The crowd was around 800-900. They were not as into it as the November show I was at or the two shows from Wrestlemania weekend. I was in the fourth row of section C, the loud section! I'll give a few thoughts on the crowd and my own feelings with each match.
Josh Abercrombie defeats Rhett Titus at 4:14. Solid match. Abercrombie has a mustache, and he rubs it often, and he's the heel. He wore teal trunks and is kind of like Carlito. Titus is an ROH trainee in green trunks, and he's fairly muscular. JA jumped off the rope and nailed RT with a backcracker.
Boz defeats Alex "Sugarfoot"" Payne at 2:37. Boz was good, but a couple of guys behind me started chanting Sugarfoot! Sugarfoot! And then for the rest of the night, Payne was sitting at a lighting scaffold next to our section. We kept chanting for him, but he didn't respond. I'm sure he has be quiet as a new guy. But he was like the cult hero of the night.
Venom Mike Walker defeats CJ Otis and Bobby Dempsey at 4:33. Nothing much here except Dempsey looks like a cross between Dusty Rhodes and Adrian Adonis.
Main show:
Jake & Dave Crist defeat Shane Hagadorn & Trik Davis at 7:23. Big chants for the Crists. Hagadorn is really hated and Davis is a young guy. Jake held Trik across his back, and Dave jumped off the top rope, hitting a kick on Trik's head. Jake immediately hit a Death Valley Driver on Trik, across Dave's knees, and Jake covered Trik for the pin. Good opener.
Roderick Strong defeats Jimmy Jacobs (w/Lacey) at 15:03. Excellent match. Strong is one of the best young guys around with his chops and backbreakers. Jacobs comes out to this R&B music and the crowd held up their open cell phones (so the lights would show) and swayed them as Jimmy came to ringside. Strong locked in the Stronghold/Vertical Boston Crab, and Jacobs tapped out. Unfortunately, one a-hole grabbed at Lacey
Jay & Mark Briscoe defeat Jimmy Rave & Conrad Kennedy III (w/Prince Nana, Alex Shelley and Daizee Haze) at 12:55. Good match. The latter team is a faction known as the Embassy. Nana, who is from Africa, got on the mic and talked about how Ghana was number one (Soccer reference). When this group hits their pose (arms clapped overhead like a safety call in football), fans throw toilet paper. I had mine in hand. But we threw enough TP to fill every Sears Tower stall for the rest of the year. The throwing went a good five minutes. It was hysterical. When Kennedy was in the ring, a few of us went "Misteeeeeeeeeer Kennedy!" Mark nailed a Death Valley Driver on CK3 for the pin.
Samoa Joe defeats Delirious at 10:57. I'm a huge Joe fan and Delirious is basically a masked fan fave with an Ultimate Warrior look who acts like he's nuts. He's in the mid-card working his way up. It was fun, but not great. The crowd taunted Delirious with "Joe's gonna kill you!" Delirious hit 26 short-arm clotheslines in a row in the corner. In the end, Joe nailed the Musclebuster for the pin. Delirious and two fans (boyfriend, girlfriend) got into a fight after the match. Not a fistfight, but Delrious did shove the guy, though I heard he deserved it. I don't know what was said, but wrestlers should not touch fans in anger or vice versa.
Anyway, Necro Butcher of CZW ran to ringside to confront Samoa Joe. This allowed CZW turncoat Claudio Castognoli to sneak up and clip Joe's knee. Suddenly, we have six guys at ringside, and the bunkhouse match between Ring of Honor and CZW is underway!
Necro Butcher & Claudio Castagnoli & Nate Webb defeat B.J. Whitmer & Adam Pearce & Ace Steel at 8:30. Chaotic hardcore wrestling and some of it was out of my view. Webb, who I'd never heard of, nailed a guillotine legdrop, from the top turnbuckle, onto Ace, who was on a table on the floor, at 6:30! Whitmer had a crown of thorns placed on his head and got drilled with a chair and got busted open.
Pure Title match: Nigel McGuinness defeats Homicide via countout at 17:45. This was pretty disappointing to me, thought some people liked it. Referee Todd Sinclair read the rules. 3 rope breaks on a pinfall or submission, after that the ropes are in play. No closed fist punches and there is a countout of 20. McGuiness is from England and Cide is a Puerto Rican from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. I'd never seen an ROH pure wrestling match, so maybe that was why it was so different for me. Nigel gave Homicide a suplex through a table at ringside and Homicide was almost counted out, as he BARELY got back in the ring at the 19-count at 13:30. They went to the floor again. Nigel ran in the ring. Homicide nearly got in the ring, when Sinclair counted to 20, and Homicide was counted out. The crowd not only booed, but threw garbage into the ring. It was classless.
