ROH Special Comment

Now, as promised, a special comment about Friday's Ring Of Honor show at the Gateway Center in Collinsville, Illinois.

DISCLAIMER:  I'm biased.  Deal with it.

Going into this show, I actually felt like the lineup was a bit underwhelming.  There were several notable names missing from the show, including Adam Cole(still recovering from injury?), A.C.H.(absent for personal reasons), and Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish of reDRagon(in Japan).  It did give ROH an opportunity to showcase some of the newer up-and-coming members of the roster.

ROH has been in the news lately due to their increased television coverage...they recently debuted on Destination America, airing right before TNA Impact on Wednesday nights.  I don't know if their new visibility was a factor, but this show had one of the better turnouts in the short history of Collinsville events.  The crowd was enthusiastic for most of the show, but it ran long and the people seemed to burn out by the last two matches or so.

Notably, there was another event in the Gateway Center:  An anime convention.  I'm sure there were people in each group looking at people in the other group and thinking "Wow, look at THOSE dorks."  Meanwhile, I was positively identifying the cosplay characters and wondering which event was truly more appealing to me.

Minor footnote:  I heard that the ring used for the evening was the old Gateway Championship Wrestling ring from Dynamo Pro Wrestling's training center.  Neat.  (Cheap plug!)  Saw a few familiar faces in attendance that I hadn't seen in a long time, including "The Grand Poobah" Brian Ledford, Ryan Ash, C.J. McManus, and Rat Boy.  MsChif was in attendance as well...I suspect Mr. Elgin's baby boy or girl will be arriving in the very near future.  There were other local guys there, including Davey Vega and Adam Raw.  I went up to Matt's merchandise table and he excitedly expressed his interest in getting his picture taken with me...bwahahaha.

Your ring announcer was Scarlett Bordeaux.  While previous ROH recappers would note the color of Bobby Cruise's tie, I will note the color of Scarlett's hair:  Sort of a reddish-purple.  She joked about how uncomfortable it was to get in and out of the ring in the leather pants she was wearing...Evil Inner Patrick thought "That's okay, you can take them off, I won't mind."  *ducks thrown objects*

Your television commentators were Kevin Kelly & Steve Corino(who was OVAH).  Your referees were Michael Crase(preshow), Todd Sinclair, and Gino Colucci...plus one more who will be mentioned later in this commentary.

"The Elitist" Brandon Espinosa, "Yoga Monster" Mike Sydal, & "The Madman" Paco Gonzalez vs. "Dirdey" Jake Dirden, Kevin Lee Davidson, & "Risky Business" Everett Connors:  Hey, I know all of those guys!  I had read some comments about the guys who got opportunties for ROH this weekend as opposed to other candidates...I don't know enough about the decision process to speak on it, so I should probably just leave it at that.  K.L.D. and Connors were both making their Ring Of Honor debuts.  Thought everyone had a fine showing and hopefully they'll get on the radars of the right people.  Espinosa hit his new powerslam variant on Connors, held him for Sydal's Yogasault, and then got the pin in 7:16.  It was noted by Espinosa that this was the first time Matt and Mike Sydal had wrestled on the same show...neat.

Mark Briscoe vs. Adam Page(w/ B.J. Whitmer):  The Briscoes are OVAH in this neck of the woods.  The Decade has been an odd wild card in ROH lately with Roderick Strong turning face and Jimmy Jacobs leaving the promotion.  The storyline has recently centered around Whitmer recruiting Steve Corino's son Colby as their new "young boy", much to Steve's chagrin...Corino and Whitmer have a lot of bad blood between them.  Page graduated from being a young boy to fully embracing the Decade mindset...it's resulted in bigger opportunities for him, including a recent feud with A.C.H.  Speaking of people in odd places, Mark Briscoe is in career limbo with his brother carrying the Heavyweight Title...they were eight-time Tag Team Champions so there isn't much left for them to do as a unit.  With Jay also carrying a lengthy undefeated streak, that leaves Mark as the "obvious" fall guy in their tag matches.  At any rate, good matchup to officially open the show...Page hit his running shooting star plancha off the apron at one point.  Briscoe got the hard-fought win with the Froggy-Bow in 9:55.

