DR: Schneider showed up at my house with his lovely girlyfriend and was talking to my wife and younguns when I got off work. I had told Phil a few days earlier that it was the week after Christmas and I have 3 children and had just driven all over the world so I was astoundingly broke so I couldn't go to Philly but he was rolling in dough from his new heroin mule for the Russian mafia job so he and Tom bankrolled me. Tom's ten year old beer gave me super powers - as by drinking the melted plastic that it had become - I didn't share Tom and Phil's day long whining about the chicken hitting them all wrong. It was fine chicken, but not as fine as the COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME Morishima vs Mohammed Yone match we watched. I liked the ten year old EKU 28 more than the whiskey ale he brought. Ricky Marvin is the best rudo in wrestling today. I'm not sure when that happened, but he is. Yep.
PAS: I spent a gentilrific Christmas at my Girlfriends house in Richmond, so since I was already there, and Kate was hanging at home for the weekend, I grabbed big Dean so I could make him drive. We watched a bunch of wrestling and ate way too much chicken.
DR: Tom, Phil and I try to figure out if driving past Philadelphia is even more depressing than driving past Buffalo, New York. I mean JESUS! PUT A MOTHERFUCKING FENCE UP. Philadelphia from the interstate looks like driving past Beirut in 1983. And fuck the Eagles new stadium too.
RD: After hearing about the All Japan guys coming in for the ROH show, I tried to put together a group meeting of the old LLL3K crew but due to prior engagements that fell through. Pete and I ended up booking seats through MKJ and company's bus tour. The bus showed up pretty close to schedule, though considering it was in NYC 2 days after Christmas I guess. The trip down is pretty uneventful which is always a plus. We ended up watching some satellite feed of MLW from I think October, whenever they did the Wargames match. I will give the guys credit, in the 2 hours of TV that got showing, 3 different matches took advantage of the unique set up of the ring by doing spots specifically with the special ring set up, including the really crazy Sonjay Dutt quadruple springboard plancha (hitting 4 sets of ring ropes between the 2 rings). They also had some of the IWA TPI 2003 show. I guess Mickie Knuckles has the new high water mark in great indy scum tights as she's got her name on the back of her tights "Mickie" with a pair of brass knuckles underneath it. We hit a bit of traffic and get to the building about 15 minutes prior to the doors opening. The building is an armory and has a tank and some humvees and some other military vehicles on the premises. The whole place is surrounded by barbed wire fences. It also appears that there's only one entrance in and out of the parking lot. We're greeting with the surprise of not only Phil and Tom showing up just after the start of the first match before intermission, but the fact that Dean was there as well. Pete regrets the fact he didn't get to bring this year's bottle of swill for him since we didn't know he was coming.
PP: Man alive but did Dean miss out by not letting us know he was coming. I mean Pioneer had sixers of Rheingold for $4.29. YOU LOSE~! I get to the MC at 9:20ish to find that Ray has actually beaten me to a show for the first time I can remember, so I know we're in for a special day. Ride down is a breeze as I field-test my new GBASP. Mario & Luigi, baby. I too would like to give the MLW guys big-ups for the way they used the two-ring setup, in particular Sonjay's ubernutty quadruple-jump plancha. At one point the tape has back-to-back commercials for Womens' Extreme Wrestling and some mens' bodybuilding contest which had to confuse the fuck out of some folks in their viewing audience. "What did I just get a hard-on for? WAAAAHHHHH..." Eventually we get stuck in traffic and I try to call Dean at home to see if the Eagles game had an afternoon or evening start, not knowing that he was probably already on line in Philly by that point. We finally get to the armory around 1:45 and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait to get off. Finally we're allowed off the bus and the heel heat is off the hook from the 600 or so people waiting in line as we breeze past them. All of the fans are getting herded through one door. ONE. Not even one set of doors... one door singular. This is the stupidest thing ever and I briefly entertained the idea of yelling "ANTHRAX!" but immediately realized that this wouldn't be the smartest stunt to pull at a US military building.
