PS: Tom stops on bye and we watch a pretty great El Dandy v. Black Warrior match from 1996. We discuss the El Dandy comp I am going to make, and whether I should put any of his Wrath classics from WCW on it.

TKG: El Dandy takes a bodyslam better than anyone I’ve ever seen. He takes a body slam likes it’s a Steve Williams back drop. I wonder if WCW ever ran Davey Boy Smith vs. El Dandy.

PS: The Pro picks us up and we head down to Philly, as we arrive I had forgotten how much I hate Philadelphia, the show is in the middle of a nasty looking Gummo style white ghetto, where you have a bunch of nasty smelly little kids running about who you can tell get most of their nutrition from lead paint chips.

TKG: Thank God the terrorists didn’t attack Philly. I can’t imagine having to pretend to love this city too.

PS: We spot the Howard Stern looking ECW Front row guy who is wearing jeans so tight that I can check his moyel’s workmanship. Must be angling for a comp ticket.

TKG: Yowza those pants were offensive. You could make out veins and razor burns. He must like them young since those marks sure weren’t from adult teeth.

PS: The Hit Squad come out to the line to hype up the crowd, which is fine, but Monsta and Mafia are way to talented to be Jerome holding the Mirror for Gabe’s Morris Day.

PS: We run into Yo Yo Jeff and have him join our merry band of idiots, unbelievably the show actually starts on time which is unbelievable for an indy show.

American Dragon vs. Christopher Daniels
PS: Really great stuff. The opening was built around Dragon working a super tight headlock with Daniels head turning purple. This wasn’t at all the Chris Daniels by the numbers match, as both guys had long sections on offense. Daniels took control with a really nasty STO, and AD sold his neck for the rest of the match, including not being able to hold the Cattle Mutlilation because of the neck injury. Great facial selling as usual from Dragon. This might have been even better then Ki v. Daniels from ECWA which I thought was Daniels best match ever. If everything else sucked this match would have been worth the money.

TKG: Really great opener. American Dragon came in wearing white trunks with an American flag on side and kicker boots. It looked like they should say UWFI or at least UFO on the sides. Dragon threw some stiff great chops which are illegal in Madagascar and Belize. Dragon had Daniels in this cravate that was so tight I thought Daniels head was going to explode. I’ve never been one to criticize Daniels missed clotheslines, but I have criticized the thin ones that he actually hits. In this match Daniels actually hit solid good looking clotheslines in this match. John D Williams has suggested that watching Christopher Daniels matches is like masturbating with a Barbie doll. If masturbating with a Barbie Doll is anything near as great as this match, I need to get to a KayBee Toys.

Prince Nana/Towel Boy vs. Da Hit Squad
PS: This was basically Nana getting some heat and getting squashed by DHS. Nana has Towel Boy kneel in front of him, and I get a vivid image of what the ROH audition process must look like. Hit Squad are freaking awesome, but have been used really badly in ROH. They can actually wrestle, have 911 be 911 or import Big Dick Dudley or something. Christopher Street Connection come out to catch Towel Boy and the strung out valet with the lip ring.

TKG: More misuse of the Hitsquad. Its one thing to have them playing the Sinbad role as hypemen, but here they’re stuck playing the “Sandman Executioner” to Tuttle, Nana and Simply Luscious. Thus begins the pattern of Ring of Honor really poorly booking tag teams.

C.W. Anderson/Elax vs. Christian York/Joey Matthews
PS: Elax is one of my personal favorite indy guys. He isn’t really good or anything but he tastes sweet death with aplomb. The concept of this match is that C.W. doesn’t care who he teams with so Elax is playing Conquistidor 2. This was a fine angled up tag match, Joey Matthews has gotten decent, as he is now basically a crappy Tommy Rogers teamed with the worlds worst Bobby Fulton. Elax doesn’t land hideously wrong on his shoulder like he is wont to do which was a shame.

TKG: This was a fine TV studio match. Mathews looked decent and York didn’t fuck anything up. That said I paid my $15 dollars, I want the arena match not the studio one leading to it. Plus you have CW Anderson and Rudy Boy Gonzalez in the same building. Anderson vs. Gonzalez is a better than main event quality match up in any high school gym in the world.

