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June 6 - Ring of Honor in Hartford, CT - Wrestling is for the children

In case you weren't aware, Ring of Honor has a vague sort of dress code. Near as I can tell, it involves slacks, a shirt with a collar (polos okay) and dress shows. This is funny to me for the following reasons:

1) As I understand it, one of the main reasons for the WWE dress code is so that the wrestlers looked professional in public. The odds of someone recognizing, say, Eddie Edwards, are a lot smaller than of them recognizing Hardcore Holly. So what's the point?
2) The Necro Butcher owns a pair of tassel loafers.

And that doesn't even get into stuff like Tyler Black's questionable off-white pinstripe slacks and.....well it was a while shirt but I can't even think of any way that sentence is going to end well. And that ends our bitchy fashion corner, sweetheart!

Tag Title Tournament: Adam Pearce & Chris Hero vs. Jigsaw & Ruckus

This was a pretty solid tag match. Ruckus is still as terrible as one might imagine. This is apparently new, serious Hero, but nothing major stuck out at me. What did stick out was Adam Pearce. The man is old school. It's not just that he does a kind of "I want my shot at the AWA title" thing in interviews, his wrestling style is just bigger and slower than other guys and I'm not sure it fits in ROH. He does it well; at the very beginning of the match when Jigsaw put him in a wristlock (leading to an armdrag, of course) he grabbed at his wrist and screamed in pain. It's basic, but come on, selling went out of style in ROH with...um....yeah. So Adam Pearce is good at what he does but I'm not sure how well what he does fits in ROH. Hero pins Ruckus and who should show up post match but EDDIE KINGSTON~! He beat on Jigsaw a bit (choking, slapping, etc) and Ruckus broke the two of them up, despite my insistence that he refrain from doing so.

Tag Title Tournament: Nigel McGuiness & Go Siozaki vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico

This was probably the best match of the night. (Also concrete proof that Steen is better than go pbbbbbbb) Nigel, despite insisting that he is not shook by criticism from smart marks, has really eased back on his use of lariats and now fills out matches with various arm submissions. He tapped out Claudio with an arm submission in the Hammerstein and he went straight to work on Generico here. On the car ride up we had been discussing the various title contenders that ROH has, and how they lack a guy who is engaged in a prolonged chase for the belt. Generico was suggested for the role, but ultimately rejected because he's not a guy many people can picture as ROH champ. While I still can't picture him as ROH champ, the sections of this match where he faced off with Nigel were very, very good and it made me want to see a title match between the two. I don't think Generico has a chance, but it'd be an interesting match. Steen, for his part, was fat and violent and more than a little testy, yelling at Generico when he wasn't doing it right and encouraging the crowd to make disparaging remarks regarding Nigel's mother's honor. In the end Go ended up on the outside and Generico took him out with some manner of headscissors where he vaulted over the ropes to ringside. Nigel, left to deal with Steen, tapped out to the sharpshooter. After the match he Generico was just lying at ringside (he'd been beaten on most of the match and it looked/sounded like he hit his head on the concrete floor when he went over for the headscissors) and Nigel took a chair and went to town on Steen's knee. He did some real damage before Shiozaki put an end to it.

Tag Title Tournament: Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black of Age of the Fall vs. Delirious & Pelle Primeau.

One of the DVDVR guys pointed out that Pelle does a lot of headscissors and now they're all I notice. He really does do a lot, I'd say they comprise more than 50% of his offense. This wasn't really bad but it wasn't exciting and it was probably the worst match of the show. AOTF advance.

After the match Delirious put on a tie and called out Daizee Haze. She game out and he spit some gibberish and then Rhett "Addicted to Love" Titus came out. If you haven't heard, Titus is now doing a sub-Fabulous Ones sleazy sexpot gimmick, with some tights that are a bit too small and a vest and bow tie and a series of rhymes indicating his sexual prowess. (The size of these thighs, the thrust is a must.) Rhett tells Daizee he'll fuck her brains out or some such thing and she gets disgusted with him and leaves. The crowd informs the lizard man that he got cock-blocked. This was pretty much an exact copy of what they did last month in Manhattan, only Rhett spent less time rhyming and more time cutting a regular promo. He's still a little awkward on the mic but he's better than a lot of the guys in the company.

