By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

Ring of Honor "Full Circle" DVD review
January 16, 2009
Manassas, Va.

DVD line-up: (1) Brent Albright & Erick Stevens vs. Chris Escobar & Damian Wayne ... (2) Rhett Titus vs. Sean Denny ... (3 Delirious vs. Necro Butcher ... (4) Jay Briscoe & Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards ... (5) Jerry Lynn vs. Austin Aries ... (6) Bryan Danielson vs. Jimmy Jacobs ... (7) ROH champion Nigel McGuinness vs. Tyler Black (non-title match).

The common problem with a lot of the marquee matches on some of these ROH DVDs is the case is more often than not they fail to live up to or exceed what you would expect from the participants.

Jerry Lynn vs. Austin Aries and Briscoe & Strong vs. Richards & Edwards match that description. I was expecting to be blown away by these two matches, but walked away only thinking the tag match was good, but not great.

The undercard here was just plain boring, as the first three matches did nothing to excite me. Bison Smith's debut wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either as the fans just don't know who he is as he simply isn't a name wrestler on the indy circuit making his big debut in ROH.

I wanted ROH to tone down some of the stuff they did on the undercard before Gabe Sapolsky was removed as booker, but the undercards have been toned down too much. It was one thing where a lot of the matches were similar and that got old quick. If ROH varied the style of matches up and down the card, which would have solved the problem. As it is, they've removed a lot of the innovation and excitement from the undercard and what we are left with is a series of skippable matches. I also didn't like how three matches in a row ended due to outside interference beginning with the second match on the card.

If you're going to ask people to pay $20 for a DVD, then give them some value for their money. Show them something different than what they see every week for free on television up and down the card. The last two matches finally matched up to something most fans would have a hard time complaining about with the Jimmy Jacobs-Danielson and McGuinness-Black matches.

Jacobs got another win over Danielson using every heel trick in the book to get the nod with a rollup using the ropes for momentum after Danielson had caught him in the triangle choke. They set the match up with 2 good promos placed in different spots on the show from both guys leading into the semi-main event.

The main event was really good, but it was such a buzz kill to see this marketed as a non-title match. The Virginia crowd was hot for this show and deserved better than seeing zero titles defended on the show. Black's win was fantastic and sets him up as a strong contender to McGuinness's title, but he should have just flat-out beat McGuinness for the title whenever he faced Nigel again in a straight up singles match. It's clearly what the fans want.

Overall I give this show a thumbs up. There are a couple of good matches worth going out of your way to see, but there are better shows out there to check out first before going after this one.

Overall Score: 6.5

Link: "Full Circle" DVD on ROH's website.

Contact Sean Radican at PWTorchSean@gmail.com.

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