PAS: I had to piss like a racehorse, and I was going to walk over and kick Pete in the eye just for living when he and his repulsive looking group of NY fans cut us in line. You know you are some gross looking fuckers when Dean is like the 743rd fattest guy in a building.
DR: All beer is better when it comes from Pioneer. I forget to tell Ray that the year old Midnight Dragon that we left in his refrigerator that time was fucking Brooklyn Brewery Chocolate Stout Aged In A Keg compared to the ten year old swill I drank the night before. I was soooo hoping for the thinning of wrestling dork herd with a full-blown Philly vs New York Smarks Riot and tried to instigate it as much as possible. But I get nothing.
TKG: We leave in the morning to go to Philly. I am pretty much not looking forward to anything on this card. I actually do watch current All Japan and would have been stoked to see Kashin, Hijikata, Okumara, Hirai, Fuchi, or Hamada. None of those guys was on this card. I had seen Hamada vs. kneeless Red and really dug. Tumeric Storm; well I liked the match where Tenryu broke Miyamoto's nose... but outside of that it hasn't been pretty. The last time I was impressed with Kaz was when he was working a hillbilly gimmick in OVW. He dumped the hillbilly gimmick and started working a Muta gimmick (while Yang worked a Sting gimmick). Kaz decided to method act his Muta OVW work, and well has been lazy ever since. Was psyched to be seeing American FUCKING Dragon back on US soil and for Pinoy Boy vs. Josh Daniels. But outside of that, not much that I was excited about.
TKG: We wait on line and we wait and we wait.
RD : The doors for the 2pm convention opened a bit late, by like 20 minutes, but the advantage of the bus tour was the fact we got in the building first. Of course, the crowd, which was much bigger than I was expecting for the convention portion was all corralled through 1 door. Even though I'm not really into the autograph deal, I figured what the hell since I was going to be there for the afternoon anyway, so I dug up a bunch of stuff for everyone to sign, I had BBM Wrestling cards from 2000 of everyone but Miyamoto since he either wasn't wrestling yet or it was a year that Makoto probably was at war with BBM magazine and not letting them do cards for their roster. Unfortunately, it was like $10 a pop for autographs, so I only ended up getting an autograph from Mutoh of a rare IWGP fold out card I had and I got Hayashi to sign one of the Shiryu masks I have. Mutoh seemed a little surprised I had the card and the Turmeric Storm guys seemed surprised I had the Shiryu mask which a photographer ended up taking a picture of me with Kaz showing the mask. Who knows, maybe I'll get in an international magazine, but I still won't be over. Overall, they had a pretty fair sized crowd for this, I'm not good at guessing attendance, but I'd say it was probably somewhere between 500 and 900.
PP: We scope out seats in the bleachers, center square opposite the hard camera so we should be all over their TV for the afternoon session... the sightlines here are actually quite good and this looks like a solid building for the group. Turmeric Storm are the only AJ guys who actually had their own shirts as opposed to the ROH-produced goods so I mosey over to their table. I decided to be ultra-pathetic and wore my J-List "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" shirt, which the TS boys and Hayashi TOTALLY lose their shit for. I pick up a TS shirt in a legit American XL, which was the pleasant surprise of the day, and get some TV time from a couple of the Samurai! cameramen. Dean, Phil and Tom finally show up and Phil immediately shakes me down for some cash towards Dean's ticket... I'm down with that as long as he makes it up by fronting me the dough for the Grey Cup next year. I can understand charging $10 per autograph for the big guns like Kojima and Mutoh, but asking $10 for TS and Arashi signatures pretty much guaranteed a long afternoon for them. Nevertheless, Dean (with Cowboys playoff Fu Manchu) takes the tenner from me and gets a Polaroid with Arashi. Group consensus is that will be the graphic for the next DVDVR t-shirt.
