PAS: Grab the car and take the long road to ROH. We stop off at Radio Shack to pick up a tape thingy so we can play my I Pod over the car stereo. My songs of the trip were Mississippi by David Banner, Decoration Day by Drive By-Truckers (which would make a great enterence song for a Preston Quinn and Stan Dupp version of the Freebirds), and EU’s cover of I Want You Back. We stop at Vince's which is this awesome dive stand off of 95 for some Pizza Steak Subs, which may have come back to haunt us.
TKG: From the reviews I had assumed that the Drive by Truckers were going to be shitty like a Songs Ohia/Will Oldham “supergroup” thing or something. Instead they rule hard. Phil than punishes me by making me listen to Songs Ohia. He laughs as I squirm in pain. I was stoked to see Vince’s again. Vince’s is in Joppa, and you'll owe it to yourself to stop there on every roadtrip north.
PAS: Before we hit the Jersey turnpike we get caught in an insane lightning storm which slowed the trip down to a crawl. That at the Vince’s inspired 25 minute rest stop bowel movement by yours truly put us at the ROH show an hour late. Missed a bunch of crap I could give a shit about, and Striker v. Whitmer which I am sure was fun.
TKG: Phil shouldn't blame Vince's for the rest stop as he was having rough gas problems long before we ate. The lightning was pretty scary as it was super close. It looked like we were being tailgated by lightning bolts. I started to read the Left Behind books recently, and was glad that I was in the car with Phil so at least I'd have company during the Reckoning. I had decided to map out a way to get to Conneticut without going through New York City. But was unsure if we were going the right direction at one point. So we stopped in a garage to confirm that we were headed the right way. The Israeli gas station attendant was an absolute asshole and I think he was trying to pick a fight with us.
I am convinced that if more American Jews had experience with actual Israelis we'd hate them as much as Blacks hate Africans.
I think he called me “Brah” too. Fuck, if Cheese had shot Sergei none of this would have happened.
PAS: I decided I would rather go to the ROH show, then spend a night in Fort Lee, New Jersey jail for assault. Although it was a close call.
Chris Daniels vs. Xavier
PAS: Thought this was a little disappointing mostly due to Daniels.
I thought Xavier looked great, as he busted out a bunch of neat spots on
Daniels neck and a fucking nutty dive. There was also some really neat
mat stuff I also liked how Xavier sold his ribs, something I think Daniels
was hit and miss in. I guess my main problem was that it got too “your
turn, my turn” at points. I did love the finish, which had the ref catching
Daniels foot hooking the rope, then caught Xavier’s foot on the ropes,
but missed Daniels foot on the rope. Daniels was baby in this so I guess
they have turned him.
TKG: The audience made Daniels baby, I don't think he was working baby. The crowd was really behind Daniels, and against Xavier. I don't think Daniels did much to adjust to that face/heel story but his second Allison Danger really smartly adjusted, working face second getting the crowd rallied behind Daniels and against Xavier. Smart second work. Actually Phil has no memory, as he was complimenting Daniels selling of the head for whole match while I was pimping the Xavier ribs section which he hadn't noticed. Neat section in the beginning where they go through a series of takedowns with Xavier refusing to release a hammerlock while Daniels refuses to release a headlock. The your turn my turn stuff didn‚t annoy me as much as usual since it was set up by a lucha missed dives section. There was an ugly spear to Xavier's ribs at one point and some yuckily executed stuff in this. The spear and some of the other stuff may have looked better from different angle. Where I was standing at this point you could see the way the mat sagged in the middle and it really looked like Xavier fell into a hole after being hit with the spear. There also was a really awkward looking one-two, one-two section that I could have done without. Honestly without that two count section, this would have been one of the better of the Daniels works the ribs genre of matches.
Slyk Wagner Brown vs.
Deranged vs. Hyrdo vs. Jonny Storm
PAS: Not very good. Storm had some nifty spots, including grabbing
his own foot to hit kick Slyk in a headlock, and a nifty British headlock
reversal. I thought Hydro looked good here, but Deranged had an off night.
Slyk was fucking awful. He came in wearing his ridiculous lifts, even though
he was working a trio of guys who averaged 5’2. His early spots were tentative
and loose, really glaring considering how tight most ROH work is. He punches
like a Kowalski trainee. Then his finishing spots were really sloppy, including
nearly killing Storm on a botched second rope spinning uranage and then
Lesnering a SSP. For a dyed blond haired black guy I would say he was sub
Master Gee. The turd fans boo Iceberg and cheer this choad?
TKG: Slyk also hit these "Davey Boy Smith afraid to tear a muscle" clotheslines. They did a bunch of Giant in a battle royale spots with Slyk, which didn‚t make anyone look good. Deranged did a lot of comedy spots that worked at getting the audience back into this match, but he did look off. Someone needs to book a Jay Lethal vs. Johnny Storm singles match NOW. They worked really sharp together.
Samoa Joe vs. C.M. Punk
PAS: Punk cuts another awesome promo, he is at this point far above
everyone else in the U.S. on the mike, the fact he doesn’t talk in TNA
is sign 2843 that the people in charge of that promotion are clueless fools.
This match was pretty fun, although it felt like it was at step below what
it could be..Punk did a really great job of selling his knee, and the finish
with Joe catching the Shining Wizard and turning it into a dragon screw
ruled it. It feels that they have a great title match in them, although
this wasn’t it. I didn’t understand why this match was thrown out here,
they weren’t feuding and I don’t know why you would just job Punk, who
is your hottest act, with nothing at stake.
