ROH 04/24/04
Ring of Honor finally came out to the Midwest for a double shot weekend this past weekend. They hit up St. Paul, Minn. on Friday the 23rd, and then Chicago Ridge, IL (Southwest suburbs) on Saturday the 24th. I purchases second row tickets the day the event was announced, way back before any of the RF stuff, and way before the TNA talent yankings. The show was quite changed up from the original line up because of the TNA pullouts. The combination of the loss of TNA talent plus the fact that the Midwest has had quite the resurgence of wrestling recently and this being ROH’s first trip out here, there were a lot of local guys that got quite the chance to shine on the large stage of Ring of Honor. I personally was looking forward to the Homicide vs. American Dragon “Dream Match” the most, as well as seeing plenty of guys I’ve not had the chance to see before (Cide, AMDrag, Briscoes, Pitbulls, Evans, RCE.)
A lot of people talk about production values of Ring of Honor. It shows up tremendously on tapes, and it’s always looked nice. This show really didn’t feel like an indy, because of said production values. The house lights were all out, they used their own lighting rigs. Add on the barricades, decent sound system, and decorated entrance way and you can see how this company really values the atmosphere and feel that they project, and it works.
So we get to the show and park in a spot on the street right in front of the entrance (HAHA everyone that parked far away) We walk in and Mickey Knuckles and the lady that is usually working the concession stand at IWA shows are handing out flyers for the next IWA show (May 8, Lincoln Center, Highland, IN) I’ve always kinda dug her, but there was something in the air that night [/ABBA]. So, I would now like to place my application to become Mickey’s Highland Ring Rat. Miss Knuckles you can cravate me anytime you like. I purchase 3 DVDs and the Second Anniversary VHS. (Hey knuckle heads if the March 13 show is available, you’d probably sell more of them if you let us know before the end of the show.) I have a thought. Colt loves to sell gimmicks; anyone that’s talked to him while he works a gimmick table knows that. Colt this message is for you. Sell CABANABANDANAs they will sell like hotcakes. Help out in the concessions area take a sharpie and sell CABANABANANAs. Thing is I’m serious they’d do well. We question the numbering system of the venue since it isn’t clear if the entrance of the row begins the seat numbers, or if the farthest seat in against the barricade begins the seat numbers, we eventually find out it is the inside, so we move on in to Seats 3 and 4. Quite close to the barricade for the wrestler’s entrance aisle. Quietly wait for the show to begin. Phil was talking about how when he went to the debut ROH show, everyone was so shocked that it started on time. We were hoping for the same fate. Alas, as fans continued filing in the show started ten minutes late. At least they let us know that they were waiting for the rest of the fans to get in.
Second City Saints vs. The Prophecy B.J. Whitmer vs. Ace Steel
The show started with hometown Second City Saints member Ace Steel coming out to start the show. Then his opponent BJ Whitmer followed. Just as they were about to lock up, The Briscoe Brothers come out and attack Steel and work on his neck (including a springboard spike Jay Driller). And let everyone know they mean business and will destroy the Saints tonight in their main even title defense against them later (Punk & Cabana.) Punk and Cabana then come out and chase Whitmer and the Briscoes to the outside. Punk cuts a promo on them talking about how this is their house, and referencing other great Chicago matches (Hart/Austin at WMXIII, and Bret/Owen (rest his soul) at Summerslam), while Cabana is checking on Ace’s neck. Then Punk & Cabana start brawling with the Briscoes on the outside (including Cabana’s Twisting Asai Moonsault) and they brawl to the back. Whitmer grabs the mic and says the prophecy isn’t going to take a forfeit victory from the Saints, and proceeds to work on the neck as the match begins. Short little match that sees Whitmer win with his Wrist Clutch Exploder. After the match Ace takes a King-sized chair shot from Whitmer.
