ROH Steel City Clash Review

Ring of Honor makes it debut in the Steel City of Pittsburgh!!

ROH Steel City Clash

Elizabeth, Pennsylvania 3/20/09

Bonus

1.) Shiima Xion vs. Brandon Morino: *1/2

A fine little match here. I think ROH missed a big opportunity with Xion.

2.) Grizzly Redwood & Alex Payne vs. Tony Kozina & Brandon Day: *

This match just served the purpose of having Bison Smith come out & destroy everyone. The Embassy beat up the jobbers until Bryan Danielson makes the save.

Main Show

1.) Delirious (with Daizee Haze) vs. Sterling James Keenan: **1/4

SJK is now Cory Graves on NXT. Amazing to see how much he changed his look from his 2005 appearances. The match itself was decent.

2.) Kenny King & Rhett Titus vs. Erick Stevens & Matt Cross: **1/2

So here we're getting a little Resilience reunion with Stevens & Cross. Before the match starts, Austin Aries comes out and apologizes for not being there for Cross & Stevens more often when The Resilience was around. He then apologizes for overestimating there talent, saying he's found real talent in the form of Kenny King & Rhett Titus, who jump the faces from behind. Roderick Strong comes out & chases Aries off. As for the match, it was a decent tag, though I felt like it could have been better.

3.) Bryan Danielson vs. Mike Quackenbush: ***1/2

These two had a match during Death Before Dishonor weekend in 2007. While I don't think this one was as good, it was still a very good match, both in terms of wrestling & storytelling.

4.) Three-Way Match - Jerry Lynn vs. Brent Albright vs. Claudio Castagnoli: ***1/4

Lynn is playing the third wheel in this match, as Albright & Claudio are involved in a feud. This was a solid three way. Pretty good.

5.) Falls Count Anywhere - Necro Butcher & Tyler Black vs. The Age of the Fall (Jimmy Jacobs & Brodie Lee): ***

This was an entertaining brawl. Certainly Necro was in his kind of match so you know it would be a good match. They brawled all over the building in a fun match.

6.) Austin Aries vs. Roderick Strong: ****

These two have always had greta chemistry and they continue to do so here. Kenny King & Rhett Titus would end up costing Strong the win. Very fun match.

7.) KENTA & El Generico vs. Nigel McGuinness & Davey Richards (with Sara Del Rey & Shane Hagadorn): ***1/2

So KENTA is challenging for the World Title the next night while El Generico & Davey Richards will be in a World Tag Team Title Match, so that sets up this match. It wasn't as good as I though it would be. Davey & KENTA really stood out as the stars in this match, but I felt like it was missing something that would have made it truly great.

Overall: 7.5/10

While it seems average, this was very good for a debut show. ROH was able to accomplish it's goal of not having a single bad match, with the ones they had proving (for the most part) to be good to great. Danielson/Quackenbush, Aries/Strong & the Main Event are worth seeing.