ROH The Nightmare Begins Review

Charlie Haas & Jay Briscoe go to war in a Texas Death Match!!

ROH The Nightmare Begins

Charleston, West Virginia 6/15/12

1.) Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander vs. The All Night Express: ***

A fun opening match. Pretty much what you would expect from these two teams.

2.) Davey Richards vs. Mike Mondo: ***1/4

This was surprisingly good. I think this was the point where people started to realize Mondo isn't that bad of a wrestler. When he's in there with the right people, he can have good matches. Though at the time, I think people were surprised that he went to a time-limit draw. Richards wants five more minutes, but Mondo refuses.

3.) Four Corner Survival World TV Title Proving Ground Match – Roderick Strong vs. BJ Whitmer vs. Kyle O’Reilly vs. Adam Cole: ***1/4

A pretty energetic Four-Way, for the time it was given. All four guys looked pretty solid, and the Cole/O'Reilly feud was able to continue in this one. Cole pins Strong to earn a future World TV Title Shot.

4.) “Radio Wars” – Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. Totally Awesome: *3/4

So....essentially these two local Radio DJ's are paired off against each other, with one of them in The Briscoe's corner and the other guy in the corner of Chris Silvio & Paredyse. Weird stuff. Once again, this reeks of Jim Cornette's questionable booking during this time. The match wasn't that good of a match...

5.) Jay Lethal vs. Michael Elgin: ***

These two had a pretty decent match, until Roderick Strong came out, and a weird finish ensues that I guess was supposed to build up the Elgin/Strong tension, but it honestly didn't come off that well. Another example of Jim Cornette's strange booking. But still, the match was as I said...decent.

Truth Martini tries to patch things up after the match. Elgin looks like he's going to walk out on them, but comes back and tells Strong that what happened tonight would be the last mistake he would make. 

Before the World Title Match, Kevin Steen has some words with Jim Cornette in the ring. Cornette essentially says Steen is bad for the company. He says if Edwards or Richards don't defeat Steen, then every singles match Steen has afterwords will be for the World Title.

6.) ROH World Title – Kevin Steen vs. Eddie Edwards: ***3/4

Jimmy Jacobs is in Steen's corner and Steve Corino is on commentary. I actually thought this was a better match than the one they had in Florida. For the time it was given, I found it to be pretty entertaining. 

7.) Texas Death Match – The Final Encounter – Charlie Haas vs. Jay Briscoe: ***1/2

Anything goes. You win once you pin your opponent and they subsequently stay down for a 10-Count. Since the amount of pin-falls didn't matter, we saw a lot of falls early, which I found to be pretty annoying. Other than that, I thought it was a fun brawl and an enjoyable hardcore match. I think I enjoyed this more that others, but maybe thats just me. Jay finally gets revenge on Charlie Haas. 

Overall: 7.25/10

This is a show that you're either going to like or not like. They showed a number of these matches on TV, but for me, I still found it mildly enjoyable. Other than the stupid Radio Wars Match, their's nothing really bad on here. But at the same time, there's nothing that you have to go out of your way to see.