James Marintino vs. Xavier
PS: This was a fine match although nothing really stood out. Marintino is the former Little Guido who is trying to be “more serious.” Despite the gimmick change he got the “Where’s my Pizza” chants from the goth heroin addicts sitting in front of us, good Christ I hate ECW fans. Marintino does this slapping thing which is supposed to look shootish, but just looks like Shiatsu massage.

TKG: Those palm strikes were embarrassing. That said this was the best Guido match I’ve seen in a long time. Maritato did a leg drop to the floor which was pretty crazy.

Natural Born Sinners vs. Boogie Knights
PS: Boogie Knights have great entrance music Feinstien needs to put it and Nana’s theme on a CD. Another squash match with NBS killing the Knights and not selling. Do we really need two bad ass Puerto Rican tag teams who wrestle in nothing but squash matches and don’t sell in one promotion. Two indy looking dudes run out and have a listless sloppy attack on the Sinners. Homicide is way too good to be stuck in this shitty program.

TKG: Homicide and BogouLou made good use of the tag ropes and did some fun southern style stuff (hiding the rubber chicken from the ref)in the brief time they were out there. This was the first time I had seen the rubber chicken shots live. On tape, they’re not that impressive. But live, those are some stiff rubber chicken shots. Three minutes isn’t a match and again a waste of two teams both of whom I like. Three minutes isn’t a match its an angle. I came to see matches.

Low-Ki vs. Christopher Daniels
PS: This was a heck of a match, I think it was better then their KOI match but not as good as ECWA. They repeated a couple of spots from the ECWA match which would have been cooler if I hadn’t seen them before. They spent some time countering each other spots including Ki countering the jumping shotay with a great looking armbar over the ropes. Daniels tries to shoulder block Ki who was standing on the apron and Ki moves and just cracks Daniels with a kick. The end was really great as Ki does a swanky crab style roll through on a Last Rights attempt and slaps on the Dragon Clutch. Daniels is a weird worker, he can be in amazing matches like this, but also have some really dogshit matches too, really inconsistent for a guy with such a big upside.

TKG: John wasn’t exactly clear. I purchased the generic Barbie, although the Afro-American Stewardess Barbie was kind of tempting. So how exactly do you do this? Am I just supposed to rub my cock against her plastic body? Whip her hair against my shaft? I ripped the head off and that hole is just too thin to insert myself into. I guess I could shove it full in to stimulate my prostate. Putting her tiny toes into my urethra reduced pleasure, so that can’t be it. Thus far I haven’t got any results as good as either Daniels match. Maybe I should have tried her jailbait friend Skippy.

Intermission
PS: The mulleted white trash security jackasses refuse to let anyone outside even though it was hot as hell in the arena. Thus all the Philly dirtbags in the crowd huddled in the staircase smoking. The blond ECW fan goth girl had the full methadone rehab smoking style, it does appear that she at least is shooting between her toes as her arms were unscarred.

TKG: It was ungodly hot by this point, but it didn’t bother me. Frankly, I expected Feinstein’s ring of honor to be far warmer and tighter.

Paul London vs. Chris Marvel
PS: This was the Texas Wrestling Academy match and was good until London knocked Marvel outside and he hit a Asai. There wasn’t nearly enough room between the ring and the barriers and Marvel totally Napolean McCallum’s his ankle catching London. Totally nasty and put a damper on what had been a really fun show up to that point. I will imagine Feinstien will heavily promote this injury on his website, nothing sells tapes like someone getting hurt

TKG: This was the first dive of the night. The ring really wasn’t set up with much space for dives. London looked good in the little bit we got to see.

Spanky vs. Jay Briscoe
PS: Another really good match, Jay Briscoe is so much better outside of CZW where he doesn’t wrestle the CZW style of 2000 All Japan on love boat. Jay has grown an amish beard and looks like the Cousin Luke to Benny Stolfitzes Uncle Elmer. Lots of nice cravate work by Spanky which is something I imagine Robby Brookside taught him and AD. Plus nothing gets a crowd back into a show after an injury like tons of blood. RF comes up and snakes his arm around Yoyo Jeff, thanking him personally for coming to the show, I got a very Boston Priest feel about the whole thing. I fear for Mark Briscoe.

TKG: The crowd was kind of somber at the beginning of this match, but the two were able to get the crowd into it by the middle. Spanky did what looked like maybe a neckbreaker out of the cravate. It looked awesome. Spanky must be watching all those Shawn Michaels mid air blade jobs, because I’m assuming that’s what he did. Assuming that was a blade job, putting a gig to your forehead right as your taking a suplex that bangs the back of your head into the mat----may be the most dangerous spot I’ve seen live.

