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The first thing I wanted to address is that these are the first ROH shows I’ve attended since the change in the booking regime, and to me there was no change in the quality of the shows, and more than anything I would say that I enjoyed the changes that were apparent to me. Of course the first thing was the difference in the pacing of the shows, the undercard was certainly slowed down, but don’t mistake that for meaning that the undercard has been handcuffed in any way, they’re merely trying to create an environment where a)the fans aren’t burned out by intermission, and b)the main eventers are still able to go out there and be the highlight of the show without the crowd having seen everything before they even get in the ring. And it’s true, for the first time in a long time, I still had energy when going into the second half of both shows, and since the undercard matches were all kept at or around the 15 minute mark, the top matches seemed more special when they were given more time and were allowed to cut loose a little more than the guys underneath.
That’s also not to say the underneath matches sucked in any way, and in fact there were a couple of really good matches underneath on both shows, such as Sasaki/Nakajima vs Albright/Strong in Philly and Albright/Strong/Stevens vs Sweet N Sour Inc in New York. For those who have made the comparison that Adam Pearce is booking “70s wrestlingâ€, I don’t see it unless you mean having a countout or disqualification here and there and booking a well paced wrestling show equates to 70s wrestling. I had a lot of fun at both shows, and both of them featured fans that were still lively and having a lot of fun even through to the main event both nights. Both shows were also kept under four hours, which is far more manageable than the sometimes five hour plus marathons we got during the Sapolsky Era.
In terms of the shows themselves, solid work both nights. I liked Kenny Omega’s charisma and ability to turn on the crowd, but he’ll have to show me more in the ring before I’m totally sold on him. Kensuke Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima both worked really hard, which is in contrast to Sasaki’s last appearance at Glory By Honor VIII when it seemed like he might have been taking it a bit easy. I didn’t have a problem with Sasaki not selling much, mostly because he’s Kensuke Sasaki and he shouldn’t sell too much for a couple of underneath matches on, to put it bluntly, a couple of indy shows. They still worked hard and made both the Briscoes as well as Roderick Strong and Brent Albright look good.
I felt like it was just about the right time to pull the trigger on the Jacobs/Black split, though I can’t wait to see what kind of explanation they have for Aries joining up with Jimmy Jacobs after the feud they had last year. It’s obvious that the American Wolves of Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards are being given a serious push as a new force in the tag team scene, and I think in a situation where the title’s been around the waists of the Briscoes, Age Of The Fall, and Steen & Generico almost exclusively for the last two years now, it’s nice to get some fresh blood in the picture. It seems to me like Claudio Castagnoli is on the downhill slide in Ring Of Honor, he’s been floating around aimlessly ever since Adam Pearce took over the book and I have to think that if Pearce had big plans for him, we’d have gotten to them by now, but instead he did the job to Danielson to blow off that feud and has been jerking the curtain and doing jobs ever since.
I was happy to see Nigel retain the title against Marufuji, I didn’t feel like he would have been the right guy for Nigel to drop the strap to, and I think there’s a lot more that can be done with Nigel as champion before his number’s up. Bryan Danielson had a very big weekend with two main event wins, but neither was very convincing. Both wins were clean but came with an asterisk, as he pulled out the “get the shoulder up just before three†double pin spot to beat Jerry Lynn, and then needed a chain to put Morishima out the following night. A rematch has already been signed between Danielson and Lynn and I’ll be there live for that one, so we’ll see what kind of finish that has since the match was otherwise good except for the finish. As for Morishima, I feel like after getting routinely smashed up and even injured at the hands of Morishima, Danielson didn’t score a clean enough win. Yes, within the bouds of the rules he won, but that win just told me that he needed these rules and a chain to beat Morishima, and that he can’t beat him in a straight up wrestling contest.
* * *
Now with that out of the way, I’d like to respond to an email from John Hnatin that was sent to Mike Johnson and requested be forwarded on to me. John attended All Star Extravaganza IV and apparently didn’t enjoy himself very much, as he had some not so complimentary things to say about his experience. I didn’t agree with a lot of what he had to say, but thought some of what he expressed did definitely hold water. And so:
Mike,
And Stu!
I believe I texted you with a quick comment or two as the show ended on Friday night. The reporting and commentary on the site since then has inspired me to offer a few additional comments of my own.
First, I found Stu's less-than-pointed report somewhat inspiring in this sense.
I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like something bad.
However, you then topped him with this gem: The consensus among those in the company was that the Hammerstein Ballroom show was the better event of the weekend. There was a feeling that they put a good show on before the Philadelphia crowd, but that the audience is so burnt out and jaded, it's hard to get a rise out of them.