DR: My playoff moustache made Schneider's weekend - as he would just start laughing uncontrollably at seemingly nothing. I bring joy to my friends' lives any way I can. I loved the fact that it took Ray ten seconds to figure out who I was when I first saw he and Pete. I'm assuming that the scanned picture of what looks like a fat homosexual stalking a fat former sumo will have hit the board already. My moustache is Scherer-esque. The major upside is that since it rolls-over if the Cowboys win the Superbowl, every person I know are now Cowboy fans until they lose, hoping beyond hope that I have to grow it out for an entire year- going BEYOND Foghat! BEYOND Chester A Arthur! BEYOND the ability of my wife to live with it any longer!
AFTERNOON CARD
MATCH 1: ALLISON DANGER
vs. SUMIE SAKAI
RD: This wasn't really good and I have the feeling it was mostly due
to Allison Danger's strikes which looked pretty bad. I mean, Sakai probably
had the shit kicked out of her by Jaguar Yokota all those years ago. Early
on Sakai goes for an in ring asai moonsault and I think Danger was out
of position, which sort of put the end to Sakai doing high spots. She did
the hair pull count along with the ref switch hands bit. Towards the end,
she hit two top rope drop kicks and went for the moonsault but Danger ran
out of the way. Sakai ended up winning with a forward roll up to score
the pin. After the match, CM Punk made his first appearance of the evening.
Punk got the mic as Sakai was doing the "V" victory pose. She offered him
a hand shake, but ended up psyching him out and giving the "V" again and
bolted before he could do anything. Punk did mic work promising to ruin
the show until he got answers on what happened to Lucy and there was nothing
anyone could do about it, mentioning Muta's name as he was signing autographs,
which got him to turn around and tease like he was going to take a chair
to the ring, but he didn't, which resulted in Punk saying "He's not so
great is he?"
TKG: This wasn't good, but I blame Sikai. Every one of her kicks and strikes seemed off. She went down like a minute too early for clotheslines and just seemed really off. Why are you dropping that early for Allison Danger clotheslines, you're a Joshi worker... you've been hit harder that that. Punk comes out and continues the Cm Punk as world's angriest Maxwell Smart schtick.
DR: Danger did a sweet lariat. Sumie could do anything with THAT sweet ass of hers and I'd watch. WOO-HOO! SNORT!
PP: Easily the worst Sakai match we've seen live as Alison is so not Ariel and soooooo soooooo not Little Jeannie. Sakai wanted to try but I think once Alison was two miles out of position for the moonsault it was like Sakai gave up the ghost and dumbed the match down. Postmatch with Punk was great just for Mutoh teasing the world's hammiest run-in after hearing his name mentioned.
PAS: I am with Tom, Sumie sucks. Ray and Pete are just creepy Joshi pervos.
MATCH 2: PUMA vs. JOSH
DANIELS
RD : Puma is LA Dojo/SoCal/EMLL Havana Pitbulls member Pinoy Boy, although
it looks like they've changed his gear around as he was sporting silver
tiger mask pants and sporting a mask. This was ok, but not really good.
I had my hopes up since I heard really good things about Puma, but I'm
guessing it was a combo of the new mask and working with someone new. Daniels'
was busting out the Benoit-esque offense and Puma was trying to do Tiger
Mask/Ultimo Dragon style kicks. It was a little off, but OK. Daniels ended
up winning with a fishermanbuster, but his back was to us, so I'm not sure
if he did anything else with the hook on it.
TKG: This was the one match I was really stoked to see and been talking up for awhile. Dissapointing. Pinoy Boy is a personal favorite of mine. As he does little things really really well. His top wrist locks FUCKIN rule. And of all the highly touted Cali guys to go to Japan, he easily had the best "first match in Japan). He normally also hits nice Ringo Mendoza style kicks with more height than Ringo gets. Here I think he saw Daniels as low rate Benoit and decided to forego Ringo Mendoza crossed with greatest NJ rookie style and instead worked Tiger Mask vs. DK. And well those matches stank and Pinoy's kicks looked shitty enough to pass as Sayama's.
