World Wrestling Legends: 6:05 The Reunion
Date: March 5, 2006
Location: Hard Rock Café, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 500
Commentators: Jim Cornette, Lance Russell, Ron Niemi

So I have some PPVs on tap but at the moment I felt like doing something goofy so I dug this one up. This is yet another wrestling reunion show where old guys have pointless matches that do nothing for anyone but give them a payday and make them look bad because they can’t do anything. One major plus over Heroes of Wrestling is the commentary as instead of a no name and Dutch Mantel we get Cornette and Russell which should be fun. No clue who the third guy is. Let’s get to it.

We open with the TNT Girls who used to be the Nitro Girls. Spice and Pyro are still incredibly hot.

The title is a nice one as 6:05 is when the old NWA show used to come on Saturday nights.

The production values are WAY better than you would expect as someone put some money into this. Penzer is the announcer.

Nikolai Volkoff vs. Jim Duggan

Oh dear. Sheik is with Volkoff here to really make this evil. Volkoff looks OLD. Cornette is having a ball here. Earl Hebner is the referee. When Duggan is in far better shape of two guys you know one is in bad shape. Duggan fights out of the corner and the Three Point Clothesline ends this in maybe 90 seconds.

Some generic backstage guy talks to Rick Steiner who says he’s going to give it all.

Virgil vs. Rick Steiner

Virgil is called that but his name graphic says Mr. Jones. Whatever as the guy is a jerk anyway. Virgil has a big old beer gut. He tries to jump Rick to start and the bald man is in command. Steiner Line and a T-Bone hit, and when I say hit for the suplex I use that term more loosely than a head cheerleader’s vagina, for two. Death Valley Driver gives Steiner the win in maybe a minute forty. See what I’m dealing with here?

A very fat Brian Knobbs says he’s getting a Jimmy Hart tattoo on his arm.

We get some very random clips from Memphis Wrestling that mean nothing apparently.

Disco Inferno vs. Koko B. Ware

Disco is doing even more of his gimmicky stuff than ever. Koko doesn’t have a bird with him. Frankie died a few years ago so there’s a possible explanation. Koko is fat again. Disco jumps him and thankfully they’re in shirts here. Disco is the heel here too. Koko has green hair so the announcers are trying to figure out what it might be.

Pretty much nothing but punches and kicks here. Chinlock sequence to Koko who gets to make the big face comeback. Disco is more concerned with his hair than with the match which is something kind of funny. He misses an elbow and here comes the Bird Man. Last Dance is countered into a bulldog for the pin. Longest match of the night so far at 4 minutes.

Rating: F+. Yeah it was just punching and kicking here but they didn’t try for anything special. This whole show is like that: it’s not about the wrestling but rather just being there and getting to come out to in front of the crowd one more time. That’s perfectly fine and they’re not trying to make this all serious like they did with Heroes of Wrestling. The result: this is fun.

Some big guy named DNA is with Jimmy Hart and Greg Valentine. He’s the big guy that is here and has nothing to do with the show other than to get some young guy that looks like very tough. He works for Hart and Valentine is glad he doesn’t have to fight him.

Greg Valentine vs. Jimmy Snuka

Both of them look old and bad. Valentine is not a guy that should be in more or less underwear. Snuka at least is in a shirt and long tights now. Valentine of course pounds away and you can tell Snuka is old because his head is now hurtable. Snuka busts out the chops and down goes Hammer. Valentine stalls a lot in true 80s heel fashion.

Somehow this is the most interesting match of the night so far. Valentine gets a chop off the middle rope so that Snuka can do a very odd looking fall. He goes after the leg now as you would expect him to do. Snuka can still throw some sweet chops. A middle rope headbutt takes Valentine down. Jimmy tries to get in so Snuka destroys him for fun.

Doug Dillenger comes out to make the stop of Jimmy murdering Jimmy and as he does here’s that big DNA guy from earlier. Hebner throws it out as Snuka gives us his best confused look. That DNA guy really is massive.

Rating: D-. More kicking and punching here but I really don’t seem the problem in having a clean finish here. Also, is there a point to having this DNA guy out there if he’s not going to like, do anything? He looks good and that’s about the extent of his usefulness here. Then again the Nitro Girls were here earlier so I don’t have much to complain about.

We get some clips from the WWC in Puerto Rico, leading to this.