I agree that Hammerstein was the better show of the two, but I think there are a couple of other factors to consider. First, Hammerstein being the better of the two doesn’t make the Philly show bad. I think there’s this perception that just because something’s not the best thing going, it therefore sucks. I have my theories about where this perception came from, but I find it overly negative and oftentimes it seems like people go into certain shows or whatever hoping to be able to bash on it, and I think that defeats the purpose of going. Also, Final Battle is sort of the blowoff show for the entire year in ROH, so you can’t blow it away with something way better the night before, it just doesn’t make sense.
Here are my observations for your consideration. Please share them with Stu, if you wouldn't mind. And with those in the company who contributed to that consensus. (No need to bother with anyone in the company who was in the minority - they are beyond the cuckoo's nest.)
Before we get into the actual observations, I just want to say it’s funny how all it takes is something as simple as changing the booker to make ROH go from The Company That Can Do No Wrong to being a bunch of morons who don’t know a thing about running a wrestling company, as if Gabe was the only guy in ROH management who knew anything about the wrestling business.
* The ECW Arena was about 25% less full than RoH's debut there last time. The whole General Admission section from the first show that was stuck in the corner by the Men's Room was gone. There were fewer rows of ringside seats as well and they were not all occupied towards the back of some sections. Finally, as sometimes happens when a house is papered - or when a show is not up to par, a number of additional seats were not occupied after Intermission.
It wasn’t quite as packed, true, but it was far from empty. Also, the people who were there were into the show the whole night, there weren’t many spots where people were being all that quiet except during parts of Danielson-Lynn, and they were only being quiet then because they were intently watching the match.
* I admit that I had trouble getting psyched for a show so soon after Christmas on a Friday night. The Friday shows that I have seen have all tended to be 50-75% of the intensity level of Saturday shows. Most wrestlers seem to pace themselves to be ready for the next night.
I’ve made the same observation in the past and there definitely is a difference in the intensity level. It seems to me that ROH has their “B†markets (Connecticut, Dayton, Manassas, etc) that usually will host the Friday night shows and there absolutely is a difference netween the energy level at those shows than the ones on Saturday, which are usually in the “A†markets (New York, Philadelphia, Chicago). The interesting thing I’ve noticed is that while the difference is noticeable in person, the shows usually end up coming off fine on DVD, so I would think that much of the problem is just the crowds. I don’t mean crowd size (though you will have less fans showing up in Danbury, CT than New York City), but just the energy level of the crowds. I’ve observed that a lot of the fans who show up to these Friday night shows tend to be families taking their kids to see wrestling and aren’t actually diehard fans of the product. While there’s nothing wrong with that, they’re not going to have the same connection with the product that a diehard would, and those are often the fans who leave before the show’s over.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that while there are smartasses in every crowd, they’re usually able to make a bigger spectacle out of themselves in smaller crowds, and when you have somebody loud in the crowd who’s determined to ruin it for everybody, it’s harder to enjoy the show. No offense to anyone from Long Island, but I am infinitely thankful to (insert applicable deity here) that ROH is no longer running there because they had THE worst crowds I’ve ever been in, and it seemed sometimes like more of the crowd was interested in pissing off the wrestlers than enjoying the show. I’ve even talked to a couple of workers who pretty much said they expect that when they go to Long Island, but they were drawing there so they toughed it out. It astonishes me, in fact, that such lousy crowds can literally be right next door to ROH’s best crowds in New York and New Jersey. But I guess that’s my long, drawn out way of saying that I think the shows might come off weaker than they are just because of the live experience rather than the in-ring action itself.
* Furthermore, this show looked every bit as bad on paper, as it turned out to be. The Saturday lineup was much, much superior on paper.
Superior? Yes. Much, much superior? No, and I think this is another example of someone overstating their opinion to make a point. The Philly show had Sasaki & Nakajima against Strong & Albright, Marufuji vs Aries, and Danielson vs Lynn. Those three matches alone would be enough to draw me to any ROH show, and to your earlier point, I can easily see those matches headlining one of the Saturday shows in New Jersey or Philly. Saturday’s lineup was supposed to be stronger, Final Battle is the blowoff show for the entire year and was going to be loaded simply because of that. This is part of the gradual build mentality that’s replaced Gabe Sapolsky’s method of throwing as much as you can out there every time out and burning everyone out.
* "The consensus among those in the company?" Huh? The Friday show was easily the worst RoH show I have seen. I sure hope that such a consensus was reached!
Seriously? This was REALLY the worst ROH show you’ve ever seen? I can’t imagine you having been to many ROH shows then, because I’ve been to tons and that was definitely not the worst of the lot. Look, I know that I come off as an ROH shill sometimes, but I’ll readily admit that I’ve been to some crappy shows, and ASE4 was not one of them. See, I knew this was going to happen the second I heard Gabe was gone, the fans were going to crap on whoever ended up with the job no matter what they did. And you know what? If three or four months from now Pearce is sacked and Sapolsky is reinstated into the job, people are still going to crap on the company, but it’ll be either a)it was too late for Sapolsky to fix the damage Pearce caused, or b)Gabe just doesn’t have it anymore and he shouldn’t have been brought back. That general negativity is why I don’t pay much attention to patently negative statements like “The Friday show was easily the worst RoH show I have seen.â€
* Good show? Burnt out? Jaded? Come on. Look in the mirror. There was virtually no booking for the show. As my son yawned a couple hours into show (he has not been to enough shows to be burnt out quite yet), it occurred to me - no angles, no mike work, toned down undercard, Japanese guys have been around too often, work was not a crisp as normal, bad matchups ... it turned into the worst of both worlds: a bad show that still lasted over 3 hours.
