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The event will be headlined by Nigel McGuinness defending the ROH World Title against KENTA in KENTA’s first appearance in ROH in over a year. KENTA’s a guy who will be welcomed back with open arms by the ROH fans after a really hot streak in the company in 2006-07. During that previous run, KENTA racked up a lot of impressive wins and only ever lost twice, both times to Bryan Danielson, so in KENTA you have another strong challenger who the fans will believe as a legitimate threat to Nigel’s title. They will actually meet the night before in a tag match with KENTA teaming with El Generico against Nigel and Davey Richards, a match with a backstory of its own as Richards was positioned as KENTA’s protégé of sorts in 2006, so it will be interesting to see the interaction there. That said, the focus will obviously be on Nigel and KENTA, and my guess would be that we’ll see KENTA beat Nigel clean with the Go To Sleep to put him over strong going into New York City the next night.
That said, I wouldn’t expect KENTA to get the belt. For one, we don’t know yet if this is the first of several regular appearances for KENTA or if this weekend is a one shot deal for the year, but I would guess that at a time when finances are on everyone’s mind, ROH doesn’t want to spend a ton of money flying KENTA from Japan and back every month. Besides that, I still think Nigel’s basically guaranteed to drop the title to either Tyler Black or Jerry Lynn and will just be building momentum until then. He’s already gotten his win back from Naomichi Marufuji at Final Battle, and I think he’ll get a clean win over KENTA to put another notch on his belt. Nigel is now within four months of breaking Samoa Joe’s record, and with each win he gets further and further into “who can beat this guy?†territory.
Just below that on the card is a No DQ rematch between Kevin Steen & El Generico and the American Wolves of Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards with the ROH World Tag Team Title on the line. The Wolves have been getting a really strong push for months now, and even though various participants in this match have been in and out of ROH for a while, everyone’s finally going to be in one place in New York so we’ll finally get that rematch. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Wolves get the title here, I think it’s obvious that they’re going in that direction, and I think that since the ROH World Title is not likely to change hands, we might see a World Tag Team Title switch instead unless somebody has another Japanese tour lined up. The American Wolves are getting the titles, of that I have no doubt, it’s just a matter of when.
In addition to KENTA, another guy making his return to ROH on the 7th Anniversary weekend is CHIKARA’s Mike Quackenbush, and he’ll have a pair of really big matches as not only will he be taking on Jerry Lynn at the 7th Anniversary Show itself, but will also be wrestling Bryan Danielson the night before in Elizabeth. Gabe Sapolsky said in his shoot interview that he wanted to give Quack a push in ROH, but with the way his scheduling worked out it was impossible to keep him around regularly enough to really sustain anything over any length of time. I guess it’s possible that this has changed and that this is the beginning of a real ROH run for Quackenbush, and if that’s the case I would be pleased as punch to see these matches turn into a three way feud between Quack, Lynn, and Danielson. However, Quackenbush is a guy who tends to march to the beat of his own drummer, so this weekend may turn out to be another special appearance type thing. Either way, we are in for two fabulous matches, I’ve already seen Danielson and Quackenbush wrestle once and they had a great match, and I’m sure that they can do it again and that Lynn and Quackenbush can also put together something fun. If this is the beginning of an extended stay for Quackenbush, I can see him at least going over Danielson, otherwise he’ll probably drop both matches.
The fourth and final match announced so far pits Jay Briscoe against D’Lo Brown. I hate to see it, but Jay Briscoe has turned into a glorified enhancement guy ever since Mark’s latest injury, and with the D’Lo train getting running again after being derailed by Nigel McGuinness in Florida, I don’t see him turning things around here. Again, this will be a great match but for as many great matches as Briscoe’s had lately, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he just doesn’t mean much unless he’s teaming with his brother, and it’s unfortunate because he’s a really talented guy who definitely could make a mark on his own, but certain people apparently don’t agree with me.
The 7th Anniversary Show is shaping up to be a really strong card so far, and when you compare it to some of the other shows ROH has done in recent months, you can see how the booking philosophy has shifted to make the big four shows (Anniversary, Glory By Honor, Death Before Dishonor, Final Battle) true major events instead of just making it another in a neverending chain of roughly equal shows. We’ve still got about a week and a half to see how the rest of the card shakes out, and we’ll probably have a better idea of how the final card for this and the Elizabeth show will shape up after this weekend’s events, which I will preview tomorrow.