Eddie Colon vs. Vampiro

Eddie is more commonly known as Primo. Carlos Colon, Eddie’s father and the Hulk Hogan of Puerto Rico, is here with his son. Neither of these guys are legends but we always get a match like this to eat up some time which is fine. It’ll be nice to see some guys out there that can move a bit. Carlos’ head is SCARY looking with how ripped up it is.

Eddie makes the comeback after being down a bit and speeds things up a good deal. Big old kick to the face of Eddie sends him down though. Vampiro gets sent to the floor and a big dive has the pale one in trouble. Carlos blades and Vampiro hits him with a boot to give him a reason. Dillenger throws Carlos out for no apparent reason.

Vampiro gets a running knee in the corner and is dominating here. They strike it out and HARD with Primo more or less no selling big boots to the face. He hits a dropkick to the….back of Vampiro I think. Decent DDT by the WWE guy gets two. Jim and Lance have more or less left the third guy behind.

Matches like these are where you can see Cornette’s passion for what he does coming out. This is a one off company if you can call it that having a show that is for just having fun and this match is between two guys just looking for a payday with no story behind it or anything and the match is decent but nothing great.

Yet here we have Jim Cornette on commentary losing his mind over this as you would think he was watching the best match he’s ever seen and he sells every single thing happening. The sign of a great commentator is being able to make something average seem epic and that is what Cornette is doing here.

This match is ok but he is INTO it. This is a show where Cornette very easily could have shown up, gotten paid and absolutely phoned in a lackluster performance but he’s making Primo Colon vs. Vampiro sound like a great match. That is very impressive.

Vampiro gets a sweet looking sitout powerbomb out of a pumphandle but Carlos who never really left trips him up before the cover. Dillenger comes out again with security and runs him off. Eddie gets a superkick but Vampiro gets a clothesline and puts his feet on the ropes for the heelish pin.

Rating: C+. Nothing that great here and this will likely be the best match of the night. The commentary here is the real highlight as Cornette takes nothing and makes it into something. Colon meant nothing at this point and still more or less doesn’t which says a lot. I’m not sure what that is but it says something. Anyway, boring match, good commentary.

The Colons beat up the winner post match.

We get a clip about Kamala from Memphis and without the eye paint on, he looks freaking SCARY.

Kamala vs. Jake Roberts

Oh dear. This needs to be very careful. I’m having flashbacks to Heroes of Wrestling. Jake’s eyes are squinting, he’s hunched over, he’s in an undershirt, he’s almost bald and his shirt is all stained. Thank goodness he’s fine. Kamala has a Kim Chee knockoff named Friday here. Jake crosses his heart to the referee that he won’t do anything wrong. Probably more like he solemnly swears he is up to no good.

Jim: Friday wishes it was Thursday. Somehow that makes sense. Nothing of note at all as they’ve barely made contact. Jim makes jokes to crack up the other two guys. The fans are all behind Jake here of course. Those racists. They finally make contact with Jake landing some punches. We hear about Kamala’s musical career which kind of kills the whole mystique of him but that kind of happened when he became a trained wrestler I think.

Kamala takes over with his awesome offense of chops and choking. We get a Missing Link and Jack Brisco comparison which for those of you that don’t know, is like comparing Shawn Michaels to Santino. Long nerve hold here that gets us as far as any other nerve hold would get us. This one is special though as Kamala is grabbing Jake under the arm. Did I mention these matches aren’t very good at all?

He hits the splash which goes nowhere of course. Did he ever beat a non jobber with that EVER? Friday steals the snake bag and Kamala tries to splash it, which would have worked had his stomach and not his thighs been the part that would have hit it. DDT to Friday and there’s the snake. Thankfully the reptile and not the anatomical one this time. Apparently Jake wins by DQ.

Rating: D. Yeah this was of course bad but the fans were way into it so there’s that going for it. Jake was at least coherent here and while fat and out of shape we got a DDT at least which the fans popped hard for. Jake is old but he still has his old characteristics working for him here. Decent match all things considered. Kamala is exactly the same.

Same clip deal from Florida, setting up this.

Rather than a match the promoter (I think) brings out Bruno Sammartino. He still looks good. He talks about coming to America in the 50s and how he’s never been to Orlando before. He likes it though and thanks the fans for having him. Short but it worked.

