Progressive Boink

[Folby]

First things first: Webster Hall is a terrible venue to have a wrestling show in. The ring was on the stage while most of the crowd (the people who did not want to pay $100 USD for a ticket to TNA show) was on the floor. Four and a half foot stage plus a three foot ring meant the lip of the ring was almost 8 feet above our heads. Whatever. On with the show.

"Let me introduce you to the Tony Bennett of TNA because he's so smoooooooth.....JEREMY BORASH!" Borash comes bounding from the back and nearly falls into the crowd crouching down and sticking his arms out to slap hands. People didn't realize they were supposed to want to slap hands with JB so it takes them a second to swarm forward and go OOOH OOOH OVER HERE. He gets in the ring and tells us that the rowdiest, loudest fans will get to go BACKSTAGE and meet their favorite wrestlers. I suspect this was a gimmick to get people to react all night because we were constantly reminded of it and I didn't actually see anyone get selected to go backstage. That's pretty much the extent of my negative reaction folks, because I had a lot of fun at this show and I'm glad I went.

Motor City Machine Guns vs. Rock & Rave Connection

"They could have went out there and played patty cake and they would have gone apeshit." Robbie thinks it was the easiest crowd ever and I have to agree, I had never been around that many people who really loved TNA. It was really odd but fuck it, it's nice when people are excited to see wrestling so instead of going "heh your favorite company sucks" I was just like "oh wow these people love this stuff. awesome. " Anyway, this match pretty much served to remind me how much I miss Alex Shelley and Jim Rave. Shelley and Sabin are great together and I want to see more of their stuff. Hoyt and Rave carry guitar hero guitars to the ring and that is their gimmick or something. This was fast paced and MCMG have a lot of neat looking double-team stuff. They win with something like that.

"Black Machismo" Jay Lethal vs. Sonjay Dutt

Dutt has the worst bacne I've ever seen. I am not exaggerating, it was disgusting. Aries might have been worse at some point, but as for current conditions it's Dutt by a mile. Him and Lethal do that X-division thing complete with a dive from the stage to the floor, which I was expecting ever since I saw the elevated ring. I would have put my money on an asai moonsault but a plancha was just as good. This was a good match but nothing memorable, which I didn't really have a problem with. It was a fun show with the whole crowd going nuts for everything, and I don't need blowaway matches, just something to keep me interested. (This is in contrast to ROH I guess, where I've seen them do "good enough" so many times I can't stand it anymore.) Lethal's Macho Man punches are on point and he picks up the W with the elbow.

LAX vs. Team 3D

GODDAMN DO I MISS HOMICIDE. I don't want to say he missed New York, but to this observer it seems like he's a little more excited when he's in NYC than when he's elsewhere. Team 3D came out and Bubba had the NYHC logo on his wrist tape so I was like "oh shit he is all about gorilla biscuits or madball or whoever" but it turns out he meant it like hardcore wrestling not music and he challenged LAX to a New York streetfight. There was a lot of brawling around the ring and the hall and a lot of trashcan shots (no chairs, I guess they were being sensible about things) and it ended with Hernandez taking a 3-D through a table. A few notes:
1 - Jesus christ is Devon Dudley big. I mean he's fucking JACKED like one of those powerlifter dudes.
2- Bubba is fat.
3 - Bubba cut a "it's great to be back home" promo and it was boring and I would have preferred he call us cocksuckers or whatever.
4 - Homicide's tope con hilo is just as beautiful as I remember it and I marked out.

Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles

I hadn't seen Joe in a year, and AJ longer than that. (More than a year and half, I think.) And just like Shelly and Rave, I missed these guys. I hadn't seen Joe in so long I forgot that when people charge him in the corner he just slams them down, so I didn't roll my eyes and go "again?" when AJ did it I just laughed and went "ha ha ha he got you." This wasn't an ROH match or anything but it was AJ vs. Joe and it was fun. Joe sidestepped the moonsault and made AJ look like an idiot, and AJ hit that flying punch that Larry correctly points out makes him look like a goddamn superhero. Joe won with the musclebuster and after he went up the aisle people were chanting for AJ. He picks up the mic and goes "It's PRINCE AJ." I laughed because that's funny and it's not like I have to watch him do any of that dumb shit on tv so it's all good.

