3/28 ROH Dragon Gate Challenge II Report: Nigel McGuinness vs. Delirious, Austin Aries vs. Genki Horiguchi

ROH "Dragon Gate Challenge II"
Orlando, Fla.
Report by John Philapavage, Steve Kriske, and Bob Dolezil
Courtesy of PWChronicle.com.

Special thanks to John Philapavage for providing live coverage of the show. Check out PWChronicle.com. for additional comments.

They did a pre-show angle for the DVD where the YRR came through the crowd doing heel mic work and interrupted Becky Bayless doing an intro. Gabe Sapolsky was one of the cameramen for the segment.

The show started right around the scheduled bell time and the venue is about 95 percent full.
Ring of Honor World Champion Nigel McGuinness started the show with a promo. The crowd was 50/50 in support of him, but he was totally heeling on them. He claimed to be the “best in the world”, cribbing Bryan Danielson’s catch phrase, and told the fans to kiss his ass. Delirious then came out and their match began.

1. Nigel McGuinness defeated Delirious in a non-title match. They did some comedy early on. Nigel took control and got a lot of heat from the crowd. Delirious made a comeback that the crowd was really into, but was cut off by a big lariat. Delirious tapped out to Nigel’s London Dungeon arm hold at around 8:30.

2. Ruckus and Jigsaw of The Vulture Squad defeated Kenny King and Sal Rinauro of The YRR. King showed some really impressive athleticism and it was a high-energy match. Ruckus and Jigsaw hit a double-team finisher to get the win in about 5:30. The YRR got an ovation after the match.

3. Austin Aries defeated Genki Horiguchi. Aries was extremely over and the match was very good. The crowd basically knew that Aries was going to win, and he got the submission victory with the Horns of Aries in nine minutes.

After the match, the Age of the Fall came to the ring and continued to recruit Aries by promising to help him win the title on Saturday. Tammy Sytch came out to continue her pursuit of Aries, who said he wants to concentrate on his title shot, and left on his own.

Lacey and Tammy then talked trash to each other, and Lacey gave her a DDT after Jacobs pointed out that AOTF is about action.

4. Kevin Steen and El Generico defeated Masato Yoshino and Naruki Doi. The match was wrestled under Dragon Gate rules. Doi and Yoshino had a heat segment on Generico leading to a hot tag to Steen which didn’t really go anywhere. The crowd heated up for a sequence of big moves. After a series of close false finishes, Steen and Generico hit the Package Piledriver/Brainbuster combo for the win in 17 minutes. The crowd gave them a standing ovation after the match.

Intermission.

5. BxB Hulk and Shingo of New Hazard defeated Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black of Age of the Fall. The match was very good and was finished by a Shingo “some sort of driver” on Black at 16 minutes. The crowd was a little quiet coming out of intermission but heated up when Shingo got a hot tag about halfway through. Black and Hulk were especially impressive, and AOTF had a lot of heel heat. Overall, the match was on par with the previous tag match.

6. Jay and Mark Briscoe defeated Dragon Kid & Ryo Saito. The match largely followed a traditional tag formula like the previous tag matches. It was a bit dull in spots with the Briscoes hitting a bunch of power moves on Dragon Kid. The action picked up and they hit a lot of big moves, but it wasn’t overkill like many Briscoes matches. The Briscoes won in 18 minutes with a springboard Doomsday Device. Saito and Kid got a big “Dragon Gate” chant after the match.

7. CIMA and Go Shiozaki and Erick Stevens defeated Roderick Strong and Davey Richards and Rocky Romero. There was a lot of stiff action early on. There was a sense of “sameness” among the matches, but the crowd was generally into it aside from some signs of boredom. NRC got offense on Siozaki and Stevens, with Go being the more over of the two.

CIMA got a hot tag and the crowd heated up again. He and Richards hit dives. Strong and Stevens had a big chop battle. Shiozaki did several of his “young Kobashi spots,” with Richards countering with some Kawada-like moves.

The finishing sequence featured a lot of near falls with teammates breaking up pins. CIMA scored the win with a cradle powerbomb on Strong. Great, brutal match. The casual fans in the bleachers left at the finish while the hardcore fans stayed and chanted all three promotions’ names to close out the show.