Bryan Danielson vs. Homicide (ROH - 12/23/2006)

Not sure if I've seen this before, but if I did then it didn't leave much of an impression and that's pretty true on this viewing as well. With the caveat that there probably is something lost going into this out of context and this might be some multi-layered story with callbacks to older matches that the commentators glossed over, this struck me as little more than a solid workrate match elevated by a strong crowd and a couple of nice dramatic touches.

The biggest negative for me is the dual shoulder injury story and the selling-without-selling that goes along with. I remember the 2006 Kaz Hayashi vs. Shuji Kondo being probably the quintessential example of that phenomenon, but this comes close to topping it. What I'm talking about is that even though both guys use some theatrics to get across the idea that their shoulders are in pain, at no point does their damaged shoulder play into their ability to execute moves or force them to reconsider executing certain moves. They pretty much work the exact match they would without playing into shoulder injuries, except while occasionally pointing to their shoulder between moves. As a result, rather than feeling any sort of concern for either guys' shoulder, the situation felt borderline comical to me how they couldn't let shoulder selling get in the way of their go-go-go style.

Looking past the unintentional hilarity, this is pretty good for what it is. They keep a solid pace and the suplexes and dives have an extra bit of oomph to them for the occasion. I was a little mixed on the DQ restart. I thought it was cool in theory to have something like that to sell the epic feel, but the execution felt a little half-baked. Them trying to tease Homicide DQing himself at the end after the ref made it clear he wasn't ending the match on a DQ struck me as another case of them wanting to have their cake and eat it too. If I was booking I'd have just had Homicide's guys and Danielson's guys lay each other out and restart the match as no DQ. Booking disagreements aside, that section actually gave birth to my favorite part of the match, that being Danielson's lovely smirk while walking away with the title off the DQ loss.

That aside, they build to some strong near falls with the crowd getting big into it. 2nd favorite moment of the match was Homicide grabbing the ref's leg when it looked like he was about to pass out in a sleeper. Danielson's elbows off his cattle mutilation looked kind of shit, but the crowd was so hot it didn't drag things down too much. Have to agree the finish was sudden and something that felt less out of nowhere would have been better for the occasion, but also can't complain too much about that when the crowd bought it fine. I'd say overall that this was an entertaining enough match and an admirable effort from 2 young guys, but just expected more from the rep this match seems to have accumulated over the years. Would go about ***1/2