Cowboy James Storm vs. Showtime Eric Young

Larry tells me Eric Young is actually a damn good wrestler. Is this true? Someone who watches TNA confirm this for me. Apparently he can go on the mat or something. This was some comedy (Earl Hebner squared off with Storm at one point) and not much else, but it wasn't offensive and it was fine for the match back from intermission. Again, the crowd went nuts for everything and that goes a long way towards making a show. Storm wins with something or other, maybe his finisher, whatever that is.

Awesome Kong vs. Jackie Moore vs. Gail Kim

Awesome Kong fucked these ladies up. Jackie has been at this a long, long time and for that I salute her. (Apparently she also has a pretty popular name. Other Jackie Moores include an R&B singer, a porn star, and a baseball player.)

Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage

Larry liked this match more than I did, which is not to say I didn't like it. It was good (and I think it might have been the first time I've seen Angle live, though I'm not positive.) It felt condensed to me, like they jumped straight from the mat wrestling to the reversals of finishers. Maybe I zoned out? (I don't think I did.) There was a lot of reversals and people were going for it like it might be possible for the title to change hands on a house show. Kurt retained his title with the anklelock/grapevine.

And that's the show. Afterwards I guess they were having autographs and 100 people got to pay $20 to stand in the ring and hold the belt and get a polaroid with Kurt Angle. We hit the road because we've got TWO MORE NIGHTS of PRO GRAPS ahead of us. Scenic Deer Park, LI up tonight and The Manhattan Center tomorrow night.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[SayWhatNow]

dude, that's one jackie moore.

[Folby]

Oh, and the ring was tiny. I think it was 12 feet across but it couldn't have been more than 14.

[Hanstock]

The patented hexagonal shape bends physics and the wrestling area of the ring is actually five times the size of Wrigley Field.

[Rusty Cooledge v2]

I'd probably use an Irish whip for a finisher then.

[Illinois Smith]

Folby, do you think TNA would benefit from taping IMPACT! in front of a different crowd for a change?

[Folby]

I think it might make it marginally better, but the problem with Impact isn't the crowd. (They don't even do the Bently Bounce anymore.)

Ring of Honor in Deer Park, NY

The show started with Bobby Cruise in the ring thanking us for coming despite the weather, and informing us that inclement weather prevented Nigel, Davey Richards, Brent Albright, Tyler Black, Erick Stevens and Roderick Strong from making it to the show. We were now going to see an 8 man tournament for a future title shot. I was not torn up about it because we were still going to see Dragon vs. Romero, which is really the only match I wanted to see. Speaking of which...

American Dragon Bryan Danielson vs. Rocky Romero

So everytime these two face off they wrestle a similar match, a lot of kicking, a lot of grappling, some sort of american indy shoot style match. In the newswires leading up to this match Gabe had mentioned that Dragon and Romero had upped their "MMA training" which to me was pretty baffling. If pro wrestling is a legitimate sporting contest (and I think we can all agree that it is) then what the fuck is MMA? In the context of kayfabe, MMA is a bizarre and unwelcome contrast. Even saying that they're practicing their muay thai skills or their submission grappling makes more sense than just saying "MMA training." Oh, Gabe. But that doesn't actually have anything to do with the match.

The match was great. Really, really really really good. They kicked and the struggled for holds and they had counters and reversals for everything and it all just flowed and worked out perfectly. There are ways that a normal match progresses, a way that it transitions from section to section. We've all seen them a thousand times and they work. This match had none of them. It was just two guys grinding each other down, looking for a win. Romero kicked the shit out of Dragon's leg (Dragon's defense off of his back is terrible) and Dragon stretch Romero every way he could. Dragon picks up the win with an armbar.