Dory Funk Jr. is brought out now and is going to wrestle tonight. Oh this could be bad. He’s in his mid 60s here. How often is Dory Funk crushed in star power by someone else? They never wrestled apparently which according to Cornette would have been the match of the decade. Dory says good things about Bruno and Bruno says there is definitely mutual respect between them.

Mike Graham comes out and apparently he and Funk are partners with Bruno in their corner. Here are their opponents: Flair and Blanchard! Ok so it’s David but they have JJ Dillon here and he’s in his old form here to say the least, running down Bruno as an old man. Bruno agrees to be the manager to balance out the big mouth that is Dillon.

Dory Funk Jr/Mike Graham vs. Tully Blanchard/David Flair

Other than the gray hair Tully has left which is falling out he looks ok. Dory and Tully start us off. Dory looks horrible but he’s still moving pretty well. Actually he’s moving very well. Dory fights out of the corner with his forearms (right up there with Flair’s chops for strikes) and brings in Graham to fight Tully. Is there a reason the only guy under 50 hasn’t been in there yet?

This referee counts FAST. Sweet goodness he’s a Hebner too. Cornette gets to talk about the Horsemen who he didn’t get to associate with enough. He runs down Ole which isn’t that hard to do. We get David in finally and we see Funk vs. Flair. Apparently Funk threw Flair out of his wrestling school for insubordination. Back to Graham and Blanchard now. Graham gets a decent slam actually, holding him up for a decent amount of time.

Graham gets the figure four on David but Tully gets a show from JJ which is popped on Mike’s head to give the heels the control. Tully gets a suplex but doesn’t slingshot it. Are you kidding me? It’s not like it takes a lot of work to do. You drop the guy into the rope. That would make it easier wouldn’t it? There it is anyway but Tully delays it a bit, making it far more of a suplex.

He’s a bit hurt anyway so both guys are down. Tag off to David and Dory is in as well. Spinning toe hold from Dory shows us that he can still beat up a fresh David Flair when he’s closer to seventy than sixty. That says a lot about David Flair. Graham hits JJ and sweet goodness  Bruno is still here. He hasn’t been seen or mentioned in ten minutes until he blasts JJ there. The shoe comes into play again with Mike hitting David with it so Dory can roll him up for the pin.

Rating: C+. Considering there was ONE guy in this that was under the age of 50 this was a miracle. The old guys can go to put it mildly and that’s what they did here. This was a fairly solid tag match and it worked far better than I was expecting. Amazingly enough this was nine minutes long and still worked the whole way through. I’m very impressed.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Kanyon

Well at least there’s some history here. DDP goes through the crowd as he tended to but gets jumped by Kanyon. The announcers call this a dream match. That’s kind of ridiculous but Kanyon is on a show called World Wrestling Legends so what do you expect here? They brawl in the crowd a bit and DDP dominates. And there’s the bell. I love brawls before the bell for some reason.

This is far more of a brawl than a regular match but who cares. Discus Lariat from DDP gets two. There’s a low blow that somehow the referee misses as he’s looking straight at DDP who is going strong and then has the face of someone that just got hit in the balls. Referees are idiots. Kanyon gets a big piece of wood that they call a table. Ah it is a table but not the standard kind. Maybe these will actually hold some weight.

Kanyon tries to suplex him over the top onto the table which wasn’t anywhere close to where DDP would have landed but who cares about something like that? Page comes back and pounds away but gets caught by more punches from the innovator of offense. Riveting stuff there. Sunset flip by Page gets two.

Sleeper by Kanyon with Page flailing all over the place to the extent that he looks like he’s dancing badly. Page comes back and gets a suplex for two. Pretty back and forth match so far here. Kanyon goes out and grabs a chair but due to the laws of wrestling averages it goes into his face for two. Page is sent to the floor as this is going back and forth too fast with little being sold.

Kanyon channels his inner Bret Hart by playing possum and hitting Page in the throat with some foreign object for two. Page hits a back drop onto the ramp as Kanyon is in trouble. In a SICK bump, Page throws Kanyon off the stage and onto the table which Kanyon just bounces off of. FREAKING OW MAN! After a brief comeback from Kanyon the Diamond Cutter ends him.

Rating: C-. Again not bad considering these guys hadn’t wrestled in years probably. The pacing was really weird here but the fans only wanted to see the Diamond Cutter to end it and that’s exactly what they got. Having some history here helped a good bit. This wasn’t good or anything but it worked fairly well I’d suppose.

