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ROH - Burning

Critic of the DawnPosted on 10/08/05 at 21:51:35

This is cross-posted from my Livejournal, which can be found at http://www.livejournal.com/users/ericthecavalier/ if anyone is really that interested in me.

Burning had a lot of hype leading into it because one of the best professional wrestlers on the planet today, Japanese star Kenta Kobashi, was being flown in to compete in the United States for the first time. Two of his shows would be with Ring of Honor, the first in New York City and the second in Philadelphia. Naturally I couldn't miss a chance to both see the incredible ROH product live in my backyard AND enjoy a star of Kobashi's calibre all in one evening. So off went my friend Derek and I to the Philadelphia National Guard Armory, arriving literally seconds before the show began because the fast food we had on the way somehow took 20-30 minutes to prepare. Honestly, we could have had better food faster somewhere like Friendly's. But I digress. The National Guard Armory was absolutely MOBBED. Last time I was there, they had drawn somewhere in the neighborhood of 700-800 fans, but Kyle and I were able to find one of the last few spots in the parking lot. That night the lot was 100% full, and there were quite a few cars parked around to the side of the Armory in the grass. I'd estimate 1000-1200 people there, which is very good news for ROH as Philly isn't usually one of their best markets due to stiff competition. After all, about 50% of the East Coast indy scene seems to be based out of the Philly area because of ECW's legacy. Once again, average crowd size for Philly tends to be around 500.

The show began with a tag team title defense. The Ring Crew Express of Dunn and Marcos were getting a title shot despite not really being noted for their winning ways. Of course, their gimmick (two guys who set up the ring before the show and really like 80s hair metal) is good enough that the crowd really likes them. New Tag Team Champions had been crowned the night before in the new pairing of Tony Mamaluke and Sal Rinuaro. Mamaluke and Rinauro got a bigger reaction than I expected when they came out to the Rocky theme with Mamaluke jogging along and shadow boxing with the Italian Flag as a cape as Rinauro rode a bicycle behind him. Genius. Unfortunately, I can't really say much positive about the match. RCE aren't known for their incredible ring skills, and Mamaluke and Rinauro are quite obviously very new as a team. Therefore, this match was quite sloppy at times, and even ended with a botched spot being improvised into a hasty Victory Roll by Mamaluke. Dissappointing. *.

Next came one of ROH's famous Four Corner Survival matches. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Ring of Honor basically takes 4 of their wrestlers without anything better to do and puts them in a four corners match. Wrestlers tag in and out, and the first wrestler to score a pinfall or submission wins the match. Competing in this match was ROH Wrestling School Graduate Davey Andrews, who looked a lot less green than the last time I saw him but still needs to work on bringing everything together, Claudio Castagnolli who is incredibly charismatic and amusing and got a number of Fonz-esque "'Heeeeeeey!" cheers from the crowd, Jay Lethal who many believe is the future of Ring of Honor, and Nigel McGuinness, the current Ring of Honor Pure Wrestling Champion. Most Four Corner Survival matches end up being fast-paced and fun, but also fairly mindless and this was no exception. Still, the interaction between Nigel and Claudio was priceless - they started shoving each other, then one suggested that they take it outside. So they climbed onto the ring apron and resumed shoving each other until one suggested that they take it outside-er. So they went to the floor and started shoving again. And so on. While Claudio and Nigel were being goofy outside the ring, Jay Lethal scored with his Dragon Suplex for the pinfall victory. **1/2.

Third was Jimmy Rave with Prince Nana vs. Generation Next's Matt Sydal. Generally it's customary to throw toilet paper, pink streamers, and shower poufs at the ring for Rave. Derek and I tried to improve upon this by throwing Burger King crowns, but sadly the flimsy cardboard crowns were too light to make it all the way to the ring from the third row and landed harmlessly on the floor where they were discretely kicked under the ring never to be seen again. Still. This was a pretty decent match, and for the first time Sydal really came across well to me. Jimmy Rave has improved so much since last year that it's almost incredible. He's literally gone from a guy with next to no charisma or noticable facial expressions to a very solid upper midcard heel that the entire crowd loves to hate. Honestly, Rave is one of the few heels in Ring of Honor that actually gets booed. So that says something about how good he is at being bad. Anyway, Rave recently was forced to give up the use of the Rave Clash, so he tried to finish this match with a Northern Lights Bomb. Sydal kicked out, so Rave unlaced his boot and tried to strangle Sydal with it. This brought out former Embassy valet Jade Chung, who low-blowed Rave behind the referee's back (Prince Nana was distracting the ref already so that Rave could choke Sydal), allowing Sydal to roll up Rave for the upset victory. Very solid match. ***1/4.