The Carnage Crew of Justin Credible & Masada vs. Delirious & Shawn Daivari
The Carnage Crew is MAD Over in Chicago, I don’t know if it is because they are recognized from ECW since Chicago was a major ECW town, or what. I’m sure “Chris Lovey will portray it as Chicago being a blue collar town, thus they love The Carnage Crew. I’ve never seen Masada outside of not really paying attention to a few Carnage Crew matches on tape, and he was pretty good. I’m admittedly a HUGE Delirious mark and got to share with him a few proclamations of “BAH!” The Crew hit their big impact maneuvers, Justin was lazy and phlegmy, and the little guys sold well. We got to see a Magic Carpet Ride, and Delirious got to play with the carpet, so the local fans were happy. Decent, but nothing special. The Carnage Crew won.
Chad Collyer vs. John Walters
Good match between the two. Walters told some blood marks to go somewhere else, so that was fun. This was solid, and quite mat-based as you would suppose with these two. But as is the problem with a solid technical match, there weren’t many spots, so not much sticks out in the mind to discuss here. So I’ll just say, I liked it more than I thought I would, since I’m not really impressed with Walters all that much. Collyer got his back in this return matchup.
Nigel McGuiness vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Austin Aries vs. Rocky Romero
This match was awesome and was much better received by the crowd than the last match. Even though both were incredibly good well worked matches that would both be considered technical. This had more wacky reversals, firm solid strikes, and never before seen by the casual crowd submission maneuvers, that had the crowd popping like crazy. When Jimmy Rave is the weak technical link in a four way, you got some talent in there. This was a really solid match that I really want to see the tape of. Nigel made Rave tap with some sort of wackiness
Homicide vs. Bryan Danielson
The match I was looking the most forward to. Unfortunately there was something missing. After reading the reports of the St. Paul show, that had fireballs and locker clearing brawls involved I was expecting extra crazy, extra violent Homicide. Instead I got a Homicide that was almost subdued compared to normal. Barring the point at the beginning of the match when he got pissed at some chants by The Tools, and threw the Ring bell at them (well, the barricade in front of them.) It seemed like Homicide was trying to go toe to toe on the mat with Dragon. Which of course he doesn’t win. So he goes outside and acts a fool (after teasing the crowd with the cannonball suicide dive, nice heel spot.) Then Dragon takes back over by working on THE HAND~!~!~! And takes back over. Plus, Dragon worked in an airplane spin, NICE. They work the reverse each other’s finisher spot (well, actually cattle mutilation was on for a while) and then Homicide out of the blue hits the low blow and a lariat for the win. The match was alright. But for what is supposed to be a character changing weekend for Homicide (ROH website even says “The World Title controversy in St. Paul has definitely changed Homicide” he was pretty much the same old Homicide. So I’m not quite sure what the story was here. If you look at it from just the wanted to see Homicide vs. Danielson side of things, it wasn’t as good as it could have been either. But I was really distracted by not seeing this NEW Homicide.
Intermission was in here. Very nice bathrooms at the Fieldhouse. The pizza they brought in was the kind with the floury type undercrust, so that was lacking. They did keep the tops on the waters which is nice when so many venues don’t these days.
Ricky Reyes vs. Danny Daniels .
There was something off in this match and I really hope it wasn’t because of a Danny Daniels injury. He seemed to have something wrong with his (I believe) right leg. They just couldn’t quite click, and I hope it doesn’t hurt his chances of more ROH gigs. Reyes made Danny Tap to end it.
Jack Evans/??? Vs. The Carnage Crew vs. The Ring Crew Express, vs. Alex Shelley & Jimmy Jacobs in a Scramble match.
