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RD
: Rev Ray Duffy "I've got ups! WAKKAWAKKAWAKKA!"
PP : Pogo Pete Stein "CHICKEN! Fight like a robot!"
----------------------------------------------
RD : Pete called me up on like Wednesday about hitting this show.
Originally, we both kind of hoped to go the Chikara triple shot, but with
them being out in the middle of nowhere and not having access to a car
sort of put the kaibosh on that. Since Billy Ken Kid and Ebessan were both
booked for ROH, I figured if I wanted to see them, this would be my chance.
Let me preface this by pointing out that as usual, I was lazy in starting
this and it was a very long ass day since we did the Showcase and the main
show, which is about 7 hours of wrestling and about 20 matches.
PP : A pox on Quack's first-born for holding a tournament like that
in the middle of Bumblefuck SHOWCASE
RD : We set up camp in one of the bleachers with Johnny Sorrow and
his wife. Pete proclaims her to be like most of the wives on the board
: infinitely cooler than the person their married to. We checked out the
merch tables. I will say this, the Prince Nana Embassy shirt is awesome
because it has his face on PP: Marsha is the coolest and would fit quite nicely with the rest
of the DVDVR Wives' Club as she is a million times cooler than the poster
she married. ROH has a ton of puro merch from the Big Three, and I would've
jumped all over the Kojima "Peanuts" shirt if they weren't asking $45 for
it. I settle for the new masked wrestler magazine (score!) and gird myself
for a loooooong day of the wrestling.
MATCH 1 : ALLISON DANGER v LACEY
RD : This was kind of eh. Lacey started doing a bunch of arm work
in this. She did a neat arm whip move and then started to bust out a bunch
of stuff where she had Danger in a hammerlock and dropped her on her arm,
like a side suplex and some other things. I made a guess that maybe Lacey
was an PP: Dynamic was kind of weird for this as Alison's a heel in ROH
but was playing face here while Lacey played heel, so there wasn't a ton
of heat. Lacey had some cool stuff working her over.
MATCH 2 : THE HEARTBREAK EXPRESS v THE CHRISTOPHER ST CONNECTION
(Mace & BUFF E) w/ Ariel :
RD : Heartbreak Express are from Full Impact Pro in PP: Not sure if these are the same guys who worked the WWE tapings
as the Heartbreakers... regardless, the gimmick is stupendous and I could
totally see them doing this gimmick on Heat. The fat guy in particular
(who I proclaimed the illegitimate lovechild of Rusty Brooks and Futoshi
Miwa) was shockingly good, even busting out an MDII on Mace at one point.
The "YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS" gear is tremendous... if he was in MATCH 3 : CHEECH w/ Cloudy v. VORDELL RD : Vordell was using music which had samples from Pac Man in it
which made the geek in me mark out. I think Pete said it was "Game Over"
by Lil Flip. This was kind of short and kind of on the squash side, but
Vordell looked really good in this. He threw some nice strikes and got
a huge pop when he launched Cheech with a release german. Vordell also
did a neat move where he had Cheech set up for like a face eraser and kicked
him in the chest as he was going down and then hit a wheelbarrow suplex
follow up out of it. Vordell ended up winning with a complex move that
was like a press slam into a rock bottom type move to score the pin. Vordell
looked really good in this and even got a "Please come back" chant.
PP: Ray is the most unhip man on the planet as he thought "Game Over"
was some new-fangled remix of "Pac-Man Fever." PP: This was the Vordell Walker Show as he took about 80% and looked
really good with a ton of hot moves. Cheech had a couple of cool spots
as well but was really just there to bump like a freakazoid for Vordell's
stuff. Fun squash.
MATCH 4 : SHANE HAGADORN & MATT TURNER v. JERK RD : This was the battle of the ROH trainees against two guys I've
never seen before. Of course, ROH doesn't have their site with results.
