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PAS:
Phil Schneider I got the Internet going nuts
TKG: It's pretty hard to get amped
for any other type of wrestling when your watching 92 WCW. And well especially
hard to get amped for 6 man tags. I was
not too stoked about this show. The Cooke brothers and I continue the endless
Dustin discussion, while Schneider marvels at the WCW Friedlander lists.
Barry Houston didn't just have one or two matches with Finlay,
they had a series.
ROH Students v. Gen Next
PAS: I am all for a squash to open up the first round, but the students
are not ready for prime time, as they don't really take Gen Next's
offense particularly well. This match would have been better with RCE and Generico, TKG: Austin Aries comes into this match super over as face and it
really feels like he's going to stay a face in the armory where he won
the title. Is Ross now running the ROH training school? All of these guys
have gotten a tan and worked on their upperbody
since the last time I saw them. And the pasty long haired guy who I dug
in their first match wasn't with them tonight. They don’t look better in
the ring as they are still looking to see their spots coming...but they
sure look more tanned. It’s a six man tourney. Generation Next have a lot
of neat triple teams. Surprised as instead of showing them off in this
match they went for each guy using their own finisher for a pin.
Steve Corino + C.M. Punk + Colt Cabana
v. Jimmy Rave + PAS: This was also pretty much a squash with Punk spending most of
the match chasing Rave around. I liked WMD #3 I think he might have been
an out of shape Buddy Lee Parker, and he bumped well and had some nice
offense. WMD #3 gets left in the ring and submits.
TKG: So since last seen CM Punk he worked as a Kevin Sullivan tag
partner and was blinded by the Embassy. I assumed this was leading to a
Cm Punk vs. Fast Eddie Prince of Darkness match. Instead Punk responded
to temporary far-sightedness by buying himself some really small wresting
tights. Mask of Destruction #3 was really good and felt like the glue of
this match. Nice strikes and real good ability to communicate emotions
through the mask. The mask said FF on the back and he had a short/plump
build so my first thought was Fat Frank but than the initials should have
been LD. But then he worked in the match and was definitely not Lou Diamond.
Here's a guy who in the ring with Rave, Punk, Corino,
Cabana really looked to outshine them all in this short match. They should
bring him back. They end this match with the babyface
Sting so angry that he refuses to release the hold on Rude spot. If it
was anger at Rave for blinding him, than taking it out on #3 seemed odd.
If it was anger at Dusty booking a straight-edge guys girlfriend with two
Neo Nazi skins...well then I could understand that. Who knows? I never
bothered to check the color of Punk's laces.
Rottweilers v. RCE + El Generico
PAS: This was one of the better matches of the night. RCE are really
over and fun as R+R'svrs.
really tiny Russians. Marcos had some really nifty exchanges with Homicide
at the beginning where he kept avoiding Homicides stuff. Then they beat
on Generico for a long time setting up
the hot tag. Generico is fucking tall,
he looked only an inch shorter then Dunn, they should move Marcos to Special
K and team Dunn and Generico as the new
Skyscrapers.
TKG: I have yet to really be sold by the Pittbulls
asRottweilers. Maybe I just miss Laithon.
It looked to me like the one match of theirs I really liked was being called
by Homicide, so having Homicide here may be why their stuff connected with
me better than it usualy does. The height
stuff was really amusing as they paired up Marcos with maybe the only guy
on roster shorter than him in Reyes....paired Romero with Dunn and Homicide
with Generico. Marcos really looked on
fire in this match as he was clearly leading Reyes through a lucha
roll up/matwork section and in a match working
against two guys who've worked EMLL and tagged with one guy who is working
a luchador gimmick...Marcos seemed like
the smoothest lucha worker in the ring.
I bet watching on tape this will come across as match of the night.
Samoa Joe + American Dragon + Vordell
Walker v. Spanky + James Gibson + Nigel
McGuiness
PAS: This was clearly the match meant to sell some tapes, and it
had some fine wrestling in it, although it lacked some of the intensity
of the later matches, or even the match before it. Nigel was totally on
fire here as he looked like the best guy in the match. American Dragon
had a really funny airplane spin spot, where he spins Gibson, and knocks
Nigel down with Gibson's feet, then he grabs Spanky,
does the same, he gets so dizzy that he spins Vordell,
and finally tries to spin Joe, hurts his back and faceplants.
This is the first I have seen of Joe since he dropped the belt, and he
didn't scream best wrestler in the world, the way he did with the belt.