DR: Yeah, all I can remember is that Pinoy's TigerMask spots looking really low rate. The rest was smoked by everything else on the card, memorableness-wise.
PAS: Yeah Tigermaskcito v. Mini Dynamite Kid was really underwhelming. I am amused at the shortness of US Indy workers as these guy really looked like tiny versions of Dynamite and Tiger Mask, who are tiny tiny men to begin with.
PP: For some reason I was under the impression that Pinoy Boy was going to work as himself instead of Puma, which I didn't know was a masked gimmick to begin with. This led to some confusion from me and Ray... "Who is this guy? Tumor?" "IT'S NOT A TUMAHHH!" Match was servicable although I'm hoping PB does more than low-rent Tiger Mask spots next time he works here.
RD: Up next was supposed to be The Christopher St. Connection v. The Ring Crew Express. Buff E added a jerk to his lick the ring ropes spot. This didn't go to long before CM Punk came to the ring and interrupted the match and told everyone to take off. The CSC left the ring, but Dunn and Marcos stayed in the ring and took the mic telling him they were more than willing to rock him like a hurricane. This set up and impromptu fight between the two, with Punk taking care of them relatively easily, I think hitting both with some weird DDT variation, it was like a facelock, hammerlock and leg sweep DDT which I'm sure has a name to take out one and I forgot if the other got the same or something different. This led to Buff E getting the mic and telling him that he had someone for him to face and led to Mace v. Punk. Buff E told Punk that Mace maybe gay, but he's a gay man and when he was done, he'd be Mace's punk.
PAS: I would have liked to see CSC v. Dunn and Marcos work a regular match. So I was pissed. They could have at least done this after I got some nice Buff E v. Dunn exchanges.
MATCH 3: CM PUNK vs.
MACE MENDOZA w/ Buff E & Ariel
RD: I'm pretty sure Ariel was with the CSC as Pete thought it might
have been Jailbait, but she seemed to tall to be Jailbait and Pete admitted
he lost track of female valets for the CSC. This was more of a straight
forward wrestling match by Mace as they did a few of the usual harassment
spots early with Buff E sneaking in at one point to kiss Punk after Mace
had knocked him down and distracted the ref. Mace also got in the body
crawl. Punk eventually put him away with the Pepsi Plunge.
DR: I like how Buff E lifts his leg when they kiss. Mace is vaulting up the 500 as he isn't afraid to give and take an ass-beating. Arashi losing his shit at the gimmick table when the CSC made their entrance was second only to Arashi's dropkick as the coolest thing of the night.
PP: OK match while it lasts as Mace got in some wrestling for a change and Punk sold for him like a champ. Punk eventually goes on offense and puts Mace away with the Pepsi Plunge. This is the first time I'd seen it live and it is quite the nasty little move.
TKG: Arashi and the rest of AJ contingent turn around in awe of Christopher Street. Buff E still isn't hitting his lariat. I have seen Takada/Fujiwara vs. Exoticos before and am really looking forward to the Christopher Street vs. Fujiwara/Sakata.
PAS: I wasn’t sure if this was for the Doghouse Triple Crown championship that Mace held. If it was it was a better Triple Crown defense then anyone else in this building ever had.
MATCH 4: HYDRO (w/ Special
K) vs. OMAN TORTUGA vs. NICK GAGE vs. SLYK WAGNER BROWN (w/ April Hunter)
RD: The usual multitude of Special K came out including Fred the Elephant
Boy who I think has worked shots in the past with the group. This was really
eh. Hydro continues to look good. This is my second time seeing Tortuga
and I thought he looked better in this than he did at LXW. Gage for the
most part stayed out of the way in this, he hit a nasty looking chokeslam
into a backbreaker move at one point. I've seen Slyk look a lot better
this year and I could see Phil fuming over how much he hated Slyk in this
match. I think they did a spot where Gage was teasing a dive leading to
everyone cutting off in the ring with an in ring move. The finish was Hydro
winning with his pumphandle/arm trap into a piledriver move for the win.