Matt Sydal ended up being Jack Evans mystery partner, Daizee Haze was their valet. Scramble match = Spot Fest. Spot Fest featuring Jack Evans = Crowd popping goodness. Alex Shelley back in the Ring = Me Marking Out. Alex Shelley coming back with even more awesome submission maneuvers = Me Marking Out. 9 Year old kid telling Daizee Haze “Hey bitch why don’t you come over here and suck my dick” = Not Cool. OK the equal signs were a dumb idea, I realize that now, I’m done with them. Once we got to the dive sequence (yes, I was surprised too, a scramble match that ended up in a dive sequence, why I never…) It seemed that Marcos and Jacobs ended up getting stray feet to the head and neck respectively while catching the dives. Both seemed really shaken up afterwards. Then Jimmy had to take the Carnage Driver (One of the hardest ones I’ve seen). But the Carnage Crew got pulled out before they could get the pin, and Evans hit the 630 to the amazement of the crowd and for the pin. Post Match Devito gets mad at Evans for getting the pin off of his work and starts hitting things at ringside with a chair. He eventually throws the chair in disgust, and it accidentally bounced up and hit a fan at ringside. Luckily it was a pretty big guy that was able to deflect it from hitting his lady next to him, and the people behind him. He was alright. (Very good of Devito and Gabe to quickly check him and make sure all was OK.) Then afterwards, much like Shelley said the night before in St. Paul. He turned on Jimmy for not holding up his end of the tag team. Shelley getting pushed = a good thing, yes I’m a Shelley mark. (Yes I know I said I was done with the equal signs, deal with it)
ROH Title Samoa Joe vs. Matt Stryker
I was kind of sad going into this match because I wasn’t sure how well Stryker and Joe could work together, and I didn't want to see a ROH Samoa Joe match that wasn't that good. The end result was it worked pretty well. Fun match. Joe had a bandage over his face where the burn happened. This led to me and Phil talking about the shoot interview (I forgot who with, Watts maybe, Honky???) where I believe it was the Dirty White Boy in an effort to put over a beating he had taken, took steel wool, and scraped his face all up to make himself look worse. We were hoping that’s what Joe did to get his face all messed up. Everyone’s talking about Joe’s reaction to the fan calling him Rikishi (“Is Samoa Joe gonna have to choke a bitch!?”) Well in my section, in preparation for his second Ole kick, Joe is asking me for a chair. When all of us start saying they’re tied together, and we’re trying and they won’t go, he just reaches over grabs one and yanks it. Like it was nothing. He jacked my elbow pretty good with the chair leg, but he got his chair, and proceeded to kick Stryker’s head off 2 feet in front of me, so I didn’t mind. They played the Big man destroying the little man match for quite a while, before Stryker took over, and worked Joe’s leg for a good while. Quite impressive that Stryker held Joe up for quite a while before delivering a Death Valley Driver. Another title match that Joe barely ekes out a victory is in the books. I like the way they have that working. If you follow the storyline, it really makes you think that one of these underdog challengers is going to upset the champ.
Main Event Tag Team Titles CM Punk & Colt Cabana vs. The Briscoes.
The crowd welcomed back Punk & Cabana with open arms. They were so happy to be home and playing the faces that Punk even smiled when Colt hit the Electric Boogaloo Elbow Drop. Of course the smiles kept coming when Colt had tagged in to hit the move, but went back on the apron after the move, while Punk stood there and said “So are ya gonna stay in here or what” Before they switched back. Punk was Ricky Morton for most of the match. It was a really fun match that due to the atmosphere unfortunately I don’t remember much of the match; I was just in the moment and enjoying it. I look forward to the release so I can actually watch the match, for the sake of watching the match. On the ride home, Phil mentioned the thing about Punk that doesn’t come across on tape as much as it does seeing him live is that you can tell he lives this. You can feel the wrestling in his blood and running through his veins, and I have to concur. In the ring Punk just has an aura, and that makes me sad that I only noticed it, and started going to shows at the end of his Midwest run. The hard fought back and forth match eventually ended with Mark taking a particularly face-droppy Pepsi Plunge. After the match Whitmer ran in because he’s in The Prophecy, and there can’t be good things happening to the Saints when they’re around. Ace came out with a chair and returned the favor from Whitmer’s Chair Shot earlier in the night. And it looked as if Ace was thinking about using the chair to turn on Punk too, but nope, they Saints celebrated with the crowd as Copacabana played.