Kevin Steen vs. Delirious

As many of you know I've been tired of the lizard man for a while now. I'm sure many of you (excepting Hanstock) are tired of him too. This was the best match I've seen out of him in a long time. Him and Steen had a fun match with a lot of crowd interaction, with Delirious doing that thing where he goes "bah bah bah bah he's faaaat bah bah bah" or works words into his gibberish. Steen does what Steen does, being a fat violent asshole and picking up the win with a senton. Steen looked good and I picked him to win.

Austin Aries vs. El Generico

Austin Aries is a man with a chip on his shoulder and it is AWESOME. He's been losing a lot and it is eating at him and he's just pissed. This comes through in him throwing his opponents around and hitting them as hard as he can and just fucking WRECKING them with a really good looking tope. Generico is good at getting thrown around and hit so this worked pretty well. Aries gets in his tope and his knees from the north/south and plenty of other stuff but he makes a mistake and leaves himself open to a rollup from Generico. Aries got a cut on the bridge of his nose towards the end of this match and so after he lost he was sitting on his knees in the ring bleeding and he just had this look on his face like he was sitting there with blood running down his face and he had nothing to show for it. This is obviously going somewhere and I cannot stress how much Aries is doing to carry it there.

Go Shiozaki vs. Necro Butcher

If you're going to debut some guy who hits really hard, Necro is a pretty good choice to debut him against. This was really, really good. It was 70% Go laying into Necro, 20% Necro firing back, and 10% Necro's selling. Maybe 60/30/10. Go has blistering chops and is a big dude. Him and Necro brawled around the ringside area for a little while and when Necro grabbed a chair Go superkicked directly into his face. Go wins but I do not remember how, perhaps a suplex onto some chairs Necro had laid out and a lariat.

Larry Sweeney debuted his talk show next, The Larry Sweeney Show Starring Larry Sweeney. He ran down the crowd, talked up himself, then introduced his first guest, Shane Hagadorn. They made fun of Bobby Dempsey and Sweeney gave Hagadorn a business card to pass to Adam Pearce. This was good. It could have used a little tightening up but Sweeney definitely carried it well. I've got to wonder who the guest was supposed to be, because Hagadorn certainly wasn't the ideal choice here. By this point I wasn't sure who was winning because I couldn't see Go losing on his first night in the company.

Kevin Steen vs. Bryan Danielson

Dragon came in limping and you could see where it was going. Dragon has a long history of tapping out to live to fight another day, and that's what he did here. It lasted a bit longer than I expected it to though, and he gave Steen a run for his money. He worked over his ear and Steen just got madder and madder. Steen worked diligently for the sharpshooter and eventually his efforts paid off.

Go Shiozaki vs. El Generico

I don't remember much about this match which means it wasn't bad. But it also probably wasn't great. The show was starting to drag a little, not because it was bad but just because people wanted a break. The Long Island crowd is weird. If you give them something they're into, they're with you all the way. If you lose them even one tiny bit, they really start to unravel. They were starting to go here. Go won.

Four Corner Survival - Jason Blade vs. Pelle Primeau vs. Mitch Franklin vs. Human Tornado

This was my first time seeing Tornado and he's got a lot of fun spots that he does. It's also something different than the rest of the roster which is GREAT. Other than that this wasn't anything special, and Jason Blade won after Tornado dove out of the ring onto someone. After the match Tornado got on the mic and implied that Lacey should enter into an agreement with him wherein he arranges for her to provide escort services for other gentlemen. She was, he claimed, "A piece." This brought out Lacy, who was upset that Mr. Tornado would characterize her in such a way, and insisted that he reconsider. She grew so frustrated with his position on the matter she attempted to put one across his chin, but he is a young agile fellow and he ducked her wide swings. Jimmy Jacobs came in to mediate the situation, and an agreement was reached: If Human Tornado ever spoke about Lacey like that again, Jimmy Jacobs would stab him in the eye. For Tornado's part, he agreed to possibly stab Lacey in the eye with "something else," the item being unspecified at the time of the current agreement.

