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But before we get to all that, let’s start with the situation involving Ric Flair, because I have quite a lot to say about it. For those who haven’t been keeping up on the saga (and those who have but want to hear me retell it anyway), Flair had agreed to several dates with ROH, but once he decided he’d rather concentrate on a return to WWE, things started to get a little screwy. First, at the last set of TV tapings, he came out in a dark segment before the taping began and informed the live crowd of his decision to leave ROH, and never appeared during any segments that would be filmed for TV. Though I thought that was a bit of an abrupt way to handle the situation, it was made known that he would still be fulfilling all of the dates he had agreed to, so even though the departure was a little out of left field, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since he was going to finish out his dates.
Then came Manhattan Mayhem III. Flair was originally supposed to be the in-ring referee for the match, but once he made his decision to leave, he was changed to a ringside official. I don’t know if that was done by Flair’s request or if it was ROH’s decision, but the bottom line is that Flair would now be in a far less prominent (and less taxing) role during the match. Now we fast forward to June 13th: Ric Flair comes out to the ring after the second or third match and talks about how great the fans are and what a great company ROH is, and forgive me if I sound a little cynical, but it came off as totally empty and insincere. Ric Flair has shown time and again that he doesn’t care one iota about ROH and can’t even be bothered to familiarize himself with the company and maybe learn some of the guys’ names. He might as well have come out to the ring and said “I’m Ric Flair, and I’d rather be anywhere but here! WHOOOOOOO!!†because that’s how I felt every time he appeared for the company.
But then Flair, knownst to Cary Silkin but apparently unbeknownst to a lot of other people backstage, came back to the locker room right after the promo, packed his bags, hopped in a rental car and took off. I don’t know how far in advance ROH knew he wouldn’t be around for the main event, but as a live attendee myself, I had no idea he wouldn’t show up until we got to the main event and Austin Aries announced that “due to circumstances beyond Ring Of Honor’s control,†Flair would not be appearing in the main event as advertised. Instead, Nigel McGuinness took Flair’s place as the ringside official and did Flair’s planned sequences, which consisted entirely of one spot where he smacked Austin Aries’ hands off the ropes during a figure four.
Let me make clear, I in no way hold ROH responsible for the Flair situation Saturday, or at the tapings for that matter. In fact, I applaud Cary Silkin for being a far more patient man than I would have been, because even though Flair was heard to be raising his voice at Silkin backstage in New York, Flair is yet still going to be finishing out his remaining dates throughout July. It’s obvious to me that ROH is dealing with a prima donna who does not take his commitment to ROH seriously and has no respect for the product, despite the large amount of money he was getting from them for appearing. Effectively, ROH was the so-so girl who tried to do right by Flair by cooking him dinner and getting him nice presents, but instead Flair never called when he said he would, treated her like dirt, and then dumped her when a hotter chick came along.
So I guess it’s plainly obvious to see that I’m angry about the Flair situation, but don’t get the wrong idea, it’s not out of some kind of misplaced hero worship or even out of my admittedly sometimes excessive loyalty to Ring Of Honor. I could live with it if he didn’t know who Bryan Danielson or Nigel McGuinness were. I’m not disappointed because he wants to get back in the ring, and in fact I couldn’t care less if he got back in the ring tomorrow and wrestled until the day he died. The problem is that even though he’s “appearing†before the live crowd and doing the autograph sessions he agreed to, I consider his conduct to be otherwise unprofessional. He agreed to appear on the last TV tapings, but backed out. He agreed to referee the main event in New York, and even though his role was changed to de-emphasize him, he backed out again. Unless he signed a WWE contract when I wasn’t looking, he’s not even in a position where WWE can legally tell him he can’t appear in ROH, televised or otherwise.
