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We're coming off a big weekend for ROH where they made two debuts, first on Friday night in Virginia, and then in the fabled Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday. I decided to make a weekend out of it and go to both shows, so now I’d like to share my thoughts on the weekend that was.
The first thing I think is worth pointing out is that both shows were much shorter than I’m used to. For the last few years, ROH has gone out of their way to pack as much as they can into shows and gave the wrestlers plenty of time for their matches. This was great at first and led to some great shows, but they turned into marathons because you’d sometimes end up spending upwards of five hours in the venue between the show and the lengthy intermission. The Manassas show was over in three hours flat, while the New York show was over in about three hours and fifteen minutes. I was a bit surprised at the shows being over so quickly, but I was able to go home with some energy left and without feeling like I spent my life at a wrestling show. Another good thing about the shorter shows is that when they do decide to go long with big shows down the line, it’ll feel more special than it would if they were to keep doing four hours plus every time out.
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On to the shows, beginning with Friday in Manassas. I live just north of New York City, so I took the day off from work and left at about 12:30, figuring that I’d be able to make the five hour drive (according to Google Maps) with no problem even if I did hit traffic. Boy, was I wrong. I hit massive amounts of traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike (even before rush hour) and again for the entire stretch through Delaware. It’s amazing how long it can take to make a fifteen mile drive through a state the size of my pinky finger (no offense to anyone who lives there), but there was so much traffic that my 95 year old grandmother could have hobbled through the state faster than I drove. I also found it interesting that they charge you both to enter and leave Delaware. I guess when you only have a 15 mile stretch of a major highway going through your state, you want to milk it for all it's worth.
From there though, it was clear sailing through Maryland and Virginia, but by that point I was already running late. The five hour drive had turned into seven hours thanks to the traffic, and I arrived at the show about 20 minutes late. Fortunately, I only missed the opener (Chris Hero defeating Pelle Primeau) and part of the second match, in which Rhett Titus and Rex Sterling defeated Mitch Franklin and Sean Denny. The crowd really got into the end of this one when Denny made the hot tag and started cleaning house. I feel bad for Mitch, who is a really nice guy and would have made a great “tiny guy who can†type of wrestler if it weren’t for the fact that Pelle Primeau is even smaller and has more charisma. I really don’t know what kind of future he has once he stops being, let’s face it, a job guy in ROH.
I was happy to see Albright get the win in the Four Corner Survival match against Claudio Castagnoli, Damien Wayne, and ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness. As I surmised in my live report, this weekend looked like the first steps of a huge push for Albright, who looked dominant here. On the other hand, I understand that Damien Wayne might have been the hometown hero and got a good crowd reaction as a result, but he looked like he was in way over his head and did not impress me at all. He has a terrible look, like some kind of bald redneck biker/S&M enthusiast. He did pop the crowd because he’s local, but I really don’t think he’d catch on in the broader ROH universe unless he's got something I didn't see on Friday.
I didn’t understand the logic behind having Austin Aries try and blow off his match with Erick Stevens so he could fight Jimmy Jacobs. The fact that he tried to blow Stevens off, then blew through him in just a few minutes just made Stevens look like a jabroni. Aries, however, did show his ever-present quick wit when he shot down the “sloppy seconds†chant with a response of “That’s sloppy seconds none of you will ever get.†He sets a good example for people who take life way too seriously. After that, we got a series of matches featuring Age Of The Fall, beginning with Necro Butcher defeating Jack Evans in a rematch of their wild brawl at Final Battle 2007. This was good, if not quite as good as their match at Final Battle, and turned out to just be Evans doing business on his way out the door. After intermission, Jimmy Jacobs defeated Jay Briscoe in what was apparently a No DQ match, though I don’t ever recall it being announced as such. Aries came out to the ring before the match and attacked Jacobs before getting pulled to the back, and then Necro Butcher got involved and helped Jacobs get the win. This led to a post match brawl between Aries and AOTF while Briscoe was laid out. I'm a big supporter of Jimmy Jacobs, I think the guy cuts amazing promos and can work, and really hope that a feud with Austin Aries will help push him to the next level.