Tag Title Tournament: Rod Strong & Davey Richards vs. Austin Aries & Bryan Danielson

The thread on the ROH board has this at "said to be very good" but I'm not sure about that. This was less boring than the AOTF/Delirious & Pelle match but it wasn't much better. Aries and Dragon didn't really click, and Aries looked really off at times. (That isn't just my obvious bias, Larry is a big Aries fan and he was pretty vocal about how Aries seemed out of step.) The ROOOOODDDERICK chances were pretty loud here which surprised me, given that they've been dying out a bit. Davey is still the angriest man in America and aspires to show this by hitting people in the junk. Danielson managed to get Strong in the triangle choke and Strong tapped out or the ref called for the bell or something. Side note: Dragon's triangle looks like ass, or at least compared to an actual triangle choke it does.

Tag Title Tournament Semi-Final: Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Chris Hero & Adam Pearce

Steen and Generico were pretty beat up here but they were still game. Luckily they were matched up with Sweet & Sour, who really are jobbers. (Seriously, they lose all the time.) There was a miscommunication and Hagadorn ended up hitting Hero in the head with 'the briefcase' and Hero got rolled up and pinned. I didn't know whether they stuck a lead plate in there or what. Steen & Generico move on despite being even more beat up.

Tag Title Tournament Semi-Final: Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black vs. Austin Aries & Bryan Danielson Jacobs grabbed a chair in the opening minutes, Aries stole it and cracked him with it, so they lost via DQ. AOTF advances to the finals having taken very little punishment. (lol, in ROH a chairshot counts as "very little punishment") The fans chanted BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT but I think a screwjob finish every once in a while is a good thing and I would even entertain the argument that ROH needs to use them more often than they do.

***INTERMISSION*** This was a very short intermission. I thought about going and getting something to eat when it was over, and pondered if I would miss a good match.

Shane Hagadorn vs. Alex "Sugarfoot" Payne.

lol

I was sitting in the front row, but all the way at the end. After intermission a handful of kids decided they were going to setup at the extra space on the corner of the guardrail, which is fine, whatever, kids at a wrestling show are usually pretty fun. The problem here was twofold: When I was sitting down the kid next to me was exactly level with my head, and proceeded to scream in my ear for the rest of the night, and the space at the corner of the guardrail wasn't really enough for all the kids so they decided they would just muscle in on my seat. How do you deal with that? I really, really, really don't want to be the guy who is mean to kids at the pro wrestling show. I kind of gave him a "come on, kid" when he really started to push into what I would call my "space" but to no avail. Oh well~

Claudio Castagnoli d. Eddie Edwards.

Eddie Edwards cut his hair and it has done wonders for his look. Still says DIE HARD on his trunks for whatever reason though. This was pretty good. They were brawling at ringside and Edwards went to whip Claudio into the guardrail, which I was sitting directly behind. People scrambled to get out of the way and I was like "ho-hum, I am an old hat at this, watch me put my feet up so that my knees are spared and I don't have to get out of my chair.) I put the bottoms of my feet against the guardrail and Claudio plowed into it something fierce, sending me pitching over backwards in my chair. Robbie caught the chair as I tipped but I almost ate it right there on the floor. Eddie Edwards looked good here but he ate a big uppercut for the loss, bringing Sweet & Sour to 1-2 for the night. When Hagadorn is carrying you there is something wrong.

Kid Korner: "Whichever one wins, that's the one I like."

The Necro Butcher vs. Erick Stevens vs. Brent Albright.

