I'm on the quest of working on my DVD backlog. Clearly I go on internet wrestling side quests. But my main quest, is totally to watch all the DVDs that I blew.. I mean spent...spent my money on. Here I am going to be tackling my Davey Richards American Wolf DVD from Ring of Honor. I got this baby back in 2016 (probably on sale) from Highspots. Davey is one of those guys that I wasn't a giant fan of back in the late 2000's but that's because I never saw him enough. This was during the faction warfare period of ROH. Anyhow, somewhere along the line I thought I would give him a second chance. I probably saw that he had a bunch of highly acclaimed matches in 2009-10 and the DVD was on sale and I bought it. Kinda on a whim but I think I might have watched some matches from 2010 PWG and he was really good in them...it's fuzzy now. Anyhow, I have turned a corner on old Davey boy. I think he's a stand out in FIP by delivering in-ring action along with consistently engaging the fans. For the PWG stuff, I have seen the same. For this post, I'm going to review matches from that era of his career. It's no way comprehensive but it seems to be a good snap shot.

vs Jimmy Rave (ROH Destiny 2006): This could have gotten away with being a 10-12 minute "fun" match with Jimmy Rave playing heel & Davey hamming it up. The fans just want to see Jimmy get beat up. Rave & Davey most likely had a program in FIP and brought it up North and dialed it up a notch. They put on a great match that not only has the aforementioned heeling & hamming but some intense wrestling action. I've seen a fair amount of him at this time & this was a fantastic ROH intro for Dave.

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vs Jack Evans (ROH Glory by Honor V, Night #2 2006): Really, really good match. This felt shorter than the Rave match. My guess is this was the big show debut for Davey? Well he and Jack did an excellent job keeping things exciting. The whole thing was back & forth. Neither guy emptied their tanks but it was very impressive. There was likely an FIP match  that made DVD between these two (or maybe PWG) because they worked smoothly here...like Jif peanut butter smooth. Davey seems like the most "made for ROH" wrestler on the indie scene at this time...he fits that Low-Ki/American Dragon mold perfectly.

Jack's about to take flight.

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I don't have a full review written but also go see Honor Reclaims Boston (2006) and the great Richards & KENTA vs Aries & Strong title match. It was stiff as shit and had some very nice sequences. Everyone looked very good especially Richards who was the low man on the totem pole at the time. I liked this one quite a bit...maybe 4 1/4 stars (near classic range).

vs Go Shiozaki (King of Europe Cup 2007 tournament match): I really love this era of independent/international wrestling. You get all kinds of dream matches like this. Here both guys are allowed to perform at their potential rather than be limited by ranking, storyline or gimmick. As a result, we get a great tournament match between two icons of the decade. It's not an empty the tank main event level fight but, neither guy was dogging it. It was a fiery bout between two hard hitters. This may be my favorite era of Shiozaki as he wasn't quite NOAH main event yet but was hungry to prove himself. It's a similar situation with Davey. He was certainly proving himself in ROH with great matches in 2006 but wasn't given that singles push towards the top yet.

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vs Naomichi Marufuji (ROH Final Battle 2007): A good match and best summed up as a fun match. I definitely think that they were on easy mode seeing as this was mid-card on Final Battle. That said they busted out a couple crazy moves and kept the crowd entertained. I've been watching 1980 NJPW so the actual hold for hold wrestling looked slow and a bit loose. And the intensity wasn't that high. This is a compliment to the '80 NJ guys. I think what Davey & Marufuji were doing was perfectly acceptable for the 3rd match on a big show. So if you saw this and thought it was great then, you would like 1980 New Japan

Richards & Rocky Romero vs Bryan Danielson & Austin Aries (ROH Without Remorse 2008 - Final Fall of Tag Title Ultimate Endurance match): This is an interesting inclusion since this might be Davey's first title win in ROH. Sorry I spoiled it. It's fun stuff but we only get the final fall. I thought it was best when Aries was in since Danielson had a leg "injury." 

vs Kota Ibushi (ROH Bedlam in Beantown 2008): This is a rewatch for me. I actually watched this one in 2016 when I got this DVD set. Kota Ibushi hype was at an all time high. Surprisingly, this one stood the test of time. This was some action packed, hard hitting wrestling. What made this so go was the pacing. They kept escalating without emptying their tanks. They had enough tricks to keep things interesting and they would revert back to hard kicks, elbows and slaps. This looked like two guys looking to fight and win. This match reminded me of Aries vs KENTA Chi-town Struggle from 2006. Just two wrestlers at the top of their game trying to prove who's best. Classic match.

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This is a fun project and one I'll probably do sporadically this Autumn. I want to get back to AJPW 2002. But checking out some of the best of Davey Richards 2008-2009 should be a fun side project 

Thanks for reading!