Great time. The Production values were there, Dave Prazak was there. Great show. As we try to file out, some of my friends try to flirt with Mickie, unfortunately they don’t know that they need to offer her the ability to cravate them to be successful in that endeavor so I’ll win that one. I thank Carmine for his help in bringing Ring of Honor to Chicago, and it’s still freaking raining. Decent ride back home to the northside. And it was an enjoyable day.
A lot of people talk about production values of Ring of Honor. It shows up tremendously on tapes, and it’s always looked nice. This show really didn’t feel like an indy, because of said production values. The house lights were all out, they used their own lighting rigs. Add on the barricades, decent sound system, and decorated entrance way and you can see how this company really values the atmosphere and feel that they project, and it works.
So we get to the show and park in a spot on the street right in front of the entrance (HAHA everyone that parked far away) We walk in and Mickey Knuckles and the lady that is usually working the concession stand at IWA shows are handing out flyers for the next IWA show (May 8, Lincoln Center, Highland, IN) I’ve always kinda dug her, but there was something in the air that night [/ABBA]. So, I would now like to place my application to become Mickey’s Highland Ring Rat. Miss Knuckles you can cravate me anytime you like. I purchase 3 DVDs and the Second Anniversary VHS. (Hey knuckle heads if the March 13 show is available, you’d probably sell more of them if you let us know before the end of the show.) I have a thought. Colt loves to sell gimmicks; anyone that’s talked to him while he works a gimmick table knows that. Colt this message is for you. Sell CABANABANDANAs they will sell like hotcakes. Help out in the concessions area take a sharpie and sell CABANABANANAs. Thing is I’m serious they’d do well. We question the numbering system of the venue since it isn’t clear if the entrance of the row begins the seat numbers, or if the farthest seat in against the barricade begins the seat numbers, we eventually find out it is the inside, so we move on in to Seats 3 and 4. Quite close to the barricade for the wrestler’s entrance aisle. Quietly wait for the show to begin. Phil was talking about how when he went to the debut ROH show, everyone was so shocked that it started on time. We were hoping for the same fate. Alas, as fans continued filing in the show started ten minutes late. At least they let us know that they were waiting for the rest of the fans to get in.
Second City Saints vs. The Prophecy B.J. Whitmer vs. Ace Steel
The show started with hometown Second City Saints member Ace Steel coming out to start the show. Then his opponent BJ Whitmer followed. Just as they were about to lock up, The Briscoe Brothers come out and attack Steel and work on his neck (including a springboard spike Jay Driller). And let everyone know they mean business and will destroy the Saints tonight in their main even title defense against them later (Punk & Cabana.) Punk and Cabana then come out and chase Whitmer and the Briscoes to the outside. Punk cuts a promo on them talking about how this is their house, and referencing other great Chicago matches (Hart/Austin at WMXIII, and Bret/Owen (rest his soul) at Summerslam), while Cabana is checking on Ace’s neck. Then Punk & Cabana start brawling with the Briscoes on the outside (including Cabana’s Twisting Asai Moonsault) and they brawl to the back. Whitmer grabs the mic and says the prophecy isn’t going to take a forfeit victory from the Saints, and proceeds to work on the neck as the match begins. Short little match that sees Whitmer win with his Wrist Clutch Exploder. After the match Ace takes a King-sized chair shot from Whitmer.
The Carnage Crew of Justin Credible & Masada vs. Delirious & Shawn Daivari
The Carnage Crew is MAD Over in Chicago, I don’t know if it is because they are recognized from ECW since Chicago was a major ECW town, or what. I’m sure “Chris Lovey will portray it as Chicago being a blue collar town, thus they love The Carnage Crew. I’ve never seen Masada outside of not really paying attention to a few Carnage Crew matches on tape, and he was pretty good. I’m admittedly a HUGE Delirious mark and got to share with him a few proclamations of “BAH!” The Crew hit their big impact maneuvers, Justin was lazy and phlegmy, and the little guys sold well. We got to see a Magic Carpet Ride, and Delirious got to play with the carpet, so the local fans were happy. Decent, but nothing special. The Carnage Crew won.
