Awesome over on my Ko-fi account.
The late 2000s for ROH are all about expansion. 2007 sees them earn a pay-per-view deal which ends up having a massive effect on their regular schedule as the pay-per-views would be taped months in advance of broadcasting, which also coincides with the general growth of their touring schedule. Where the company first truly made waves as a fairly classic monthly indie, the sheer popularity of the brand dictated more and more shows, each of which bore the burden of having to draw DVD sales down the line. That expansion of both schedule and geography would go even further in 2008. Here, we see ROH pushing even further outside of their key marketplaces. Thus in July of 2008, they would host their first event north of the border in Toronto, Canada–a city that would become a new tentpole for them towards the end of the decade and the new one to come.
This title match is a direct result of that planned expansion. Kevin Steen’s already a hot commodity within the company after the highly acclaimed Steenerico/Briscoes feud of the previous year, and they’ve begun heating up Steen for this major championship opportunity in his homeland. In April, Steen challenged for the title twice, and Nigel has had to steal it from him twice–with the help of the ropes in New Jersey, and Steen’s tights in Chicago. The hope, of course, is that with a hometown crowd behind him, Steen has enough to finally take the title away.
In that sense, this is a classic tragedy of overreach from the challenger. He holds his own in the purely wrestling moments of the bout to open and even frustrates Nigel enough to demonstrate his capacity against the champion. He’s even aggressive enough to not allow Nigel to break up the momentum by rolling to the floor. Steen’s a more than capable brawler, of course, so he has no issue throwing the champ around and banging him up against those disgusting, rusted barricades. He takes a risk by climbing the barricade for a dive and Nigel catches him and just throws him right onto the ring apron. It’s so gross, no protection whatsoever, just Steen’s full weight driving the small of his back into the edge of the ring apron. It’s a fucking disgusting, gnarly bump, the kind of psychotic thing that Kevin Steen made his name on, and it does almost certainly lose him the match from that point.
This is one of those impossible mountains to climb, akin to something like Kzy eating the monkey flip off the apron against Shun Skywalker, where the effects of the bump dictate the eventual result. The back injury Steen sustains cuts off his momentum throughout the match about as regularly as Nigel’s own offense. Even when Steen gets a surge of adrenaline to leap off the top rope or nail lariats of his own, his back is too damaged to allow him to go in for quick covers or keep pressing the advantage. Steen does so well to put over the damage to his back here too. In the immediate aftermath of the big apron bump, Steen’s selling is so wonderful, groaning and shouting in absolute pain just by being moved by Nigel and thrown back into the ring. Throughout the match, he gestures towards the back injury by constantly needing the support of the ropes to get back to his feet and struggling to follow up on his comebacks. That said, I think the back selling does start to diminish as they get much more involved in the bomb throwing of the finishing stretch, and even just a little bit more focus might have made this an even better match than it already is.
What I came away admiring most of all though was Nigel McGuinness. With Steen spending so much time on the sell, really drawing in a lot of sympathy from the hometown crowd, Nigel’s just an absolute force of nature here. This is post 6th Anniversary, and the hatred he feels for the ROH fanbase is at a fever pitch. In watching this back, the hatefulness he directs them feels viscerally powerful, even in contrast to his earlier heel work in the company around 2005 and 2006. One feels the calcified malice Nigel has for them, and he never misses an opportunity to rile them up and torment Steen as the proxy for them. He rejoices in stretching out Steen’s back, jaw jacking with the audience, and even sending some spiteful mockery towards AmDrag. He’s so present, in the moment, and connected with this crowd without ever sacrificing the quality of the attack on Steen.
That said, this loses a little focus once it gets into the bomb throwing section. The back selling never entirely disappears, especially given how many cut offs Nigel focuses on it with, but it does begin to fade into the background. I do think the match sacrifices a little by allowing these two to trade finisher kick outs, with Nigel kicking out of the Package Piledriver for the first time and Steen, in return, getting to kick out of the Jawbreaker. It’s an unfortunate compromise that I feel waters down what the match had already been building up to so well beforehand. Steen would have looked strong and credible coming out of this with his sheer willpower and refusal to die, but because things must be measured in nearfalls, we get what we get. The match also falls prey to the idea of Nigel being one of the few long-reigning World Champions to gain strength with subsequent challenges as opposed to being worn down. As such, he’s awarded a mostly clean victory here by putting Steen away with the top rope lariat. All of these are compromises that extend from the growth of the company and the overall feeling that more is more is more in the US indies.
It’s never enough to make a great match bad, but it’s just enough to keep it outside of the realm of the all-time ROH classics.
Rating: ****¼
