By Mike DeRosenroll, Torch specialist

PWTorch VIP members have first-look access to all of Torch ROH specialist Mike DeRosenroll's latest ROH-related blogs in the VIP Forum. His blogs are posted under the M2_Jay screenname.

Christopher Daniels's work rate in TNA has drawn some criticism from Wade Keller and Bruce Mitchell on recent Torch audio shows; some I feel has been justified and some overly harsh. Daniels's technical wrestling is almost always flawless. His matches are never awful, but it is fair to say that his intensity level ebbs and flows.

I believe the overly-harsh part of the criticism was when Wade criticized some of Daniels's past performances in ROH. Daniels always played his role on the card well in ROH. In the first two years (2002-03), Daniels was the top heel and performed at a main event level in the ring and on the mic. He left the company when TNA temporarily pulled its talent from ROH in early 2004, then returned in the summer of 2005.

By the time he returned, ROH had built up a new crop of main eventers and Daniels became a mid-carder who occasionally visited the main events. Daniels therefore adjusted his performances from show to show to fit his place on the card; he would tone it down when he was on the undercard and save his best for when he was in main events.

Some ROH shows have been criticized for doing too much on the undercard and burning out the audience before the main event. This is a legitimate criticism of certain shows, but I think most ROH shows over the years have actually been well paced. If anything, the undercards on the first few HDNet show were too toned down. ROH has improved the pacing of their TV recently to the point where most weeks they are in the discussion for best wrestling show of the week.

Getting back to Daniels, if people agree with the criticism of ROH's pacing during the Sapolsky era when Daniels was with the company, then they should not criticize Daniels for wrestling at a slower pace than other undercard wrestlers. Instead, Daniels should be applauded for setting a good example for the younger wrestlers.

One of Daniels's biggest contributions to ROH - and the wrestling industry - was during his mid-card run in 2005-06 when he worked with Matt Sydal (Evan Bourne in WWE). Let's look back at their program together for this week's classic ROH feud.

Feud Overview

Sydal debuted for ROH in the first show after TNA pulle talent in 2004, Reborn Stage One in St. Paul, Minnesota. After 15 months on the undercard, Sydal got his first minor push when Generation Next recruited him in the summer of 2005 to bolster their ranks for their feud against The Embassy. Daniels had recently returned to ROH, and he first crossed paths with Sydal in October 2005 at Joe vs. Kobashi in Manhattan. It was an undercard three-way match that included Azriel, but Daniels and Sydal fought much of the match one-on-one with Azriel injured on the floor. Sydal looked good and got a lot of offense, but Daniels ultimately won in a "veteran outsmarts youngster" finish where he escaped a pin attempt by Sydal and hit his Angel's Wings finisher for the pin.

Six weeks later, at A Night of Tribute in Lake Grove, New York, Daniels, Sydal, and A.J. Styles met in a three-way match. The story of the match was that Daniels and Styles did not initially respect Sydal and focused on each other, but Sydal made them pay for underestimating him and came close to winning. Again, however, Daniels was too much for Sydal and hit the Best Moonsault Ever for the pin while Styles was injured on the floor.

Daniels and Sydal then had a series of singles matches in the first-half of 2006. These took place at Dissension in January, Weekend of Champions Night 2 in April, Ring of Homicide in May, and finally at War of the Wire II in July.

The story of these matches was Sydal getting closer and closer to beating Daniels until finally getting the win at War of the Wire II. At Dissension, Sydal grounded Daniels by hurting his knee but Daniels used his mat wrestling to make Sydal tap to the Koji Clutch. At Weekend of Champions Night 2, Sydal got a lot of offense and managed to escape or avoid all the moves Daniels previously used to finish him off, but Daniels pulled out his old finisher, the Last Rites, to win again.

By Ring of Homicide, the two knew each other so well that they could counter all of each other's signature moves. Daniels scraped out the win when Sydal brashly tried for one of Daniels's signature moves, the Angel's Wings, and Daniels reversed it into a leverage pin to go 5-0 against Sydal.

After Ring of Homicide, Sydal went on a two month Japanese tour with Dragon Gate. His first match back was against Daniels at War of the Wire II. This was another close one. Sydal kicked out of or escaped all of Daniels's signature moves and won by reversing the Angel's Wings into a leverage pin, just like Daniels had done to him before. After the match, Daniels cut a promo putting over Sydal and offered to form a tag team with him, which they went on to do.

Analysis

This feud was an effective use of Daniels, a former main eventer who was now in the mid-card, to put over the up-and-coming Sydal. The matches were very logically put together to show Sydal's progress from not being in Daniels' league in the first three-way match to finally beating him. It made sense that the younger Sydal would learn from his mistakes and improve. Daniels did not lose anything by putting over Sydal because it was clear that Sydal had gotten better, rather than Daniels getting worse.

This was strictly a mid-card feud, so none of the matches are must see classics. However, every single one of them was good to very good. My favorites were the three-way with A.J. Styles at A Night of Tribute, Weekend of Champions Night 2, and the finale at War of the Wire II. However, like the C.M. Punk-Samoa Joe trilogy of matches from 2004, it is hard to recommend only watching some of the Daniels-Sydal matches because they build on each other.

For example, the match at Dissension was probably the weakest of the series, but it set up the Koji Clutch as a move Sydal was vulnerable to and this made the spot where Sydal later escaped the Koji Clutch mean a lot more. You would not get as much from Sydal's later escape without seeing the Dissension match.

After this feud, Sydal would continue his rise up the ROH ranks. He and Daniels made an excellent tag team and would go on the capture the ROH World Tag Team titles a few months later. For a while, Sydal was a double champion with both the ROH tag belt and the Dragon Gate Open the Brave Gate title (Dragon Gate's secondary singles title). This success led to Sydal's ego getting out of control, and an eventual heel turn. But that angle is another column entirely.

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