ROH Classic Feuds Preview - Final Battle 2009
Review of 2006 - 2009 "Final Battle" World Title matches
By Mike DeRosenroll, Torch ROH specialist

Tonight, Ring of Honor forays into the world of online pay-per-views by offering Final Battle 2009 on gofightlive.com. Final Battle has been the name of the last ROH show of each year since the promotion started in 2002. In that time, it has evolved into one of the biggest shows of the year, where feuds climax, new angles begin for the coming year, and titles change hands.

Tonight's main event will feature Austin Aries, the only two-time ROH World Champion, defend the title against Tyler Black. There is a very good chance that Black will become the twelfth wrestler to win the ROH championship tonight, and the third to win in at a Final Battle show. Here is a look back at the history of ROH World Title matches at Final Battle, focusing on the angles and feuds that led into them.

-- PART 1: 2002-2005 History

Final Battle 2006: Homicide won the ROH World Title from Bryan Danielson. In mid-2006, Homicide, who had been in ROH since the first show but never won championship gold, declared that he would quit ROH if he did not win a title by the end of the year. A few weeks later, with the famous ROH-CZW feud coming to a head with the Cage of Death blow-off match at "Death Before Dishonor IV," then-ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette offered Homicide three wishes if he would be on the ROH team in the Cage of Death.

After ROH won the feud, Homicide told Cornette that his three wishes were for a ROH World Title match, a match against his long-time rival Steve Corino, and for Cornette to reinstate his friend Low Ki. (Low Ki had left ROH a few months earlier and the storyline explanation was that Cornette had suspended him indefinitely.) Cornette refused to reinstate Low Ki, prompting Homicide to spit on Cornette and touching off a feud between the two.

Cornette played the heel authority figure wanting to get Homicide out of ROH, so he constantly threw roadblocks in Homicide's way to keep him from winning a title. Cornette eventually went off the deep end in the storyline, prompting ROH President Silkin to relieve Cornette of his duties as Commissioner and grant Homicide a shot at Bryan Danielson at Final Battle 2006. The build to this title match was not as good as it could have been because so much of the heel heat was on Cornette rather than Danielson, but the title match itself was a dramatic masterpiece.

Final Battle 2007: No World Title match due to Nigel McGuinness having a torn bicep. Nigel McGuinness won the ROH World Title two months earlier from Takeshi Morishima on the "Undeniable" pay-per-view, but suffered a concussion shortly afterwards. ROH kept him out of action for the next few weeks but promised that he would return the weekend of Final Battle 2007.

The night before Final Battle 2007 was the taping of the "Rising Above" pay-per-view and McGuinness returned to action with a title defence against Austin Aries on that show. Unfortunately, McGuinness tore a bicep against Aries and could not compete at Final Battle 2007 the next night in a scheduled Four-Way Elimination Match for the ROH World Title against Bryan Danielson, Morishima, and Chris Hero.

Aries took McGuinness's place in the match and it became a #1 contender's match instead, with winner Bryan Danielson earning a title shot at McGuinness two months later at the "6th Anniversary Show." The match these two eventually had at the "6th Anniversary Show" was a standout Match of the Year contender.

Final Battle 2008: Nigel McGuinness retained the ROH World Title over Naomichi Marufuji. ROH continued the tradition of bringing in international special attractions for Final Battle in 2008, and once again Naomichi Marufuji came in for a ROH World Title shot. There was not much of a build to this match, since this was shortly after a booking change and the ROH storylines were in a state of disarray.

The explanation for the match was that Marufuji defeated McGuinness over two years earlier, at "Glory By Honor V, Night 2," back when Marufuji had been the NOAH GHC Champion and McGuinness had challenged him for his title. Now that McGuinness was a World Champion himself, Marufuji wanted to challenge McGuinness. The booking may not have been great, but the wrestlers delivered an outstanding match in the ring. The same could be said for this entire show.

Final Battle 2009: ROH champion Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black. As I've mentioned in my recent reviews of ROH television, ROH did not do a particularly good job of using their television show to build up tonight's ROH World Title match between Austin Aries and Tyler Black. Aries was totally focused on Jim Cornette in his segment on last Monday's show, not even mentioning Tyler Black. Hopefully Aries and Black will deliver another great match in the ring, as they almost always do.

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