TKG: I love knuckle locks and there was a neat Punk escape of the knuckle lock (which Joe dominated of course) at the beginning of this. DAVID TAYLOR~! But my favorite part of this match was the tree of woe spot. As Joe abuses Punk‚s knee with chops and a drop kick while Punk hangs in tree of woe.
Homicide vs. Steve Corino
TKG: World's greatest entrance EVER~! Unbelievable! Smokes any fancy
Muta entrance, smokes any Dump entrance, smokes any Shocker entrance, smokes
any AAA entrance. Truly was the greatest wrestling entrance of all time.
Corino enters with towel over his head followed by train of his trainees
and cornerman, Gracie style. Corino's trainees had earlier been selling
his merchandise stone faced separated from the RF sales. Guillotine Le
Grande grabs the mic from the ring announcer and announces the voice of
Zero-One USA, Corino's own ring announcer. Corino comes witrh his own ring
announcer. All ready I was in tears. Corino's ring announcer than begins
to go through about two note cards of indy titles (one half of the AWA-Nebraska
junior heavyweight intercontinental tag title holders) in order to introduce
Corino’s cornerman. The heat this got was unbelievable and that was even
before he announced “standing to the right of the cornerman” and than began
to reel off all of Corino's titles. This required at least three notecards
and required the “Voice of Zero-One USA” to stop for a water break to regain
his breath. Most amazing heelish stall I've ever been a part of.
TKG: Every time the announcer finishes a card the crowd expects the match to begin and then he goes on. Homicide does an in ring burn as he threatens to hit the announcer with a chair before the ref can get it out of his hand. The longer this goes the more the crowd gets impatient for the match. Finally the ring announcer finishes “the extreme legend. The king of old school and the FUCKING GAWD of professional wrestling, Steve Corino." Corino spins around in the center of the ring while the three trainees throw streamers into the ring and then they scurry into the ring to collect them.
TKG: Up till this point I had thought that the whole, this guy doesn't work here booking of Corino as an outsider to ROH was silly. But this was fucking brilliant and really sucked the audience into the story of Corino as outsider vs. native number one. I was in awe, I don”t think Yasuda gets that much heat.
PAS: I think they should really give Corino a run with the title doing this gimmick, as I would imagine the heat would even outstrip the heat Xavier was getting as a heel champ. Daniels is basically a face now, and Corino would make a fine top heel with C.M. Punk. The separate merch stand was genius.
PAS: Balls to wall great match. Started with both guys stiff the shit out of each other, with Homicide slapping the holy shit out of Corino. Corino does a Zybyzko stall and it gets psycho heat in 2003. Homicide bust out the barbed wire and starts cutting up Corino’s arm, Corino gets it back and just carves the shit out of Homicide’s head. Cide had a full on Santo level dripping blade job going on here. Homicide’s tope con hilo to nowhere is the most insane spot I have seen live since Shane Helms dived off a container in OMEGA in 1997. I really have to see it on tape again but it really felt live like the best match of both men’s careers.
TKG: I really want to see this on tape because I missed some of the brawling. The heat for the Zbysco/lucha “I’m walking to the back” in this type of promotion was ridiculous. Just beautiful. Everything seemed really tight here. Great headbutts and punches. When Corino is in this type of big match, really he shines. The section where Corino climbs to the top rope only to get caught with a stunner was impressive as Corino‚s selling made me believe the cliché gets caught on the top rope spot.
PAS: Julius Smokes was really awesome in this too, as we Guillotine Le Grande and the Corino trainees. I would like to watch this on tape again and just focus on the seconds.
Low-Ki vs. Danny Maff
TKG: I wasn’t digging this at all. I think Phil was liking the slow
build. I thought after last match, slow deliberate offense was killing
the crowd it was killing me. Ki was selling like Kikuchi vs. Hoshikawa,
which well only works for Kikuchi and well doesn’t make for a good match
anyway (Kikuchi vs. Hoshikawa is more goofy than good and no way should
be a main event). This Was one of the main reasons I came to see the show,
as I really like Monsta vs. Ki match I‚ve seen and wanted to see a Maff
vs Ki, but after the emotionally draining Corino v. Homicide match I was
calling for a quick match with a Prophecy run in angle. If ROH is smart
they'll work the finish into a Ki heel turn.
PAS: Finish was what it was. I am glad to see Danny Maff is okay. I really wasn’t digging the match up to that point. Seemed really slow, and felt flat after the epic war we just saw. Mostly Ki selling, but not really selling much for Maff. Corino v. Cide should have mained the show no matter what. Also if Ki is going to smack the shit out of a fem ringside observer fucking Borash is standing right there every Wednesday, why he got to smack Dougie?
TKG: We leave the show, call Dean and drive for a while before Phil starts to doze behind the wheel. We stop at an exit that says there is lodging off Jersey Turnpike and find the world's sleaziest motel across the street from a Porno bookstore. Luckily for us a two bedroom room just became available but the woman working there had to clean it up. Yeah someone had just checked out of the motel at 3AM. This was scummy.
PAS: As we were waiting for the room to be cleaned a car containing 3, 16 year old boys and one very drunk 15 year old girl drove up looking for a room. We considering renting our room to them for an hour, we could have made our money back and probably had what ever was left of the girl too.
TKG: We might have covered the cost for the trip that way, but they were taking to long to clean the room to make the offer tenable. Yeah SCUM-MY. We waited for the room to get clean. I was so overtired that I chased a superball down the street and almost got run over by Omar. Scummy. At about 6 in the morning someone knocked on the door looking for the meth dealer that normally works out of the room..He was pretty disappointed when I answered. “Sorry man, I was looking for the man”. At least the meth-head didn't call me ‘Brah.