Page gets on the mic and flat out asks Kanyon if he’s gay. Well ok then. Does Page have ANY right to ask this? If he does I certainly don’t see it. Kanyon affirms it and Page says rock on more or less. Well that came out of nowhere. I had no idea how ironic that wording was until after I typed it but whatever.

Midnight Express vs. Bob Armstrong/Scott Armstrong/Brad Armstrong

Cornette is the manager of the Express (Lane, Condrey and Eaton) and the more famous Armstrong (Brian, as in Road Dogg) isn’t here so who really cares? Cornette says the Armstrongs have been a thorn in his side for years and tonight he can get rid of them. When was that? Well Condrey looks like crap.

BOBBY HEENAN IS MANAGING THE ARMSTONGS!!! HOLY FREAKING SMOKES!!! Heenan looks a bit bad here but not too bad. Wow this is awesome to see. Bob Armstrong is in a mask for absolutely no apparent reason. You can see through the face part of it though so there’s zero point to it at all. Condrey vs. Brad, who is very underrated, to start us off.

Eaton comes in and doesn’t look that great. Off to Scott who is the referee that was in WWE that had the hitch in his count. We get the Heenan vs. Cornette showdown which is the main point of this match. And they just look at each other and now back to the match. Off to Lane vs. Scott now with the crowd kind of dead for this for some reason. Here’s Bob who is old as hell and in the mask and never really was anything special but who cares?

Stan kicks Brad in the back to give the Midnights the advantage. Bob was in there maybe four seconds. Stan dances a bit as Cornette chokes Brad. This is awesome to see them together again which is the idea here. Heenan gets a chair. When would Bobby EVER do that? Brad gets a pretty ugly looking suplex to break Eaton’s momentum.

Everything goes nuts and Cornette pops Bob with the tennis racket which does nothing at all. Heenan takes out Cornette so that Bob can pop Bob to pin Eaton. In other words Bob Armstrong pinned Bobby Eaton after Bobby Heenan got him the tennis racket. Wow these were unoriginal parents.

Rating: D. Boring match of course as Bob Armstrong looked horrible in there and for the life of me I still don’t get the mask but whatever. This was just for the managers which the announcers point out which is fine. This wasn’t anything of note but seeing the Midnights was awesome all over again. Bad match, cool moment.

Scott Steiner vs. Buff Bagwell

Steiner has some VERY hot chick with him. This is the main event of all things. This is between WWE and WCW for Scott. He runs down the South and says everyone here is a redneck before we start. Buff says Scott is Northern trash or something so we definitely have faces and heels here. Scott jumps him and here we go. Buff speeds it up to fill in some time before his demise.

Buff kisses Scott’s girl just because he can and she’s hot as hell. There’s the belly to belly from Scott and Buff is down as everyone expected more or less. We head to the floor again so the girl can slap Bagwell a bit. Steiner does his pushup routine. We hit the chinlock as Scott doesn’t seem in the mood to do much here. The announcers fill time by saying SIX OH FIVE a lot.

Scott yells to the crowd allowing Buff to grab him. That’s the extent of his offense though as this is more or less a squash. Double clothesline and Buff slaps the mat a bit. And then after his comeback Buff stops to yell at the girl. He hits the Pedigree’s inbred cousin but gets shoved off when going for the Blockbuster and the Recliner ends it.

Rating: D. Glorified squash here with nothing at all going for it. The girl was smoking hot though so I guess there’s that. Cancel that whole nothing going for it line. Boring match and I have no idea why this went on last other than maybe Steiner is the biggest star on the show? He is I guess so that makes sense. I’d have gone with DDP vs. Steiner but that’s fine.

The announcers say goodbye very fast but they do say it which is again something better than Heroes of Wrestling gave us as they said nothing at all.

Overall Rating: D. The show was bad, but this is certainly watchable. This is what a reunion show is supposed to be like. The matches were bad and forgettable but the key thing here: nothing was incredibly bad. I know I keep saying it a lot but if you compare it to Heroes of Wrestling, this is gold. The best way to describe this show was nice. There was nothing too bad here but the idea was just to have fun and get the guys out there one more time. That worked for the most part so despite the low grade, this was a success.

OVW Christmas Chaos 2001
Date: January 31, 2001
Location: Louisville Gardens, Louisville, Kentucky
Commentator: Jim Cornette

Ah OVW, how much I love thee. This is from sometime around Christmas of 2001 which I’ll try to find an exact date for (future edit: got it). OVW was the official developmental organization for WWE for a very long time, just like FCW is now. They didn’t have PPVs but they had big shows where WWF guys would come down and this is one of them. The production value is very low here and the fact that it’s from a VHS isn’t helping.

