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THE pROHfile LOOKS AT LAST WEEKEND'S ROH EVENTS IN DETROIT AND CHICAGO RIDGE

Hi everybody, and welcome back to the pROHfile. Hopefully you’re all feeling better than I am today, because I’m feeling wretched. But you’re not here to hear about that, you’re here for some ROH, so let’s go ahead and get started!

Before we get to this past weekend’s shows, I have the debut edition of the ROHotline up in the Elite section on the main site where I talk about the TV deal with HDNet, the Edison Screwjob, thoughts on fresh opponents for Nigel McGuinness and more, so go check that out if you’re Elite.

So with that out of the way, let’s take a look back at this past weekend’s events in Detroit and Chicago Ridge. This was not a good weekend for Sweet N Sour Inc, as not only did the American Wolves come up short in their bid for the ROH World Tag Team Title, but they also lost the Steel Cage War to Brent Albright’s team. Starting with the title match, I was split 50-50 on who was going to come out on top there, I think that the American Wolves have been getting too hard of a push to not get the straps at some opint, but on the other hand I can see Steen & Generico holding onto the title for at least another 3-4 months.

As for Steel Cage Warfare, it’s probably a good thing they didn’t announce more of the names who would be involved than they did because there were some real letdowns here. I felt that if the babyface team was going to have a mystery partner going into the blowoff to a feud that had been running for about a year at this point, it should have been somebody who would have made an impression and a difference, not dragging out Ace Steel because he needs a payday. I don’t know what his availability was like this weekend, but I think any blowoff involving Sweet N Sour Inc as a group needed to have Chris Hero in it, but he was nowhere to be found, so in addition to the wolves we got Bobby Dempsey, Tank Toland, and Adam Pearce. I know some people are probably going to complain about Pearce putting himself in such a featured role and will accuse him of trying to get himself over, but he was there that night, he was a member of Sweet N Sour Inc, and he ended up doing the job at the end of the match to give the babyfaces the win, so I don’t have a problem with it.

After the match was over, we finally got the long awaited, Virgil-esque split between Bobby Dempsey and Larry Sweeney, as Sweeney was berating Dempsey and blaming him for the loss and Dempsey finally snapped, beating up Sweeney and leaving him a bloody mess. This has obviously been a long time coming, and I’ve had my doubts in the past as to what kind of future Dempsey would have without Sweeney, but after seeing him on a couple of recent house shows, I can say that he’s improved a lot and I think he’ll do fine for himself, at least in the short term. Do I see him necessarily getting wins over Hero, the American Wolves, or anyone else involved in the group? Maybe, maybe not, but with a split that’s been building up for months now, hopefully it won’t be a situation where they break Dempsey off from the group and then go “Okay, now what?”

On the other hand, ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness had a very successful weekend, scoring clean wins over both Jay Briscoe and El Generico. I was a bit surprised to see Nigel beat Briscoe since it was a non-title affair and I figured Briscoe would pick up the win to set up a title match down the line. As for Generico, word was it was a solid match but I don’t think anyone expected him to win the ROH World Title. Meanwhile, Nigel’s top two challengers, Tyler Black and Jerry Lynn, went to a twenty minute time limit draw in Detroit that those in attendance said was very good. I thought that was a great finish because it keeps both men even in their parallel paths to the ROH World Title, and you can now keep them apart for a few more months before you can match them up again down the line, and then whoever wins there can go on to finally take the title from Nigel.

Then again, we might not have to wait that long, as Tyler Black earned a Money In The Bank style title shot with a win in a Four Corner Survival that also included Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries, and Jimmy Jacobs. This match saw yet another appearance by Bison Smith, who came out of the crowd and powerbombed Bryan Danielson on the floor, putting him out of the match. In the ring, Jacobs accidentally speared Aries and Black rolled him up for the win. This was originally supposed to be a grudge tag match pitting Black and Danielson against Aries and Jacobs, and it was another instance of the announced card being changed the night of the show, and again, what we ended up with sounded better than what we would have gotten, but they do so at the risk of burning people who go to a show expecting to see one thing and getting another. Even though the changes have worked out well so far, there’s a probability that eventually it might irk some people, and you can make the argument that this is exactly what happened in Edison, and when people don’t have faith in the announced lineups, they may stop showing up, so I would strongly urge ROH to stop changing up their cards unless there are circumstances beyond their control.

