[2003-03-16-ROH-Night Of Champions] A.J. Styles & Amazing Red vs Mark & Jay Briscoe

[Superstar Sleeze]

ROH World Tag Team Champions AJ Styles & Amazing Red vs Jay & Mark Briscoe - ROH 3/16/03

AJ Styles is an underrated major player in the foundation of ROH. Lots of major matches against the likes of Low-Ki (he was who Ki first defended the ROH title against) and American Dragon. He was the first Tag Champion and was in the finals for the first Pure Championship. I enjoy Amazing Red. He is the good kind of spot monkey. His spots are breath-taking and look like they do damage, he has a snap and velocity to everything he does. Admittedly, I have seen very little of the Briscoes. I look forward to watching more. They came across as very solid 21st Century 1st Gen Indy workers, high on workrate, little on psychology. 

I loved the Shine of this. Red just executes so well. They are moving so fast and fluidly that the armdrag exchanges come off great. So many people speed walk through their stuff nowadays that it is not as fun as this. The real highlight is the AJ/Mark amateur bit that leads to a great German Suplex. Competitive, lots of struggle and then a wicked suplex, HELL YEAH! Loved the Red superkicking Jay over in a nasty German. Then the stereo dives. 

After that it is like they wanted to work face in peril without doing. I dont know if they just didnt understand psychology or if it was active rebellion against the shine-heat-comeback formula. They were purposefully trying something different. I dont know. They would do cool stuff like a blind tag to Jay who smoked Red out of the air with a missile dropkick but then turnaround and have  Red hit a cool highspot named Brain Damage. They did a similar sequence with AJ. They set up the counters well but it was a bit premature. The "Breaking Loose in a High School Gymnasium" was an awesome spotfest. Red was busting out all sort of cool cinematic Kung-Fu kicks. I liked the one off the Briscoe back and kicking the other in the head. AJ is the heir to Bret Hart. He is the 21st Excellence of Execution. Everything is hit with a purpose and a snap. The Code Red off the top was wild. The finish itself I thought could have been hit a littler cleaner BUT the Crowd went fucking APESHIT for it so I cant complain too much. It was AJ springboarding Red into a rana and then Styles Clash. This was a great balls to the wall spotfest with lots of cool moves, but they could have done a better job on layout. ***3/4