The main event is Leviathan vs. Kane. Leviathan is part of a devil worshipping stable kind of and is nicknamed the Demon and the Guardian of the Gates of Hell. He would come up to the main roster in about five months under the name of Batista. See what kind of stuff we’re getting here? Let’s get to it.

Well the first good thing is that this is in the Louisville Gardens which is a hockey arena and has some actual size to it as opposed to the Davis Arena, their usual home arena, which might hold three hundred people. The name Christmas makes sense as they were supposed to hold this in the middle of December but there was a bad snowstorm.

A woman named Angela Batista sings the national anthem, who is the real life wife of the Animal. It’s weird seeing a lot of these people as I’ve watched OVW for years and a lot of these guys are mainstays of the company. Kind of cool to see them on a release like this.

Johnny Spade/Sly Scraper vs. Brock Lesnar/Shelton Benjamin

See what I mean about guys you might be surprised to see here? Lesnar and Benjamin were known as the Minnesota Stretching Crew and a handful of people are smiling at that reference. Scraper is someone you may remember as Sylvester Terkay. Spade likes to talk a lot but never was anything special. John Morrison would eventually use the name Johnny Spade but they’re definitely not the same guy.

Brock and Shelton are brand new here and this is their biggest match ever according to Cornette. Spade spits at Shelton and something tells me that’s not going to go well for him. You can barely see anything as the lighting is terrible, but like I said that wasn’t something you could expect there. Both Shelton and Brock have under a year of experience.

Benjamin shows off early and gets a slick headscissors to Scraper. Yeah Shelton’s debut was in November of 2000. Shelton gets a kick which busts Scraper open. Brock is in tights like Angle wears which is odd to see. Nip up by Brock as he destroys Spade just because he can. There’s that belly to belly of his. All Minnesotans so far.

Spade sends Shelton into the ropes and Scraper pulls the top rope down to shift the momentum. It’s amazing how calm Cornette is during this and how smoothly he says everything he talks about. Modified What’s Up to Shelton. Scraper looks like Bruiser Brody. How weird is it to see Brock and Shelton as completely brand new rookies? Spade and Scraper use a wheelbarrow splash to crush Shelton a bit more but Brock makes the save.

Both Shelton and Spade go for cross bodies at the same time and here comes Brock and Scraper. Big tilt-a-whirl slam to Scraper and a double Rock Bottom has Scraper in trouble. Spade saves the pin as everything goes crazy. Spade tries a monkey flip on Shelton but Shelton just flips over and lands on his feet. SICK superkick from Benjamin takes Spade’s head off.

We have three minutes left and the camera goes over to the corner where Brock is up top. He throws out a SHOOTING STAR PRESS! HOLY FREAKING GOODNESS that was awesome. Since OVW isn’t that smart though, it doesn’t end the match as Spade saves. That was incredible. Shelton throws out a 450 to end it even though we don’t see it. Look up that Shooting Star though as it’s something that has to be seen to be believed.

Rating: C+. Basic formula tag match here as Cornette knows how to book a show perfectly. Starting with a pretty fast paced tag match is a great way to get the crowd going and that Shooting Star didn’t hurt anything. Brock was scary good and couldn’t have been wrestling more than 6 months at this point. They were booking Shelton as the star of the team but obviously that didn’t exactly wind up being the case.

Slick Robbie D vs. Randy Orton

Cornette is in the Control Center and gives a brief intro to each match so they’re not as rushed as they seem. Robbie went nowhere but could jump like few I’ve ever seen. Orton actually has hair here and is a rookie as well and even has hair here. The referee is a chick with big hair. Randy isn’t evil here and has few tattoos. He’s also not orange yet.

Robbie hammers away on Orton so Cornette plays up how much of a rookie that Orton is. There’s that gorgeous dropkick by Orton and he grabs an armbar. Wheelbarrow suplex gets two for Orton. He’s freaking jacked here too. Big superkick by Robbie gets him out of trouble though. Leg drop gets two. Robbie hits a dropkick to send Orton to the floor. Apparently if you intentionally throw someone over the top it’s a DQ. I will never get that rule.