Ruckus & Jigsaw vs. Jimmy Jacobs and Zack Gowen

You read that right folks, the one legged man was a one-night-only member of Age of the Fall. You know what the funniest part about it was? He was the best guy in the match! That's not just me saying it because I hate Vulture Squad and have never been a huge Jacobs fan. Larry suggested it to me as I was thinking it and on the ride home some guy I had just met said the same thing. He moved better than everyone else in the ring, was more confident and fluid in what he was doing, the whole thing was bizarre. Ruckus still sucks and Jigsaw is still Jigsaw. Jacobs spent most of the match punching. This went on way too long for my tastes and way way way too long for Robbie's tastes. "Let's get to the part where Vulture Squad pins Zack Gowen." I said, and eventually we got there.

On the way out after the match someone said something to Jimmy Jacobs about his mother or his revolution or his haircut or something and Jimmy took objection to it. So he does that thing where he pretends like maybe he's going to sock this guy in the face and this guy just stands up and keeps yelling at Jimmy. So now the situation is escalating and Jimmy can't do anything about it. He knows he can't hit the guy and the guy knows he won't get hit. He's free to act with impunity and Jimmy has to sit there and get punked out like a bitch. It's a horrible situation and I cannot for the life of be understand why Jimmy would be so stupid as to put himself in that situation. Jimmy ended up picking up a chair and throwing into the guardrail and the guy didn't even flinch. Jimmy stormed out.

Go Shiozaki vs. Kevin Steen

This was a hard-hitting but somewhat slow paced match, which makes sense because they were both tired and beat up. I was pleasantly surprised when Steen won, and after the match Steen cut a promo where he said he'd be holding a title real soon, be it Tag, World or whatever. And I hope he will. I was mad when they turned Steen face but it's turned out really well. He's still got that violent asshole thing going on but now people can just feel good about cheering for him. There's no need to over analyze this: Kevin Steen is a good pro wrestler and he's very, very over in Ring of Honor.

[Justin]

1: Chris Hero would've decked that jawing asshole in the gums before daring him to step again.
2: Is Steen actually a face? I mean, aside of people cheering him now is he really doing anything different to play it up? I remember during his matches in Boston, even when he was the heel he'd still soak in whatever adulation he got and would play to the cheers. I mean, as long as he's still cheating, acting like a dick and treating Generico like shit I've got no problem with Kevin Steen: Super Face. I told you a while ago that he's probably my favorite guy on the roster right now and seeing him get his due is fucking rad.

[Folby]

He refused to join the Hangman 3, and came to the defense of Delirious. He's a face.

[Justin]

Refusing to join Hangman 3 just means he's not a fucking Bolshevik queer. And saving Delirious is about the most heelish thing any man can possibly do.

[Folby]

Good thing those straws were in reach bro, else you might not have been able to grasp them!

Humorous note from the ROH show: At the TNA show Thursday some ROH guys came by and handed out flyers. They recognized us in line and so when we saw them in Deer Park we discussed the TNA show briefly. This ROH employee told us that there were only 350 people at the TNA show (not true) that they had announced it as sold out only a day before the show (also not true) and that they had announced that to save face. There were at least 800 people there, they had announced it as sold out at least two weeks in advance and one can reasonably conclude that they announced it was sold out because they had no more tickets to sell. To hear the ROH employee (who was not at the show) tell us all about the humiliation TNA suffered was good for a laugh during intermission.

