Samoa Joe & Bryan Danielson v Austin Aries & Jack Evans (ROH Third Anniversary Celebration - Part 2, 2/25/05)
Well this was a hoot. A lot of the more workrate-heavy ROH tags don't do a ton for me, but things like this can be real fun. They lean a bit further into the SHTICK~ and structurally it's pretty much traditional southern tag formula. It's also an upper-midcard lead-in tag to the next night's Aries/Joe rematch, so they don't shoot for seven star epic. The first half had a bit of comedy, a bit of crowd-engagement, a bit of setup for tomorrow's main event and a whole lot of Jack Evans getting murdered. He asks for a dance off with Danielson to begin with, does his break dance bit, so Joe and Danielson do a tandem Mexican wave to a monster pop. Evans obviously is irate. He then asks Joe for a karate contest and Joe smacks his face off. Aries comes in for one brief exchange with Joe, gets decked, tags back out and sticks to the apron. Danielson and Joe beating on Evans was great. Just a complete ass-stomping where Danielson stretches him silly and Joe literally kicks him out his shoes (and later slaps him about the face with those same shoes). Danielson bends him at a truly disgusting angle with a surfboard stretch, then Joe comes in and hits a running dropkick while he's suspended in midair. Eventually Gen Next take over on Danielson and you might be shocked to hear that it was a really good heat segment. What was so cool about the transition is that, to that point, it was literally Aries' only involvement outside of that bit with Joe. He came in and blindsided Danielson with a suplex off the top, dragging Evans back to his own corner, ready to tag in on his own terms. AMAZING bit where Evans has a pin on Danielson and Joe breaks it up by launching Evans' shoe at him from the apron. I love pretty much any spot where someone will throw something from the apron so I popped like an idiot. He did it again later with the other shoe, this time to break up an Aries pin, but he also blamed someone in the crowd for it to get out of jail with the ref' (and the person in the crowd willingly took all the heat for it). I also loved that Evans wrestled the majority of the match in his socks, although it did lead to a scary moment where he tried to backflip off Danielson's back and nearly piledrove himself on the landing. Lots of cool stuff in the finishing run, like Aries clipping Joe's knee from behind to maybe set up something for their singles match. And that stretch muffler at the end is the nastiest version you'll ever see in your life. I thought this ruled.
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