Cheeseburger vs. "The Last Real Man" Silas Young:  Cheeseburger is small even by independent wrestling standards, but he's quite popular as the resident underdog rookie.  His mentor Brutal Bob Evans recently turned on him after a streak of futility as a tag team.  Meanwhile, Silas is the resident grumpy heel with an epic mustache.  They had a couple of nice upset teases on Cheeseburger's part, but Silas picked up the win with an airplane-spin TKO in 8:08.

Dalton Castle(w/ His Boys) vs. Michael Bennett(w/ Maria Kanellis-Bennett & Matt Taven):  Castle's Boys on this night were played by Danny Adams and Austin Blackburn.  His entrance is definitely an attention-grabber.  Of course, the lovely Mrs. Bennett is also a sight to behold.  Bennett entered ROH with the statement that wrestling was merely a stepping stone to an acting career...essentially, a wannabe WWE "sportz entertainer".  Maria came in as his valet, he dumped Brutal Bob, and he became a part of The Kingdom with Adam Cole and then Taven.  The funny thing is that he's long past the point of being "Internet-hated", but ROH continues to push that line to the point that the Bennett/Taven tag team is sarcastically referred to as the "Internet Darlings".  Bennett and Taven recently defeated Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows of The Bullet Club for the IWGP Tag Team Titles and they had the belts with them on this show.

This was WAY more competitive than I was expecting and there were plenty of shenanigans on the heel side of things.  There was a good false finish as the ref was bumped and Benneet delivered a Twist Of Fate onto his title belt...for two.  A turnbuckle was exposed both guys hit it at different times...Taven ran in for a weird extended Tombstone reversal sequence with Castle that simply left both men disoriented.  Finally, Maria got the referee's attention long enough for Taven to superkick Castle in the back of the head, allowing Bennett to hit the finshing piledriver for the win in 21:56(!).

Tag Team Champions The Addiction("The Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) vs. Matt Sydal & Delirious, non-title:  This was Matt's first show in the St. Louis area since his release from WWE and Delirious' first in-ring appearance in the area in quite a while.  Daniels & Kazarian got a relatively positive response, so they cut a heel promo to establish the roles for the evening.  (We don't DESERVE a championship match~!)  Of course, I knew what I had to do:  I made my way to ringside and stood by the guardrail with hand extended as Delirious made his entrance.  The masked man slapped hands with me and, shortly thereafter, my Wayne's World ballcap went flying.  He got some impressive air on that toss.  As always:  You don't mess with tradition.

Sydal & Delirious had teamed up in other promotions, but this was the first time they had worked as a duo in the immediate St. Louis area...out of the announced matches, I was really looking forward to this one for obvious and personally-biased reasons.  The Addiction took control after catching a Sydal plancha, then avoiding a Delirious baseball slide and simply throwing Sydal into his partner (sending them both crashing into the guardrail).  Delirious took a beating for his side, but Matt finally got the hot tag and the house was on FIYAH~!  Daniels & Kazarian were able to cut him off with a double hiptoss-into-powerbomb/neckbreaker-combo(feel like I've seen that before...).  Bonzo gonzo ensued...Delirious got Kazarian in the cobra stretch but Daniels pulled the referee out of the ring before he could see the tapout.  The good guys continued their rally and took out Daniels, then Delirious hit the PANIC ATTACK~! on Kazarian.  Matt followed up with the shooting star press...and Gordon Pumpernickel(aka Mike Gordon) ran in with a referee's shirt to make the three-count!  The hometown boys scored the big upset in 21:56!

