Wanting to remain semi-ignorant to public opinion, the matches set to take place at Final Battle 2011 promise to ensure this event serves its obvious purpose to the fullest.
Detectably so, from the top featured ROH World Championship Main Event which plays off of the subtitle of the iPPV, “Richards vs. Eddie Edwards III,” to the vast list of possible opening bouts, Final Battle 2011 promises to supply heavy revelation.
On December 23, Richards and Edwards are planning to create their own sense of history, as they prepare to be combatants for a championship for the third time. This finalizes history, ensuring the completion of a competitive trilogy that will respectfully reside next to any classic to have ever taken place inside of an ROH-ring.
Perhaps the most recently, notable classic, cultivating from inside an ROH-ring took place in June 2011, Richards and Edwards II, for the ROH World Championship, at the Hammerstein Ballroom, just a thought.
However, the most dominant aspect of this event primarily stems from the cards ability to sustain interest from top to bottom. In addition, the matches on deck have the ability to drown in the element of surprise.
The ROH Roster has been critically diagnosed by the critical public with anaemia; but yet at Final Battle 2011, a lack there of, looks more like an overdose of have-wants and have-needs. Richards vs. Edwards III is only one of them.
Rather than overindulging in the Richards-Edwards mecca, consider the following. Unrelated to what took place at “Best in the World 2011,” Final Battle 2011 appears to have found more than one focal point.
Ring of Honor announced this week The Embassy’s Tommaso Ciampa, will take on an ex-troop of Nana’s World, Jimmy Rave. The implication of the bout is unclear but at this point, even this low in the card, interest has risen. Rave has lingered away from an ROH-ring and at Final Battle, Rave may be starting much more than he plans to finish.
T.J Perkins against Michael Elgin is a match I am specifically looking forward to, and selfishly so. The reason being, this event will mark the first time I have been able to witness Perkins compete live.
For three out of the four competitors listed for competition in the above two paragraphs, Final Battle 2011 is designed as follows.
For Elgin, Perkins and Ciampa, this event will provide one final match, as one final testament, with one final outcome; to further suggest how this year has treated them and what it has given and done for them. Better yet, it may also suggest how each man has treated this year and what they have given and done for it.
For Rave, Final Battle 2011 will be designed as more of a rough-copy than a final-copy; but nevertheless what is final is his two year absence from an ROH event. The worth of this bout should require no further examining.
One of the largest, talent-stuffed tag-team matches in the history of the promotion is also on deck for December 23. Stubbornly, I desire for it to NOT be booked as the opening match-up. Stubbornly, the majority of ROH fans should have the same desire. If you are more than aware of the names involved, and rather more aware of the talent, skill and nature of the five tag-teams set to be featured in this match-up; your perception of this contest should be nothing other than professional tag-team wrestling at its finest. An opening bout may not provide the time needed to display the talent each athlete is capable of providing here. Ponder where the triple-threat tag-team match between The Bravado Brothers, Future Shock and The Young Bucks at Death Before Dishonor IX was placed on the card. Secondly, ponder the success of that match and then ponder everything being noted above.
The above perception is attached to high expectations; as the same applies for The Young Bucks, Future Shock, The All Night Express, The Bravado Brothers and the C & C Wrestle Factory. Very recent memory proves that idea and therefore all of these memories will add up to earn one of these teams a future Ring of Honor Tag-Team Championship Match.
You can predict the five team gauntlet match as an atypical four-star Ring of Honor tag-team spot-fest, or you can predict the match as a showcase of superior tag-team talent; but regardless envision this match as the one and only way to finalize the company’s opinion of who deserves the next shot at Ring of Honor tag-team history.
Through an in-depth or a condensed look at the matches booked for Final Battle 2011, one can determine how alive and well the element of surprise will be on December 23.
Come what may, the Roderick Strong Invitational Challenge could pump the majority of blood-supply delivering that very element. The main factor for this stems from the fact Strong’s opponent has yet to be named and it appears as if his opponent will not be named until Strong has made his way to the ring.
The closest ROH evaluators are being left astray and being led to believe a “BIG” return is what the company has planned for the Roderick Strong Invitational Challenge. Being one of the best in the world at what he does, we can expect someone of equal echelon to challenge him. The list of possibilities is so incredibly vast I would prefer to keep the reader’s and my own imagination as wide-open as possible.