And they don't seem to have a photo gallery of their roster. And I don't
think that any of the guys obeyed the indy law that says if you're a rookie
you should wear a shirt or tights with big bold letters of what your name
is on them. I don't know who the ROH trainees are or the names of their
opponents, though one had Infamous on his tights and the other had a Punisher
style skull on his. This was kind of there. The unknown guys in red looked
the better of the two teams in the ring, including hitting some nice double
teams. The red team hit a nice move which was like a double knee face breaker/face
eraser combo into a wheelbarrow suplex on the lesser of the two students
and the better of the ROH students ended up hitting a roll up for the win.
PP: I can't tell the trainees apart without names, but the Johnny
Kashmere-looking one did NOT have a good night as he almost killed himself
going up for a vertical suplex at one point and didn't even appear to know
how to run the ropes properly. Seriously, very stiff and forced everytime
he got whipped to the ropes, which really stood out against the rest of
the show, and not in a good way. The wrong team went over here.
MATCH 5 : DAVEY ANDREWS & ANTHONY FRANCO w/ CM Punk v. RICKY
LANDELL & ALEX LAW w/ Steve Corino :
RD : Rival Schools explode. I can only figure out who Landell and
Law are due to them getting the Corino special announcer intro and the
fact that Landell has his name written on his jacket. This was ok. I'm
not sure which of the ROH students is which, but one is a bit more muscular
than the other one and his stuff looked better. Law looked the better of
his team and hit some nasty looking knees and strikes during this. The
better of the two ROH students seemed to be setting up a mock spot of Corino
as he yelled out a bunch of stuff in Japanese and trying to hit either
an underhook suplex or DDT, but it looked like he blew the spot.
PP: "CORINO BAKA! D-D-T!" *polite applause* The best part of this
was the interaction between Corino and Punk as Corino makes the "Are you
SHITTING me, Pyle?" face to Punk who laughs and begs off.
RD: Law ended up scoring the pin with a running knee to the face
of someone who was sitting on the mat.
PP: Law is probably the best of the trainees as his strikes looked
very crisp and he and Landell were flashing some personality. Best ticket-seller
match ever.
MATCH 6 : EL GENERICO v. ARIK CANNON v. FAST EDDIE VEGAS w/ Dave
Prazak v JOSH DANIELS :
RD : Generico came out to a pretty big pop. Prazak announced that
Eddie was part of his FIP stable, Dave Prazak Associates and also mentioned
his last name of Vegas, which he hasn't used in ROH as far as I know. He
now has poker chips on his tights. Prazak said that nothing hurts more
than DP. Prazak looks amazingly sleazy with the blonde hair. I think Pete
jokingly said he looks like Corinocito. Generico made a good impression
in this, working the crowd really well. He did a bunch of comedy spots,
a bunch of them revolving around him taking stiff chops from Daniels and
not being able to answer back with as stiff shots. This resulted in him
stomping on someone's toe instead of continuing the exchange. I think he
also covered a blown spot where there was a clothesline attempt that he
was supposed to duck, but he bumped for anyway, so he rolled out to the
floor and patted his chest like he was happy he had avoided it. This was
my first time seeing Cannon and I'm not sure if the 4 way lay out is the
best place to showcase his move set. Vegas was working kind of cocky heelish
in this. The finish had Vegas hit his moonsault fall away slam move (Dan
Barry's Irish Car Bomb/the move D'Lo Brown was using from time to time)
on Cannon. I was kind of surprised he was able to do it as Cannon's on
the beefy side.
PP: You can see how the CZW/JAPW exposure has been a boon to the MATCH 7 : "MR WRESTLING" KEVIN STEEN v B-BOY :
RD : This was probably the match of the showcase card. Both guys
got pretty good reactions from the crowd. Steen wrestled without his t-shirt
this time. Steen teased the package piledriver a few times. He also hit
his big moonsault too. B-Boy got in his big double boots to the face with
the guy in the corner spot. I think this is the match where two guys were
fighting on the apron and B-Boy gave Steen a reverse DDT on the ring apron.
Steen hit his package piledriver, but was kind of out of it to cover. In
the mean time, B-Boy had rolled out to the floor. Steen did a good job
of when he recovered noticing B-Boy was gone and being really upset when
he realized he had to drag him back into the ring to attempt the pin. Of
course, by the time he actually got him back in the ring, B-Boy recovered
enough to kick out. I forget what the exact finishing sequence was, but
B-Boy eventually hit I think a swinging DDT and followed it up with the
Shining Wizard to score the pin.
