ROH ain't WWE Part 1

I would have put that not equals to sign in here, you know the = with the slash through it, but my keyboard isn't quite that advanced. I understand I'm a little different than a lot of people in terms of my interests and things like that, but I never thought it was wrong to be different just for the sake of being different. Even if I have to attend shows, concerts, or games by myself, it won't stop me from going.

That said, I'm glad nobody tried stop me from attending my third Ring of Honor show in Chicago Ridge at the Frontier Fieldhouse on Saturday. Hands down, the best wrestling event I've ever been to and one of the best entertainment shows I've ever seen. Considering it was nearly 5 hours for 25 bucks, that's not a bad trade. I will also have pictures in here by Tuesday morning. Here's the recap. The preview is two posts back.

I pulled into the parking lot around 5:45 and the doors opened at 6:30. I stood in line talking with a father and two young sons along with a guy, Frank, who was in town from England. As a gesture of American goodwill, I gave Frank a roll of toilet paper to use later in the night. You'll see why in a moment. Then this lady, who's a camerawoman at ROH, comes out trying to sell us Jimmy Rave t-shirts. This guy is one of the most hated wrestlers in the company. He's the guy we all throw the TP at during his entrance. So she noticed Frank who had TP, and she went nuts on him. And he started pointing at me, blaming me, and I of course denied ever talking to him! I give her credit, she had a comeback for every reason why we didn't want a t-shirt. I guess she's used to hearing the sales rejection. But she was very cool.

I went inside and bolted to the merchandise table. They have a buy 3 DVD's, get 1 free. So if you would not tell this to my mom, I'd appreciate it. I brought 9 DVD's and got 3 free. Yeah, it cost me some money, but look at it this way. How many movies do you own on DVD? TV series? How much did they each cost, roughly? This is basically a bunch of shorter more physical movies and a I got a few free ones on top of it. And as I completed my purchase, I saw Samoa Joe taking pictures and signing. Unfortunately, I just missed meeting him.

I had a third row seat on the hard camera side, which means I'll likely be on the DVD. I'll skip the first 3 matches, since they were the undercard, more or less.

1) Davey Richards vs. Alex "Sugarfoot" Payne. Once again, the Chicago crowd was hot for Sugarfoot. A decent match for Payne who has so little live experience under his belt and a great way to tease Richards' talents for later on in the evening. He's a young guy and he's got a lot of potential.

2) Delirious & Irish Airborne vs. The Embassy and a mystery partner. I was correct. They mystery partner was Nigel McGuinness. And he got a rousing ovation from the fans who know about the great battles he's been giving the World Champion recently. Jimmy Rave and Sal Rinauro were met with the usual TP shower although Prince Nana, their manager who is from Ghana, was not there, which bummed us out as he is an easy guy to hate. This was a good match with plenty of comedy spots, mostly from Delirious' antics and the fans' gay comments at Rave. Nigel got the win after a vicious clothesline on one of the members of Irish Airborne.

3) BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Jacobs with Lacey. Jimmy entered to his usual welcome of waving cell phones, while BJ got what can only be described as a hero's welcome for everything he's done for ROH in 2006. Good match between the former tag team champions, but Whitmer appeared to injure his ankle. He was going to get carried out, but came back. Jimmy got the win with a roll-up, but BJ came away looking fantastic as the man who keeps absorbing punishment.

Commissioner Jim Cornette came to the ring accompanied by the Briscoe brothers. and gave a very solid 10-12 minute promo on his history in the company and his brief, yet volatile relationship with wrestler Homicide.


4) Davey Richards & Homicide vs. Briscoe Brothers.
With the opener being so short, this was Chicago's first real look at what Davey can do in the ring. He did not disappoint. Davey was in the ring for the majority of the match with the Briscoes cutting him off from making the tag to Homicide. Great ending to this one. Davey was able to block the initial attempt at the Doomsday Device but Briscoes ended up hitting a sweet springboard Doomsday toward the end of the match. Not surprisingly, Davey took the pinfall so that the Cide/Briscoes feud will continue to build. But at least he was able to showcase his style that meshed very well with Homicide and the Briscoes.