In the first half of the double main event, Bryan Danielson faced Tyler Black in a rematch of their first bout in January. This was a great match, and both men worked their asses off. It can be said that Danielson can make anyone look good, but Tyler more than carried his part of this match. Tyler Black looks like a star, carries himself like a star, and is treated like a star by the fans. He’s not just a guy who looks good and can work, he can also cut a great promo, and even though it's easy to fall into the background if you’re doing promos with Jimmy Jacobs, he holds his own in interviews and sounds like he truly believes in what he’s saying. Gabe is obviously very much behind him and there is no way, no way that this guy does not eventually lead the company as ROH World Champion. Having him work a series of matches with Danielson is only going to help propel him to the top, and I have to imagine that one day, he’s going to get that win over Danielson. It probably won't happen for a long time since Gabe likes to take his time building guys, but a win over Danielson is going to be the big step that will propel him to the top. As for this match, very good with a lot of close falls and cool reversals and counters, and Danielson eventually got the win with a heel hook for the submission.
In the main event, the NOAH team of GHC Heavyweight Champion Takeshi Morishima (who didn’t come out with the belt either night for some reason), Naomichi Marufuji, and Go Shiozaki defeated the No Remorse Corps of Roderick Strong, Davey Richards, and Rocky Romero. This was a great match that started slow with a lot of comedy, including Morishima doing Romero’s azucar dance, but quickly turned into a great, stiff main event. Go laid in about a million chops which, while they look great and surely hurt like crazy, are 90% of his offense, and I really think he’d do well to diversify his repertoire a bit so he doesn’t look like a one move wrestler. Marufuji looked like a million bucks like always (I love the guy's work, in case you can't tell) and pretty much carried the workrate for his team before getting Sliced Bread #2 on Romero for the win.
ROH announced that they will return to Manassas in August, so they must have been happy with the size of the crowd. I'm glad this worked out for them, because ROH has been looking for new regions to expand into and after the disappointment out west last year, they really needed to make this work. The venue itself was small and intimate, but not in a bad way. It reminded me of a lot of the venues they would run when I started going to ROH shows back in 2005, so it took me back a bit. And for those who were wondering, since the show let out at 10 on the dot, I decided to make the drive home to New York instead of spending the night in Virginia. I made it home at around 3:30, and hit zero traffic on the way, though there was a tractor-trailer that went off the side of the Jersey Turnpike, though thankfully not when I was driving by. That didn't stop people from rubbernecking, of course.
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The following night was the big debut in the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, setting a new all-time ROH attendance record of over 2300. They didn't sell out, but I don't see any other way to interpret this than as a huge success for ROH. It wasn't the blowaway, pull-out-all-the-stops show that I expected them to put out for their first show in Hammerstein, but I do think it was a good show, and I had a good time and felt like I got my money’s worth. I hate to say this, but I wasn't impressed with their new production setup. If anything, the lack of the fancy entranceway and ramp made it look kind of ghetto to me and made it feel way too old school, though mileage may vary on that one.
Opening match saw Roderick Strong retain the FIP Title against Go Shiozaki and Erick Stevens when Strong snuck a rollup on Stevens after Stevens hit the Doctor Bomb on Shiozaki. Again, they’re making Stevens look like an idiot, and given how strong he was booked earlier in the year, I have no idea what has changed and why he’s suddenly spending so much time looking at the lights. At first I thought this must be some kind of plan by Gabe that will lead to a big win, but now I’m really starting to wonder.
