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We start off early in Generico's ROH career when he got a couple of tryout matches in 2005, first in a four way match with Arik Cannon, Fast Eddie, and Josh Daniels at Do Or Die IV, and then in a singles match with Homicide at Dragon Gate Invasion. Not much came of those matches, and he didn't win either of them, but he got another tryout in 2007 in the infamous match where he and Steen won jobs on the spot because of their match against the Briscoes at the Fifth Year Festival. There aren't any Briscoes matches on this DVD set, but Generico had an underrated singles run when he and Steen weren't challenging the Briscoes. The first match on this set from that timeframe was against Matt Sydal at A Fight At The Roxbury, and they had a very fast paced, back and forth match that came to a hot end when Sydal escaped a brainbuster attempt and hit the Rey Mysterio rana to get the win.
Following that was Generico against Claudio Castagnoli in the finals of the Race To The Top Tournament, a competition which was designed and promoted as an opportunity for someone to become a star overnight. ROH really needed something like this since a lot of their major stars like Samoa Joe, Colt Cabana, and Homicide had all left the company earlier in the year, leaving ROH in desperate need of new headliners. Castagnoli was someone ROH got behind in a big way in terms of grooming him to be a singles main eventer and went over here, but Generico went down swinging. Generico had been portrayed as Steen's sidekick to a large extent throughout their run against the Briscoes, and his performance here was important in establishing an identity for him independent of Steen.
After watching clips of Generico's wins over Delirious, Chris Hero, and Davey Richards in the earlier rounds, we go to the finals where Generico and Claudio went close to twenty minutes after already wrestling twice that night, and they came within an eyelash of beating each other on multiple occasions before Claudio hit the Ricola Bomb for the win. Even though he lost, this match was so close that Generico came out looking every bit as good as Claudio.
Moving on, Generico faced Naomichi Marufuji from Pro Wrestling NOAH at Motor City Madness 2007. You really don't need to sell me on this one, I love watching Marufuji wrestle, and Generico always seems to step it up an extra notch when he's in the ring with international junior heavyweights. This match kicked all kinds of ass, and they did a hot finish where Generico kicked out of Sliced Bread #2, then they fought on the top rope as Generico went for the top rope brainbuster, but Marufuji reversed to a top rope Sliced Bread #2 for the win.
We're back to tournament action after that, as Generico faces Austin Aries and Go Shiozaki in the first round and semifinals, respectively, of the Eye Of The Storm Tournament. Like I said in the Steen DVD review yesterday, this tournament was thrown together at the last minute when a snowstorm prevented several wrestlers from making the show and, in my opinion, was a very clever way of delivering big in a tight situation with an extremely small roster for the night. Generico earned probably his biggest singles win in ROH to that point by beating Aries in the first round, but was defeated by Shiozaki in the semifinals. As you know if you read the Steen review, Shiozaki ended up losing in the finals to Steen.
Generico seemed to find himself wrestling a lot of Japanese opponents in 2008, such as the next match when he faced Kota Ibushi at Return Engagement. Ibushi was a bit of a departure because, while ROH fans had sort of gotten used to outsiders coming in and having great matches with ROH guys before beating them, Ibushi went the other way because he had great matches and then lost. In fact, he was 0-3 in ROH coming into this match, and I'll give you one guess who he finally got that win over? To be fair, it was a pretty good match and both guys worked really hard, and Generico was "made" enough in ROH by that time that the loss did more to help Ibushi than it did to hurt Generico.
Generico got his first shot at the ROH World Title in August of 2008 when he challenged Nigel McGuinness at Age Of Insanity. McGuinness had just come off a trilogy of very hard fought title defenses against Kevin Steen, and now Generico would get the chance to see if he could fare any better than his partner. He didn't end up winning the title either, but he also didn't go down without a fight. Generico took a ton of punishment both in the ring and on the floor, but finally gets his second wind when Steen comes down to ringside to cheer him on. He hits the brainbuster and then goes for the top rope brainbuster, but Nigel crotches him on the top rope and turns him inside out with a lariat, then hits two more grounded lariats, but Generico kicks out. Generico counters the London Dungeon to a cradle for 2, but Nigel flattens him with the Jawbreaker and gets the London Dungeon again. Generico had hung in there and took everything Nigel threw at him, but couldn’t muster enough willpower to get out of the London Dungeon again and was finally forced to tap out.
We end the first disc and start the second with another pair of matches featuring Generico taking on Japanese wrestlers, during ROH's tour of Japan in September of 2008. First, Generico teamed with SHINGO and Dragon Kid to take on Naruki Doi, Masato Yoshino, and BxB Hulk at Battle of the Best. It's interesting that the six man was included, since problems during this tour led to the end of the ROH-Dragon Gate relationship and, eventually, to the creation of Dragon Gate USA. Even more interestingly, Generico has become a regular in Dragon Gate USA this year since ROH has barely been using him. I guess some things just have a weird habit of coming full circle. Generico hits a pair of brainbusters to pin Yoshino and win the match for his team, then goes on to face Taiji Ishimori of Pro Wrestling NOAH the next night at the Tokyo Summit. Ishimori trained at the Toryumon school (the predecessor to Dragon Gate), so he incorporates a lot of lucha into his style. Ishimori hit a La Magistral version of the crucifix bomb and a hammerlock DDT, then finished Generico off with a handspring backflip into an elbowdrop.