BIG plancha takes out Orton. Robbie tries to go up and goes so slow “that a crippled moose could be up there by now.” I love Cornette’s expressions like that one. Superplex brings Robbie down and both guys are down. Orton starts his comeback and hits some basic stuff. In a rather abrupt ending, Orton tries for a full nelson slam which is his finishing move at the time. It’s blocked so Orton tries it again and hits it for the easy pin. Like I said, rather abrupt.

Rating: C+. Another decent little match here as I feel like I’m watching a Before They Were Stars tape or something like that. Orton wasn’t that great here but it was clear that they were going to try to make him into something. As with a lot of other guys I don’t think anyone had any idea how big he would become but the potential was there.

Rob Conway vs. Ron Waterman

Waterman is a UFC guy and this is under UFC rules, which means it’s a submission match. Conway is a guy you may remember in La Resistance and is one of the OVW Originals. The ring announcer says “This is a submission match and check this out, Ultimate Fighting Championship Rules!’ Waterman has a bad elbow here. UFC meant next to nothing at this point as they weren’t even up to UFC 30 yet.

I think Waterman was supposed to fight Lashley recently but had to back out due to an injury. Conway is self-obsessed and they push Waterman as a family man and all that jazz. They hit the floor almost immediately and Conway messes up his ankle. Cornette talks about how Conway is a thinking man’s wrestler because he goes after the arm. Yes because you need a huge brain to go after the BIG BANDAGED ELBOW.

Boston Crab by Waterman who is huge above his waist but has somewhat skinny legs. Naturally this is just a wrestling match where you can’t win by pin and not a UFC match like they advertised it as. Granted most people wouldn’t know what UFC was at this point so it’s not like it matters.

This started with Conway saying Waterman was a rookie and that said rookie was wasting too much TV time that should go to Conway. Conway finally works on the arm to take over. Waterman comes back but once we go to the floor Conway ducks and Waterman’s arm rams into the post. There’s an armbar and the referee stops it as Waterman passes out.

Rating: D+. I’m not sure what to think of this. It wasn’t anything special at all and the UFC aspect didn’t mean much. The submission made sense but did we need to call it a UFC match? This wasn’t horrible but I never could get into it at all. Waterman more or less disappeared while Conway would get to WWE for awhile.

Cornette tells us about a former referee named Phil Fair who had a drinking problem. A trio called the Suicide Blondes tried to get him out of trouble and to AA meetings and all that jazz. The other two guys in the upcoming match more or less encouraged him to drink and be a jerk so we’re getting this as a result, called a Family Feud match.

Suicide Blondes vs. Phil Fair/Sean Casey/Chris Michaels

The Blondes are Rip Rogers (kind of sort of almost famous), Derrick King and Jason Lee, both of whom mean nothing. If the Blondes lose they have their heads shaved but if they win then Fair has to kiss up to all of them. Why is that always such a common theme? Fair comes out with a sling on his arm and a neckbrace due to slipping on spilled gravy in Kenny Bolin’s (fat heel manager) locker room. He says he has a replacement who is the only true blonde in wrestling, bringing out Nature Boy Buddy Landell. Wow they’re going into the past for this show to balance the new guys.

Suicide Blondes vs. Sean Casey/Chris Michaels/Buddy Landell

Lee vs. Casey to start. I don’t know much about anyone in this but Landell and Rogers to an extent. King comes in and gets a top rope rana for two. The main feud here is Rogers vs. Fair which means nothing at this point. Off to Landell who is in a full body orange workout suit. Michaels draws Lee in and Michaels/Casey beat up King for a bit.

This referee is kind of awful as he isn’t even looking at the shoulders on pins. Double chokeslam gets two on King. X Factor by King to Michaels and both are down. Tag out to Lee who gets a big backdrop on Casey. Moonsault gets two to Michaels. You can kind of see why these guys are in a match on a show like this. Fair comes in and the Blondes all cover him for the pin. Landell more or less walks out and it’s kissing time.

Rating: D+. This was what it was: a quick six man with Buddy Landell there to say that Buddy Landell was there. The kissing stuff was kind of pointless as according to the storyline this only humiliated Fair and doesn’t really accomplish anything. Then again it’s an indy company that needed a storyline so this works as well as anything I guess.

Fair is in the bathroom and wants Michaels and Casey to shave the Blondes’ heads.

