ROH Take No Prisoners Review + PPV Ranking
1. Take No Prisoners (ROH)
2. No Way Out (WWE)
3. Hard Justice (TNA)
4. Royal Rumble (WWE)
5. One Night Stand (WWE)
6. Victory Road (TNA)
7. WrestleMania XXIV
8. Summerslam (WWE)
9. Final Resolution (TNA)
10. Lockdown (TNA)
11. Against All Odds (TNA)
12. The Great American Bash (WWE)
13. Slammiversary (TNA)
14. Night Of Champions (WWE)
15. Sacrifice (TNA)
It's not a great PPV for ROH standards, but it suffices to beat No Way Out in regards to star matches. TNP is the 6th ROH PPV. I have yet to see Undeniable (where Nigel wins the title; he still has it), Rising Above or Respect Is Earned II.
So let's get into the matches. The only ones I expect to read and maybe comment would be telvisnostic, lightning and maybe wounds.
1. Four Corner Survival for a ROH World Title shot later in the night - Tyler Black defeated Claudio Castagnoli, Go Shoizaki and Delirious (** 1/2): Quite good match to get the PPV started. It was a bit funny to watch thanks to Delirious and Claudio. But Tyler wins with the Phoenix Splash, a move that makes the Shooting Star Press less, less impressive. Oh, and Nigel McGuinness did guest commentary for this match. He's a good commentator, actually.
Note: The PPV song was "Watch Yourself" from Ministry. And after this match, ROH aired a News Report video regarding the Tag Team Title changinng since the 5th PPV (AOTF beated Briscoes and lost it a month later to No Remorse Corps), which was a nice touch from ROH.
2. Kevin Steen defeated Roderick Strong (** 1/4): This needed more airtime. 10 minutes isn't much for them, really. Steen wins with a Package Piledriver if I'm not mistaken.
3. Briscoes defeated Necro Butcher & Joey Matthews (AOTF) - Tag Team Street Fight (***): Crazy brawl. Chair shots everywhere (most of them unprotected). Even Necro attacked Mark with a shovel. Hell, he nearly wins the match with a roll-up pin of all things (would have been extremely rare for a guy like Necro). I kinda hated the ending because of three big spots in less than 1 minute. Kida overkill IMO especially between the last two spots. First, Jay Briscoe Death Valley Drived Joey Matthews (a.k.a. Joey Mercury, who will come back to WWE later this year with Christian York as a tag team) through a table. A few seconds later, Mark jumped from the top of the entrance stage and lands on Necro through a table. 5 seconds later, Jaydriller on Matthews and the match is over interrupting a "Holy Sh*t" chant from the Mark-Necro spot. Yep, the ex-WWE guy jobs at the PPV. And there was a BotchaMania worthy spot: one of the Briscoes (Mark) tripped from the top rope while trying to connect the Doomsday Device on Matthews. But ROH would never left Maffew use their footage. F*gs.
Note: I think at this point they aired a video regarding Morishima being suspended from ROH PPVs after attacking a ref.
4. Brent Albright defeated Erick Stevens (* 1/2) - Kinda boring and short match. Sweeney distracts Stevens and Albright (back then heel, now he's a face and on his own without Sweet & Sour Inc.) connects a Half-Nelson Suplex for the win. The announcers put ROH over as the non-flashy company that has their wrestlers working their for their love of wrestling rather than the money whil saying that Sweeney holds wrestlers and sells them down the river to his buddy Vince (McMahon).
5. No Remorse Corps (Rocky Romero & Davey Richards) defeated Jigsaw & Ruckus to retain the ROH Tag Team Titles (*** 1/4) - Fun and awesome match. This match was taped in Orlando (the rest were in Philly) during the WrestleMania weekend. Jigsaw wasn't wearing his mask, he looks like a generic nerdy virgin. Lots of cool spots and the crowd made the match worthwhile too.
6. Bryan Danielson defeated Austin Aries (****) - Damn good match. I don't need to explain much of this, really.
7. Nigel McGuinness defeated Tyler Black (AOTF) to retain the ROH World Heavyweight Title (**** 1/2) - Outstanding match and my MOTY pick for the moment (better than Michaels-Flair and the TNA Victory Road World X Cup intro match). Two heels battling for the title, but before the bell rings, Nigel attacks Black and he becomes the underdog face. At the beginning, it was Nigel offense (no lariats yet) plus him dissing the crowd. Later, offense from Black. Early in the match, Black goes for a springboard, but Nigel stops him with a chair shot to the head. Later, Black crawled back to the ring only to get pinned, but kicks out for a big pop. Later it becomes a vack and forth match. Nigel switches to McLariat mode and starts hitting Black. Lots of nearfalls and even the crwod chanted "That was 3" when Black nearly wins the match. During the match, Nigel aims for Black's left arm, so by the end after a Lariat, he makes Black tap out with a Arms submission move. Great, great match.
I should also mention that this PPV had plenty of AOTF promos. Some were pretty good, the others, not so much.
The score of TNP has at least 0.3 points more than No Way Out, for the record. And the score difference between No Way Out and Hard Justice is around 0.1 FYI.
I have a feeling that maybe Unforgiven could top Take No Prisoners with their 3 scramble matches and the HBK-Jericho match. It can do it. No Surrender, not so much, really. But then again, I didn't had high hopes for the last two TNA PPVs, so maybe it could surprise me again.
