Ring of Honor Glory By Honor VIII
Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center, New York, N.Y.
Report by Dot Net reader Alejandro "Super Chocolate Bear" Osborne

1. Colt Cabana defeated Rhett Titus via submission. A decent match to start the show. Titus with a mini handjob before the handshake. Good action. Titus gets a decent set of offense in before Cabana submits him with the Billy Goat's Curse.

2. Dark City Fight Club beat Up In Smoke via pinfall. This is my first time seeing both teams as I don't have HDNet and haven't ordered a single dvd from this entire year, so when I saw them I expected a DCFC squash match. To my pleasant surprise, it was good back and forth action for the most part. The little guy from UIS reminds me of a young Jimmy Jacobs. DCFC won with the Welcome To Dark City (no idea what the move is called I just made it up). Whatever the name is it was impressive.

3. Claudio Castagnoli defeated Kenny Omega via pinfall. Nana comes out and introduces Claudio. Nana is gold on the mic. A ilarious promo, much better match than the one these two had in New York last year. In the spot of the night so far, saw Claudio put Omega on his back in the torture rack position and airplane spin him around...with no hands...freakish strength. Omega picked up Castagnoli for his electric chair/german suplex combo finisher. Claudio grabbed Sinclair, slid down, low blow and hit a sick European uppercut to win the match. A good solid match.

4. Roderick Strong defeated Sonjay Dutt, Grizzly Redwood and Delirious in a four corner survival match. Strong won when he pinned Dutt after an awesome Gibson Driver. A good match with a few cool spots including a quadruple superplex (gotta see it to understand). Redwood and Delirious were on the outside while Daizee Haze tended to Delirious. Sonjay pulled his tights down to reveal his (eww) tighter black trunks and motioned at Daizee. Well, Strong apparently took offense and killed him with a back breaker, sick kick, and the aforementioned Gibson Driver.

Bret Hart came out for a promo and puts over ROH. He spoke about his history in NYC (it was very hard to hear because of how low he spoke and the crowd noise from the stage).

5. The American Wolves defeated Kevin Steen and El Generico in the Ladder War to retain the ROH Tag Titles. Obviously the match of the night thus far, but a little disappointing. The match was too wild a stipulation for the much smaller Grand Ballroom (in relation to the Hammerstein) still a awesome match. Table spots and chairs were brought into play. The Wolves handcuffed Steen, and Richards Kawada style kicked him with a chain around his foot..sick. The finish saw Edwards, (who had his right arm extremely taped), put a half crab on Generico's bad knee in the ladder (think jericho-benoit in 2001) while Davey climbed over them on the ladder to grab the belts. The First Ladder War is still one of the best ladder matches ever..this wasn't far behind considering the conditions.

6. Chris Hero defeated Eddie Kingston with a second loaded elbow pad. Hero has the best entrance music I've heard in a long time. This was not the most technical match. These two beat the hell out of each other, stiff shots every step of the way. The finish came when Eddie pulled out the green pad and distracted the ref long enough for Hero to pull another one out of Hagadorn's shiny jacket and beam Kingston for the win.

7. Austin Aries defeated Petey Williams via countout to retain the ROH Title. Aries comes out for the A double L double(lucky lottery) and pulled out Bret Hart's name. Williams came out and called A Double a coward. Austin Aries cracked on Williams not being in the top 30 names in the hat and being about 36th, which was 500 spots higher than he was on the PWI 500 list...ouch!

The title match ensued. While it wasn't bad by any stretch and had it moments, it was a very forgettable world title match. The ending comes when "Maple Leaf Muscle" hit a Canadian Destroyer from the top rope! Aries rolled outside and caught Petey with a Brainbuster on the floor and rolled in at 18 to retain by countout. The highlight of the match had to be the crowd..after every count Sinclair made the crowd would yell TWINKIES. It was funny the first 10 times...not so much after..showed how much we were into the match. Still better than anything on Raw the last six months.

Jim Cornette made his return to ROH and set the record straight on his departure from TNA and his issues with Vince Russo. You can imagine the chants that began. He cracked on poor Hornswoggle and that dude in TNA. He said Russo being picked over him was like Rosie O'Donnell being picked up over Beyonce at a bar, classic. Austin Aries came out and a long...and I mean long promo ensued. STFU chants started..long story short...Aries threatened him.

8. The Young Bucks defeated The Briscoes by pinfall after the More Bang For Your Buck. An awesome tag match..nuff said..surprising ending though.

9. "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson defeated Nigel McGuinness by ref stoppage after repeated elbows in the triangle choke. An amazing match. Not the best they've ever had, which says a lot (Unified and Driven are still the two best I've seen) but the emotion involved really put it over the top. Afterwards the locker room emptied..and I mean emptied...even Adam Pearce and Julius Smokes come out. Both wrestlers gave heartfelt emotional speeches. They love ROH, the fans and the like..Dragon even threatened to punch John Cena in the ear (all in good fun). He put over the American Wolves, Aries, and even Todd Sinclair. Dragon and Nigel embrace in the ring and the crowd does the final countdown chant one last time.

All in all it was an awesome event. Worth the $20 DVD price for the Ladder War and the speeches from Nigel and Danielson alone. Two thumbs up.

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