* Did I mention the downgrade in the lighting?
Virtually no booking? What does that even mean? And there were angles and mic work on that show, but we weren’t being beaten over the head with it, which is the whole reason people started watching ROH in the first place. The rest of this just seemed like you were naming anything you could think of to throw in there. “Yeah, and the parking lot was dirty! And the guy next to me was named Jeff, and on top of that, Austin Aries had his hair hanging in his face, which just shows he doesn’t deserve his spot.†Come on, if you’re going to complain about stuff, make it something important.
* I love Jerry Lynn. But, in fact, he cannot keep up with Bryan Danielson in 2008/9. There are a few noticeable missed spots (or whatever you call missed mat moves/transitions). Jerry picked things up as the match went on and Bryan was very respectful during the match, but it made me uneasy to see the two of them working together.
Again, you’re blowing it out of proportion. Yes, they missed one or two things, it happens. You’re making it sound like you were watching Mae Young going 30 minutes with Danielson. Jerry Lynn’s still in great shape and even if he misses one or two spots, he’s still sharper than 95% of the guys out there today.
* Isn't it time for Sara Del Ray to wrestle a match in RoH again? I know that the Haze is in a non-wrestling program herself now and that Lacey is not around and the three of them were a little overexposed a year or so ago. If nothing else, Sara deserved some formidable outside competition to be brought in a couple of times.
I do agree with this, and I haven’t even heard of her getting any action on the preshows lately. I think it all depends on what Dave Prazak wants to do in SHIMMER, because since ROH doesn’t really have room for more than one women’s match on each show, it would make ense to feature a top feud and if Sara’s not in one, then you might do better to bring in someone like MsChif, the SHIMMER Champion, or occasionally have Sara kill some local girl, like back in Connecticut when she went through Ariel.
* Did I mention how much miss Mike Quackenbush?
Having him back would be nice, but I think that he suffered a concussion or something back in 2007 which caused him to miss a bunch of ROH dates, and even after that he was taking it easy for a while. I’d like to see him come back, but I’m not sure what you do with him right now. You’ve already got one “guy who’s been around the indy scene forever†with Jerry Lynn, but some matches with Quack and Nigel McGuinness would be fun, and would give Nigel another impressive notch on his belt when he beats him.
* I admit that I find Adam Pearce's in-ring so very soft that I have had trouble accepting his booking role. But, I'll keep trying and will continue to support RoH in 2009.
I’m not sure how you can draw somebody’s booking acumen from their workrate. What kind of worker do you suppose Gabe was? And for the record, Pearce is a great worker, just nobody realizes it because ROH’s fanbase is a bunch of highspot and suplex marks.
* I admit that there was one asshole upstairs on Friday that needed to be shut up early in the Lynn-Dragon match. But, that did not happen and it took away from the match.
You can’t blame that on the company. People have a right TO A CERTAIN POINT to make noise, but unless they’re really getting out of control (which that guy wasn’t) the company’s probably not going to get involved.
Anyway. I am glad to hear that Saturday was a better night all around. I am somewhat taken back by the apparent surge in the crowd. In August, the third level was only about 20% occupied and the place had a pretty good vibe then.
Take care,
John
I’m not taken back by the surge in the crowd, and it just goes to show for all the people who have been predicting Doomsday for ROH since Joe and the rest left, things aren’t that bad for ROH. They’re drawing better and better every time out, they’ve made the jump to PPV, they’ve increased their production values, they’re running regularly in new markets, and everything just seems to be clicking on all cylinders a lot better than most people seem willing to admit. If people want to sit at home crying because Samoa Joe and CM Punk are gone and they’re being wasted wherever they are and now ROH sucks just because they’re not there, fine, stay home so I don’t have to listen to you whine. But if you’re a fan of the PRODUCT, which has always been booked with the knowledge that people aren’t going to be around forever and one day, everybody’s going to move on, then this is a very exciting time to be a fan for ROH, as they’re cultivating a second generation of the ROH roster and doing some really great things in terms of expanding their business, and they must have made some deal with the Devil because they’re doing it without Samoa Joe, Colt Cabana, or Christopher Daniels. Go figure.
Well, that’s it for me today, I want to wish everyone a great weekend and I’ll be back as soon as something else pops into my head. Feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com and you can catch me on Myspace at www.myspace.com/stupwinsider. Take care, everyone!