They seem to not have much to do with him right now, and moving your dominant
champ into comedy matches seems kind of weird. Did Joe get hepatitis? Damn
you Dana Dameson!
TKG: Damnit, damnit.
I have nothing to follow up that joke with. Nothing. American Dragon is alot
funnier than Rusher? The Airplane Swing is funnier than Momota's
giant swing? Nope nothing. Vordell was
the odd man out here but I think thats
not that damning. Although I guess it didn't make youu
want to see a TKG: Allison Danger came out and cut a promo about the new Prophecy
that she's brining in to ROH. Hopefully it will be Shirley Doe and Wolfie
D as Slash. Trent Acid came out and cut a promo about how he's been blackballed
by the promotion and how the crowd shouldn't be cheering for everyone in
the last match because they weren't from Philly while he was from Philly.
and how because he wasn't working for promotion he could come to shows
and do as he pleased. spanky got into his
face and Rockin Rebel came out to his defense. Aww
God NO!!! A new Prophecy of Rebel and Acid is not a good idea. C'mon the
Entourage angle is money. Wes suggested that Nick Berk
would make a good E while Discount Dewey Donovan is a nice Ari
" Much like E started off hot and is now pushing Queens Blvd. which is
destined to flop Berk started off "hot?"
with the Softcore Connection, gained some
steam, some semblance of notoriety, but eventually was given the ball in
CZW only to disappoint each and everytime
out. And much like Vinny Chase will eventually
dump E, Berk got the axe himself... Ari
started off as a mark in the business and had to work his way up to where
he is while Dewey Donovan was a mark that can be spotted on old ECW Tapes
sitting front row and probably because he had friends with good crystal meth
connections was able to get into the business and eventually become manager
for the top heel group."
Generation Next vs. Corino, Cabana,
and Punk
TKG: pre-match Bryan Regal read off Cabana's list of people he'd
enjoy a three way with and pretty much everybody else in the ring was really
good at a variety of different types of double take reactions to each one.
Match started really nicely and then the ring broke. I saw the Brazos work
a match whith a busted up ring once, ring
broke and Super Porky just started working more sexual deviance comedy
spots into his match: instead of running the ropes to get out of a headlock
he'd fondle Virus' balls..instead of charging
opponents in corner, he'd just agressively
scrape his junk across their face. Instead of working sexual comedy or
taking the match to the floor and brawling or taking it to the mat and
working Capture style, they just kept on with a rope running match and
this fell apart for me. This may come across better on tape.
PAS: I don't think it will unless they do one of those editing jobs
that fooled people into thinking Striker v. Whitmer
was good. There was some nice exchanges between Corino
and Strong, which makes me want to see their singles, and Evans does take
a nice beating, but this match collapsed with the ring. The three way mike
work was funny, Lita and El Dandy made me
laugh. Although Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur are clearly not the Golden
Girls you would want to fuck, it is all about Rue McClanahan and Betty
White.
Rockin Rebel and Tough Enough Greg Mathew
vs. Drew Blood and Drew Moore
TKG: There was about a thirty minute intermission where they worked
on repairing the ring. Despite loosing the Scramble Cage match, Loc still
came out to help figure out how to hold the ring together. Loc really looked
to have bulked up under his sweatshirt and while I understand adding the
mass when your going to work a WWE PPV, I hope the added mass doesn't hurt
his mobility. After the long intermission they put on this match. And honestly
it actually seemed smart to put on these guys to test the ropes. This was
honestly the best Rockin Rebel in ROH match
I've now seen and I actually enjoyed it. Greg Matthews did a rope running
made him too gassed to continue comedy spot that had me laughing. Drew
Moore (the guy who we I think once identified as Dinty PAS: I think at one point Matthews was favored to win that first
Tough Enough contract, and then hurt his knee. Is there a steeper decline
in wrestling history in going from the cusp of a WWE contract to the guy
who carries Rebel's bags when he forces himself on a show. I mean does
ROH even pay guys like the Double Drews
and Matthews? I did like the out of shape comedy spot though, he should
get an inhaler.
Homicide, Rottweilers vs. TKG: It really felt like these six guys actually could work a Capture
match, as all knew how to both take it to the floor and work the mat. All
I knew about PAS: This was a fun brawl which was a nice change of pace for the
card, it could have used some blood actually, and the Pitbulls
aren't particularly good brawlers. Think this match would have been better
with Ice Coleman and Rainman or Grim Reefer
and Benny fromDa Bronx as the Rottwilers.