Next, Rottweiler member and former Tag Team Champion Ricky Reyes faced ROH Student Eric Dempsey in an unadvertised bonus match. Reyes absolutely SQUASHED Dempsey, defeating him with a Tazmission variant in less than a minute. Dempsey's second (a tubby guy with a similar look) climbed into the ring and checked on Dempsey, then grabbed a microphone and said, "Y...you killed him! Somebody call an undertaker!" Suddenly the lights faded to dreary blue and spooky music started playing, and... "OOOOHHH YEEEES! I may not have brought my Undertaker with me... but would a PAUL BEARER do?" PAUL F'N BEARER! Mark out moment! Bearer entered the ring and announced that he was ROH's new commissioner, using all sorts of goofy over-the-top facial expressions that made me giggle with glee. But wait! Just moments later, out came JIM F'N CORNETTE! Cornette put over Ring of Honor in a very classy speech, and announced that HE was going to be ROH's Commissioner. The crowd seemed to be a bit more behind this than they were about Bearer. Cornette's first act as ROH commissioner was to bring out Julius Smokes and tell him that if the Rottweilers tried to ruin the main event, they would all be summarily fired. When Smokes and company started to protest, Cornette claimed that if they didn't go backstage by the time the crowd counted to 10, they'd each be fined $1000. At 9, the Rottweilers ran for the hills. Good segment. Jim Cornette was a predictable choice as commissioner, but a very good one. There's actually a video of Cornette's first policy speech here for those who are interested in such things.

Finally, in the last match before the Intermission, "The Messiah of the Backbreaker" Roderick Strong took on former ROH World Champion James Gibson in Gibson's final match here in Ring of Honor. According to the storylines, Strong has become something of Gibson's protoge in the past few months, and with the amount that he's improved in the past year I think it's safe to say that he's a future Ring of Honor World Champion himself. This match was just excellent all around. There were incredibly close nearfalls galore, and the timekeeper was even fooled into ringing the bell on a particularly close 2 count. Everything about this match was good, with both men getting off all their signiture moves. In the end, Gibson went for a Top Rope Tiger Driver, but Strong countered it into a nasty Top Rope Lungblower, then turned Gibson over into his new finisher, the Stronghold (basically Chris Jericho's Walls of Jericho before it turned into a Boston Crab). After a brief struggle, Gibson was forced to tap out. This was a fantastic match - extremely emotional. I am proud that I got off one last "MAKE 'IM SQUEEEEEEEAL!" when Gibson went for his Pay Dirt submission about halfway through the match. I also started the "Speech!" chant that followed it. Gibson was fighting off tears as he thanked the crowd for supporting his family for the past year since WWE let him go, and for giving him his passion for wrestling back by giving him the best year of his career. Incredible stuff. ****1/2.

INTERMISSION

After the intermission, Lacey's Angels (Izzy & Deranged) were scheduled to face Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer. Whitmer and Jacobs had only lost the tag team titles the night before, and thus this would have been a tag team match had Rinauro and Mamaluke not unexpectedly won the gold. Before the match could begin, however, Lacey announced that she was firing Izzy and Deranged because she was tired of winning. Her new Angels? Jacobs and Whitmer!?! That was highly unexpected. This tag team match was fun but a little confusing because they didn't make it totally clear that Jacobs and Whitmer had joined Lacey, and toward the end it got a bit sloppy again, which is a shame. Izzy went for a springboard moonsault out of the ring, but botched it and ended up landing throat-first on the top rope. Ouch. Luckily he was okay. The match ended shortly thereafter with an easy victory for Lacey's new Angels, who then posed with her. Fortunately, it looks as if Lacey has retained the services of Cheech and Cloudy. Another sloppy tag team match that could have been much better. *3/4.