We go through 2009 and 2010 on super fast forward, as we completely skip the feuds against the American Wolves and Kevin Steen. Instead, all we get are matches against Bryan Danielson and Kastuhiko Nakajima from 2009, and Generico vs Tyler Black and Generico & Cabana vs the American Wolves (well after their feud had ended) from 2010. I would have to assume that the decision to leave the feuds with the Wolves and Steen out was made because there are plans to include them in other DVD releases at some point in the future, but it's a pretty glaring omission from a DVD set about a guy whose career was largely defined by those feuds. Look at it like this: if you were going to do a DVD set looking at Hulk Hogan's big WWF run from 1983-1993, imagine leaving out the feuds with Andre and Randy Savage, and covering those time periods with matches against Dino Bravo and Haku instead. It's certainly no knock on Dino Bravo or Haku, but it would be ridiculous to try chronicling Hogan's career without the Andre and Savage stuff, and that's basically what ROH did here with Generico. The matches were all good, but none of them meant anything in the long run.
Generico found himself in a heated feud with the House of Truth as 2011 began, stemming from his match with Roderick Strong for the ROH World Title at SoCal Showdown II. Generico had been rewarded with a title shot for beating Kevin Steen at Final Battle 2010, but came up on the losing end here when Strong hit him with the belt behind the referee’s back, then followed up with the Sick Kick and hit the Gibson Driver to retain. So the guy who bled like a maniac while taking chairshots, chain shots, and bumps through tables and guardrails, yet still found the intestinal fortitude to fight his way to victory just a month earlier is now going down to a beltshot. Right. I thought this was ridiculous and, in one match, they showed that Generico was not someone they had big plans for in ROH. He took more punishment in one match than just about anyone who ever stepped in an ROH ring when he faced Steen, and one month later was just another throwaway title contender.
After defeating TJ Perkins in a short but good match at Manhattan Mayhem IV that saw him bust out the ultra-rare brainbuster onto the ring apron, we see footage of Generico beating Strong at Honor Takes Center Stage: Night Two. Generico takes a 3-on-1 beatdown from Strong, Michael Elgin, and Truth Martini after the match, and Colt Cabana runs in to try and make the save, but he gets outnumbered and laid out as well. Christopher Daniels suddenly runs in, ostensibly to the rescue of Generico and Cabana, but surprises everyone by using the Book of Truth to knock Generico out, then hits Angel’s Wings on Cabana and joins the House of Truth. The war with the House of Truth was on, and Generico got his next chance for vengeance when he faced Strong again at Revolution: USA, this time in a No DQ match. As you might expect, the HoT took full advantage of the No DQ rules by having the entire group run in to attack Generico. Cabana came in and neutralized Elgin and Daniels, but Strong hit a top rope uranage through a table for the win.
Generico regains some momentum by beating Christopher Daniels in a non-title match the next night at Revolution: Canada (which is not shown here), then goes on to beat him for the TV Title at Best In The World 2011 (which is shown). This turned out to be Daniels' last appearance in ROH, as he had already returned to TNA and was finishing up here. Daniels got cocky late in the match and put the title belt on while parading around the ring showboating, but Generico caught him off guard and hit the top rope brainbuster to win his first and only singles title in ROH. Incidentally, Generico went on to win the feud against the HoT when he beat Strong in a cage at No Escape in July, but that one seems to have been omitted as well. I have to be honest, though, they did such a bad job of telling Generico’s story that I really didn’t care by the end.
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This is the first DVD compilation from ROH that I'm disappointed in, and it's not due to the quality of the matches included, but because of what they left out. The Kevin Steen feud, which was not only Generico's biggest feud in ROH, but one that main evented Final Battle 2010, was completely omitted. In fact, Kevin Steen is nowhere to be found anywhere on this DVD set other than one match where he’s standing at ringside cheering Generico on, there's nothing from the Briscoes or American Wolves feuds, and not one match from Steen & Generico's reign as the ROH World Tag Team Champions is included. We don’t even see the blowoff to the HoT feud that took up most of the second disc. If you were just watching these DVDs fresh and didn't have any prior knowledge of ROH, you'd think Generico was just this guy in a mask who had good matches and lost to Japanese guys. I think this set did a HUGE disservice to Generico's ROH career and legacy, and I'd say to avoid this DVD set at all costs, because it left out everything that made Generico important to ROH, and is in no way representative of his ROH career as a whole.
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