MATCH 8 : ANTONIO BANKS v. HOMICIDE w/ Rocky Romero for the FIP HEAVYWEIGHT
TITLE :
RD : Banks came out first and did a little mic work. It seemed like
he was trying to cut a babyface promo to try to get himself over and also
point out that he also had street cred so he was used to dealing with guys
like Homicide, but it just didn't get over really at all. The crowd was
really dead for this, it wasn't really a terrible match, it was more sort
of there. Homicide did a lot of selling and Banks got a bunch of stuff
in. He had some nice elbows but it was really just sort of there. It was
really like the crowd was waiting for something to go wrong so they could
crap on the match which they sort of did when there was an ugly looking
bump on a suplex attempt. Homicide eventually got the win after hitting
a few lariats. Post match, CM Punk ran in and jumped Homicide and stole
the FIP belt. I guess that's payback for putting him on the mechanical
bull.
PP: Banks was ice-cold to everyone coming out... and his promo didn't
really help his cause either. Perfectly fine old-school promo for the RD : This brought an end to the afternoon show. We trekked over to
the IKEA cafeteria to have dinner, along with probably half the crowd and
some of the ROH staff. I ended up having oven roasted chicken which was
surprisingly not horrible and didn't give me food poisoning and enjoyed
some fine lingonberry juice.
PP: 10-piece Swedish meatball dinner with fries, Sprite/lingonberry
juice mix and toffee candy torte thingy with no ill after-effects for $5.28.
I love the Ikea. We head back to the Plex and Ray hits the video games
while I go watch some of the indoor soccer games being played. Nothing
says "high comedy" like Cerveza Aguila sponsoring a U-12 soccer team. Later
on Colt Cabana makes me lose it as he's bopping around in a Doug Collins
Basketball RD : We head back to the Rexplex to kill some time but nothing really
of note happens. Their arcade wasn't as good as I remembered from two or
three years ago. I was tempted to beat up little kids on the thing they
had set up which was similar to the American Gladiators jousting event,
but opted to read Pete's Japanese Mask magazine instead. When we got into
the arena again, the cage was set up as I think someone said they saw Evans
and Devito testing out the cage for the scramble cage later in the evening.
Ebessan ended up coming out to sign autographs and I got everyone at his
table to dork out when they saw the Ken the Box/DVDVR shirt. The great
part was watching the girl who was at the table with him doing the swinging
branch dance. I tried to explain that one of the guys he fought the night
before did the shirt for as as he faced Shirley Doe in the Chikara tourney.
I ended up picking up a DVD from him and got him to sign this year's roster
puro mag. DVD turned out to have a bunch of BAPESTA matches and included
Ebestan Hansen v. Fuchi.
PP: We get back over to our seats with Johnny and Marsha and I scout
ahead for the Ebessan: "Buy my DVD! Very very funny!"
I go roaring back to our seats and herd Ray over there so they can
get a load of the Ken shirt. And they react EXACTLY like every Japanese
crowd you've ever seen when someone hits a big move in a match. Ebessan,
his GF, Jimmy Suzuki, two other guys at table: "WOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" One
thing leads to another and before you know it, Ray has his DVD, I have
his towel, we're going to hook Ebessan up with a Ken shirt, and it's all
good. A grand time is had by all.
===========
RD : The show opened up with the locker room heading out to the ring.
Initially I was trying to figure out who had died, but fortunately it was
a weekend without someone in wrestling dying. CM Punk was given the mic
and gave a thank you speech from the wrestlers to the fans who had supported
them through the highs and lows of the past year. They also promised to
make 2005 a better year. This is followed up with a big build up of music
followed by Corino, his trainees and his announcer coming to the ring.
Corino takes the mic from the announcer and calls out Roderick Strong to
face him. This leads to....