Next, "Classic" Colt Cabana took on Jack Evans in a match that I personally was seriously looking forward to. I wasn't dissappointed. Cabana is the funniest guy in professional wrestling by far, and Jack Evans is a goofy bastard at times with his Eminem Lookalike breakdancing schtick. Lots of back and forth dancing with deuling "You Got Served!" chants from the crowd. HILARIOUS. Eventually they got down to business, however, and Cabana looked like an absolute beast, tossing around Evans like a ragdoll and twisting him into submission holds painful looking enough to get a HUGE "That's Disgusting!" chant from the crowd. Cabana is starting to bring everything together in the ring pretty well, mixing solid brawling, high flying, and power with a touch of English submission style wrestling. At the end of the match, Evans missed his trademark 630 Senton (by contrast, Jeff Hardy's famous Swanton Bomb is a 270 Senton), but Cabana managed to avoid it. Cabana then shouted "HOMICIDE!" which is the name of the wrestler he's presently feuding with, and scored with a Lariat to finish off Evans. The Lariat is, of course, one of Homicide's main finishers. Great fun, but a little too one sided to be remembered as a classic. ***1/2.

In the final match before the main event, "The Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels took on Jimmy Yang (who wrestled in WWE as Akio until he was released this summer). Both men needed a win here, as Yang has just debuted and Daniels has lost enough matches lately that few people consider him in serious title contention. Considering Daniels is one of the most charismatic men in Ring of Honor... that's not right. This match was decent, but Yang seems to have a lot of WWE's slowpaced Cruiserweight Division style still about him, and this was therefore not nearly as fast of exciting as it could have been. Still, if Yang minimizes the obvious restholds and adjusts his style he could be a major upper midcarder in Ring of Honor. Daniels won this match fairly convincingly by locking in his Leg and Arm Sleeper variant after the Angel's Wings. Solid but a bit slow. **1/2.

Finally, in the main event, Kenta Kobashi and Homicide teamed up against Samoa Joe and Low Ki. When Joe first arrived at the ring, his chest was already covered in welts and bruises from his match the previous evening against Kobashi. And that's really saying something. This match had some interesting themes going on in it. Low Ki and Homicide are both members of the Rottweilers, which are the most dominant heel group in Ring of Honor. However, out of respect for Kobashi's legend and because of Cornette's threats, both men played this match clean. Another theme was that it pitted the veterans (Homicide and Kobashi) against the young up and comers (Joe and Low Ki). This was particularly interesting since Low Ki was actually trained by Homicide.

On to the match itself. Wow. What can I say about this? Everyone quite clearly brought their A-Games to this match, and it showed. Kobashi is a total beast, and for a Japanese guy he is HUGE at 6 feet and change tall and 260 pounds of muscle. And his chops are just SICK. I have never seen nor heard chops that brutal. EVER. Samoa Joe, a 280 pound wrestler of Samoan descent and incredible toughness, was literally turning black and blue and bleeding from the chest before our eyes. Interestingly, Kobashi didn't use a wide variety of maneuvers - he mainly just chopped the fuck out of everyone until near the end of the match, when he broke out the Orange Crush and a few other brutal looking suplexes. As Joe and 'Cide brawled on the outside of the ring, Kobashi overpowered Ki, pulled him in and hit a SICK Burning Lariat for the pinfall. Just a brutal match, and perhaps the best tag team match I've ever seen. *****.

The crowd was wicked hot the entire time, and Kobashi was clearly moved by how much the crowd appreciated him - among other things, the entire arena got an "Arrigato!" chant going once the match was over. I've even heard rumors that he's strongly considering a second trip sometime in the future. As the show came to a close, Samoa Joe said that THIS was what Professional Wrestling was about - not 'Rasslin, not Sports Entertainment, but Professional Wrestling... and I'd be hard pressed to disagree with him. Joe thanked Kobashi, who bowed several times to the crowd before the show finally ended.