SAT’s vs. Red/Brian XL vs. Divine Storm
PS: Ugly mess of a match, for some reason the SAT’s and Red have gotten worse over the last couple of months. This is a tired match up and this was the worst of these matches. They hit some nice spots, but they blew as many as they hit. Yoyo Jeff had been pimping Brian XL but he looked backyardish here and no one else looked much better. ROH really should split these guys up. Have the SAT’s feud with the Hit Squad and have Red work Spanky or something.

TKG: This was just stupid and ugly. Stupid by the bookers, stupid by the workers. These six guys had one really great spotfest match where they managed to hit all their spots once. Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. You should develop from spotfest into actual matches, build around a couple of those spots that you can hit consistently. Trying to create an even bigger spotfest is just asking for trouble. It looks like these guys also don’t want to repeat spots from previous spotfests, so everything came off looking awkward and everything missed ugly. The Boogie Knights had a good match with Insane Dragon/Deranged…there is no reason they can’t have that match with Red/Brian XL. Natural Born Sinners vs. Devine/Storm could be fun. I imagine Devine/Storm vs CSC would be far better than this. I’ve liked Storm in singles matches with Chi Chi Cruz and his PWF singles match with Devine recently. The Hit Squad could of worked any of these three teams in a regular tag match. York/Mathews vs. Joel/Red at Wrestlefest was better than any tag match on this card. Poor use of talent by the bookers, and the workers should have been smart enough not to try to this kind of match at this point in their career.

I will say that I did like the top rope sunset flip and part of the reason I liked it was because it took so long to set up. It slowed down the pace of the match...built anticipation (“What the Fuck is Jose going to do” and got a pop for the actual move. These guys need to slow down and limit the spots they build around. Chris Devine looked like the most skilled wrestler in this match simply because he tried to do the least. SHITTY.

American Dragon vs. Lo-Ki
PS: I have been to all of their singles matches live (except the Mempho mystery match) and this was the best of all them. The first 20 or so minutes was all on the mat, with very few strikes, just awesome RINGSish counter wrestling. They were both stretching the hell out of each other. The strikes were Ki hitting a couple of big kicks, the basic story of the first part, was that Dragon was the superior mat worker and Ki was the better striker so Dragon would win on the mat and Ki would take over with Kicks. The end was more typical of their matches, with constant countering of their big spots (Ki countering Dragon’s diving headbutt, Dragon putting his knees up on the Phoenix splash, Dragon catching the somersault kick attempt.) The end has some really great big spots with Dragon hitting a top rope backdrop, but selling the impact long enough to make the kick out realistic. Ki counters another attempt with a top rope Ki Crusher, and Dragon rolls out of the ring, so they don’t have a kick out after such a big move. Dragon hits this super looking inverted small package suplex and then slaps on the cattle mutilation, can’t hold it, reapplies it with a chinlock and Ki passes out. Amazing stuff, the best match I have seen live (beating the 7/21 match between the two) Fuck American Dragon has gotten great.

TKG: Yeah American Dragon’s gotten great. He worked face here as opposed to the heel stuff he did in the second ECWA match. Ken Shamrock was working ref and for a moment there you could convince yourself that this was the best wrestling match Shamrock had refereed. It was amusing watching Shamrock get blown up as he didn’t really have the cardio to ref a match this long. At one point he did the awesome PRIDE reset when Dragon and Ki got in the ropes, but he didn’t count for KOs and double Kos that it looked like Dragon and Ki were working. Lo-Ki has been doing a buttscoot thing in his matches recently which normally doesn’t make much sense (he’s the striker why would he want to go to the mat?) but worked in this match as he kicked from the ground. Phil has pretty much covered most of the match above, the beginning section of mat work, the both guys blocking opponents big aerial highspots, etc. The cattle mutilation with the chinlock was just nasty looking.

Epilouge
PS: I was supposed to trade some tapes with Dragon, but I imagine he was icing his entire body after the match so I pass the tapes on to Mafia, and we head back to D.C. We stopped off at the Korean BBQ and we demolish some Korean food. The Pro continues his gorilla war on the Saichon plumbing, and we head home jazzed off a night of quality professional wrestling.

TKG: Would have been worth going to for any of the three tourney matches and the Spanky/Brisco match was a nice extra. Fun time had by all.