The bottom line is that he saw ROH as having two points of value: he would get large sums of money for coming out and going “WHOOO†for the marks, and he saw it as a good place to get Reid some work and exposure. Once Reid had his little drug bust and ROH let Flair know that they wouldn’t be bringing him in because of it, Flair decided the money wasn’t worth sticking around and big leagued them. Yes, he’s a major, major superstar in every sense of the word, but I find it hard to respect a guy who will back out of commitments so easily simply because he can. It’s incredibly disrespectful toward a company that has treated him very well, especially considering how little they’ve gotten out of him for their money. Plus, if this is how he treats promoters, I find it very hard to be sympathetic when he spends four DVDs going “poor me, poor me.†The wrestling fanbase at large is all ready to jump down the throats of Jim Herd, and Eric Brischoff, and every other promoter who hasn’t given Flair “the respect he deservesâ€, but when you see things like this, you begin to think that maybe there’s a reason for it, and maybe there’s a reason Shane Douglas, Bret Hart, and Mick Foley don’t have the greatest things to say about the guy.
So by my count, he has three more appearances to go, and if you’re going to be at any of those shows, I wouldn’t expect much more than an autograph out of him. He’s certainly not going to go out of his way to make the appearances memorable or go beyond the letter of whatever written agreement exists between himself and ROH. If that’s the way he wants to do business, then fine. ROH doesn’t need him, and they can now use their money to bring in people who want to be there and who want to work hard instead of a guy who, with all due respect, is a washed up has been who hasn’t had a good match that he wasn’t carried to in years, and has been living off his biggest fan’s charity for most of the last decade.
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And with that out of the way, let’s move on to Austin Aries, who this past Saturday night became the first ever two-time ROH World Champion. I’ve been saying for weeks that I was certain that Aries was taking the title in Manhattan, but as I said earlier, a twist was thrown in the night of the show: after a very short and disappointing First Blood match with Jimmy Jacobs in the first half, Tyler Black announced that he would be cashing in his title shot that night and the main event would now be a three way elimination match. We were kept thinking that this would be Black’s night, as he pinned Jerry Lynn to eliminate him from the match and guarantee a new champion, but it turned out to be a red herring when Aries went on to defeat him with a brainbuster to get the win and the title.
I have some mixed feelings on Tyler Black’s involvement, but generally feel like it was the right way to do things. I initially thought that it was dumb to burn up Tyler’s title shot if he was just going to lose clean anyway, but there was really no other way to do it and keep him a babyface. As we’ve seen from CM Punk cashing in on Jeff Hardy a couple of weeks ago, if Aries had won the title outright and then Black cashed in and beat him in a minute or two, it would have seemed like a cheap win, and if he had cashed it in on Lynn it could have come off as a heelish act. This really was the best way out for the Black title shot angle, even though I would have had him get screwed by Aries or Nigel McGuinness in some fashion. Also, I think Black vs Aries makes for a better final two matchup in New York than Aries vs Lynn would have been, because people have cooled off on Lynn big time since he won the title.
But getting back to Aries, he’s now the first two-time ROH World Champion in company history, so where do we go with him from here? The obvious answer is that he’ll spend a lot of time working with Tyler Black, and my guess is that Black will chase Aries for the rest of the year and finally get the title at Final Battle 2009, a full year after his issue with Aries began at last year’s Final Battle. Until then, there are a ton of fresh things you can do with Aries. You already have a lot of history between Aries and guys like Bryan Danielson, Roderick Strong, Erick Stevens, and the Briscoes, and now that Aries has the title again, they all have a fresh reason to go after him. He’s had good to great matches with all of them, and I wouldn’t mind seeing those matches and feuds revisited throughout the course of Aries’ second title reign.
Besides that, there are a ton of fresh matches you can do with Aries. He hasn’t worked much, if at all, against Brent Albright, Necro Butcher, Kevin Steen, or El Generico, and you could get some good matches out of those guys. You also have some new folks like Sonjay Dutt and Kenny Omega (who holds a win over Aries) who you could get a good match or two out of. Part of the problem with Aries is that, unlike some past champions who straddle the face/heel line, he’s pretty clearly on the heel side, so you might not get as much interest out of matches between Aries and guys like Chris Hero, Jimmy Rave, or the American Wolves.