I do not exclusively deserve credit for the following hype-style sentence. The Grudge Match of Year (2011) in all of professional wrestling has the ability to take place during Final Battle 2011 when the anarchist of professional wrestling, Kevin Steen, takes on Steve Corino.
The implications of the contest featuring Jimmy Jacobs as Special Guest Referee and Jim Cornette and Cary Silkin as Ringside Enforcers, allow breathing room for the element of surprise. The intensely descriptive background and story-plotting involved allows for an endless array of climatic scenarios. If one match can serve truly revelationary, it will be this one.
Deciding to follow close-suit to last year’s Fight without Honor between Steen and El Generico, the promotion is taking the same creative route for this match. The following excerpt via rohwrestling.com explains how.
“This match will still be sanctioned by ROH and the New York State Athletic Commission. However it will be contested under No Disqualification rules with the winner to be determined by pin-fall, submission, or knockout only!”
Mike Bennett, Jay Lethal and El Generico will square off in a triple-threat match for the Ring of Honor Television Title. Bennett has finally been able to come to the realization that the television championship he believes he is in possession of is imaginary; hence his most recent P.S.A. (Prodigy Service Announcement). Bennett also came to the realization that he will need someone as “naughty” as he, to escort him to ringside for this match; again, hence his most recent P.S.A.
Lethal, next to Elgin, is the most recent talent to be guaranteed a Ring of Honor World Championship Match sometime in 2012; and that implication may impact the outcome of this contest.
There will be ole’s supplied through ovation, Boston’s Bennett will be boo’d and Lethal will be liked but finally, the television title belongs to the man who suits it best after this battle.
The pioneers of the Ring of Honor tag-team division, who some may consider ROH’s Greatest tag-team, the Briscoe Brothers, are set to compete against Wrestling’s Greatest Tag-Team, Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin, in a Ring of Honor World Tag-Team Championship Match.
What the future holds for Haas and Benjamin is unclear to many, but what the future holds for the Briscoe Brothers certainly includes another ROH World Tag-Team Title run.
It may pale in comparison to the Corino-Steen match and the Richards-Edwards match, but the ROH World Tag-Team Title bout taking place on December 23 has taken time to brew.
Appropriately so, at Final Battle 2011, both of these teams are aiming to have this be the final time they battle each other. The violent outbursts that have taken place leading up to this match suggests why both teams would want this match to finalize something. No matter what rematch clauses exist following December 23, there is something climatic bound to happen.
Despite the subtitle of this event, “Richards vs. Edwards III,” Final Battle 2011 finds its enormity and its strength in the fact that a die-hard ROH assessor like I, can find more than just one subtitle to the event.
Richards and Edwards will be a guaranteed Ring of Honor World Championship classic and to say the contest caters to the majority of the ROH faithful is an absurd understatement.
The hype for each match booked for December 23 has been explained through all of the above analysis. If there is one match on this card defining the exact product Ring of Honor is exclusively known for, it is likely the ROH World Championship Match.
Relationships aside, the opening-bell will push aside UFC Hall-of-Famer, Dan Severn, and Team Richards affiliates/trainees, Kyle O’Reilly and Tony Kozina.
The current relationship status between Edwards and Richards is calling for their Final Battle. Exactly as it went down six months ago at the Best in the World 2011 iPPV event, in the very same building, these two promise to share the very same thought process; perhaps for the final time.
Therefore I conclude with an excerpt out of a column I composed for rohwrestling.com in June recapping the Best in the World 2011 Richards-Edwards Main Event.
I reckon that the following remains as an accurate way to hype-up and apply expectations to “Richards vs. Edwards III,” at Final Battle 2011.
What it takes to THE BEST – “The premise of the match shifted as Todd Sinclair made the three-count putting in an order for the final bell. Prior to the opening bell, the contest was strictly based on becoming THE BEST the world has to offer. The conclusion to the contest permanently altered what it means to be THE BEST. Wrestling for ROH, for the World Championship, in a classic affair, warrants a wrestler’s ability to not label himself as THE BEST, but label himself as THE BEST he can be. Both Richards and Edwards jointly made this of relevance. For several months we have been aware of the mentality of these two men. These two warriors competed in combat to create the awe-inspiring demolition of expectations needed to claim the label: THE BEST in the world. Techniques and procedures of war were clearly demonstrated as both men displayed the science of combat. Both world-class-superstars tapered the definition of triumph and victory, of being THE BEST in the world, to beating one another.”
Ultimately, on December 23, both Richards and Edwards will apply the above excerpt yet again, through battle, for the final time in 2011.