Good handclaps aside, Six Man Mayhem- Izzy+Azreal + TKG: This did nothing for me. The whole PAS: I liked this a little more then Tom did. You had enough crazy
skinny Jay Lethal vs. John Walters
TKG: The ref announces that the Embassy is banned from ring side.
Now that’s just stupid. You have John Walters join the Embassy so there
is something to focus on during his matches---let me go farther than that...so
there is some focus to his matches. I mean its Walters, he needs Nana,
Rave, Outkast Killers and several Weapons
of Mask Destruction to give match direction. Face fighting off interference
is more compelling than face wrestling Walters...it might actually get
a crowd response. Nana announces that his lawyer Goldstein has challenged
the ROH decision and the Embassy will be able to stay ringside. Thank God
for Jewish lawyers...and this match could really use Goldstein ringside
complaining to ref, disputing what is and isn't a punch, etc. While Rick
Silver is probably the obvious choice to play Goldstein, I think it would
be a really great use of Low Life Louie Ramos. Low Life has a good understanding
of comedy and shtick, he is probably enough of a Wire fan to be able to
do a Lawyer Levy impression, and looks enough like FyvushFinkel
that I think he could pull off a good ringside Goldstein. BUT NO...CM Punk
comes in to run off the Embassy and we're left with John Walters in a singles
match with no outside interference. I mean its Walters, he doesn't bring
one-sixteenth of what Jeff Jarrett brings to the ring. If you want anyone
to care, Walters’s matches need cello shots, New Age Outlaw, and Monty
Brown turns. There is no reason to have Lethal beat him one on one in a
match that I'm gonna tune out of after minute
one of listless Walters work...when the crowd might actually get into Lethal
beating the odds.
PAS: I was really dreading this, Walters is pretty consistently awful,
and Jay Lethal is really inconsistent. Good Lethal is pretty good (v. Ki,
v. Collyer, v. Rain), but bad Lethal makes
you want to claw your eyes out (v. Punk, v. Josh Daniels.) This seems like
the perfect opportunity for Lethal to just kill me. Instead it was just
kind of boring. I'll take me zoning out over me getting intestinal pain anyday.
Rottweilers vs. Gen Next
TKG: I really was never sold on the HabanaPittbulls
as Rottweilers in ROH. Really, found them
pretty consistently underwhelming. That said I really dug their tag match
with Gen Next from Lyger show. From tape
it looked like the match might have been called by Homicide, and the work
made Gen Next defacto faces in it. So here
we have post Aries winning belt Philly, where Gen Next are face and Rottweilers
with Homicide not just ringside but in match and it delivered. Two teams
worked nicely with each other. And Julius Smokes was good ringside focusing
attention on the idea of trying to weaken the champ "HURT HIM! He's got
the BELT!". Hot match well worked. The right finish.
PAS: Yeah this was really good. Evans is great getting beaten on,
especially when he is the face, and he isn't afraid to do a crazy ass dive
even with the broken ropes, including nicely catching himself when he almost
blew the dive. Homicide dusting off the cop killer was pretty great too,
as it sets that up as the move that can beat Aries. Makes me want to go
see the title match, which is what this tourney was supposed to do.
TKG: We drive home and joke about the show a bunch. Really for a
show with no really blow away match, I think I dug this a lot more than
any of the other recent ROH I've been to. Lately ROH has been about really
painful undercards and hot main events...shows
that are fatiguing live and actually alot
better on tape. I understand they're a tape business but when the shows
seem paced better for tape then for live audience, it hurts my desire to
be part of the live audience. This show had no blow away matches but pretty
much consistent fun. Well layed out and
even with the long intermission better paced than the last couple shows.
Made me want to go see more live wrestling.
PAS: I could see this being a show people would skip on tape, but
it was a really fun show live. This didn't draw particularly well, but
I would be excited to see them do it again. Six-man titles would be pretty
cool too, better then the pure title, or contenders medal or field of honor,
or fake World Title belt.
TKG: Tom KarroGassner
got a lota haters and alotahomies
--------------------------------------
PAS: It is pretty hard to get amped
for a trios tourney if all you have been watching is 1992 WCW. There are
no Arn's in ROH. Still I like hanging out
with the brothers Cooke and Rob Naylor, and live wrestling is always a
good time, so we took the trip.