KENTA defeats Austin Aries at 20:49. STIFF, STIFF match, and one of the best I've ever seen live. The crowd booed Sinclair like crazy when he was introduced. I thought John Cena was in the house! KENTA wore his brown & gold trunks, and the crowd threw those colored streamers at him. Before they even touched each other, the crowd was chanting back and forth, "Let's go KENTA," "Austin Aries!" It lasted 6 or 7 minutes which is a long time. When KENTA had a chance to win and was covering Aries for the pinfall, we counted "Ichi, Ni, San!" There was plenty of attitude, great ring psychology, and plenty of athleticism. The end came when KENTA hit a running dropkick, and hit the Go 2 Sleep knee shot for the pin. Basically, he lays the guy across his shoulders like for an f5 or an airplane spin. Then he drops him to the side as if he's putting them on their feet, and as they're coming down, knees them in the face. Devastating. We chanted "Please come back" and "Ari Gato" (Thank you) to KENTA after the match.
Unfortunately, and I didn't hear this, there were some real jackasses taunting KENTA with Japanese chants. "Where's my fried race" "Wax on wax off" "Slanty eyes" I hope you're not expecting me to say anything here, because I think that says plenty.
American Dragon Bryan Danielson defeats Colt Cabana at 29:39 to retain the ROH world heavyweight title. I was one of maybe 20 people rooting for BD. Cabana, the Chicago guy, came out to Copacabana by Barry Manilow. BD came out to "The Final Countdown." Cabana hit a top-rope moonsault for a nearfall at 26:30. Dragon came back with a top-rope Saito Suplex for a nearfall. Dragon locked in the Cattle Mutilation, as shown.
The crowd begged for Cabana to not tap. Dragon went for the Crossface Chickenwing, but Cabana blocked that Cabana applied a reverse Boston Crab, pulling Dragon's feet toward his head. Cabana then applied his own cattle mutilation and the crowd went crazy! Dragon reached the ropes. Cabana put Dragon on his shoulders and he hit the Colt 45 slam (Tiger bomb, Pearl River Plunge)! However, Dragon, in one swift motion, rolled through the Colt 45, rolled up Cabana, and got the pin. More garbage gets hurled into the ring. Unnecessary and pathetic.Cabana grabbed the mike and complained about losing on a cheap rollup. Dragon told him that "my small package is inescapable. Sometimes they call me Mr. Small Package!" We were in stitches laughing! Cabana challenged Dragon to a best-of-three-falls match on Aug. 26. Dragon agreed, saying that the stipulation is this is Cabana's last title shot against him.
Some more notes
I have my ticket already, 3rd row, same section. And the main camera zooms right in on this section, so I'll be easy to see when the DVD of this show comes out.
The show started at 6:15 and ended around 11:20.
Before the show, I got to Rosa's around 4:30 and met a couple of guys from Wisconsin. We told each other wrestling stories and ate some good pizza. The doors opened at 6:15 and I went to the merchandise stand. Samoa Joe came out to see everyone. I didn't get near him, but I saw him. It was very cool. I may have seen another wrestler or two, but I wouldn't have recognized them.
I sat next to a family from Arkansas who had never seen ROH live. The kid was 14 and knew more about wrestling than I ever will. He even knew the Japanese stuff. His parents weren't big fans, but they drove him 8 hours and they all went. That's very good of them. When I told the family I had been in MS working, the dad came back and he had brought me a bottle of water. That was really nice of him.
A group of 5 about 2 rows behind me was really loud and sometimes really annoying. They just would not stop chanting and I think they got on a few people's nerves. The crowd just seemed restless for whatever reason. On the message boards, this is being called one of the worst crowds in ROH in a while. Between the garbage, the chants, and the Delirious and Lacey incidents. At least nobody got violent, that I know of anyway.
I did have one really good moment. During one of the first matches, a guy hit a running face back kick in the corner like Umaga does in WWE. So I chanted "It's Umaga." Then I pretended to lift the cigar over my head and break it. And of course I then said "My name is Armandooooo...Alejandrooooo..." That got a pretty big laugh.
The drive home took about 50 minutes and 30 of them was getting off from 355 to home. I'm a 20-25 minutes from 3 major highways. It's kind of annoying after a late night. I was out from 8 am to 12:15 the following morning.
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