This was immediately followed up by a run in by the Carnage Crew leading
directly to the next match.
TKG: Oman Tortuga looked really really good here. Like best guy in the ring. Before now I thought he was just a guy with a nice tattoo, but Diablo Montenegro was the worker of the two. This match made me really rethink the Outcast Killaz. The Tortuga vs. Jay Lethal secrions were really good and Fat Frank should think about booking that as a singles match. Slyk wasn't wearing his lifts in this match... and honestly without them he isn't much taller than anyone else in it. Tortuga was taller than him. Tortuga looks to be taller than everyone on the roster other than Slugger. I look to be in better shape than Nick Gage.
DR: Slyk Wagner Brown is sooooo not good.
PP: Slyk seems to run hot and cold for whatever reason... he's had some very good matches in JAPW but hasn't been as good in ROH for whatever reason. Also odd to see him ditching the lifts as it doesn't say much for you when your valet/SO TOWERS over you. Hydro and Tortuga looked really good here... they need to break Hydro/Lethal away from Special K, and Tortuga has the Italian Connection pants. The "Oman Tortelli" gimmick is right there for him if he ever gets to T-Mon.
PAS: While waiting in line we were standing next to this really sad kid and his recovering alcoholic looking mom. The kid would not fucking shut up about how excited he was to see Nick “Fucking” Gage in ROH, how Nick Gage rules and how he was going to bring lightbulb tubes and make ROH extreme. Gage came out and got a nice sized pop from the glue sniffing CZW fans. And after all the hype Gage completely gets booked as an afterthought. He hits his one backbreaker move and that was that, didn’t even get to hit his other spot. I loved it, I think Gabe should book Ruckus and not let him hit a single flip. I swear Gage was the least athletic looking guy on the whole show, including Fred the Elephant boy.
MATCH 5: SPECIAL K (Dixie,
Izzy & Angel Dust) w/ Special K vs. THE CARNAGE CREW (Tony Devito,
HC Loc & Justin Credible)
RD: This turned into a cluster right away and the CC hit the ring and
pretty much laid into everyone in Special K except for Becky and Fred,
though we were kind of hoping they beat up Fred. I was pretty embarrassed
as I was trying to figure out who Angel Dust was since I've really only
seen him work with horns and a bandana on his head. A lot of people bled
in this, Dixie, Credible, Loc and I think Devito and a few of the Special
K guys not in the match did too, though I don't know who they are or what
their gimmick names are. Devito ended up doing a moonsault from the post
onto the group of Special K. This eventually got stopped by the Athletic
Commission as they were doing a lot of whips into the barriers and I think
someone went over the railing and into the crowd. I don't know if this
was a legit or angled stoppage since the PA commission is supposedly cracking
down on stuff. Post match, Devito gave Izzy a piledriver off the apron
through the ringside table. Some of the remaining members of Special K
hit the ring with a belt I think and gang tackled Credible and started
choking him until Julius Smokes and Slugger came out. Angel Dust and I
think Cloudy ended up getting thrown around by Slugger. After this, Loc
and Devito shook hands with Slugger and Smokes, I guess setting them up
as an alliance.
TKG: Insane Dragon looked pretty impressive here as he's really improved his strikes a lot. Looked to be really laying into people. Dixie, Loc and Devito also looked solid. Credible could have been replaced by either of the Headbangers and it would have been an improvement. But throw away brawl where the finish confused. They've had better.
DR: I dug this brawl- just because it had all the blood and bumps. Justin Credible is completely worthless in this. How do you wrestle in Memphis for that long and still not be able to punch? And he needs to get back on the gas because if you can't punch and you look like Steve from Blue's Clues, I (personally) will not buy your offense.
PP: Fun brawl if more than a bit hard to follow. FWIW I actually dug the no-contest result as it keeps both teams from losing their heat and allows the PSAC to take the fall for the non-finish here. Carnage Crew have turned into a fun brawling team and I can see lots of good things coming out of the CC/Rottweilers partnership.
