Anywho, this is their first singles match against one another in close to twenty years at this point. Their actual last singles match takes place in late 2002 in TNA, and they’re in a few multi-mans together, but let’s be real: this is supposed to be the sequel to the famous ROH match from 6/22/02 that cemented Ki as a generational talent and really put Red on the map (and you can read about it here: ROH: Road to the Title 6/22/2002)
The match itself definitely has a cool feeling to it. Neat looking venue, interesting production set up. I’ve never seen a HoG match before so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I forgot about Low Ki going through his Assassin phase from that video game. And even though it’s nerdy as fuck, I’d be lying if I didn’t say it also kind’ve ruled? But then it also loses coolness points when you remember that Ki is ultimately a dipshit.
The match starts, and hey, it is what it is. It’s these two, but it’s these two in 2018. Ki works slow and methodical as part of this assassin gimmick, but I think it’s also to disguise that he simply just doesn’t have the pop he did back in the day, which is fine. He immediately targets Red’s knees and ankles, working over his infamously bad limbs.
Then this sort of breaks down into an ECW style arena brawl for a bit. It’s very slow and plodding. They make their way up to a stage set up in the back of the arena, and suddenly…well, suddenly this becomes a cinematic match? The camera angle changes, the colors scheme changes, it’s done on a very annoying two camera system which relies WAY too heavily on quick cuts. I mean it was honestly to the point that even Kevin Dunn would’ve thought it was overkill.
They revisit a modified version of their famous exchange from their ROH match, but Red can’t go anymore so to improvise, he grabs a steel chair.
And that’s when it dawns on me what they’re doing, just as Low Kin reaches for a randomly placed wooden staff, and breaks it in two in the coolest way ever. They’re doing a fucking kung fu movie roof top fight scene! Like Ki starts doing karate with the broken staff and Red uses the chair as a shield and they tease teetering off the stage like it’s a roof top!
What the fuck am I watching?!
Ki finally managed to land a big kick on Red which sends him flying off the stage and onto a bunch of production guys. At this point, the super annoying commentary team begins to bring up how Ki is a hired gun and maybe he only came to HoG to get the belt and hand it immediately to whatever villain Red is currently feuding with (I didn’t catch the name and was too lazy to go back). And hey that’s a fine story, maybe work that angle in an actual mat based match where you can still comfortably hide Red’s limitations instead of doing this ridiculous shit?
They work their way back through the crowd and to ringside, and this portion of the match goes on FOREVER. I mean there’s just a ton of dead time where Ki will strike Red, Red will sell it and Ki will take like 20-30 seconds it felt like before he strikes again.
They then do a really bad looking ref bump with nobody there to make the count on some near falls, just as the match was starting to get interesting. The longer I watched this, the more my melted pudding brain is beginning to believe this is some sort of WWE psyop, because this is one of those forced epic story telling bullshits that WWE fans be cummin’ in they lil’ panties to anymore. Whatever.
Red stops a Warriors Way and a super Ki Krusher to hit the tilt a whirl 450 to FINALLY beat Low Ki after almost 20 years. No, I don’t mean how long since their last match, I mean how long this match fucking felt like at points.
Oh but it’s not over! Some cheesy 80’s music starts playing, almost like the end of Funk/Onita. Like what is this shit? It’s looking like the ending of a really bad B movie. Is this what HoG always is like?
Few fun/funny things sprinkled throughout but Red is clearly beyond cooked sadly and Ki is just too caught up in his own bullshit. They didn’t know what they wanted this match to be. I’m choosing to believe that’s what happened because the other option is that they’re both complete fucking dweebs with this shit.
But whatever. Kept my attention the whole way through and far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Fake roof battle was the high point. It was dumb, but it was fun dumb.
I would only recommend this if you’re a real big fan of 2010’s mush brained Low Ki or if you’ve got some pills you want to pop before bed and need something to distract you. This is mostly a compliment.
I think.
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