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.
For the second year in a row, ROH's summer event coincided with an anime convention at the Gateway Center. This provided an interesting mix of people and, once again, left me wondering where my best dating options were located. Unlike last year, A.C.H. was in the house for this one and was definitely in his element, interviewing cosplayers during the intermission with Davey Vega as the cameraman. Dynamo Pro Wrestling will be going for the same audience in July as they'll be holding matches as part of NatsuCon.
Several local wrestlers were in the house, including Vega, Jake Dirden, The Hooligans, and Paco Gonzalez. However, none of the local talent was featured in an active role on the show as the Women Of Honor got the preshow slot. I spotted Beautiful Bobby Eaton in attendance for at least part of the show. I crossed paths with a few familiar faces in the audience, including Tony Patrico from 105.7 The Point's Rizzuto Show. I picked up the new Delirious T-shirt; wish I had the cash for the Matt Sydal shirt as well, but the budget is a work in progress at the moment.
With a big tour taking place in Japan(Best Of The Super Juniors), several major players were not in attendance: Michael Elgin, Matt Sydal, T.V. Champion Bobby Fish, Kyle O'Reilly, and The Young Bucks(who were originally booked but had to bow out due to injuries). There were no title defenses on the show as the champions were booked in a six-man tag against their current top rivals.
Your ring announcer was Scarlett Bordeaux, who went with a brunette-ish look for her hair this weekend. I actually didn't recognize her at first; while my appreciation for redheads is something I wear on my sleeve, she's purty regardless of hair color. Your referees were Todd Sinclair, Brian Gorie, & Paul Turner. Your video commentators were Ian Riccaboni & Veda Scott(who was looking lovely this evening as well).
Jessica James vs. Taeler Hendrix: I hadn't seen Jessica in action in quite a while; she had been a regular for St. Louis Anarchy several years ago when she was teaming up with Rachel Summerlyn. Taeler had briefly competed for ROH in the days of the HDNet TV show and was also with TNA for a little while; she recently resurfaced as the valet for the House Of Truth with a seductive new look. I definitely approve...see my earlier sentiments regarding redheads. Unfortunately, the match wasn't that good...I don't know why that was the case, but sometimes two people just don't click well. I've seen both in better matches, so perhaps it was just an off-night. (Insert yadda yadda blah blah about never having been in the ring...here.) Hendrix won with a Tombstone in 3:24.
Dalton Castle(w/ The Boys) vs. Caprice Coleman: It was a nice surprise to see Caprice, who is a veteran from the NWA Wildside days; his contemporaries from that promotion included names like A.J. Styles, Abyss, and "R-Truth" Ron Killings. Coleman did a promo where he insulted the "keyboard warriors" in the audience...hey, never heard THAT before. Castle was OVAH, as you might expect; so were The Boys, who were caught off guard by the adulation but shrugged and acknowledged the fan support. The Boys were active in their ringside support, including one moment when they attempted to "fan" Coleman off the top rope! It was an enjoyable (official) opener with Castle won with the Bangarang(tilt-a-whirl faceplant) in 13:27.
Mark Briscoe vs. "The Gift" Jason Kincaid: Kincaid participated in the recent Top Prospect Tournament, losing in the first round to eventual winner Lio Rush. Notably, the TPT has produced a lot of major players for Ring Of Honor regardless of whether they actually won the tourney: Other winners were Mike Bennett, Matt Taven, Todd Hanson, and Donovan Dijak. The list of non-winners includes Kyle O'Reilly, Michael Elgin, Adam Cole, Silas Young, A.C.H., Raymond Rowe, Cheeseburger, Dalton Castle, and The Beer City Bruiser. Mark Briscoe was the right opponent for Kincaid as they could have a competitive matchup with the legitimate possibility of an upset. I hadn't seen much of Kincaid before this (basically, just his ROH TV matches), so I was super impressed by what I saw out of him here. He did several moves that I'd never seen before, particularly a move where he did a somersault plancha out of the ring OVER Briscoe and turned it into a sunset flip/powerbomb into the ringside guardrail! While Briscoe was an obvious crowd favorite, the fans were into both guys by the end of it; Briscoe won with a small package driver(aka Seth Rollins/Tyler Black's God's Last Gift) in 10:40.