The winners did post-match promos; Delirious was as eloquent as ever.  Matt said that it all started for the two of them in the St. Louis area and it was great to be wrestling here again...woo.  Perhaps they'll get a Tag Team Title shot in the near future...perhaps RIGHT HERE IN COLLINSVILLE, ILLINOIS~!  *thumbs-up, cheap pop*

Intermission~!  The functioning water fountains outside meant no overinflated beverage purchases for me.  I had hoped to purchase a Delirious T-shirt but, alas, none were available on this night.

The Romantic Touch vs. B.J. Whitmer(w/ Adam Page):  The crowd was a bit dead for this extra added bout...the show was also running fairly long, as I noted.  It was a solid matchup, but there wasn't much emotional connection behind it and the result seemed to be a foregone conclusion.  Whitmer won with the exploder suplex in 7:42.  (Yes, I'm pretty sure it was Rhett Titus this time around...)

Todd Hanson vs. Matt Taven:  Out of the two members of War Machine, Hanson has really impressed me with his mobility and repertoire.  Taven is definitely better suited for the heel role, from what I've seen.  Bennett came out midway through the match, followed by Maria...that brought out Raymond Rowe to counteract their presence.  Rowe stopped Bennett from interfering at a key moment, allowing Hanson to win with the Spinkick Of Doom in 15:24(!).  With Rowe already out at the ringside area, he called out Jay Lethal for their scheduled match.

T.V. Champion Jay Lethal(w/ Truth Martini) vs. Raymond Rowe, non-title:  The fans were starting to burn out by this point in the show, sorry to say.  Again, the result of a match didn't seem to be in doubt, so that probably didn't help the interest level here.  The match was hardly bad and Lethal has hit a really good stride, holding the T.V. Title for over a year and calling himself the one true champion in Ring Of Honor.  As a result, he will be facing Jay Briscoe in a title vs. title match at Best In The World.  Other than his manager, Lethal had no backup as Donovan Dijak and J. Diesel weren't in attendance.  The second ref bump of the night led to a visual fall for Rowe as he hit his Death Rowe finisher(full-nelson slam into a knee strike).  Truth tried to interfere with the Book Of Truth and Hanson stopped him, but Lethal brought in the Book and hit Rowe in the back with it, then delivered a shot to the head for good measure.  That was enough for the finish in 15:55, giving Lethal momentum heading into the upcoming big show...

Heavyweight Champion Jay Briscoe & Roderick Strong vs. "Unbreakable" Michael Elgin & Moose(w/ Stokely Hathaway):  No Veda Scott...denied.  The other three participants in this matchup are facing each other in a triple threat match at Best In The World; the winner gets the next shot at the Heavyweight Title.  This match was okay but not great; for whatever reason, it never seemed to hit a good tag match flow.  One of the highlights was a stereo vertical suplex spot with Elgin and Moose each holding their respective opponents up in the air.  Finishers flew and a miscommunication on the side of the good guys led to Moose spearing Strong for the win in 25:33.  That would qualify as a pretty big win for the big guy.  The post-match handshakes were particularly tense...buy the iPPV!

Post-show:  Bugged a bunch of people.  Talked with Matt and Delirious a bit.  Stopped at Jack In The Box on the way home since I hadn't had much for dinner.  Good times.

Wasn't able to negotiate a ride to Kansas City so I didn't get to Metro Pro.  Was up way too late on Friday and Saturday nights and didn't get a lot of sleep, so I wasn't feeling up to the trip to Outlaw Wrestling in Centralia on Sunday...ugh.

Anywho, the rest of June looks like this:
-Saturday 6/13: Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Fenton, MO; Mid-Missouri Wrestling Alliance in St. Louis, MO
-Friday 6/19: Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Glen Carbon, IL
-Saturday 6/20: Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling in East Carondelet, IL
-Friday 6/26: World League Wrestling in Troy, MO
-Sunday 6/28: High Risk Wrestling in Cahokia, IL

Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.

P.S. We are all marks.