[Justin]

I'm just saying that refuting the bad guys and helping a face doesn't make him a face, really. Kevin Steen is in it for Kevin Steen and as it happens, Kevin Steen gives no fuck. He's still a fat, angry man who just wants to hurt you. Now people are cheering him is all, and I don't think cheers alone make you a face. He treats his own partner and best friend like an asshole. Like he'd have a problem folding Delirious' skull in if that's what it came to.

[Folby]

ROH in New York City

This was apparently ROH's 6th anniversary show, but it didn't really feel like it. I'm used to ROH making a big deal about these kinds of things, so it was a little odd that this show didn't have HUGE DEAL hype or a HUGE DEAL card. I'm not opposed to it, every show can't be an incredible huge show, it was just odd.

Apparently there was a pre-show that I missed where Zack Gowen beat Pelle Primeau. That actually sounds like a match I would like to see, so I'm bummed I missed it. Standing in line for the Manhattan Center sucks though so we don't go in until the show is about to start.

Delirious vs. Human Tornado

They had a faceoff and started dancing then Age of the Fall hit the ring and it became a tag team match.

Delirious & Human Tornado vs. Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black

I don't remember too much about this match but the guy I was sitting with mentioned that if this were 1977 he would say it was time for Delirious to move on. There were a few dives to the outside from Tornado and probably Black. Jacobs made Tornado pass out to the guillotine choke.

Nigel McGuiness came out and cut a promo. He talked about how he knows there's a title match scheduled but if he got hurt before the PPV it would be bad for the company, so he's not going to defend his belt. Dragon came out cussed at him, telling him yes way he was going to defend the belt. Then the promo turned into Nigel worrying about getting concussed. That's when it got REALLY good. Nigel was like "maybe pro wrestling isn't worth being a vegetable when I'm 40" and the crowd was like "BOOOOOOO FUCK YOU IT TOTALLY IS" and Nigel was like "maybe you'd all like to see me get brain damage you lunatics" and they were like "WOOOOOOOO YES WE WOULD!" (Those are both paraphrasing what happened but the second one is very close to how it actually went down.) The crowd was all over him for being a bitch and a coward. How dare he express concern for his own well being! Dragon put over the belt, talking about how all of the former champions busted their ass to defend it and guys like Christopher Daniels and Rod Strong busted their ass to try to win it. Nigel agrees to defend the belt if Dragon won't use the elbows or the stomps or anything else that might hurt his pretty little head and so the title match is back on.

El Generico vs. Brent Albright

I like Generico. I like him better in tags but he's capable in singles matches. He's got good timing and dies well, and if you don't mind his somewhat goofy selling he can put on a good match. The problem I have is that he works 50/50 a lot and while that would work against Hallowicked or even a guy like Low-Ki or Dragon, Albright is so much bigger than him it just doesn't feel right. Albright kneed him in the head (from standing) a bunch of times to win via ref stoppage. Someone watched the WEC show!

Larry Sweeney's talk show was up next and it featured ROH fans because a they are bunch of moral degenerates. Sweeney brought out Allison Danger and called her a slut. She took objection to it and he hit her with the microphone. She sold like she was out cold, and Larry Sweeney told Bobby this was his chance to become a man. He did not appear to be willing to sexually assault Allison Danger, so Sweeney hit him to and he ended up lying on top of Danger.

That, in and of itself, is not as bad as it could be. (Not as bad as it was, rather.) I get how wrestling works, heels are bad people and they do horrible things. In the discussion thread for last night's show Naylor posted the following:

All the fans cheer Sweeney most of the time, cause he is a "funny guy". This sounded pretty reprehensible. A good start on trying to further make Sweeney a bad guy, like he's supposed to be.