Keith Lee & Shane Taylor vs. The All Night Express(Kenny King & Rhett Titus): ANX did a promo about having no opponents for the night and issued an open challenge. While the local crowd would have reacted pretty well to an appearance by The Hooligans, we got Lee & Taylor(who decimated Danny Adams & Paco Gonzalez in the dark match at the January show). The story of the match was King & Titus underestimating their opponents and then having trouble with the size and power difference...as a result, they had to resort to subterfuge. With the referee occupied by King, Titus brought in a steel chair and whacked Lee across the back with it...Lee shrugged off the attack and Taylor got a hold of the weapon to lay out Titus with it. Of course, the official turned around at that moment and disqualified Lee & Taylor, giving the win to the All Night Express in 8:05...King & Titus bragged that they had won due to their opponents' dastardly tactics backfiring on them, of course.
A.C.H. vs. "Beer City Bruiser" Matt Winchester(w/ Silas Young): With the anime convention in the house, A.C.H. brought out the Monkey D. Luffy gear to represent One Piece. A.C.H. is feuding with Silas because Silas can't stand the young punks and their flippy ways. Winchester was originally trained by Harley Race and competed for World League Wrestling as "Dinn T. Moore" several years ago. I racked my brain to remember if A.C.H. had ever WON a Ring Of Honor match in this area; I remember him losing a singles match to Silas Young and losing a tag match with Alex Shelley to The Young Bucks in January. It wasn't a bang-bang great ROH-style match, but it was a solid battle of fan favorite vs. rulebreaker with A.C.H. as the underdog against the larger Bruiser. A.C.H. picked up the victory after the Midnight Star(450 Splash) in 8:38...woo.
Alex Shelley vs. Lio Rush: Rush is a smaller guy who's only a year or two into his wrestling career, but he's been impressing audiences across the country and won the recent Top Prospect Tournament. This was a battle of fan favorites, though Shelley can bring the attitude when the situation calls for it. Rush looked impressive, but experience won the day as Shelley picked up the victory with an Air Raid Crash in 13:14. After the match, Shelley got the microphone and talked up Rush as the future of the business...taking the time to trash some ringside hecklers while he was at it. Heh...just ask Alexandre Rudolph about Shelley's attitude.
Intermission~! I picked up my Delirious T-shirt earlier in the show and limited myself to a bottle of Mountain Dew for the evening. $2.75 for a 20-ounce of soda? Eep.
Colby Corino vs. B.J. Whitmer: Whitmer made his entrance to talk some trash about his long-time rival Steve Corino...however, that raised the ire of Whitmer's former protege (and Steve's son) Colby. Colby looks a LOT different from the last time he appeared on television and has been gaining experience on the east coast. This led to an impromptu challenge and B.J. accepted to send a message to Colby's father...they have a Fight Without Honor at Best In The World. Whitmer toyed with Colby and repeatedly pulled him up from pin attempts after hitting exploder suplexes. That nearly came back to bite him as Colby countered an exploder attempt into a victory roll for a close near-fall...but that simply convinced Whitmer to turn up the aggression. B.J. finished with the wrist-clutch variation of the exploder in 3:30...I don't think it'll be that easy when he faces the "evil man" Steve Corino.