This was a ton of fun. Three guys who can hit hard just hitting each other hard. Necro was back in form after a surprisingly lackluster Hammerstein match. Albright is more over now than he's ever been thanks for breaking up with Sweet & Sour. They brawled into the crowd and Necro threw a bunch of chairs at someone (couldn't quite see) and then when he ran out of chairs he threw a security guard. They brawled back to the ring and there was a section directly in front of me where they slammed each other into the guardrail, complete with Albright taking Necro's head in his hands and slamming it backwards into the guardrail. It was brutal. In all the chaos Stevens managed to pick up the win with a Doctor Bomb on Necro. I wonder why he calls it that. Maybe it's a militant pro-life joke?

Kid Korner: "[Erick Stevens] is the future Stone Cold Steve Austin! STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN FUTURE!!!"

Tag Title Tournament Final: Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black

Steen and Generico are hurting here and Jacobs and Black pounce on the Mexican and beat him up so bad he has to be carried to the back. Steen fights on and ends up on the wrong end of a lot of 2-on-1 situations because Paul Turner is a retard and can't count to 5. Steen keeps kicking out and he gets in a shot or two but it never lasts long and he starts fading. Generico runs back out to even the odds with his arm all taped up and comes in like a house that has caught on flaming. The important thing here is that Steen was really getting the crap kicked out of him before Generico came back. Last time they did this it was Jay Briscoe stuck by his lonesome and he really kind of held his own pretty well before Mark came back to save him from something he wasn't really losing. That was not the case here though as Steen got whooped on, Generico came back, and then AOTF went right ahead and won the belts anyway. The crowd figured once Generico came back that was it, and they were pretty upset when that wasn't the case. I didn't throw any trash but a decent chunk of the crowd just thinks that AOTF stinks. They're antagonistic revolutionaries or some such thing, I don't think throwing trash is really that far out of line. Obviously, I'd rather it not become a regular thing in ROH, but Robbie said it happened in Detroit when AOTF beat the Murder City Machine Guns, so who knows.

Kid Korner: It was at this point where the kids figured if everyone else in the crowd is going to cuss out loud (and they were) then so will they. The first one looked around before carefully letting lose with "YOU CAN'T WRESTLE FOR SHIT JIMMY" before looking back at his friends and then back around to see if anyone one mad. Once it appeared that no one cared, they all started in, mostly repeating some variation of "You can't wrestle for shit!" "Fuck you!" and "Fuck you, Yankee!" directed at AOTF.

(Who put the filter back? Why did you put it back a day before some 8 year olds called jimmy jacobs a Yankee?)
__________________________________________________________________________________

June 7th - ROH in Philadelphia, PA - Listen, I'll start selling when I'm good and ready to start selling.

Let me introduce you to this weekend's super secret special guest: Everyone's favorite AJPW/NOAH undercard comedy guy, Haruka Eigen!

He came with the NOAH guys (duh) but nobody really mentioned it and he spent most of both shows half watching and looking bored. One (white) guy who recognized him in Hartford asked for a picture and Eigen was like "eh, no." One (Japanese) guy who recognized him in Philly asked for a picture and Eigen was like "oh for sure, let's be friends!) I took a picture when he was not looking but it's not a very good picture because I was trying to be sneaky.

eigen.JPG

Preshow:

Mitch Franklin & Shane Hagadorn vs. The Osirian Portal

The two Egyptian fellows (one Egyptian fellow and a snake?) got a pretty good reaction, didn't blow any huge spots, and got a "please come back" chant. Larry liked it but I wasn't really swayed one way or the other. The fellow who is a snake (?) does a lot of stuff where he rolls around getting holds while his opponent stands there like an idiot. Franklin apparently decided to try on his heel boots for this show, because as he came down to the ring he was flexing and letting everyone know that he was just a cocky, cocky guy. He got into it with some guy at ringside and while talking trash the guy stood up and flexed and he was about 5 inches taller than Mitch and had bigger arms. Whoops! Better luck next time, Mitchell. Hagadorn picks up his second win in a row with his STO finisher that does not currently have a name. (My pick: The Hagover.)