MATCH 1 : STEVE CORINO w/ Alex Law & Ricky Landell & Announcer
v. RODERICK STRONG :
RD : Corino was wearing his Z-1 white American flag gear. He was
all banged up as it looked like his hand/thumb was in a cast. Strong hits
the ring and they pretty much go right at it. Strong spent part of the
match working on one of Corino's knees before he started going to his usual
backbreaker based offense. I think at one point the ref got bumped or distracted
and Law and Landell did a run in to hit a few moves before bailing out
of the ring again. Corino eventually murderlizes Strong with a lariat,
and it was a pretty nasty one too to score the pin. Post match Corino does
some mic work and says how 5 years ago, he was the guy who was running
around making a name for himself by beating up all the broken down veterans
and now the tables are turned on him with a young guy coming after him
as the broken down veteran. He compliments Strong on his skills and asks
him to shake his hand, but Strong I think flips him off and bails out of
the ring instead. I think Landell and Law threw streamers either during
the impromptu ring intros or after Corino had won the match.
PP: Corino's Z1-USA gear is fabulous. He hits the ring and eschews
his usual freaked-out intro, calling Strong out right away and it's on
like Donkey Kong. For some reason I got confused and thought Strong had
won this before remembering that Law/Landell ran in and cost Strong the
victory. Of course, that makes the booking all screwy as you have the babyface
needing outside help to beat the nominal heel.
MATCH 2 : JIMMY RAVE w/ Prince Nana & The Outkast Killaz &
John Walters v. JAY LETHAL :
RD : Nana comes out first with Rave and the OK. PP: We were distracted early as we kept on figuring out what kind
of shtick Nana would doing when he works stand-up. " MATCH 3 : JAY LETHAL v. JOHN WALTERS :
RD : I'm not particularly fond of Walters work in the past, but I
didn't hate this match. Of course, I don't remember a whole lot of it either,
but it was still pretty fun. Pete noted it seemed like Jay was starting
to run out of steam towards the end of this. Since this was the Pure Title
match, they had the limited number of breaks. Eventually got had both used
them up. I forget if Jay hit the diving DDT in this or the Rave match.
Finish was Walters catching Jay in his cross arm lung blower move (basically,
he stands behind the guy with their arm cross and falls on his back driving
his knees into the guy's back when they fall to the mat). Walters chained
3 of these together and then got the pin... while holding the ropes since
it was legal for him to do it.
PP: Walters going over was a HUGE surprise to me and pretty much
everyone else in the crowd since it was Jay's backyard and he's been getting
the big push as of late. That said, I had no beef with the match or the
finish as they did a dandy job of protecting him. We were also figuring
on Rave a beatdown from the Embassy which didn't happen either.
MATCH 4 : BILLY KEN KID v. RD PP: This was the perfect match to follow all the heat/emotion of
the previous bout. Ebessan has the crowd in stitches right away as BKK
slaps the armbar on: "OUCH!" He continues in this vein for awhile, trying
to bribe the ref to help him out ("How much? I pay you!") and the crowd
is basically eating out of his hand by the time this sequence wraps up.
Funny that a Japanese guy connects better with the fans than all but a
handful of native Americans on the entire show. BKK looks really sharp
here, hitting this tricked out springboard flip dive to the floor. He also
flashes a ton of personality too which surprised me, particularly after
he chops Ebessan down in the corner and hits the MATCH 5 : JIMMY JACOBS v. ALEX SHELLEY :
RD : This is the first time for me seeing really anything substantial
between of these two. I think I might have seen one Jacobs match before
and maybe seen Shelley in some TNA 5 minute match. Jacobs got in the HUSS!ing
headlock early in the match. In the middle he hit a spear... well, in his
case, maybe more like a dart. He tried to give one to Shelley while he
was on the ropes and ended up taking the tope to nowhere. At one point
Jacobs got Shelley in a crossface type move which I guessing is Shelley's PP: First off, you haven't lived till you've heard 1000 people singing
along with "The Touch" as Jacobs comes out. STAN BUSH LIIIIIVES! Shelley
shockingly wins the battle of the ring gear as he has his name spelled
out in a ransom notice-style font. If Jacibs had worn the PURPLE moon boots
he would've won this in a walk. A group of guys to our right make me lose
it as they start chanting "Huss" ala the "CHARGE!" song you hear at baseball
games. "Da da da daaaa da daaaaa! HUSS!" Shelley goes over and tries to
make up with Jacobs, who's too busy jawing away with a fan in the front
row (who would be getting under the skin of many a worker as the night
dragged on). Jacobs snaps out of it long enough to tease making up with
Shelley, only to lay him out with the Contra Code and walk out. A lot of
people were describing this as a heel turn, which I don't buy as he seemed
to get over bigger as a face once he Coded Shelley.