PAS: I like the Carnage Crew but they need to dump fucking Justin Credible who is an embarrassment. I would rather have the downs syndrome looking CZW guy from the previous match in this.
MATCH 6: SONJAY DUTT
vs. TRENT ACID
RD : God, I didn't like this match. This was like 2 horrible things
: tons of stalling and then tons of not selling. First off, Trent does
his entrance and gets a bunch of women at ringside to stuff money down
his pants. Then he takes time to dig all the money out. Then he stalls
to take off his jacket. Then he wastes time playing to the crowd. I don't
think it was just me as I think the crowd was pretty quiet once they actually
got to actually wrestling started. Then he started doing rest holds right
off the bat like he blew up doing all that stalling. Then it was Trent
busting out big offense like the Orange Bomb (suplex into a powerbomb),
a super blue thunder which got kicked out of. Trent took a reverse hurricanrana,
kicked out and was up like nothing happened like 30 seconds later. This
was terrible. Acid wins with a yakuza kick which they had done a good job
of building as the finish as Dutt avoided it 2 or 3 times during the match,
but other than that, ugh?
TKG: This was actually the best match on the morning show and I can't stand CZW. I was expecting this to be absolutely unwatchable shit with people kicking out of move after move. Instead Trent stalled. I really enjoyed Trent's poor man's Austin Idol stalling. Dutt really has some nice dives (including the pretty springboard elbow drop which I saw for the first time here)... but outside of that is worthless. Acid stalling between dives made this. Nice Austin Idol carries spotty Johnny Bronze match.
DR: Yeah, Ray's high AGAIN! Trent Acid was GREAT in this- the first I've ever written that about him. Sanjay is good as a technico if the rudo can make his flashy moves make sense and Acid did just that. This was prolly the surprise of the whole show.
PP: I'm with Dean and Tom as this was a fun little match once it got going. Dutt is really really great when he has a good rudo catcher and Acid filled the bill nicely here. I will agree with Ray that they kicked out of waaaaaaay too much stuff at the end although they did a good job building up the Yakuza kick as the finisher.
PAS: Ray is a fool, this is way better then it should be, especially with the uselessness of Dutt. The stalling really worked here as Acid was cheered coming out but got the crowd to turn on him at the end. They kicked out of way less things then I was expecting them too as well.
MATCH 7: THE S.A.T. (Joel
& Jose Maximo) vs. JAY & MARK BRISCOE for the ROH Tag Team Titles
RD: Dean was grooving to the fact the Briscoes are using "Gimme back
my bullets" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Joel does look in good shape as he seems
to have dropped a lot of weight, but then again, if I was living off World
Japan paychecks, I'd probably lose weight too. This was kind of the tale
of two types of Briscoes matches as I get the feeling that Joe and Danielson
called the matches that night which gets people to buy into the Briscoes
hype. This match was kind of the Briscoes matches that I saw from them
in their JAPW run and their singles matches in JCW that I really didn't
like. This was kind of there which sort of was the trend for all the convention
matches as they all seemed to be really lacking something, but at least
it was for a $5 card. They did a bunch of stuff and got around to killing
finishers as at one point the SAT hit the Spanish Fly on Mark, but then
Jay grabbed one of the Maximos and hit the J-Driller and they had a double
pin, but both guys kicked out rather than have it be a partner save situation.
Mark did a really crazy shooting star press to the floor that sort of came
out of nowhere and it seemed like he hurt himself doing it, fortunately,
he was ok for the night card. The finish sequence was the Maximos going
for something, but Jay on the floor hooking Joel and pulling him out to
the floor and giving him the J-Driller on the floor putting him away. This
left it Jose against the two Briscoes and Jay set up Jose on his shoulders
and Mark hit a one legged springboard clothesline to score the pin. After
this, Samoa Joe came out and had a stare down with the Briscoes and then
American Dragon hit the ring and joined in the stare down, running off
the Briscoes. AD got the mic and said there was nothing in the code of
honor that said he had to shake Joe's hand if they won the ROH tag titles.
