With ninety nine thrilling shows in the books, Ring of Honor returned to Philadelphia for its big 100th show celebration. They held nothing back, presenting a card full of high quality matches that could main event any independent wrestling show in the United States on any given night. Here's to another amazing 100 ROH shows!

The night started with possibly the best "wrestling" match of the show, between "Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels and Claudio Castagnoli. Daniels is, of course, one of the founding fathers of ROH but has chosen NOT to uphold the code of honor by shaking his opponents hand after each match. The crowd was completely electrified during this match, which is a testiment to the performers, as it was the first bout of the night (excluding three dark matches). Daniels won the match and said ROH reached a milestone, and now it was time for him to have a milestone and shockingly shook the hand of Claudio Castagnoli. ( 7 / 10 )

Chris Hero then showed up to hassle his former tag team partner, Claudio Castagnoli, about siding with Ring of Honor against CZW. Hero stirred the pot, which was a common theme throughout the night, trying to get the CZW and ROH fans into a frenzy. It should be noted that they separated the ROH and CZW fans on each side of the ECW Arena to create by the far the most unique atmosphere in independent wrestling history. The ROH contingent out-numbered the CZW clan, but that did not stop the CZW fans from having their voices heard -- even though their chants severely lacked originality. The back-and-forth chants continued for the duration of the night and I'm surprised it did not result in some kind of riot.

Four Corner Survival featured Delirious achieving victory over the three Jimmy's: Yang, Rave and Jacobs ( 6 / 10 ). During a taped pre-show segment, Lacey cut a seductive promo wearing only an ROH t-Shirt and said if Jimmy Jacobs won his match tonight that she would show everybody what was under the shirt on ROHVideos.com -- she claimed Jacobs was just like all the other internet geeks and would do anything to see her naked. I admit it, I'm an internet geek. Jacobs actually had the match won, but opted to decline the pinfall because he didn't want the fans to see Lacey naked, claiming he did it "all for love."

Austin Aries and Roderick Strong successfully defended their ROH Tag Team titles against Homicide and Ricky Reyes. Great match, as expected, maybe a bit below expectations considering the participants. Homicide and Ricky Reyes look like they don't really get along in real life; or perhaps it was meant to look like that because they're turning Homicide babyface. Nothing spectacular in this match just a straight tag team match with lots of customary ROH action ( 6.5 / 10 ).

I have come to realize that whenever the the ROH World championship is defended in the middle of the card, then there is usually something screwy planned. ROH Champion American Dragon was challenged by the newly refocused Colt Cabana in what started off fine but shockingly ended after six short minutes! Dragon caught Cabana off guard and rolled him up for a quick 1-2-3 out of no-where. This was not your typical ROH championship match and putting fans somewhere between the state of shock and the state of confusion. Cabana was none too pleased with his own performance and expressed his disappointment by scrambling around backstage seemingly out of his mind. It was a strange finish, but I was left thinking that this was all part of Cabana's character development and felt confident that it was going somewhere ( 6.5 / 10 - just cause it was short).

Next up was the Top of Class Trophy match. Derrick Dempsey (who has a lot of potential) successfully defeated Pelle Primeau (God bless him, but he should selling popcorn). After the match, NEW ROH wrestling school head trainer American Dragon came back to the ring to Congratulate his students. Dragon then spent 10 minutes tormenting the CZW side of the arena and even mooning them! Dragon said that since he only wrestled six minutes tonight that he'll defend the ROH title for a second time, against Delirious! Delirious delivered the performance of a life time, putting up an incredible fight against the ROH World Champion. Dragon rammed Delirious head-first into the ring post, ripping his mask and causing blood to flow from the lizard man's forehead! Dragon then delivered multiple elbow shots to the head before the referee stopped the match and awarded it to the Champ ( 8 / 10 ).

The Briscoe Brothers recently returned to ROH, and I haven't had the opportunity to say how happy I am about that. The Briscoes are such a well polished pair of athletes and have really mastered the craft of tag team wrestling. They are swift and aggressive with everything they do and proved their superiority by defeating the super star combination of AJ Styles and Matt Sydal in a fantastic match. The crowd was really into all of the innovative double-team moves performed by the Briscoes, including an unbelievable springboard Doomsday Device that has to be seen to be believed. They certainly deserved to have their hands raised at the end of this contest and should be granted a Tag Team title shot in the near future ( 9 / 10 ).

............and now that the crowd had been sufficiently riled up, it's time for the official ROH vs CZW portion of the show. ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette engaged in a debate with CZW's John Zandig in the middle of the ring. Cornette talked circles around Zandig, who could barely get a word in edge wise, and when he did, the word usually started with "F". I was somewhat disappointed with the vulgarity of Cornette's insults, wishing he would use more intelligent come-backs, but I guess to kick a slim-ball's ass you have to come down to their level. This confrontation reached a heated climax and morphed into the scheduled six man war between ROH's Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer and Adam Pearce taking on CZW's Chris Hero, Necro Butcher and Super Dragon. There's not much I can say about this "match", except that it was a fifteen minute chaotic brawl all over the arena as ROH and CZW fans went absolutely crazy for every bump, every chairshot, and every spectacular stunt. ROH truly has stooped to CZW's level, but at least they do it for a reason, whereas CZW does this kind of nonesense for no reason at all. The finish saw Claudio Castagnoli return to the ring wearing his diamond sequined ROH jacket, only to turn on ROH and reunite with his tag team partner Chris Hero. CZW wins the battle, but the war will continue. John Zandig and his boys crawled into the CZW bleachers and celebrated with their fans, who were gleefully chanting "Match of the Year", which says a lot for the standard set by your typical CZW match.

Final Thoughts: The 6-MAN War that finished the show would normally fall under the catagory of "Fast Forward" material but the crowd atmosphere alone made for a pretty exciting scenario. There is plenty of wrestling on this DVD to make up for the violence at the end. If you would like to purchase this or any other ROH DVD, please check out ROHwrestling.com ---- if you need some convincing, you can check out streaming video of various ROH matches for free at www.ROHVideos.com