Top Of The Class Trophy: Rhett Titus vs. Ernie Osiris

The fact that this match was even booked was a curious decision to me. Rhett has a main card angle with two people who are fairly big stars in the company. If he wins the match it marks him as a student, and if he loses it marks him as worse than a student. As far as I was concerned there was no need to have this match. Rhett won and made like the trophy was his dick.


Main Show


[b]Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Ruckus & JigsawSteen and Generico must sleep in one of those hyperbolic chambers or some such thing because they were fresh as daisies for this match. I guess the PPV will be watched out of context with the rest of ROH events so they just pretended like they hadn't both almost been murdered the night before? Who knows. This was fast and fun and Generico picks up the win.

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Davey Richards

This was a pretty basic match just keeping both guys on PPV, I guess. Claudio hit his giant swing and instead of just sitting there Davey was flailing his arms around desperately, which was a nice touch. Claudio won with the big toss in the air/European uppercut combo, the same thing he had used to dispatch Edwards the night before.

Chris Hero, Adam Pearce & Eddie Edwards vs. Brent Albright, Delirious & Pelle Primeau

Let's recap who these fellows are: Hero is serious but isn't really doing too much to blow me away. Adam Pearce is stuck in a time warp and finds himself wrestling like it's 1982 in a northeast indie smartmark company in 2008. (There are worse timewarps to be stuck in, I heard Brian XL ended up in the UWF, no-sold a piledriver to do a Phoenix Spalsh and Bill Watts had Steve Williams take him out back and kill him.) Eddie Edwards is a solid young guy who dies hard. Albright is doing really well for himself and can hit people really hard, Delirious is boring and his main thing now is that he can't get a date because he can't speak English, wears a mask, and can't seem to do anything other than stand around slack jawed while Rhett Titus gyrates. Pelle Primeau does a lot of headscissors, his gimmick is that he has dyed hair, and he somehow got stuck to the lizard man. What I'm trying to say here is I can't really remember anything that happened in this match and so it must have been good enough. Albright beat Edwards by kneeing him in the face until the ref called it. After the match Pearce clocked Albright with the briefcase and Larry Sweeney told him that that was what happened when you messed with S&S Inc. (You win a match?) It was revealed that the briefcase contained the NWA title belt and that Sweet & Sour thought that was a big deal.


Rod Strong vs. Erick Stevens - Fight Without Honor

This was really, really awesome. It was at least as good as their match in Florida, only had more weapons shots. They brawled all over the place and destroyed each other with chairs and the guardrail and everything they could get their hands on. A ladder was involved and it was first set up as a bridge between the ring and the guardrail, and Rod got dumped on it. It made it's way into the ring and got setup sticking out of the corner, where Stevens got his head rammed into it. And lastly it was set up proper ladder style, and Rod Strong fucking superplexed Erick Stevens from the top of a fucking 20 foot ladder through 2 fucking tables. Then he pinned him for the win. The ladder, when first set out there for the match, stretched pretty much from one ringpost to the other, which means it was a legit 18 feet or so. This match was nuts and really great and everything I was hoping it would be when I bothered to go all the way to Philly for it. Last time I came to Philly for some violence (Bitter End, Homicide/Corino) I came away very, very disappointed so it was nice to see this come together.

After the match Sweeney came down and asked Rod to join his gaggle of losers. Rod was like "no." Davey came down and was like "that is not cool" and then it turned out Davey was wearing a Sweet & Sour shirt and beat up Rod a little. People got behind Rod pretty quick, booing Davey, etc. That doesn't make sense to me (why should I feel bad for Rod, he is a dick whose dick friend acted like a dick to him) and I don't have much sympathy for most heels, but it worked with the crowd and it is tough to argue with what works.

Intermission was longer than in Hartford but largely uneventful.


