If you don't like wrestling, don't read this, cause you won't get it.

The last time I attended a wrestling event was Wrestlemania 1997 at the All State Arena. Tonight, (actually, last night as it's 1:22) I attended Ring of Honor. The event started at 6:45 and went until about 11:15. To say I got my money's worth would be a gross understatement.

The event was at the Chicago Heights Park District, which is only a step or two down from your local elementary school gymnasium. I have seriously seen high school gyms bigger than this place. But that helped to add to the intimate feel of the place. That's cool because even in general admission seating, I was still sitting only about what would have been 15 rows away in a major arena. I would guesstimate the crowd was about 900 people in a small building.

Onto the action. After two warmup matches (a tag match and a woman's match), the show started at 7:30. It was a tag match and one of the guys, Ace Steel, who is from Chicago, definitely had the fans going for him. He teamed with this guy, Delirious, who looks like he's from Mexico. Got the mask and everything. He's absolutely nuts the way he bounces around like a headcase in the ring. They faced a guy named Chad Collyer and Nigel McGuinness, who's from England and the ROH Pure Wrestling champion. McGuinness did two headstands on turnbuckles that were quite impressive. Delirious made us laugh when he got Nigel in the corner and started delivering clotheslines to his chest. And boy, I mean clotheslines. He may have really delivered about 50 shots right in a row. At first we were like "Ok, that's enough." Then it was "Yeah, keep going!" Then, "This is hysterical!" and finally "Are you kidding me?" After he was done, Delirious favored his arm for the next few minutes. Gee, hard to imagine why. I then shouted out, "Hey you got a left arm too, you know?!" Anyway, Steel and Delirious won a fun to watch match.

Sal Rinauro (an Italian guy) took on Jimmy Jacobs with his manager, Lacey, who had wrestled in the women's match on the undercard. Here's all you need to know about Jacobs. For 10 minutes, I hear the crowd chanting "Huss! Huss!" And I'm wondering what is all that about. So I asked a guy sitting near me and he explained the whole thing. "His gimmick was he used to imitate the Berzerker until Lacey convinced him to not do it anymore." So every time Jacobs lands a punch on Sal, the crowd chants "Huss!" Jacobs won with a move called the Contra Code. I don't remember what it was.

Then out came the new commissioner of ROH, the king of the tennis racket, the manager of the legendary Midnight Express, Jim Cornette, who a few months ago was removed from his job at the WWE's Ohio Valley Wrestling territory in Louisville. He kind of alluded to it, prompting a few fans to start chanting "F*** Vince!" Cornette goes, "You said it, I didn't!" He then brought out Cowboy Bill Watts, the guest of the evening. Unfortunately, the speakers weren't working to well, so I couldn't make out most of their conversation. They talked about the old guys and mentioned some big names Watts had helped break through into stardom such as Ted DiBiase (which I gave the Million Dollar laugh afterwards!), Junkyard Dog, Dr. Death Steve Williams, Bobby Heenan, Hacksaw Jim Duggan (who seriously got a HUGE ovation!) A newcomer, Adam Pearce, came out and demanded a match. He got one later.

BJ Whitmer, the other half of Lacey's team, beat Claudio Castagnoli in about 17 minutes. Claudio is a pretty popular guy. Early on, the two were doing some armbars, hammerlocks, etc. Every time Claudio got the advantage, he'd go "Heyyyyyyyyy!" And we'd all do it with him. From what I'm reading on the net, a lot of people are bummed Claudio lost this one clean. Oh well...

Next came one of the biggest moments of the night. Samoa Joe against the Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels. If you know anything about independent wrestling, you know these are two of the best. Daniels has been a solid veteran on the independent scene for years and Samoa Joe is an absolute star in the making. He's 6'2, 290, big, agile, energetic, and very tough. The crowd was so back and forth. When Daniels came out, we all chanted hockey-style "Fallen Angel, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap." Then, when Joe came out, the place went nuts! So there was about 150 guys chanting "Fallen Angel!" And while they were clapping, everyone else chanted "Let's Go Joe!" Talk about a hot crowd.

Joe used his power, while Daniels (more the mat technician) focused on the left knee of Joe. This match went about 44 minutes and Joe won with his Island Driver finisher, which was devastating to watch. Some people didn't like the match, and I think it went a little long, but it was a pleasure watching them both compete. Not like I had much to compare this match to.

