By Rich Twilling

ROH on HDNet
Taped in Philadelphia, Penn.

[Q1] Grizzly Redwood began to cut a promo when he was interrupted by Austin Aries. His shirt said, "Make awkward sexual advances, not war." Austin asked Grizzly, since he was an actual lumberjack, to help him in his lumberjack match tonight.

Grizzly said he could not do it. Austin was okay with that but then attacked Grizzly. He cut a promo saying both Delirious and Daizee Haze would have to pay for the choices they have made in the past tonight...

The opening video aired. Mike Hogewood welcomed us to the show and introduced his announce partner, Dave Prazak. Rhett Titus made his entrance, along with his manager, A Double...

Twill's Two Cents: As much as I love the work of Roderick Strong, I would have loved to see A Double become the first three time ROH Champion. By the way, my man Joe Mathieson was under the weather, so I am filling in for him tonight. Get well soon Joe.

1. Christopher Daniels defeated "Addicted to Love" Rhett Titus (with Austin Aries) in 7:42. With Daniels standing on the second rope setting up for a high risk move, Titus hit a very impressive standing dropkick. Titus took control of the match and scored a nearfall.

Titus continued to enjoy offensive success by hitting a reverse neckbreaker for another nearfall. After a series of counters, Daniels hit a STO and regained control. He attempted to hit the Angels' Wings, but Titus countered by pushing Daniels into the turnbuckles.

Daniels applied the Koji Clutch and Titus tapped out, but the referee with busy being distracted by Aries. Daniels ended up whipping Titus into Aries, who was standing on the apron. He followed up with the BME (Best Moonsault Ever) for the win...

Twill's Two Cents: Decent opener, but not as good as you would expect. The short amount of time they were given didn't help much, as well as the crowd being dead for it. Solid action back and forth though and an impressive win for Daniels.

Jim Cornette's interview with Davey Richards from Glory By Honor IX was hyped for later in the show...

2. The House of Truth (Christian Able and Josh Raymond, with Truth Martini) defeated Ricky Reyes and Aiden Chambers in 2:49. THOT have the worst theme music. It sounds like Earthquake's music from his early 90s WWF days.

Reyes had the first impressive offensive flurry of the match after getting a hot tag. Able and Raymond hit their finisher (double team move, place opponent on shoulders, face the other way from the corner, partner comes down with double knees over the shoulders) for the win...

Twill's Two Cents: Solid action, but neither team stands out. The House of Truth has a horribly indy look, which is too bad, since their manager also manages the current ROH Champion, Roderick Strong.

An ad for Glory By Honor IX was shown. Cocktail is the HDNet movie tonight. It's funny imagining Tom Cruise in this movie because his wife, Katie Holmes, was ten years old at the time it came out. His first wife, Mimi Rogers, whom he was married to at the time, was 32...

Hogewood and Prazak hyped Glory By Honor IX to set up the interview Davey Richards did with Jim Cornette. They showed the interview and Cornette led off by saying Richards stated in the summer he would retire at the end of the year.

He said Richards had a lot of interests outside of wrestling and asked him if he still intended to retire. Richards got teary eyed and said the question invoked a lot of emotion. He said he did not have the childhood a lot of boys had and wrestling was part of him.

Twill's Two Cents: Easily relatable.

Richards talked about the girl he married and his mom, saying she (his mom) had addiction problems. "Sometimes she is there and sometimes she is not there." He said he was the best in the world but did not have the hardware. He was not the World Champion.

Davey said his mom told him she was not always there for him, but wrestling was always there for him. Cornette asked him what it all meant. Richards took a deep breath and said, "I'm not going anywhere." He said he was put on this Earth to wrestle and he was meant to wrestle.

He said it was time for him to become the World Champion and he would not leave until he did. He said he lost his marriage and lost his family. "This is me. This is not a character." He said he was the best and would become the World Champion...

Twill's Two Cents: Wow. Very, very rarely am I moved by a wrestling interview, but that did it. For a second, and forgive me because I know I have a job to do, I will step out of being a writer and let you all know, as a fan, Davey Richards is my favorite wrestler, plus a lot of what he said resonated with me. Great interview and damn, I'm glad he is sticking around. With all due respect to Tyler Black, losing Davey would have been a much bigger loss for ROH.

3. The American Wolves (Davey Richards and ROH Television Champion Eddie Edwards) defeated The Super Smash Brothers in 10:28. Player Uno looked impressive early and they hit a double team move on Richards for the first nearfall. Uno and Dos continued to look impressive.

Edwards hit a Warrior's Way on the back of Uno's head and Richards covered for their first nearfall. Richards and Uno went back and forth with their offense. Edwards and Dos tagged in and Dos hit a nice high cross body. Dos then hit a double Pele kick on both Wolves.

Edwards save a pinfall attempt from the Smash Brothers. He then took over the match for his team. He and Dos had an impressive singles exchange for a few moments. Eddie and Davey isolated Dos but Dos hit a reverse hurricarana on Richards.

They thought they had Edwards beat after a half nelson suplex but he kicked out. Dos then missed a frogsplash. The Wolves hit the powerbomb/Code Breaker combination. Edwards then applied the Achilles Lock and got the win for his team...

Twill's Two Cents: Very good and very fast paced tag team match. That was a ten minute match that had the action of twenty. I like the idea of the Wolves continuing to team together because a situation could arise where the Wolves have all of the championships in Ring of Honor.

A video package hyping Delirious vs. Austin Aires aired. The lumberjacks made their way to the ring. The heels cheered for him. Delirious made his way out in red and black, and we all know what that means...

Twill's Two Cents: In case you don't know what that means, Delirious wears red and black, as opposed to the green and black, when he is especially pissed and focused.

4. Austin Aries defeated Delirious in a lumberjack match in 11:11. Delirious hit a few moves and Aries exited the ring where the heels were and they allowed him to catch a breather. The same thing happened when Delirious was sent out to the babyfaces.

Austin took control of the match with a methodical set of offensive moves. He scored a few nearfalls as well. Aries sent Delirious to the babyfaces on the floor. He hit a suicide dive and then got the hell out of there.

Delirious came back and hit a few moves to take full control of the match. He worked on the lower back of Aries to set up for Shadows Over Hell. He then hit the cobra suplex. He went to the top rope. Aries slithered out of the ring to the heels. Delirious hit a somersault plancha on all of them.

The lumberjacks started to brawl with each other. With the referee's back turned, Rhett Titus hit a knee drop off of the top rope onto Delirious. Aries hit More Damage Done (front facing Stunner) for the win...

Twill's Two Cents: The lumberjack stipulation did not add a whole lot to the match, because it simply allowed the referee to be distracted for Titus to assist Aries in getting the win. I do like the feud though, so this one will definitely continue because of the finish.

Not a great show tonight, but nice to see the Wolves and Aries in action, not to mention the Davey Richards interview. Thank you for reading and Joe will be back next week.

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