That is a valid point. Heels in ROH are hard to come by and guys often have to go over the top to get real heat. You could debate whether this was appropriate or entertaining or whatever, but it would still make sense in the end. The problem with all of that is that nobody booed. The opposite happened. The fans wanted Bobby to do it. They chanted "MAN UP!" at him. Let me repeat that: The majority of the ROH fans at the Manhattan Center last night wanted Bobby Dempsey to rape Allison Danger, and they were disappointed when he didn't.

yeppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

I didn't watch most of the next match (Joey Matthews vs. Kevin Steen) because I went to get a drink and talk to some people about how I would like to throw all of the ROH fans out of the manhattan center windows and maybe pee on the pile of bodies those lecherous perverts would make. Apparently Mercury worked "WWE style" and people didn't like that because ROH fans have trouble appreciating wrestling that does not go 1000 miles per hour. Steen won with the sharpshooter.

Austin Aries vs. Go Shiozaki

This was very good. It was what you would expect it to be, stiff strikes, trading big moves, etc. It was a nice surprise when Aries won. His brainbuster/450 is probably the most protected finisher in ROH. After the match AOTF suggested he should join their revolution, and then Tammy Sytch came out and said she'd sink his duck or something. He said he'd consider all offers and think it over.

INTERMISSION

Sara Del Rey vs. Daizee Haze

I'm tempted to copy & paste something from an old review and see if anyone notices. If you like women's wrestling you'll probably like this.

Davey Richards & Rocky Romero vs. Jigsaw & Ruckus

NRC wins, Jigsaw makes like he ain't gonna take his mask off and leaves. Who cares?

FIP World Heavyweight Championship Match - Rod Strong vs. Erick Stevens vs. Necro Butcher
I'll be honest, I don't have much specifics at this point because it was the end of a long weekend. You had three guys beating on each other, that's really all you need to know. Strong and Eric are both bruisers and Necro is Necro. I'm going to go with "fun" being the best way to describe this. The match was a lot of fun.

ROH World Championship - Nigel McGuiness vs. American Dragon

Dragon was dominating early and Nigel got mad so he hit Paul Turner in the head for the DQ. He tried to leave but Austin Aries stopped him, talking about Honor and former champs and this and that. (It's funny because all of the former champs he name dropped are no longer with the company, and he was backed up by Generico and Steen. I like those guys, but they're not really 'history and prestige of the ROH title' guys.) ROH President Cary Silken demanded the match restart, and thus we had our trademark Nigel McGuiness big match restart. (Speaking of which, has Cary ever been mentioned as part of the show like that before? Does anyone think he'll ever be mentioned like that again?) I don't know what happened to Dragon between the DQ and the restart but he went from winning the match to losing it and Nigel beat him up a bit. Dragon refused to use any of his head-centric offense even when fans begged him to do it. Nigel was not so scrupulous however, and he was able to secure the victory after bashing Dragon in the head a bunch of times. The crowd was all over Nigel here and it seems that he is a full-on heel now. It turns out that ROH fans will cheer all kinds of things, but they draw the line at a coward.

[Whittle]

maybe they cheer the possible rape because they know it wont happen. and if bobby DID get on her, the crowd would have started with a cheer but it would have slowly faded to boos.

[Hanstock]

don't you fucking start rationalizing the crowd's reaction or me and you are going to have to go round and round

[Folby]

(whittle you really might want to walk away here)

[Whittle]

maybe i should have said that i was really really really grasping for straws with my post. i should have capitalized/bolded/italicized/200-pt-fonted "maybe" at the beginning of the sentence.

[Illinois Smith]

Or maybe they cheered it because they expected it to lead to something hilarious like every other goddamn Sweeney / Dempsey skit they've put on for the last year or so.

I mean, it'd be different if it was the crowd cheering for Pearce or whoever in the same situation but Sweet & Sour Inc. are so ridiculously over as comedy heels that Sweeney could tell Dempsey to take a dump on a pile of decapitated baby corpses and the reaction would still be split at least 80:20.

[Folby]

Every decent person I know who was at that show was disgusted by what went down. Expecting the segment to be funny is one thing, and initial laughter as a gut reaction somewhat understandable. Chanting "Man up!" is different.

[Hanstock]

illionois smith first person to start the "rape that bitch" chant