In any event, Aries’ second title reign is something that’s been a long time coming, and I always felt like if anyone deserved a second title reign, it would have been Aries, and especially with how great his new persona has worked out for him, I’m glad to see him get another shot because he really is a very different wrestler than he was when he beat Samoa Joe in 2004. Interestingly, he probably has as much heat as he did during his first reign, but for an entirely different reason: rather than being booed simply because he was the guy who beat Samoa Joe, he’s being booed just because he’s such a jerk. It’ll be interesting to see how his character continues to develop as champion over the next several months.
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Before I go, I just want to quickly preview this weekend’s set of TV tapings at the former ECW Arena in Philadelphia. ROH did something new this time around and announced not just the six main events, but an additional pair of matches as well. This set of tapings comes a mere three weeks after the last set, and I guess that’s what happens when you have to line up ROH’s schedule with HDNet’s, but if nothing else this will perhaps give us some insight into ROH’s storylines two to three months from now.
Starting with the first night of tapings, the first main event will see a three way match between Roderick Strong, Jay Briscoe, and D’Lo Brown. These guys have had a bunch of singles matches against one another lately, and I think that as long as D’Lo stays out of the ring, this has the potential to be pretty good. Main event #2 will see Davey Richards take on El Generico in the latest in a long series of American Wolves vs Steen/Generico matchups. The American Wolves have been so dominant that I think Generico needs to pick up a win here if they want to keep the feud going.
The third and final main event is probably the most interesting match of the weekend to me, as Tyler Black takes on longtime nemesis Nigel McGuinness. There are a few ways you could go with this one, the first obviously being Black getting a win to help build him up as a title contender. You could also go the other way and give Nigel the win to help reinsert him into the main event scene, as you would have to think he’ll be in the title picture at some point later this year. You could do a situation here where Nigel beats Tyler, then maybe beats Jerry Lynn and/or Bryan Danielson at a later taping, only to come full circle and have Tyler finally go over on Nigel en route to beating Aries for the title at Final Battle. These two have had some tremendous matches in the past, so if nothing else, I’m expecting this to be the best match out of this entire set of tapings.
There are a couple of other things to keep an eye on at the first night of tapings, the first of which will be a grudge match between Kevin Steen & Eddie Edwards. As I said earlier for the Richards-Generico match, Steen & Generico have to start getting some wins to keep the feud going, so it’s probably a good idea to have Steen go over here. Also, Mark Briscoe will finally be making his return to the ring, presumably in a singles match. I don’t know if I would have necessarily done that or if I would have swapped the singles match to night two and had the Briscoes reunion on night one, but in any event he’s back and will be making his in-ring TV debut this weekend.
The first main event on the second night of tapings will see Bryan Danielson take on Sonjay Dutt. Sonjay’s had some great matches since coming to ROH a month or two ago, including one of the better matches in New York against Roderick Strong. Danielson’s always on the money, so this will probably be really good, but Danielson’s the main eventer and will probably come away with the win. The second match will see new ROH World Champion Austin Aries take on his longtime former partner Roderick Strong in a rematch of a previous HDNet main event. I think we’re just looking at an exhibition-type match here to showcase the new champion, and Roderick’s a good guy to put people in the ring with to make them look good. The third and final main event on day two will see Jerry Lynn take on Tyler Black, and with Black scoring two clean wins over Lynn this past weekend, and with Black shaping up to be the top challenger to the ROH World Title for the rest of the year, I don’t see how Black loses this one.
Also, the Briscoes will finally reunite as a team as they take on Rhett Titus & Kenny King. The Briscoes are obviously going over here, but I think it needs to be a total squash in order to get the Briscoes over with the TV audience. Titus & King have been built up enough that a strong win over them will make the Briscoes look really good.
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And with that, this monster edition of the pROHfile is at an end. Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to email me with any comments or thoughts on anything ROH related. Also, for you WWE fans out there, make sure to check out my other columns, WWEekly Thoughts (a week-by-week look at each of WWE’s shows) and Both Sides Of The Fence (where my buddy Greg and I debate current WWE events each week). But if all you REALLY care about is ROH, then I’ll see you back here soon for the next edition of the pROHfile, and until then thanks for reading and I’ll see you soon!
Stuart Carapola can be reached at stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
