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THE pROHfile RETURNS WITH LIVE THOUGHTS FROM ROH'S VERY IMPRESSIVE DEBUT TV TAPINGS AT THE ECW ARENA IN PHILADELPHIA

By Stuart Carapola on 3/9/2009 10:59 AM

Welcome to the latest edition of the pROHfile, and no need to beat around the bush, I was live in attendance for Ring Of Honor’s first two TV tapings at the former ECW Arena in Philadelphia, and right now I’m going to share my live thoughts and impressions.

They had a really nice production setup, and I didn’t get to see the truck out back (though Mike Johnson did and he has video of it up on the main site), but I did notice that their whole setup was light years ahead of what I’m used to seeing at ROH shows. The first thing that stood out to me was the camera setup, as instead of the normal hard camera and two guys with handhelds at ringside, there were five or six cameramen at ringside, practically ensuring that everything was caught on camera at multiple angles. In addition, they had a guy with a setup that I don’t know what it’s called, but basically he had a camera up on this long pole which extended out over the ringside area to catch overhead shots of the wrestlers coming to the ring as well as elevated views of the action in the ring. I got to peek in the guy’s monitor from behind him and he was catching some angles which are unlike anything I’ve ever seen on an ROH show.

They also had a neat new lighting setup which reminded me of something you might see on Raw, albeit on a smaller scale with lights playing over the crowd while transitioning in and out of commercial breaks as well as improved light shows for ring entrances. They did use all new music and while it obviously is a major change and something the fans will have to get used to, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and certainly wasn’t as bad as TNA’s entrance music.

As far as the wrestling went, I have to admit that I was a little nervous going in that the matches were going to be “TV matches” in that they wouldn’t be truly representative of the workrate that ROH was built on, but I felt a lot better after the tapings because the action came off a lot better than I expected it would. There were four matches per episode, and given the amount of time they were given to work with the matches were a little shorter than I’m used to and didn’t feature 10,000 near falls, but for all intents and purposes we got genuine ROH matches. Nobody was taking it easy just because they were abbreviated TV matches either, everybody worked really hard and, in some cases, really went above and beyond to deliver a good show.

I was a little surprised at the lack of angles or promos, because while we did get a promo outside the building with Prince Nana and a couple of postmatch beatdowns, but that was about it. I get the impression they haven’t quite nailed down a decision on whether they want to include promos and other storytelling devices or if they just want to do four matches a week and that’s it, but even if we do just get matches, I think everyone who watches will be very happy and not feel like they’re watching a watered down, TV-friendly version of ROH.

In terms of the content of the shows…oh, spoiler warning…I was a little surprised that they threw Austin Aries vs Bryan Danielson out there as a TV main event so early in the series, and even more surprised that Danielson got the tapout win. I really didn’t see the benefit of either guy losing, but they went and did it anyway, though after watching the tapings I’m starting to think that Aries is becoming a strong enough character that it really is starting to matter less and less whether he wins or loses because he obviously comes off as a top guy, and suffering a loss to one of THE top guys isn’t going to hurt him since he’s kept in a featured spot throughout the first six episodes.

Another word on Aries: I thought that incorporating his new character into his ring style was going to turn him into a slow paced, less exciting wrestler, but it’s turning out to be quite the opposite. He does work a more methodical, generally less explosive style than he had been, but he does still get in his trademark moves and because he’s not going all out, it means more when he does hit them and they come off as more deadly than when he would chain four or six high impact moves together. He may have gotten to a point where he decided he didn’t want to kill himself in every match, and if that’s what happened then I think he’s hit on a really good blend of character and ringwork that makes him a much more entertaining, and more importantly, much more fresh wrestler than the guy who had been on the treadmill for two years.

Getting back to Danielson, I envisioned he and Aries going to a time limit draw, and he ended up doing that finish in the episode six main event with Tyler Black instead. That makes sense to me, because Tyler’s the guy they’re grooming to take the top spot any time now, but is still just a notch below guys like Danielson and probably shouldn’t be beating him until he’s the ROH World Champion. That said, they had a great match that made both guy look like a million bucks, and now that neither guy was able to beat the other, you have a situation you can come back to down the line in a later episode.

A lot of new talent got a shot on the TV tapings, as well as some guys getting an increased emphasis at the TV tapings. I’ll have a whole column up later this week with more detailed thoughts on all these guys, but the ones that came out of the tapings looking the best were Kenny Omega, Sami Callahan, and Bobby Dempsey. Omega and Callahan were both on the losing end this weekend, but had very competitive matches and looked like they were well above the level of being TV enhancement guys, and the crowd really got behind both guys. Bobby Dempsey looked like a monster, steamrolling over Orange Cassidy in explosive fashion in about 30 seconds, and the crowd was big into him.

Some guys didn’t look quite as good, such as the Dark City Fight Club and Eddie Kingston. The idea was to get the Dark City Fight Club over as a badass killer tag team, but they really didn’t impress me with their ringwork. Eddie Kingston was really, really over (as he has been every time I’ve seen him in ROH), but I just don’t get the guy. He isn’t in good shape, he doesn’t impress me with his ringwork, and I don’t get his character. Maybe my opinion will change on all of these guys in the future, but they didn’t get off to a good start in my book.

ROH will apparently be making the women’s division a part of their TV product as they had two women’s matches on the tapings, but please ROH, for the love of god, NO MORE MATCHES BETWEEN SARA DEL REY AND DAIZEE HAZE, PLEASE!! I understand that this weekend was supposed to be ROH 101, but I’ve seen these two wrestle on like every other ROH event since 2006. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for both women as wrestlers, especially Sara, and they have good matches, but I’m so burnt out on Del Rey vs Daizee matches at this point that I would have taken a bathroom break if I weren’t doing live coverage. Even if you’re not emphasizing the connection with SHIMMER on TV, they still have a whole roster of really talented female wrestlers, and it wouldn’t kill you to bring in someone different for a change. At the very least bring in MsChif, who I think is far and away the most marketable female wrestler on the independent scene today.

Overall though, ROH had as good of a first set of TV tapings as they could have hoped for. Backstage morale was reportedly very high after the tapings, and I would say with good reason. Everyone worked really hard, and it came across and I think they delivered a very strong showing that will make for a great debut on HDNet. I was a bit apprehensive going into the tapings as to what kind of show I was going to see, but after the tapings and also the very good show in Danbury on Friday, I feel very good about the direction ROH is going in. At this point we’re well past the remnants of the Gabe Sapolsky booking regime, and not only should Adam Pearce be given a pat on the back for putting together such a strong weekend, but I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Well, that’s it for me today. I’ll be back in a day or two with a follow up column with my thoughts on some of the new talents who have found their way into ROH recently, plus lots more. Until then, thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback you can send it along to stupwinsider@yahoo.com as always. See you soon!