[6.0] "Obviously, there's a lot already out there about the BOTASJ tournament itself. Lots of untapped potential through that format, although it still produced a couple of key moments (Danielson/Spanky in a really good match, and the emergence of Roderick Strong as a force for later in the year). The ROH end of the show is actually a little stronger because it's more driven by stakes. The Jimmy Rave/C.M. Punk feud comes into its own here as it starts to incorporate the depths that Punk will have to endure to get his hands on Rave. The Tag Title match felt random back in the day, but produced a good Championship duo in Whitmer & Jacobs that led to a long-term storyline. Aries/Homicide continues to play up the small Gen Next/Rotts feud that would come back at the end of the year. Perhaps most importantly, this feels like the show that started to kick up a lot of the stories that would play out in May and June."

[6.0] "Dragon Soldier B, aka Kendo Kashin and NJPW's desire to do more harm than good resulted in a tournament that went from a potential yearly show, to something that would never need doing again. As a tournament it did not hit the highs of similar things in 2005 such as IWA's Ted Petty or PWG's BOLA and is only something to watch as a curiosity as both Bryan Danielson & James Gibson were the true stars. Also the live crowd figured out just as any viewer would what was going to happen the moment Dragon Solider B defeated James Gibson, and it just put a massive downer on every match there after. Main event, is an ROH hidden gem. The crowd were tired and deflated yet both Homicide and Aries just threw it all out there, bringing the spectacle and excitement anyone would want from a main event and personally was the moment it solidified Aries as a worthy world champion."

[6.0] "This show is absolutely all over the place in terms of quality. Some of the tournament matches (Spanky vs. Danielson, Gibson vs. Strong) are great - most of the wrestling is pretty good in general, in fact. I have to say 'most', however, because unfortunately we ended up with three phoned in performances from Dragon Soldier B in addition to a main event that had some major flaws. The booking of the tournament was dreadful, as clearly NJPW had their hands all over it and turned the entire thing into a farce that just made ROH and their roster look bad. Thankfully, Gibson and Danielson in particular are so skilled that they still managed to salvage things, along with good performances from Spanky, Romero (even if he wasn't exactly playing the part of a 'homegrown' roster member here under the guise of Black Tiger), and especially Strong, who had the best match of his ROH career thus far. I also really loved the escalation of the Punk vs. Rave feud and consider Rave's attempt to remove Punk's 'straight edge' tattoo with a cheese grater to be one of the most unsung classic angles that ROH has ever done. We also get new tag champs crowned as the titles have been vacated, and although the questionable booking hurt the crowd response I did enjoy that match as well. There was enough here that I really enjoyed that I still came very close to giving this a 7.0 despite the tournament being a bust as a whole, but then the main event ended up being a misfire as well and knocked the show down to a 6.0. I do think there are individual matches here that are really worth watching (Gibson vs. Strong gets my vote for MOTN and was an important match for Strong's status in ROH), but it's definitely a show with a lot of issues overall."