In any event, Tyler got the title shot and then later on, after Nigel McGuinness defeated Generico, Tyler Black tried to cash in his title shot, but before the match could get started, Austin Aries and Jimmy Jacobs came out and attacked Black, allowing Nigel to hit the bricks and escape with the title…for now. I’m thinking that Black is going to get screwed whenever he does get to cash in that title shot, but presumably we have at least a few more shows to build to Black cashing in, and maybe we’ll even see him lose the title shot in a match to someone else at some point along the line so you don’t have to have him directly lose to Nigel. Maybe have him lose the title shot back to Aries, and then have Black interfere and cost Aries the match since Aries and Jacobs have spent so much time screwing with Black.

Speaking of Aries and Jacobs, it seems like the more time Jacobs spends around Austin Aries, the less of a factor Age Of The Fall becomes, and as AOTF had another rough weekend with a lot of losses, the future of the group becomes increasingly murky. On top of Jacobs’ loss in the Four Corner Survival, Detroit saw Brodie Lee go to a double countout with Necro Butcher while Jimmy Jacobs & Delirious were defeated by Roderick Strong & Erick Stevens, and then Delirious and Brodie were defeated by Jerry Lynn & Necro Butcher in Chicago Ridge. The only positive you could say that came out of the weekend was that Daizee Haze accidentally hit Delirious with the spike when she meant to hit Jacobs. I think that this puts an interesting twist in the story, but if it were up to me, I would have kept Daizee and Delirious apart for at least a few months before you bring them back together again, but I don’t know where this is going or how long the story’s actually going to go on so I won’t say too much more about it right now.

Finally, Claudio got off to a good start in 2009 with wins over Brent Albright and Kevin Steen. Interestingly, Claudio’s sworn enemy Larry Sweeney played a key role in both wins, as Albright actually had Claudio in the Crowbar, and even though Claudio made the ropes, Albright refused to release the hold to send a message to Sweeney and ended up getting himself disqualified, and then the following night Sweeney again wound up at ringside and distracted Steen, allowing Claudio to get the Ricola Bomb for the win. It may just be a coincidence, but are we looking at the beginnings of a storyline that will eventually see Claudio join Sweet N Sour Inc? Maybe they could do an angle where after fighting Sweeney for so long, he realized that he wasn’t getting anywhere with his career and should have listened to Sweeney all along. I would love if they did that because not only would it be a great new direction for Claudio and give him a strong mouthpiece (which he could use), but with Claudio and Hero in the same stable, we may finally, finally finally see a Kings Of Wrestling reunion. Hey, it might just be wishful thinking on my part, but a man can dream, can’t he?

And finally to wrap this up, I’ll just briefly recap the undercard matches on both shows. Rhett Titus didn’t have a good weekend, suffering losses to Bryan Danielson and Grizzley Redwood, but I’m not too worried about it. He’s a strong enough character that he can drop more matches than he wins and still stay over. I was actually more glad to see Redwood pick up a win, he’s a really popular undercard act and it was nice to see him thrown a bone. Also having a rough weekend was Silas Young, who lost to Austin Aries in Detroit, and then was pinned by Alex Payne in a three way match that also featured Kenny King in Chicago Ridge. Silas has shown me some good stuff in the few chances I’ve had to see him wrestle, even though Don’t Stop Believin’ doesn’t really work as entrance music.

So there you go, I’ll be back later today or tomorrow with a preview of this weekend’s events in Florida, a place I’ve spent more time than I care to admit. But that’s tomorrow, and for right now I’m done. Thanks for reading and as always, all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com.