MATCH 6 : SPANKY v. CM PUNK :
RD : This was the point that Johnny disappeared to go find his wife
since Punk is one of the few wrestlers she actually likes and she had taken
off to the bar/night club that's in the Rexplex. I think the stipulations
of the match was that the winner became number one contender or something.
Ummm.. stuff happened in this match. Spanky I think worked over Punk's
knee for a bit. I'm drawing a blank. Spanky hits the Sliced Bread No 2
off the ropes to get the win. Post match, Prince Nana and the Outkast Killaz
come out. Nana congratulates Spanky on his big win. He says that since
he's a winner, unlike CM Punk, he's invited to party with the Embassy after
the show. Spanky says "Thanks, but no thanks" and ends up leaving the ring.
As Nana gets pissed and Punk is laughing at him, Nana starts trading barbs
with him. It eventually comes to fisticuffs with Punk running off Nana
and stealing his crown. And I think putting it on upside down. Punk tells
Nana that the Embassy is nothing compared to the PP: That *splat* you heard was Ray and I hitting the wall as this
was Match 14 on the night and I felt like I should be waiting for the F
Train at the Grand Ave. stop in Queens outside the Elk's Lodge. Nothing
against Punk or Spanky, but we were mentally brain-dead at this point and
spent most of the match talking with the Sorrows and Sabre Mike. Postmatch
with the fan was the most memorable part of this to me as Punk really went
to town on the guy (who was actually around the corner from the guy Jacobs
had problems with), talking about how it's guys like him who make it hard
on the other fans after the workers talked earlier about how much they
cared for them. For some reason Punk gets an s-load of heel heat from certain
sections of fans in ROH, but he was 100% face with the crowd by the time
this wrapped up.
MATCH 7 : THE HAVANA PITBULLS (Rocky Romero & Ricky Reyes) w/
Julius Smokes v. DAN MAFF & BJ WHITMER for the ROH TAG TEAM TITLES
:
RD : There was an added stipulation if Maff and Whitmer didn't win
the titles, they had to split up. Another match I'm really drawing a blank
on stuff happening in. Something happens which leaves Reyes in the ring
alone with Maff, I think the Pitbulls might have hit each other or Smokes
by mistake. Maff hits Reyes with the Burning Hammer to win the belts. At
this point, they have the prom queen Allison Danger come out. Allison claims
since she owns Maff and Whitmer, they can't sign for title matches. She
pulls out a contract and claims that it was a non-title match. Smokes tries
to take the belts back but ends up getting a beating/thrown out of the
ring for his troubles. Maff freaks out and grabs her and tells her to rip
up the contract. She doesn't do it fast enough so she ends up taking an
exploder from Whitmer... she might have taken the Burning Hammer too. So,
Whitmer and Maff are the tag champs... I think. And the real solution to
all their problems with Danger could have just be solved months ago if
they had just beat her up or something.
RD : At this point they announced that the Inoki office and NWA would
be bringing a one night super Jrs tournament to the next PP: And in an ASTOUNDING coincidence, said tourney just happens to
be the week before the Super 8. RD : Up next was Mick Foley. Foley came out to talk his angle with
Joe. He pointed out how well the angle in PP: Personally I was expecting Tommy Dreamer to be the mystery guy,
especially since it isn't like he's on the active roster anymore and I
could've seen him doing a one-shot like this. Then again it might've been
a little too obvious.
