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Hello everyone, and welcome back to the latest edition of the pROHfile! Today I’m going to preview this coming weekend’s events as ROH returns to Detroit this Friday night for Motor City Madness 2009, and then on Saturday returns to Chicago Ridge, Illinois for the Caged Collision PPV taping. Lots of really big matches coming up this weekend, so let’s get right into it.
The main focus of the weekend revolves around the American Wolves of Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards, who will open the weekend by challenging Kevin Steen & El Generico for the ROH World Tag Team Title in the main event of the Detroit show. Richards and Edwards have been getting a monster push since being put together as a team, and I would not be at all surprised to see them pick up the title in Detroit, even if they have to resort to underhanded means. From there, the Wolves will presumably take part in a Steel Cage War match pitting Sweet N Sour Inc against the team of Brent Albright, Roderick Strong, Erick Stevens, Jay Briscoe, and an as-yet unnamed fifth member. No members of the Sweet N Sour team have officially been announced as of yet, but since the Wolves aren’t already booked elsewhere on the show, I would think they would come in and be the backbone of the Sweet N Sour team. As for the rest of the match, I have to question their strategy in selling this as the main event of the show. On the one hand, you would think that a major blowoff that’s more than a year in the making would be enough to sell the show, but it’s just as possible that people will not be sold since six of the ten men participating in the match haven’t been named. For the Sweet N Sour side, one would expect some combination including the American Wolves and Chris Hero, but who else do you put in? Could we perhaps see Bobby Dempsey getting his big moment where he gets put in the match, only to finally turn on Larry Sweeney and stand up for himself? Or are we going to see something goofy like Sara Del Rey or Adam Pearce show up? As for the babyface team, I’m going to guess somebody’s coming in from the outside unless Bobby Dempsey turns out to be the mystery fifth member. Obviously I feel like the Dempsey turn is coming up any time now, but then again, I could be completely wrong!
As usual, ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness will be a major focus of both shows even though he is main eventing neither. In Detroit, Nigel will take on Jay Briscoe in a non-title match, and then in Chicago Ridge, he will defend the title against El Generico. Nigel hass faced both men in the past and had some great matches, and in fact Jay Briscoe was the first person Nigel defended the ROH World Title against after winning it from Takeshi Morishima in 2007. Whenever a champion wrestles in a non-title match, there’s always at least a 50-50 chance that he’s going to lose, and Jay Briscoe’s a big enough deal that it wouldn’t shock me to see him catch a win. After all, they’re looking to give Nigel some fresh challengers, and at this point Nigel and Jay haven’t wrestled a singles match since October of 2007, so at this point it would qualify as a fresh match. Plus, with Mark out and the Sweet N Sour feud probably blowing off in Chicago, Jay could use something to do for a few months while Mark heals up, and a run with Nigel would at least make for some good matches. As for Generico, he’s had great matches with Nigel twice now, but I don’t think anyone takes him seriously as a World Title contender, so I’m thinking we’re going to get another good match before Nigel picks up a clean win.
After being screwed out of the ROH World Title in Edison a couple of weeks ago, Tyler Black starts down the path to his next shot at the ROH World Title with two big matches, starting with Jerry Lynn in Detroit. I’ve said before that I consider it a two-man race between Black and Lynn as to which one will be able to knock off Nigel for the title first, and while I don’t think this match will necessarily give us any indication as to which it will be, they can certainly play up the prize they’re competing against one another for a shot at. They did wrestle one another late last year and Tyler won, so I’m thinking that Lynn, coming off the momentum of back to back wins over Austin Aries and Bryan Danielson a couple of weeks ago, will probably pick up the win here. But whatever happens in Detroit, Tyler will go on to Chicago Ridge to team with Bryan Danielson as they take on Austin Aries & Jimmy Jacobs, with the person scoring the winning fall earning a shot at the ROH World Title that they can take at any time. I think this prize adds a dimension to the match where the partners will probably end up at odds throughout the match because the real prize here is earning the title shot, not necessarily winning the match for their team. I have no idea who will earn the title shot here since all four men would make credible title challengers, but I think a fun angle to play out here would be Jacobs picking up yet another clean win over Danielson and earning what amounts to a Money In The Bank title shot in the process, and Jacobs is diabolical and sneaky enough that they could probably have a lot of fun teasing him cashing it in before he finally does it after Nigel is really down and out after a tough match or something.
But before Jacobs gets to that tag match, he will take part in another tag match in Detroit, teaming with fellow Age Of The Fall member Delirious to take on Roderick Strong & Erick Stevens. I don’t see Strong and Stevens losing this one, I think they need to keep the momentum going into the Steel Cage War, while another loss would further the dissension storyline between Jacobs and Delirious. And if all this wasn’t enough AOTF tag action for you, Delirious will go on to Chicago Ridge to team with part time AOTF’er Brodie Lee against Jerry Lynn & Necro Butcher. Necro will also take on Brodie Lee in a singles match in Detroit, so I think this may turn out similar to the Necro-Delirious series from Manassas & Edison where whoever wins the singles match will then lose the tag match. In this case, I think Brodie Lee will pick up the win over Necro after more liberal AOTF interference, only to then fall to the combined might of Necro and Lynn in Chicago Ridge.
Claudio Castagnoli is coming to Detroit and Chicago Ridge with something to prove, as he has challenged both Brent Albright and Kevin Steen to singles matches on Friday and Saturday, respectively. After losing to Bryan Danielson in the blowoff to their feud, Castagnoli fell into a bit of a slump for a month or so and was left off the Manassas and Edison shows completely. At the time, I mentioned that I wasn’t sure what else could be done with Claudio in ROH and wouldn’t be surprised to see him gone from the company at some point in 2009, but having him come back and take on a couple of big challenges like this leads me to believe that they’re going to try and give him another shot. I thought the newer, more violent side he started to display around the middle of 2008 added an interesting new dimension to his character and thought it could have kept him in the strong upper-midcard for a while longer. I think that if Sweet N Sour Inc starts to disintegrate after the Steel Cage War, you could pair Claudio back up with Chris Hero to form a renewed, more violent version of the Kings Of Wrestling, who had a criminally short run back in 2006. ROH needs more teams right now than just the Briscoes, Steen & Generico, Age Of The Fall, and the American Wolves, and I think that if they’re not in a position to become main event singles wrestlers anytime soon, I think there’s a lot that Claudio and Hero could contribute in the tag team division and could hit the main event by going that route. Hey, it worked for all the other teams in ROH.
Finally, in undercard action, Bryan Danielson will take on Rhett Titus and Austin Aries will face Silas Young in Detroit. I don’t think anyone expects Danielson or Aries to lose those matches, but maybe Young and Titus will have better luck the next night in Chicago Ridge as Young takes on Alex “Sugarfoot†Payne and Titus faces Grizzley Redwood. I think Young and Titus are both probably going 1-1 this weekend.
So there you go. I will not be attending either show since Detroit and Chicago are a bit of a hike from New York, so if anybody reading this does go to either show and wants to send me live thoughts at stupwinsider@yahoo.com, your input would be most welcome. Thanks as always for reading, and if you’re an Elite member, make sure to check in later this weekend as I’ve got a hotline going up where I’ll be talking about the Edison Screwjob, that little TV deal they signed this week, and more. Otherwise, I’ll see you all sometime next week when I return with the next edition of…the pROHfile!