Kevin Steen & El Generico defeated Rocky Romero and Davey Richards in a really good match with a ton of false finishes. This was one of the best matches of the night, and these two teams worked really well together. With the announcement that the ROH World Tag Team Title has been vacated, Steen & Generico have to be considered the top picks to win the tournament in June. The tag action continued as Delirious & Pelle Primeau picked up a surprise win in a scramble match against Chris Hero & Brent Albright and Jack Evans & Jigsaw. I was happy to see Albright leave Sweet & Sour Inc, because I feel like he’s been wasted by being stuck in factions for the last nine months. Now with Aries, Danielson, and Morishima out of the title picture for the time being and Nigel in need of new challengers, it’s the perfect time to move Albright up and give him a shot as a main eventer.
I wasn’t sure who was going to go over between Danielson and Marufuji, but I figured that Marufuji would finally get his job back from eons ago at Final Battle 2005. Didn’t work out that way, as Danielson picked up the win, but I was really surprised that Danielson got a submission win over Marufuji. Danielson used the heel hook to get the submission again, so I guess he's developing it as yet another signature move. I had no doubt that these two would have a great match, and they didn't disappoint, putting on the match of the night in my opinion.
After intermission, Daizee Haze announced the new attendance record that had been set, and Delirious came out in a shirt and tie to try and ask her out, only to have Rhett Titus ruin the whole thing. I think every guy in that building and every guy reading this has been dude-blocked (to PG-ify the real saying) and was able to sympathize with Delirious. Nice to see them giving Titus a shot because he’s a very entertaining guy and I think he’s got a great future if his ringwork can develop along with his charisma. This was followed by the Morishima-Necro Butcher No DQ brawl which, while slightly disappointing, did feature Morishima giving Necro a backdrop driver off the top rope and onto a chair. That move seemed to legitimately injure Necro, who was still selling the move when he came back out to interfere in…
Jay Briscoe and Austin Aries successfully defended the ROH World Tag Team Title against Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black. Necro made a run in to try and cost the champions the match, but Mark Briscoe came out, cast and all, to even the odds. Jay Briscoe was busted open with the steel spike and bled like crazy in this match, to the point where he was leaving pools of blood all over the ring. The champs picked up the win when the Briscoes hit the springboard Doomsday Device on Jacobs for the win. After the match the Briscoes returned to the back and left Aries alone in the ring to get beaten down by Age Of The Fall. Apparently the title was vacated following this, though I haven't yet heard the story on that one as I write this, but I had a hard time with Jay teaming with someone other than his brother, even someone of the caliber of Austin Aries. Unfortunately, this continues the hot-potatoing that the tag title has done lately.
The main event between Claudio Castagnoli and Nigel McGuinness for the ROH World Title fell kind of flat for me, because although it wasn’t a bad match, it definitely wasn’t the best match I’ve seen between these two. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they held back because this probably isn’t the last match we’re going to see between them during Nigel's reign, and they didn’t want to leave it all out in their first match of the series. Still, it was a good match with a ton of really close near falls. I actually thought Claudio had won the title a couple of times when he hit the Ricola Bomb on Nigel, but Nigel was the perfect heel in disabling Claudio by working his arm over the whole match before finally making him tap out in front of an incredibly hostile crowd. I don't know if having Claudio lose totally clean, by submission, in the middle of the ring did much for making Claudio look like a credible title threat, but he's over enough that I don't think it'll hurt him.
Like I said, not the best ROH show I’ve ever seen by any means, but it was still a good show, and it was easier to enjoy by being kept shorter, because the last few shows I’ve been to at the Manhattan Center had me checking the watch more than once to see if I was going to make the train home and had me totally worn out by the time we got to the main event. ROH returns to Hammerstein in August, so it looks like they’re downstairs to stay, though I’m surprised that they won’t be back in New York for three months. I notice that they're not running their longtime venues as often as they used to lately, so maybe as they expand the scope of cities they'll run, they're going to run the longtime strongholds less to make it more of a must-go proposition when they are in town.
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And that’s the end of Part One of this double edition of The pROHfile. Part Two will look at some of the fallout of this weekend’s events and a look forward at what’s to come. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on ROH’s weekend, so you can send all feedback and thoughts to stupwinsider@yahoo.com. See you later and thanks for reading!