Chris Sabin vs. "The Hangman" Adam Page, no-DQ-no-countout match: Page was one of the recent recruits of The Bullet Club and earned his new nickname with a hangman's noose...the Motor City Machineguns were victims of Page's actions, so Sabin wanted to make this a no-disqualification-no-countout matchup and Page was fine with that. This was as crazy a match as you'd expect with the stipulation as the fight quickly spilled out of the ring. Chairs came into play and were used with great creativity by both men. In the end, Sabin used extreme measures to win as he caught Page in a surfboard hold while choking out Page with his own noose! That won him the match via tapout in 16:41...Page's fellow Bullet Club recruit Adam Cole ran in to attack Sabin, but Shelley made the save (pushing the tag match at the following night's show in Indianapolis).
Roderick Strong vs. Stevie Richards vs. Moose(w/ Stokely Hathaway) vs. "The Last Real Man" Silas Young(w/ Beer City Bruiser): Stevie was a random addition to the weekend of shows for Ring Of Honor; I honestly thought they should have pushed his presence a bit more to draw in the old ECW fanbase. In this style of match, guys seem to switch between waiting for tags and just fighting it out with each other (since multi-way matches tend to be no-DQ by default). Stevie's in great shape nowadays (DDP Yoga!) and had no trouble keeping up with the other three. Any of these guys could have conceivably won, but Moose finished off Stevie with a spear out of nowhere in 9:41. Cue mutual respect all around (except for Silas, of course).
Kamaitachi vs. Adam Cole: Kamaitachi is a standout Japanese wrestler but has made his name in Mexico's CMLL in recent years. Unfortunately, American fans aren't very familiar with him and Adam Cole is one of those wrestlers that people love to hate, so Cole had most of the fan support in this one. The fans were seemingly burned out or worn out by this point in the show as it was a lengthy event, so they didn't react to much out of Kamaitachi. Cole won with the brainbuster onto the knee in 13:33.
Jay Briscoe & War Machine(Todd Hanson & Raymond Rowe) vs. Heavyweight Champion Jay Lethal & Tag Team Champions The Addiction("Almighty" Christopher Daniels & "Heavy Metal Rebel" Frankie Kazarian)(w/ Taeler Hendrix): Daniels & Kazarian screwed War Machine out of the Tag Titles at a recent show. Lethal ended Jay Briscoe's lengthy winning streak and his Heavyweight Title reign in a title-vs.-title bout last year when Lethal was still T.V. Champion; Jay Briscoe is finally getting his rematch at Best In The World. It seemed like Lethal stayed out of the fray for most of this matchup, letting Addiction do most of the work. The good guys were the more cohesive unit and it seems like their styles would be compatible; War Machine showed their agility with more aerial moves than you'd expect out of them. I'd talked about Briscoes vs. Hooligans as a potential dream match; how about War Machine vs. Hooligans? The heel trio's teamwork finally backfired and Jay Briscoe rolled up Daniels for the pin in 19:38...fans headed for the exits pretty quickly after the match was over (it was slightly after 11:00). Things broke down between the titleholders as Addiction attacked Lethal, blaming him for the loss...but Lethal turned the tide with a double Lethal Injection(rope-handspring Cutter) on the tag champs! That led to a staredown between the Jays to close the show...all righty then.
It was a rare weekend with Saturday wide open for me, so I just stayed home for a change. As it turned out, the last few days took an unfortunate turn as one of my dogs has been sick...I had to take him to the vet on Monday afternoon. I just wish he'd eat the food with his medicine in it...sigh. Finances keep getting more and more complicated for me, it would seem.
As for the rest of June, the Mid-Missouri Wrestling Alliance returns to the beautiful and/or historic South Broadway Athletic Club in St. Louis next Saturday. As for Saturday the 18th, it's a choice between Southern Illinois Championship Wrestling in East Carondelet, IL and Wrestling Invades America in Swansea, IL. It says a lot about WIA's progress that the 18th is a legitimate decision on my part, but it's a decision I haven't made at this time.
That's my special comment for this, the twenty-sixth wrestling show I've attended in the year 2016. Good night, good luck, and #yaywrestling.
-PB, Watching Wrestling Wrong Since 1991
P.S. We are all marks.
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