MATCH 8 : RD : Wow, talk about being put in an awkward position. After having
a strong showing in the showcase, a relative unknown is pulled out to have
to face the former champion. This was kind of fun but really short. Vordell's
stuff looked good, especially his kicks and strikes. Joe hit his big knees
and went for the choke early, but Vordell was able to rope break out. Vordell
ended up charging Joe and Joe put him away in with the choke. They had
him escape Joe's finish once, but it was really too short to do him any
good if they're going to bring Vordell back.
PP: Vordell got a pretty weak reaction coming out given that he was
one of the standout guys on the afternoon showcase, but then a good portion
of the evening crowd probably wouldn't have gone to the afternoon show,
being less freakish than we are when it comes to America's Favorite Sport.
Vordell looks good whipping out most of the stuff he used against Cheech
earlier, but Joe eventually puts him away with the choke.
RD : Post match, Foley gets on the mic again and says that he was
afraid something like that would happen. He then informs Joe that he did
have someone else lined up. Foley said that there was a new hardcore legend
and that he was passing the torch to them. Foley pointed out that he wasn't
wearing his usual red and black flannel and Wanted Dead shirt because he
had passed them on... to Ebetus Jack.
PP: "'Abyss Jack?' Abyss is the mystery guy? OK, this could wor-HOLY
SHIT!!!"
MATCH 9 : SAMOA JOE v. EBETUS JACK :
RD : When Foley initially said it, we were having a problem figuring
out what the first part of what he said was. Initially I thought he said
"Abyss Jack", but I was shocked and amazed at what I saw. Out came Ebessan
in Foley's t-shirt and flannel, now sporting a wig and beard. The whole
crowd lost it. It was fucking awesome. In fact, the only thing that would
have been better was if Ebessan was missing part of his giant ear and the
look would have been totally complete. To top it off, Ebessan wrestles
like Foley. Doing the Foley style forearm punches and the corner running
knee at blinding Foley rates of speed. He also threw in liberal doses of
"Bang! Bang!" poses. Foley interfered a couple times, including throwing
in pointers on the proper way to throw his punches. Ebessan sets up for
the hipbuster from the top turnbuckle and gets the crowd to clap along,
but then thinks better of it. He stands on the bottom buckle, gets the
crowd to clap along... maybe the apron would be better. Crowd claps along....
well, maybe the floor. Claps, elbow drop on the floor, huge pop. You know,
if they want to make Joe the face through all of this... this wasn't the
match to do, because the crowd was hugely behind Ebessan. Joe looked like
he was having a hard time keeping a straight face during this. At one point,
Ebessan gets Socko.. or maybe it was Osako, I forget if it was his own
or if Foley threw it to him or if Foley went for the Claw but dropped it.
But Ebetus goes for the Mandible Claw... only to have Joe start biting
on his hand. Eventually Joe hits the Muscle Buster to score the win and
I think he and Foley fight to the back. Ebetus Jack was worth the price
of admission to both shows. I was almost crying laughing from it. One million
billion stars. I don't care what the other angle was going to be, I doubt
it would have topped this.
PP: So "Born To Be Wild" hits and out comes Ebessan in full Cactus
gimmick, complete with "Ebeto" beard. To say the crowd goes batshit is
the understatement of the year as this gets the most UNREAL reaction I've
heard in a long time. Joe is suitably bemused/enraged and starts going
to town on Ebetus, who sells the beating by staggering around making drunken
"BANG BANG" poses. Mick is laughing his ass off throughout and even Joe
is laughing at one point as Mick tries to teach Ebetus how to throw the
punches. Mick takes out Joe on the floor and cheerleads as Ebetus sets
up for the hipbuster from the middle turnbuckle... no wait, let's try the
bottom turnbuckle... maybe the apron? No?... how about the floor? YES!