Chad Collyer vs. John Walters
Good match between the two. Walters told some blood marks to go somewhere else, so that was fun. This was solid, and quite mat-based as you would suppose with these two. But as is the problem with a solid technical match, there weren’t many spots, so not much sticks out in the mind to discuss here. So I’ll just say, I liked it more than I thought I would, since I’m not really impressed with Walters all that much. Collyer got his back in this return matchup.
Nigel McGuiness vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Austin Aries vs. Rocky Romero
This match was awesome and was much better received by the crowd than the last match. Even though both were incredibly good well worked matches that would both be considered technical. This had more wacky reversals, firm solid strikes, and never before seen by the casual crowd submission maneuvers, that had the crowd popping like crazy. When Jimmy Rave is the weak technical link in a four way, you got some talent in there. This was a really solid match that I really want to see the tape of. Nigel made Rave tap with some sort of wackiness
Homicide vs. Bryan Danielson
The match I was looking the most forward to. Unfortunately there was something missing. After reading the reports of the St. Paul show, that had fireballs and locker clearing brawls involved I was expecting extra crazy, extra violent Homicide. Instead I got a Homicide that was almost subdued compared to normal. Barring the point at the beginning of the match when he got pissed at some chants by The Tools, and threw the Ring bell at them (well, the barricade in front of them.) It seemed like Homicide was trying to go toe to toe on the mat with Dragon. Which of course he doesn’t win. So he goes outside and acts a fool (after teasing the crowd with the cannonball suicide dive, nice heel spot.) Then Dragon takes back over by working on THE HAND~!~!~! And takes back over. Plus, Dragon worked in an airplane spin, NICE. They work the reverse each other’s finisher spot (well, actually cattle mutilation was on for a while) and then Homicide out of the blue hits the low blow and a lariat for the win. The match was alright. But for what is supposed to be a character changing weekend for Homicide (ROH website even says “The World Title controversy in St. Paul has definitely changed Homicide” he was pretty much the same old Homicide. So I’m not quite sure what the story was here. If you look at it from just the wanted to see Homicide vs. Danielson side of things, it wasn’t as good as it could have been either. But I was really distracted by not seeing this NEW Homicide.
Intermission was in here. Very nice bathrooms at the Fieldhouse. The pizza they brought in was the kind with the floury type undercrust, so that was lacking. They did keep the tops on the waters which is nice when so many venues don’t these days.
Ricky Reyes vs. Danny Daniels .
There was something off in this match and I really hope it wasn’t because of a Danny Daniels injury. He seemed to have something wrong with his (I believe) right leg. They just couldn’t quite click, and I hope it doesn’t hurt his chances of more ROH gigs. Reyes made Danny Tap to end it.
Jack Evans/??? Vs. The Carnage Crew vs. The Ring Crew Express, vs. Alex Shelley & Jimmy Jacobs in a Scramble match.
