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ROH will showcase a rivalry with four-and-a-half years of history when Austin Aries takes on "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson in the next TV main event. These are two of the best wrestlers in the world, and they have put on some classic matches over the years. Tonight's match will be tenth time their paths have crossed in a one-on-one confrontation in ROH (counting the final of the 2004 Survival of the Fittest tournament). Here is a look back at this competitive ROH rivalry.

- Danielson puts Aries on the map at Survival of the Fittest: Danielson was already an established star in ROH when Aries was breaking into the promotion with the Generation Next faction in 2004. Aries really started to emerge as a singles star with the final of the first ever Survival of the Fittest tournament (Philadelphia, June 24, aptly named Survival of the Fittest).

Survival of the Fittest is a one-night tournament where the winners of six qualifying matches face each other at the end of the night in an elimination match. Although the final elimination match had six wrestlers in it, I'm counting it as the first Aries-Danielson match because, after the first four eliminations, the match came down to Aries and Danielson who proceeded to tear the house down with an awesome one-on-one battle for over twenty minutes. This was an incredible match.

- Aries establishes himself as a main eventer: At the next Philadelphia show, Aries and Danielson hooked up again to settle who was really the best with a no time limit two-out-of-three falls match (August 7, 2004, Testing the Limit). This wrestling masterpiece went well over an hour but kept me engaged throughout with the storytelling and athletic showmanship these two put on display. With this match, Aries firmly established that he could be a ROH main event star, which he would become a few months later when he defeated Samoa Joe to become the World Champion.

- Title shots back and forth in 2005 and 2006: While Aries was beginning his World Title run in early 2005, Danielson had become embroiled in a great feud with Homicide. After winning the blow off cage match with Homicide, Danielson was rewarded with a title shot against Aries at Nowhere to Run in Chicago (May 14, 2005). This was yet another great match. Danielson would not win the title this night, but went on to capture it from James Gibson four months later at Glory By Honor IV. His first title defense was against Aries at Enter the Dragon in Cleveland (October 14, 2005). This match was not quite to the level of the first three, but was still very good.

After failing to win the World Title, Aries teamed up with his Generation Next partner Roderick Strong to win the ROH Tag Team Titles. The two would have a long title run in 2006. After losing the tag belts in September, Aries again went after Danielson for the World Title. Danielson was now coming to the end of his fantastic World Title run. He had suffered a shoulder injury the previous August while defending against Colt Cabana.

This injury brought down the quality of Danielson's subsequent matches. As a result, his title defense against Aries at Motor City Madness in Detroit (October 7, 2006), while good, did not live up to the incredibly high standards these two set in their other matches. Danielson would soon drop the title to Homicide and take a few months off from wrestling to heal up.

- Best-of-Three Series in 2007: In the fall of 2007, Aries was returning to mostly singles competition after his disappointing "faction warfare" feud against Roderick Strong's No Remorse Corps, while Danielson was emerging from his heated feud with World Champion Takeshi Morishima. Not having wrestled each other for a year, the two engaged in a best-of-three series of matches to crown the unofficial "ace" of ROH. They split the first two matches, at Honor Nation in Boston (October 5, 2007) and Chaos at the Cow Palace in San Francisco (October 21), leading to a third and deciding match at Glory By Honor VI, Night One in Phladelphia (November 2).

This three match series could have been booked better by letting more time pass between the matches, especially between the second and third matches. A little more time to percolate would have allowed more anticipation to build, and some more promo time would have made winning the series seem more important. Nevertheless, the matches themselves were all excellent and I highly recommend them (the middle match was perhaps a notch below the other two). Even when the booking in ROH is merely average, like it was here, the stellar match quality usually makes up for it. During the times when the booking is great, there is no better wrestling product in North America.

- Pay-Per-View Showdown in 2008: The ninth match between Aries and Danielson came at the Take No Prisoners pay-per-view (taped in Philadelphia on March 16, 2008, and aired the following May and June). I watched this pay-per-view, but haven't watched the DVDs leading up to it (I'm still working my way through the late 2007 DVDs), so I don't have much to say other than that this is yet another phenomenal match between two phenomenal performers.

One of my two disappointments with the ROH TV show on HDNet so far has been that the TV main events, while good, haven't showcased the awesomeness of the ROH in-ring product at its very best. Of the nine Aries-Danielson matches to date, I rate six of them as can't miss awesome ROH main event matches.

The other three (Enter the Dragon, Motor City Madness and Chaos at the Cow Palace) were just good to very good - which is about the level the TV main events have been at so far. Going forward, I really hope ROH starts putting its best foot forward in its TV main events, and Aries and Danielson definitely have the potential to produce a match at that level.

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