He hits the elbow and a huge "HOLY SHIT!" chant erupts from the crowd for
your new God of wrestling. Mick eventually hits the ring and they double-team
Joe for awhile until he somehow tosses Mick and hits the Muscle Buster
on Ebetus for the pin. If Ebetus had done the "BANG BANG" pose flat on
his back after taking the Buster I would've named my first-born for him. MATCH 10 : HOMICIDE w/ Rocky Romero v. AMERICAN DRAGON BRYAN DANIELSON
in a Taped Fist Match :
RD : Dragon is growing a beard. Pete says it's the greatest playoff
beard ever. I think it more looks like when Cliff Clavin and everyone else
decided to grow beards on Cheers... "AH! WOLFMAN!" This was the second
match in their series. I wasn't too jazzed by this. I think they used the
gimmick pretty well. I mean, they threw plenty of punches, a lot which
looked nasty, but I'm not sure if it's a really a stip that lives up so
well in this time of chair shots and weapon shots. They decided to brawl
in the crowd so we ended up missing a lot of this. Then they brawled over
by us... to which I wished they were back at the other side of the arena.
Eventually it gets back in the ring. Danielson ends up blading, I think
from Homicide using the fork on him. Danielson did throw a lot of punches
to Homicide's back to get him in the la tapatia. He also attempted the
airplane spin, but seemed to run out of gas due to the bleeding. The finish
to this was kind of bad. Smokes runs out and wraps I think a chain around
Homicide's fist and tapes it on, or attempts to. Homicide decks Dragon
and gets the win. We follow this with an intermission to set up for the
cage main events. It should be noted that the Ring Crew Express totally
live the gimmick as they were out helping construct the cage.
PP: AD with the full-on playoff beard sooooo looks like a Seattle
Thunderbird defenseman in Game 7 of the Western Hockey League finals. This
was really intense, although I agree with Ray that the taped fist stip
doesn't really hold up too well anymore. Then again maybe they wanted an
old-time stip to match Danielson's look. They start out in the crowd right
away and after a couple of minutes I get a pretty good "WE CAN"T SEE SHIT"
chant going... well, they must've heard us because about 10 seconds later
it turns into 300 people around us yelling "AHHH CRAP!" at once as Homicide
and AD go barreling into our section whaling away on each other. Finish
was okay to me although I don't buy the idea of having to distract the
ref for the finish in a no-DQ match. Intermission hits and I will note
that Ebessan's merch is basically sold out by the time the cage is up.
MATCH 11 : COLT CABANA v. AUSTIN ARIES for the ROH Heavyweight Title
in a Steel Cage :
RD : At the start of the match, I was kind of not feeling the hate
for this cage match. The again, Cabana circling the ring to "Copa Cabana"
while wearing a satin blue jacket with a big smiley face on the back will
sort of do that. This was pretty good. They did some nice teases of escapes
with the other guy running and cutting them off and tying them up so they
couldn't crawl out the door. Cabana bled first after taking a bunch of
shots into the cage. They did a few big teases on the top of the cage with
I think them teasing a german while standing on the middle of the ropes
while someone was holding the top of the cage. Eventually Colt got mad
and starting dishing out some punishment. I think he hit a really great
lariat during this. Finish was kind of neat as Colt has Aries beaten down
and goes for the over the top escape. As he's climbing over and about to
drop down, Aries gets up and signals for them to open the door and more
or less does a tope con hilo to nowhere out the door to beat Colt to the
floor. A pretty good match though this was also starting to feel the effects
of the very long day I was having coming to fruition.
PP: You can see the push for Aries as he now has one of the big intros
they reserve for a handful of guys in the company. In his case it's a strobelight/smoke
show to the Marilyn Manson "Personal Jesus" cover. Not exactly being a
religious follower of ROH's angles, I wasn't sure what exactly had transpired
between Aries and Colt that would require their first match to be a cage
match. Then again, I grew up on the MSG Formula where you need at least
two other matches before graduating to the cage. That said, this got pretty
good and heated after the feeling out portion to start things off. They
did some neato spots like Colt suplexing Aries into the cage a bunch of
times. Finish was pretty great and all sorts of nutty as Aries runs halfway
across the ring and does a blind tope atomico through the door to the floor
just as Colt was about to climb down. Very well done, especially since
Aries could've easily killed his momentum hitting the door or ropes and
inadvertently thrown Colt the title.
