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 First I'd like to check in with some live thoughts from the ROH PPV taping in Boston and Glory By Honor VII in Philadelphia. They were both good shows, but neither was as good as I thought they could have been looking at the lineups on paper. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting spoiled and am expecting too much out of ROH. I guess that's a definite possibility, and I don't think I'm alone. While I'm not about to go over the top like some fans and turn on anyone for taking time off to heal injuries, I feel like I might be getting to a point where I expect more than is reasonable out of ROH, but as anyone who's ever had expectations about anything can tell you, expectations are hard to manage, and with Glory By Honor VII in particular, I feel like I expected a much better show than I ended up getting, and while there's a part of me which says it's okay to expect a company's best, especially when it's one of their big four shows of the year, there's another part of me that says I'm taking ROH for granted.
 And don't those of us that follow ROH often take it for granted? I mean, listen to some of the things the fans complain about: Nigel McGuinness skipping Final Battle 2007 because he suffered a concussion THE NIGHT BEFORE, the Bryan Danielson-Nigel McGuinness match that was taped for Driven not being included on the DVD of the show, and top level Japanese talent always going over on the ROH talent, which a)is not true anymore, and b)takes for granted talent that most other indies wouldn't even have access to. Listen folks, it could be a lot worse. Isn't there a reason that we've all stopped watching WWE and TNA? Because if ROH suddenly disappeared tomorrow, what else are we going to watch? No other company in North America can touch ROH from an in-ring standpoint, and if it were gone tomorrow, most of us would either live off our tape and DVD collections for the rest of our lives or would stop watching wrestling altogether. Somehow, though, we still find stuff to complain about and say that shows “Weren't as good as I expected†when they still blow away anything either of the big two would throw at us.
 So here we are, for some reason I'm able to sit here and say that a show didn't live up to my expectations. Is that my fault for having gotten so used to ROH putting on the best wrestling product around? Or, on the other hand, is it partly ROH to blame for setting the bar so high? Think about some of the standards ROH has set: Samoa Joe's 21 month title reign set the bar for ROH Champions so high that anyone who holds the belt for less than a year is considered a footnote for the title. Joe and Punk's hour draws went a long way toward instilling the notion that long matches are automatically good, and for a match to be considered good it has to go at least 40 minutes. Bringing in Kobashi set a standard by which all imported Japanese talent is judged, so when you bring in a nearly crippled, 8,000 year old Mitsuharu Misawa to sleepwalk through two matches, and then bring in Kensuke Sasaki to have an okay match with Claudio, it just doesn't measure up. The twin storylines of ROH's ultra-personal war with CZW and right after that Homicide's road to the title were so good that there was no way to follow up with anything quite as good. When compared with anything WWE or TNA was doing, ROH had a blowaway year in 2007, but when compared to what they were doing in 2006 and even 2005, it wasn't quite on the same level, and there was an extra letdown when all the name talent left by May.
 There's another problem, ROH had the all-time, all-star indy roster from 2002-2007: Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, Bryan Danielson, Colt Cabana, CM Punk, Homicide, AJ Styles...the list goes on and on. Then 2007 begins and we find out Joe's leaving, but before we know it, all the rest of them are gone as well. Even Austin Aries was gone for a couple of months while his contract situation was worked out. In their place comes a new roster of main event talent like Takeshi Morishima, Claudio Castagnoli, Nigel McGuinness, Chris Hero, Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black, Necro Butcher, Kevin Steen & El Generico, and Delirious, and even though these guys are all great performers, they haven't had the chance to connect with the audience the way the old guard did, at least not yet. At the same time, these guys are all putting on as good or better matches that what the old guard were doing, but people remember Joe vs Punk and Low Ki vs Daniels vs Danielson so fondly that I feel like nothing the new class (so to speak) does will ever be accepted as equal to what Joe, Punk, and Low Ki were doing in the old days.
 I'm as guilty of this as anybody, because I've put ROH on this pedestal as the be all and end all of professional wrestling, I've put pressure on it to consistently deliver beyond any reasonable expectation. But at the same time, I feel like with everything ROH has done to put itself in the position they have, it's hard to look at anything they do without a feeling like I've seen it before. So here I sit, unsure whether it's my fault or ROH's, feeling like it's probably somewhere in the middle, but either way glad that this is my problem and not watching Raw and Impact and wishing there was something better on.
 * * *
 Well, with that entirely unplanned (yet satisfyingly space-filling) rant out of the way, let's move on to my live thoughts from Boston and Philly.
 The venue in Boston at Boston University was nice, but for some reason I get horribly lost every time I go up there. I feel like since I was born in the Boston area I ought to have some kind of built-in ability to find my way around the city, yet I screw up every time out. This time around I took the wrong turn and wound up on some highway, but got off at the first exit and somehow wound up where I was supposed to be in the first place. I also lucked out and caught a parking spot on the street just as it opened up and avoided paying a $25 parking fee in the lot across the street from the gym.
 The show itself, as I said, was okay. The best part, by far, was seeing Kevin Steen & El Generico win the ROH World Tag Team Title from Age Of The Fall in the main event. I was a bit surprised that they won the title here, because I figured they'd hold off on the title win until they got to Canada in November, but all the same I was happy to be able to experience the moment live. Steen & Generico looked like this was legitimately the biggest win of their career and there was a huge celebration, and Steen even went out into the crowd and hugged his family, who were in attendance.