After intermission Delirious came out AGAIN and I was like "how many times are they going to do thissssssssssss" but this time when Rhett came out he was in a shirt and tie and he apologized for "acting a fool last night." He says he respects her, he respects women's wrestling, and is she gives him a chance she'll see that he's a nice guy. She is like "eh, I dunno you're kind of a sleazeball" and he's like "tell you what: Why don't the three of us do something!" He suggests they all get together and get to know each other. She is like "okay, I guess" and Rhett holds open the ropes for her to leave. He does the same for Delirious and then when he goes to leave he looks up with a really wide grin like he knows he got away with something. This came together well and if it does not lead to wacky vignettes I will be mad.

ROH World Championship: Nigel McGuinness vs. Go Shiozaki

So, uh, these two fellows were like "I AM BIG AND TOUGH AND I'M GONNA HIT YOU REALLY HARD." That's fine. Nigel elected not to bore the crowd with selling, however, saving that for after everyone had gone home and so he spent most of the match just hitting Go. It was speculated that Nigel had become a Road Warrior when no one was looking, that is how little regard he gave selling. Go kicked out a bunch towards the end, but the "Nigel can't put go away!" section felt like it dragged. Nigel wins and I get the feeling there are a lot more matches between these two coming up.

Dragon came out and demanded a match on Pay Per View.

ROH World Tag Team Championships: Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black vs. Austin Aries & Bryan Danielson

The chairs came out early again and after the DQ the ref decided he was just kidding around and restarted the match. Aries and Jacobs went at it at every opportunity and Aries looked better here, hitting stuff (tope) that he was whiffing the night before. Dragon spent a lot of time stretching people and punching them in the ear. Eventually Aries and Jacobs fought to the back leaving Dragon and Tyler Black alone in the ring. The final stretch between the two of them was very good and really exciting, with a lot of people not treating the ending like a foregone conclusion. Black ended up hitting two drivers and a splash of various sorts and that was the end of that. Nigel came out and told Dragon that he wasn't going to get a title shot until he'd beaten everyone Nigel has.

That was the end of the PPV portion of the show, leaving to matches and a somewhat tired crowd.

Eddie Kingston vs. Jigsaw

Kingston got fat. He's still intense and he still hits people hard though, so I'm satisfied. He brought two other BLKOUT dudes with him who seemed significantly less threatening. Jigsaw is Jigsaw and he spent most of the match getting slapped and choked and whatnot. He did score the upset victory though which I suppose is more interesting than Kingston just rolling over him, except that I hate Jigsaw and think he sucks and was hoping Kingston would drive him from the company in shame. Without Jack there's not much point to the Vulture Squad, and Smokes wasn't booked on either show or no showed or something, so VS seemed extra silly. So Jigsaw won and then Kingston and BLKOUT beat him down.

Jay Briscoe vs. The Necro Butcher - Falls Count Anywhere

Jay got on the mic before the match started and suggested to The Necro Butcher that they engage in a bit of nontraditionalism, starting the match outside of the ring instead of inside. The Necro Butcher was unopposed to this idea and so they ventured into the crowd and began fighting.

What I mean to say is that this was a brutal, stupid awesome match. Robbie said he thought it was better than Strong/Stevens but I don't know. Chairs were thrown, punches followed, Jay powerbombed Necro from the second set of the bleachers to the floor, there was pair of scissors and some stabbing went on, Jay gave Necro a Death Valley Driver from the apron to the floor, the whole thing was just crazy. AOTF came out to interfere but Mark made a surprise entrance (not tremendously surprising) and ran them off. Turns out Necro didn't need the help though, as he gave Jay a Tiger Driver onto a guardrail that ended up in the ring and that was good enough for the win.

And that, as they saw, was that. Friday had a bunch of good matches, Saturday had some decent matches, and a couple of great ones. These were probably my last ROH shows for a while, and I got a good weekend to go out on.