Matt Sydal ended up being Jack Evans mystery partner, Daizee Haze was their valet. Scramble match = Spot Fest. Spot Fest featuring Jack Evans = Crowd popping goodness. Alex Shelley back in the Ring = Me Marking Out. Alex Shelley coming back with even more awesome submission maneuvers = Me Marking Out. 9 Year old kid telling Daizee Haze “Hey bitch why don’t you come over here and suck my dick” = Not Cool. OK the equal signs were a dumb idea, I realize that now, I’m done with them. Once we got to the dive sequence (yes, I was surprised too, a scramble match that ended up in a dive sequence, why I never…) It seemed that Marcos and Jacobs ended up getting stray feet to the head and neck respectively while catching the dives. Both seemed really shaken up afterwards. Then Jimmy had to take the Carnage Driver (One of the hardest ones I’ve seen). But the Carnage Crew got pulled out before they could get the pin, and Evans hit the 630 to the amazement of the crowd and for the pin. Post Match Devito gets mad at Evans for getting the pin off of his work and starts hitting things at ringside with a chair. He eventually throws the chair in disgust, and it accidentally bounced up and hit a fan at ringside. Luckily it was a pretty big guy that was able to deflect it from hitting his lady next to him, and the people behind him. He was alright. (Very good of Devito and Gabe to quickly check him and make sure all was OK.) Then afterwards, much like Shelley said the night before in St. Paul. He turned on Jimmy for not holding up his end of the tag team. Shelley getting pushed = a good thing, yes I’m a Shelley mark. (Yes I know I said I was done with the equal signs, deal with it)
ROH Title Samoa Joe vs. Matt Stryker
I was kind of sad going into this match because I wasn’t sure how well Stryker and Joe could work together, and I didn't want to see a ROH Samoa Joe match that wasn't that good. The end result was it worked pretty well. Fun match. Joe had a bandage over his face where the burn happened. This led to me and Phil talking about the shoot interview (I forgot who with, Watts maybe, Honky???) where I believe it was the Dirty White Boy in an effort to put over a beating he had taken, took steel wool, and scraped his face all up to make himself look worse. We were hoping that’s what Joe did to get his face all messed up. Everyone’s talking about Joe’s reaction to the fan calling him Rikishi (“Is Samoa Joe gonna have to choke a bitch!?”) Well in my section, in preparation for his second Ole kick, Joe is asking me for a chair. When all of us start saying they’re tied together, and we’re trying and they won’t go, he just reaches over grabs one and yanks it. Like it was nothing. He jacked my elbow pretty good with the chair leg, but he got his chair, and proceeded to kick Stryker’s head off 2 feet in front of me, so I didn’t mind. They played the Big man destroying the little man match for quite a while, before Stryker took over, and worked Joe’s leg for a good while. Quite impressive that Stryker held Joe up for quite a while before delivering a Death Valley Driver. Another title match that Joe barely ekes out a victory is in the books. I like the way they have that working. If you follow the storyline, it really makes you think that one of these underdog challengers is going to upset the champ.
Main Event Tag Team Titles CM Punk & Colt Cabana vs. The Briscoes.
The crowd welcomed back Punk & Cabana with open arms. They were so happy to be home and playing the faces that Punk even smiled when Colt hit the Electric Boogaloo Elbow Drop. Of course the smiles kept coming when Colt had tagged in to hit the move, but went back on the apron after the move, while Punk stood there and said “So are ya gonna stay in here or what” Before they switched back. Punk was Ricky Morton for most of the match. It was a really fun match that due to the atmosphere unfortunately I don’t remember much of the match; I was just in the moment and enjoying it. I look forward to the release so I can actually watch the match, for the sake of watching the match. On the ride home, Phil mentioned the thing about Punk that doesn’t come across on tape as much as it does seeing him live is that you can tell he lives this. You can feel the wrestling in his blood and running through his veins, and I have to concur. In the ring Punk just has an aura, and that makes me sad that I only noticed it, and started going to shows at the end of his Midwest run. The hard fought back and forth match eventually ended with Mark taking a particularly face-droppy Pepsi Plunge. After the match Whitmer ran in because he’s in The Prophecy, and there can’t be good things happening to the Saints when they’re around. Ace came out with a chair and returned the favor from Whitmer’s Chair Shot earlier in the night. And it looked as if Ace was thinking about using the chair to turn on Punk too, but nope, they Saints celebrated with the crowd as Copacabana played.
Great time. The Production values were there, Dave Prazak was there. Great show. As we try to file out, some of my friends try to flirt with Mickie, unfortunately they don’t know that they need to offer her the ability to cravate them to be successful in that endeavor so I’ll win that one. I thank Carmine for his help in bringing Ring of Honor to Chicago, and it’s still freaking raining. Decent ride back home to the northside. And it was an enjoyable day.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home