MATCH 12 : GENERATION NEXT (Jack Evans & Roderick Strong) v.
SPECIAL K (Izzy & Deranged) v. THE CARNAGE CREW (Devito & Loc)
v. DIXIE & AZRIEL v. THE RING CREW EXPRESS (Dunn & Marcos) :
RD : This started with the great excitement of the ring crew trying
to figure out how to put the platforms on correctly on the top of the cage.
They also removed the cage door for this match as I don't think they could
close it and half the platform up in the corner. The stipulations added
to the match was that the winners got like 10 times the pay and winning
team had to leave or not wrestle as a team for like 60 or 90 days. GeNext
started out with Izzy and Deranged. Izzy took a really crazy bump where
Strong just picked him up like for a press slam and just threw him out
of the ring through the door. This ended up going out to the floor at some
point and Strong got hurt, though since they were brawling around, I missed
how and when it happened. I saw Strong go out to the floor and it was sort
of the last we saw of him until I told Pete "hey, someone's missing." The
Carnage Crew were the next in. They did some spot where Deranged got hung
upside down on the cage after something, I think Loc or Devito giving him
a vertical suplex into the cage and Deranged's pants leg sort of getting
snagged on the top of the cage. Dixie and Azriel were next in. I forget
if Azriel is now going by that name or by Angel Dust since he and Dixie
are now out of Special K I think. Ring Crew Express were the last guys
in and they did their entrance into the cage by both climbing up on platforms
and doing more or less stage dives onto two piles of people. Big spots
off the top included Devito hitting a moonsault, Azriel crotching I think
Evans on the ring ropes and doing a double stomp off the top onto his head
and Izzy doing a 450 big dive to the floor. I'm drawing a blank if Evans
got to hit something. For some reason I think he was teasing a spot and
Devito was the one who knocked him down or stopped him to set up his moonsault.
Finish was the crew throwing a table in the ring. It seemed like they were
trying to set up a piledriver off the top through a table. While trying
to set this up one of the RCE, someone attacked Loc and laid him out on
the table as the other RCE member saved his partner. They ended up doing
their throw the little one off the big one's shoulders senton from the
top of the cage. They didn't have full extension, but fuck, I'm not making
fun of them because I'd rather see them get the spot in safely than trying
to over do it. They went for the pin, though it looked like someone got
their signals crossed as they only counted two on Loc and then they just
went for the cover again and got the three. RCE win the match and the Carnage
Crew is out for like 1 show or something.
RD : By this time, it was after midnight and we were able to beg
Mike Johnson to give us a ride on his bus back to the city, so in return,
if you feel like taking a bus trip to wrestling, Mike's trips gets the
AOK from me. It was a pretty good show, but in most cases, 7 hours of wrestling
gets to be a bit much on you. I'm glad I went if only to see Ebetus Jack.
That was worth the price of admission alone.
PP: Sweet sassy molassy was this more time than any sane person should
spend in Elizabeth, NJ... which appears to be a moot point now that they're
administering last rites to the Rexplex. This was a pretty good show which
promptly became THE GREATEST SHOW EVER once Ebetus Jack came out. MKJ is
a king among men for letting us hitch a ride; really, the only thing missing
was the Ebetus Q&A on the bus afterwards.
RD: Sorry, I let my subsciption to the Source expire.
Me: "I'll come back."
Ebessan: "I wait!"
EVENING SHOW :
I
call shenanigans.
Joe
and Mick go after each other one more time postmatch until Austin Aries
comes out and waylays Joe with something. Joe walks out with Aries and
announces that they're going to "get Brian Gewertz on the phone," which
finally leads to that heel reaction they'd been begging for. Actually,
I think EVERYONE in this was a heel as the crowd turned on Joe for beating
up Ebessan, Aries got heat for jumping Joe, and Mick got heat for leaving
with Aries. And when the smoke clears, the biggest babyface for this deal
is the Japanese guy who lost clean twice in a row and probably isn't coming
back anytime soon. As Ray said, Ebessan totally made everyone's night and
this report can't possibly do justice for how hysterically funny this was.
A million billion stars.