 In other Boston news, the Nigel-Strong match was okay, but Nigel dominated and at no time did I feel like Strong even had a chance of winning the title. Honestly, the best part of the match was a section of the crowd that was very loudly keeping a running count of Nigel's lariats against Roderick's backbreakers. The Danielson-Claudio angle continues, but at some point we're going to have to get some kind of match between them that doesn't end in a DQ when Claudio slams the ref. It was nice to see Jerry Lynn and it's amazing that, at his age, he's still in amazing shape and is able to go every bit as well as he could ten years ago. What wasn't nice to see was him doing the job to Chris Hero. Would it be too much to ask for somebody to put him over someone at some point?
 Moving on to Glory By Honor VII in Philly, this show had a stacked card and, as I said earlier, I was very disappointed by it. The best matches on the show were Danielson-Nakajima (and by the way, Nakajima's kicks are every bit as brutal as they're said to be) and the Steel Cage Warfare main event. This weekend was my first chance to see Delirious work ass a heel, and it's an interesting change to say the least. He's now clad in all black, has upped the brutality factor in his style, and has totally eliminated the comedy from his routine. He still comes off as clueless as ever, but in a much more sinister, easily manipulated way. I can see where there's the potential to turn him face again down the line by having somebody expose Jacobs' treachery in much the same way Austin Aries did with Necro Butcher. I think they were trying to go for hardcore heel heat when he spiked Daizee in the head, but predictably, the fans totally cheered the move. I know one might point to that and say “Well, that's wrestling fans for youâ€, but let's face it, there's lots of guys out there who felt like they'd been worked by a girl or two or thirty over the course of their lives and would love to do just that. And really, Daizee was portrayed as a total cocktease who was jerking Delirious around the whole time for kicks and acted like she had no idea Delirious liked her. Right, and we all think Atlas Ortiz is a good worker, too.
 As I expected, Necro Butcher was the first one eliminated, which again made me question what the point was in having him in this match in the first place. I was also a little surprised to see Austin Aries be the second one out, I guess this means the Aries-Jacobs feud will continue. I suppose it’s possible that we may end up with a three way match between Jacobs, Aries, and Necro to close the feud, though I would really rather it come down to just Jacobs and Aries. Briscoes then went through all three remaining members of Age Of The Fall by themselves, ending with the double pin gimmick on both Black and Jacobs. I don’t know where they go with the Briscoes and AOTF from here, but I would think that there’s at least one or two more matches left in the feud. Overall, I think this kind of defeated the whole purpose of Steel Cage Warfare, and as happy as I was to see the gimmick make its return after almost three years, it really should have been the end of the feud.
 As for the rest of the card, pretty rocking lineup, but also somewhat disappointing. Danielson and Nakajima definitely delivered in the GHC Junior Heavyweight Title match, but Adam Pearce-Brent Albright for the NWA Title was quite weak compared to the match they had in New York a few weeks ago, and I thought it was also weird having Albright drop the title back to Pearce so soon, though we now know that the plan was for Pearce to take the title and leave ROH, so there goes that. Steen and Shiozaki was all right, they definitely didn’t hold back at all when it came to beating the piss out of one another, but I thought it was a bad position to put Steen in one night after winning the tag title. I think it would have been better to have Steen win a three way against Shiozaki and somebody else, but that’s just me. Also on the disappointing side was Nigel McGuinness against El Generico for the ROH World Title. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad match, but definitely not what I was expecting given how hyped up their last match was. There was some suspense at the end when Steen clocked Nigel with the belt, but I knew Generico wasn’t getting the ROH Title.
 There was some good on the show, however. Even though Generico lost, they started on a storyline where now that Nigel McGuinness has repeatedly beaten both Steen and Generico, he’s coming for their ROH World Tag Team Title. I like that because it’ll give Steen & Generico somebody to work a feud with other than the Briscoes and AOTF, and it’ll also give Nigel something to do while they build up some more challengers for him. Jerry Lynn got a HUGE reaction from the Philadelphia crowd, with a heavy “welcome back†chant. I thought it a little weird to have him in the opener, but hopefully he’ll come in more regularly down the line and he’ll have a chance to work his way into a more meaningful role in ROH. I thought it was cool seeing Kensuke Sasaki in ROH, this was my first chance seeing him live and while he didn’t go crazy to put on an all time classic with Claudio, he definitely wasn’t shy about getting his hands dirty and wasn’t looking at this as a paid vacation. Claudio went a little light on him, and I don’t know if that was out or respect or at Sasaki’s request, but overall it was a pretty good match, not main event caliber, but good. I don’t think Sasaki going over came as a shock to anyone, but it was cool to see and Sasaki seemed really happy to be there. Oh, and Erick Stevens was bleeding quite a gusher after catching a stiff shot from Rhett Titus, and I really liked how they took an unexpected turn of events like that and worked it into the match with Stevens blowing his bloody spit and Titus wiping Stevens’ blood on his body. Another promotion might not have been too happy with them ad-libbing like that.
 So there you go, I have a whole lot more to say so I’ll probably do another pROHfile sometime within the next few days. Not sure what my schedule’s going to be like because my fiance’s in town and I’ll obviously want to spend most of my time with her rather than writing about wrestling, but I’ll try to get another article out in the next few days and I may also have a hotline up for you Elite members. Until then, all feedback can, as always, be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com. Thanks for reading, and see you soon!