Then came a, how shall I say, memorable and forgettable moment. Homicide (a black thug type guy from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn) faced Colt Cabana. Cabana is the only wrestler, I'm guessing ever, who uses Barry Manilow's Copacabana as his entrance music. I never thought I would hear Barry Manilow at a wrestling event. It happened. The match was a brawl and went to a no-contest. What happened afterwards was almost silly. Homicide put a beat down on Colt and duct taped his wrists to the turnbuckles. Duct tape. Apparently, the ROH Budget isn't big enough to afford a pair of handcuffs. Besides, there were 40 cops around. Couldn't one of them had given away their cuffs? Anyway, then he took at a fork and stabbed him. It was ugly and then Ace Steel reappeared and made the save.

Intermission time. Checked out the DVDs at the merchandise counter. Didn't buy anything though. They had so much variety I had no idea how to narrow it down. Besides you usually pay more for those types of things at the events anyway.

Mr. Pearce beat some guy in 6 minutes with a piledriver. He did come out to CCR's Run Through the Jungle. Not a bad choice.

Then, the World Championship match. The champion, the "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson defending against Roderick Strong. Let me say this. If these guys just had a match where they chopped each other for 30 minutes, that would have been better than most of the WWE matches on TV today. Strong has the absolute loudest chops I have ever heard. Forget Flair, forget Benoit, these chops were downright scary to hear. The echo just bounced off the ceiling. But anyhow, for about the first 10 minutes, they just wrestled. It was straight wrestling. Danielson emerged as the heel as he cursed a few fans out. But there were no foreign objects to speak of, no outside interference. These two went at it for 57 solid minutes. Almost an hour of wrestling. It was 10:50 p.m. when Danielson reversed a backbreaker into a chicken wing and began delivering repeated elbows to the side of Strong's head. The ref had to stop the match. A great, great match. AsStrong was helped to the back, most of us chanted, "Thank you, Roderick!"

Finally, the 8-man tag match. It was Generation Next: Austin Aries, Jack Evans, and Matt Sydal. Since Strong, normally a team member, was in the title match, they needed a new partner. Their tag team partner for the night: The Phenomenal A.J. Styles. They had two female managers as well, Jade Chung and Daizee Haze. They faced the Embassy: Jimmy Rave, Alex Shelley (who I have seen before), the monster Abyss (who I saw close up and is absolutely huge!), and Prince Nana (who is a Ghanan manager who always manages to avoid getting the crap beaten out of him.)

High flying, brawling, one table, AJ back suplexing Abyss through a table. Haze turned heel, joining the Embassy after low-blowing Aries and Sydal. Rave apparently had promised the crowd a great new finisher for this match. Turned out it was just a Pedigree and he used it and pinned Sydal to win the match. I stood by the entrance aisle as those guys walked out. They got a big ovation, at least Generation Next did. Actually as AJ and Jade were about to head back, one fan got in his face. I was about 5 yards away so I didn't really hear it. According to a fan on the ROH site, this was the exchange.

"The fan said something to AJ along the lines of "you suck" yada yada, and AJ in turn said something like, "That's good coming from an idiot with glasses you faggot," and the fan told AJ to go back to the locker room. AJ got in the fan's face and asked him "What happens if I don't?" Styles invited the fan over the rail where he'd slap the glasses of his face. The fan was dumb enough to climb over the rail, and the security guards began holding him back. Samoa Joe then ran out, and told him to "let him go!" because Joe was going to knock this guy out. The security guard took the fan to the back."

The event ended at 11:10 p.m. From start to finish, about 4 hours, 15 minutes. And even with all the Ticketmaster charges, I still only paid about 25 bucks.

And then the rain outside. It had been drizzling in the afternoon. As I'm heading towards the exit, and about to step outside, avoiding the guy handing out club flyers, I see a huge bolt of lightning. Then I see a guy with a blue baseball cap and it's totally drenched. I realize the rain has only picked up and I've got 5 minutes of running to get back to my car. I ran through rain that was falling as hard as I can remember. And then the long drive home. It was not easy reading highway signs, let alone lane dividers on the road. Four highways. 70 minutes, needed to stop for gas on the way. Quite a drive. But it's all good.

From the fans I've talked to, this was as good a wrestling show as they can remember seeing in a while. It almost makes me tired of watching what's in WWE compared to what you can find on the underground scene. By the way, ROH will be doing a show from the Inman Sports Club in Edison, NJ on December 17. What are the odds. My old stomping grounds!

The next time Ring of Honor comes to Chicago is two shows on March 30 and April 1, aka, Wrestlemania weekend, which I already have tickets for. We'll see what happens. But I must say Ring of Honor did a great job tonight.