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Before I go, I have a few other things I wanted to touch on, one being Ric Flair’s arrival in ROH for several appearances, the first of which will be this Friday night in Collinsville. I’ve heard some criticism of Flair because he didn’t know Larry Sweeney isn’t a wrestler (in ROH, anyway) and later admitted in an interview that he’s never actually watched ROH. Anyone who thinks this is an issue is crazy, because in Ric Flair we’re talking about a guy who, as NWA World Champion, used to travel around to tons of territories, and I can guarantee you he didn’t have time back then to sit around watching tapes of all of them to familiarize himself with their product. He’s a product of the era where the champion had to figure it out when he actually got to the arena, and this is something he was the best at, so I don’t really see his lack of familiarity with ROH as a major issue. I’m sure he’ll be able to get there early, spend enough time talking to whoever he needs to to get everything worked out, and have a fine performance at the show that night, whatever that may be.
Just as a final note on Flair, I love the promos he’s been doing on the ROH Video Wire because they are just like the promo tapes he would send to the territories to build him appearance up before his arrival. As I was sitting there watching these promos and as he was calling out Larry Sweeney and Nigel McGuinness, I was having flashbacks to similar interviews where he would be calling out David Von Erich or Dusty Rhodes. I think it’s a great homage to the territory days as well as a refreshing change to the usual model these days, which is to say “Ric Flair is coming to ROH†and then see and hear nothing from him until he shows up at the event. The old becomes new again, and these promos have become a fresh way to promote Flair to the fans ahead of his arrival, and it’s something I would like to see ROH do again whenever they have people on their way in to make special appearances.
Speaking of enjoyable promos, I’ve really enjoyed the sitdown interview with Jerry Lynn that has played out over the last 3-4 Video Wires. One of the things ROH needs to do now that they’ve gotten to their TV era is to help the fans get to know the wrestlers, and I think interviews like this are exactly the sort of thing ROH should be doing to accomplish that. Over the course of the interview, we’ve gotten thoughts on Jerry’s history in the business, his feelings on how certain events have played out, where he is now, and what his goals are going forward. Not every one of these has to stretch out over multiple Video Wires, but I would absolutely recommend that ROH make a point of doing more of these, as this is one of the ways that ROH can use its website to help promote their product given that, judging by the first set of tapings, most of the TV shows will be taken up by matches.
Now that I’ve gotten all the praise out of the way, time for a couple of complaints before I go, and first thing is that ROH has been a little lax lately when it comes to acknowledging their history. The latest example was the Bryan Danielson-Delirious match from the show in Danbury a couple of weeks ago, for which no mention was made of their history from 2006 that saw Danielson score a pair of wins over Delirious, only for Delirious to catch a submission win over Danielson in a non-title match just before Danielson lost the title. They were supposed to rematch about a year ago in a match that ended up not happening due to weather conditions causing travel issues, so it’s an issue that was left hanging and never even brought up for the rematch. This is not an isolated instance, but rather the latest example that diehards like me have probably noticed in recent months.
Now, I understand that there was a change in the booking regime and all that, but if this is an issue where Adam Pearce hasn’t familiarized himself with past storylines, then it might not be a bad idea to have somebody sit with him and just go over stuff before it goes up on the site or happens at the live events because ROH is a company that’s always been really good about acknowledging its own past. I don’t ever see it getting to the point of being like WWE where things are consciously omitted with no respect for the fans’ intelligence, but it would probably help if ROH had somebody familiar with the company’s history to help Pearce out with stuff like this. It also might help to have somebody check his news updates for spelling and grammar as well, but that’s neither here nor there.
By the way, did we ever find out who was responsible for the time discrepancy in that controversial draw between Tyler Black and Nigel McGuinness in New Jersey? Just wondering.
That’s it for me today, I hope you’ve been enjoying all these updates because I guess I’ve had a lot more to talk about that I realized on Monday! In any event, all feedback can be sent along to stupwinsider@yahoo.com, and I’ll see you all tomorrow with the preview for this weekend’s events in Indiana. Until then, mahalo.