So. Wow. Ring of Honor blows me away once again after a "merely" good show back in July. I'm not sure whether this show was better or worse than Death Before Dishonor III... but damn was it a great show. If I had to pick one, I'd hesitantly choose DBD III, if only becasue the storyline at the end had me thrilled for months and turned out extremely well. As usual, if you're in the Northeast or Midwest and enjoy wrestling, I STRONGLY encourage you to check out Ring of Honor if you get the chance. It's amazing, athletic wrestling with interesting but not overdone storylines, and most importantly it doesn't insult your intelligence.

Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
Psymin1Posted on 10/09/05 at 04:45:24

Damn you for living close enough to go to the RoH events!  lol, sounds amazing though.  My question is, where is Gibson going?  I keep seeing that he is leaving, but I don't know why.  Any ideas?


~Psymin
americamamushiPosted on 10/09/05 at 05:15:37

i believe he's still going back to the WWE, or at least I haven't heard otherwise.
Critic of the DawnPosted on 10/09/05 at 06:08:39

James Gibson / Jamie Noble was hired back by WWE around the middle of the summer.  

Honestly, with the strength of ROH's relationship with most of the rest of the wrestling world at the moment, WWE is about the only place that would result in a wrestler not being able to work future ROH events.  And even then, it's A) slightly flexible (see Matt Hardy, Steven Richards, and a few others who have appeared) and B) more because WWE's schedule is too busy to allow many outside dates than because WWE outright forbids it for its lowercard wrestlers.

Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
CarlzillaPosted on 10/12/05 at 08:25:22

Kobashi,  not using a wide variety of moves, mostly chopping his way to victory?!?! Who'da thunk it!

Seriously though this match sounds awesome, and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD or a torrent so I can watch it.

Have I mentioned that I hate you in a totally friendly way because you got to see Kobashi in person. If not...I hate you.
Critic of the DawnPosted on 10/12/05 at 19:47:56

On 10/12/05 at 08:25:22, Carlzilla wrote:Kobashi, not using a wide variety of moves, mostly chopping his way to victory?!?! Who'da thunk it!
Well, since I'm not really familiar with puro, it came as something of a surprise to me that he had a fairly small moveset.  I was under the impression that the top echelon of Japanese wrestling was head-drop crazy.  His chops were brutal enough and he had enough fire to him that the lack of move variety didn't hurt things at all, however.

Seriously though this match sounds awesome, and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD or a torrent so I can watch it.
Buy the DVD when it comes out.  From all accounts, Kobashi's singles match vs. Joe was at least as good at the tag team match, as well.  So "Orange Krush" may be worth looking into once it's released as well.  Why buy and not torrent?  Well, there's been some talk that Kobashi was impressed enough with ROH that he'd like to come back at some point in the future, and if the DVDs are huge sellers it's probably be worth everyone's while to do it again in a year or so.

You might also want to look into last year's Weekend of Thunder, featuring Jushin "Thunder" Liger, and this year's Dragon's Gate Invasion featuring Shingo Takagi, Curry Man (sadly Christopher Daniels was late and missed his match against Takagi, but luckily Curry Man was on the premesis to sub for him ;)), and CIMA.

Have I mentioned that I hate you in a totally friendly way because you got to see Kobashi in person. If not...I hate you.
I love living in Philly.  We get all the best wrestling here. ;D

Oh, also, I might not have mentioned, but I believe that highlights of both shows will be appearing on NOAH's Samurai TV at some point - perhaps they already have.  Not really sure, but either way.  More exposure for Ring of Honor is a good thing.

Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
CarlzillaPosted on 10/14/05 at 01:17:55

They highlights already have aired. I've seen the clips and they are pretty sweet. Even if I do torrent the event, I'll still buy the DVD's...that way everyone is a winner.

I'd love to see more guys make the trip to the Ring of Honor.

The thing about Kobashi is that he does have a fairly large moveset full of horrible headdrops, but you are probably going to see maybe 2 or 3 of those moves at best. For most of the match he's just gonna own your chest.