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Just a couple of quick plugs before I get started: earlier this week I wrote a column taking a look at Tyler Black and some things I think he needs to work on before he's ready to get the ROH World Title (and there are several), and for you Elite members (and you know who you are), I have the first hotline of a three part series up in the Elite section taking a look at how the ROH roster has fared in the nine months since Adam Pearce has taken over as head booker of ROH. Can you believe it's been nine months already?
In any event, we're going to have three special guests popping up in Ring Of Honor this weekend, as Bret Hart will be appearing Friday night, Ric Flair will be appearing Saturday, and Lance Storm will not only be appearing, but actually wrestling both nights, teaming with Kevin Steen to take on Davey Richards & Chris Hero in one of the main events on Friday, before taking on Hero in a singles match on Saturday.
But before we get to Storm, let's talk about Bret and Flair. Even though I think it would be far more interesting to have them appearing the same night, they'll be appearing on separate evenings and doing autograph signings, but beyond that, I wouldn't expect too much more out of Flair. It's pretty obvious that he's getting out of Dodge as quickly as possible and will be fulfilling the bare minimum requirements of the agreement until he's done, and with this being his last night working with ROH, I would tend to guess he'll come in, do the autograph session, maybe come out to the ring and go “WOO†if all that time he's spent recently on WWE TV doesn't get in the way, and that'll be all she wrote for Flair in ROH.
As for Bret, I have a feeling we'll be getting a little more out of him, for a few reasons. First of all, he's already booked for several more appearances in ROH over the coming months, so I would guess that Friday will see the beginning of some kind of story arc that will play out over the coming shows. But Bret is also a guy who has a true appreciation for the fans and has this kind of sense of duty to give them their money's worth, and especially with this show taking place in Canada, I have a feeling he'll get involved in the proceedings somehow, and hopefully with more enthusiasm than Flair showed during his time milking money out of ROH.
Getting back to Storm, I've said before that if I were booking, I would have put him with Danielson in a rematch of their first bout over three years ago, and billed it as a rematch three years in the making. Even without Danielson on this weekend's shows, I would have at least done a pair of singles matches because, and I have to be honest, Storm's itinerary for the weekend isn't leaving me counting the minutes until I have the DVDs in my hand. Yes, I know that he has a history with Hero, but I would have had him work Hero on Friday and have kind of a tune up win to build to him having a bigger singles match the following night, maybe putting over Aries in a title match or something. The way they did it isn't the way I would have gone, but I guess we'll have to wait to see how things turn out, and if these two matches leave people as excited for a Storm return as they were after the Danielson match.
Also being featured on Saturday will be the First Annual (or so we're told) Toronto Gauntlet, which will be a series of one-on-one matches with the final winner earning a shot at the ROH World Title somewhere down the line. Our participants include D-Lo Brown, Sonjay Dutt, Necro Butcher, Davey Richards, Jerry Lynn, and Jimmy Rave, and looking at that list of competitors, my gut reaction is that we're going to get an underdog victory by Sonjay Dutt. I think it would be a good way to give him a nice rub as he gets into the swing of things in ROH, and I have no doubt that he'd lose the eventual title match with Austin Aries, but sometimes that rub is good enough. Look how well it worked out for Roderick Strong after he won Survival Of The Fittest in 2005, he was never able to unseat Bryan Danielson for the ROH World Title, but Danielson made him look good enough over the four matches they had that you believed that Strong could be the champion, and I think that same strategy could be used today with Sonjay Dutt.
And speaking of the World Champion, Austin Aries will defend the title in a Four Corner Survival match on Friday against Tyler Black, Jerry Lynn, and Nigel McGuinness, and my first thought when looking at this is to wonder how many more four way title matches Lynn, Black and McGuinness can be in where we know the title will never change hands. Don't get me wrong, this is probably going to be a great match, but it's going to be the same story: Lynn comes up short, Tyler blows it again and will probably take the fall in the match, and Nigel will be in the wrong place at the wrong time, probably outside the ring with Lynn, while Aries is scoring the win.
As for Saturday, they've been teasing that Aries will defend the title against Kenny Omega, and with neither man booked into a match yet, it's possible we will see it happen, but something tells me we're not going to get it. With the tease on the website that the Briscoes have Omega's back, I think it's probably that we're going to see a six man with Omega and the Briscoes against Aries, Rhett Titus, and Kenny King or some such booking that will keep Omega away from that title shot for now.
But speaking of multi-man tag matches, the Embassy of Bison Smith, Jimmy Rave, Claudio Castagnoli & Joey Ryan will take on Colt Cabana, Brent Albright, Grizzly Redwood, and Necro Butcher in an eight man elimination tag team match. The possibilities are pretty interesting here, as we could see Bison Smith, who has seemed indestructible up to now, end up in a two or three-on-one situation where he may appear vulnerable for the first time, or (more likely) we'll see the incredibly stacked Embassy team go through the babyface team one by one until they're all gone. I'd love to see Smith get outnumbered, but still go through everyone and win the match, that would really put him over as a monster and make you wonder what it would take to beat the guy.
That tag match will also split off into a couple of singles matches on Saturday night, as Colt Cabana will take on Joey Ryan in a rematch of their bout from New Jersey a couple of months back, while Castagnoli will take on Albright in a European Rules match. Call me paranoid, but I see heel chicanery leading to the heels taking both matches. For one, the European Rules would seem to favor Castagnoli, but I can see him using the rules and some liberal cheating to steal yet another win away from Albright. As for Ryan and Cabana, Ryan's already lost to him once, so they do kind of need to give him a win to keep him from looking like a total chump.
Tyler Black and Nigel McGuinness will have the latest in their series of singles matches, with their most recent meeting ending in a clean pinfall win for Black. They seem to be booking Nigel to appear weak right now, and make it look like he can't throw lariats anymore due to the damage they've done to his arms. Because of this, he's already suffered losses to Black and Aries and also failed to defeat Claudio Castagnoli, a guy he's beaten many times. I think that this will be the latest chapter in the “Nigel can't get it done anymore†story and another win for Tyler.
Canadian stars the Super Smash Brothers and Frankie The Mobster will both be in action this weekend, as well. The Super Smash Brothers are in for a rough weekend, as they have the Briscoes on Friday and Kevin Steen & El Generico on Saturday night. I don't expect them to win either match any more than you do, but I wonder if we're going to see any reference to one of the Smash Bros portraying Generico Dos last time ROH was in Canada? As for Frankie, he's got D-Lo Brown on Friday and Bison Smith on Saturday, so it doesn't look like it's going to be a very successful weekend for the hometown team.
Finally, we wrap up with a pair of challenge matches on Friday, the first pitting El Generico against Sonjay Dutt, and also Kenny Omega taking on Kenny King. Both will be good matches, but I think Generico will probably pick up the win here, especially if I'm right and Dutt comes back the next night to win the Toronto Gauntlet. As for Omega and King, they've had several matches and they've all been awesome, and this will be one of the matches I most look forward to seeing when I get the DVD. Either guy would make me happy by winning, but I think we'll probably see Omega get the win since they're building to a match with him and Aries.
And that's it for me today, thanks as always for reading, and if anybody's going to these shows and wants to send in a live report, feel free to do so and I'll make sure it gets up on the main page. I'll be back next week with analysis and fallout from Death Before Dishonor VII and a lot more, so until then, thanks for reading, and I'll see you all next week!
Stu Carapola can be reached at stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