He told him he would shake his hand when they faced for the ROH singles
title and then the next time he'd shake his hand is after he won the title
from him.
DR: This match was fucking retarded. The Briscoes take just incredibly stupid bumps and threaten to fuck up the matches that I actually want to see them in later. The SATs look better than I've seen them look in a while. Which means nothing.
TKG: Jose looked better than I've ever seen him look. Mark's topeish neckbreaker dive was great and the second dive was nutty. The dives didn't bother me as much as the rest of the folk here. What did bother me was that there was a large section in the middle of this where the match just stopped. Like they had layed out an opening section and a finishing section and were completely lost in the middle. They stood around like they were waiting for the next entrant in the Royale Rumble. "Wait wait, we need to do something here".
PP: Feh. Agree with Dean that the Briscoes were doing way too much stupid shit here considering that both guys had high-profile matches that evening. I mean Homicide was supposed to work the 3PW show that afternoon and he probably could've sleptwalk through that, but he was smart enough to cancel the booking and stay fresh for the Kojima match. Maximos looked to be in the best shape of their lives and I was amused to see them wearing their "6.4" tights from World Japan (someone has to explain that gimmick to us).
PAS: I actually kind of liked this match. Although there is no reason to have Joel Maximo be the first guy to kick out of the J-Driller. The end of this match felt like they were trying to kill every finisher they had. This really shows how smart Samoa Joe and Dragon are as they didn’t let the Briscoes get away with this shit in their regular match.
RD: That wrapped up the afternoon show, as I mentioned, kind of eh, but then again, it was a $5 show. We all split up for dinner which was the first introduction to the traffic issues of the Armory's parking lot. The bus ends up taking us to some huge mall that had a ton of restaurants. I end up going with Boston Market while Pete went to Arby's for his traditional "Stupid Dining Decision in Pennsylvania." Again, the bus trip gave us the advantage of getting in the building first. We end up setting up shop opposite of where we sat last time. ROH had a stationary camera in the bleachers but moved it to a rolling scaffold for the night show and moved the mat around so the ROH logo on the ring was facing the camera and opened up more seats. The place was pretty packed, but fortunately the building is a lot bigger than what they usually run and we didn't get the usual promoter douchebaggery which seemed to be popping up lately in the Northeast. The lighting set up for the building was nice and I think they had lasers too, but I'm not sure if they showed up all that well. We also had Fat Frank and the Solution in the bleachers behind us, I kept expecting them to hit the ring to set up the angle for the JAPW v. ROH show on Jan 9.
DR: Me n Tom n Phil go to the second-tier steakhouse and there is an hour and 45 minute wait so we go to the second-tier Mexican restaurant - On The Border. I enjoy the fact that it has no pretense of being in anyway related to actual Mexicans - as I have a burrito that seems to be filled pot roast and boiled potatoes. I wonder if I have wandered in O'Gonzalez's or McRodiguez's. Schneider makes me dance the drunken rummy dance before he pays for my dinner.
TKG: My Burrito was a Chicken caesar salad wrapped in a blintz. The greeter at the door of "On the Border" was dressed like she was going to not let us in to Studio 54. "You can't have nachos, wearing those shoes".
PAS: I had some Ribs, I knew better then to even try to order Mexican food.
PP: Yeah, in retrospect I really don't know what I was thinking when I decided to hit Arby's... then again it is America's Roast Beef. Yes Sir. I get to the counter and ask what the difference is between the Giant roast beef and the Big Montana. "Giant is 5 ounces, Montana is 8 ounces." I tempt the fates and go for the Montana... sure enough that sucker is the size of Bozeman. Nevertheless I chow down and thankfully nothing untoward comes out of it. We return to the armory and grab seats opposite the ones we had for the afternoon show. Come showtime the joint is packed... I'm not sure if they had 1500 folks or even more than they had at the first Elizabeth show, but it definitely looked like a fudgeable number.