Russ McCullough vs. Damaja

This is Last Man Standing. Damaja is more famous as Danny Basham and is another OVW mainstay. McCullough is a seven foot monster and former football player apparently. Russ looks like Nash from behind. He throws Damaja to the floor almost immediately and the red line under his name is irritating me so he’s Danny or Basham from now on. Danny gets a kind of messed up tornado DDT for a count of six.

The match is clipped a bit but it doesn’t seem like much at all. Russ uses basic power stuff and a legdrop gets a count of eight or nine. And never mind as he’s right back down and we clip it again so we don’t even get a count. Layout powerbomb by McCullough which is apparently his finishing move. That gets about nine and a half though and we clip it one more time.

A second powerbomb is blocked with a bunch of shots to the head as Danny is coming back. Nice headscissors takes the big man down and Basham goes up. Missile dropkick mostly hits and we get the second count on Russ even though Cornette says it’s the first. Up at eight but Damaja is on him again. A choke bomb (called Brain Damage) puts Russ down for about 9.5.

A low blow puts Basham down and Russ pops him in the back with a football helmet that is his signature weapon it seems. Naturally that doesn’t get the ten either…ok so it does. He was almost up when it ended which made me think it was still going. That and the whole that ending kind of sucked aspect.

Rating: D+. Are we not allowing a match to go beyond seven or eight minutes tonight? Is that some kind of unwritten rule? It’s not like this is a short tape or anything as it has a two and a half hour run time. Either the last matches are REAL long or there are 15 or so matches on this. Weak match though with Damaja hammering away but Russ never seeming to be in any real danger at all. That and having Danny on his feet at the end looked really stupid.

Flash/Trailer Park Trash vs. Rico Constantino/Mr. Black

This is hardcore. Flash Flanagan is a guy that was supposed to be one of the breakout stars of OVW but a bad injury kept him off the WWF roster just after he was going to be called up. Rico made it of course but is freshly heel here. Black is a big security guard and Trailer Park Trash is a guy I have no idea about. Constantino and Black are part of Bolin Services, the top heel stable in OVW. Oh and Black is Hardcore Champion.

Apparently Rico isn’t in Bolin Services yet but if Bolin can get him the OVW Title he’ll join the team. Cornette: “Bolin is the kind of a guy that if he tells you the sun is coming up tomorrow you better go buy a flashlight. He’s the second most dishonest person I know after that promoter in Philadelphia.” There is some real bad blood there which is 100% legit.

Flash and Trash (just a big guy in jeans and a shirt) bring the weapons. Rico and Black bust out garbage can lids which means they take them to the head. Flash accidentally hurt Rico about a year ago to start their feud. This is Trash’s return after about a four month absence. I think you have to be in the ring to get a fall but I’m not sure.

It’s really hard to tell who is who here. Rico has long hair here so you can’t really tell which guy he is. Trash pulls out a bowling ball and it collides with Black’s balls. Flash sets up a table on the floor and Rico goes onto it. Springboard spinning legdrop half kills Rico but Flash is down too. Trash doesn’t look like much of a technician to put it mildly.

Trash gets a door from somewhere (Perry Saturn’s factory maybe?) and lays it between the ring and the railing like a bridge. He wants to suplex Black through it but of course gets shoved through it himself. Flash and Rico are back up and Flash misses a big moonsault. We clip it a bit to see Trash getting hanged by Black. Rico has a broom and everyone is down for the most part.

Black gets a suplex to Flash and we bring in frying pans and tires. Rico puts the tire around Trash’s neck and superkicks the tire. That was different. We throw in a toilet seat and a mailbox to really make this out there. More clipping as Flash takes a Bossman Slam from Black.

The beating has been going on for a good while now. I guess morale hasn’t improved enough yet. Black goes for a top rope splash but Trash makes the stop and slams him down. We hit ten minutes and Flash hits what looks like a middle rope neckbreaker/Blockbuster on Black onto a chair to end this, again very abruptly.

Rating: C-. This was a long match, running over ten minutes. I’m not sure if a hardcore tag match was the best choice to do that with but apparently Trash is a big fan favorite here so they’re giving them what they want in that sense. Pretty dull match and like I said another abrupt ending which came out of nowhere.

Mark Henry vs. Big Show

They had both been in OVW for rehab stints/extra seasoning so this was a feud in both companies. There’s a guy named Thurston Throckmorton who is the attorney for Bolin Services and thinks he’s Randy Savage. By that I mean he’s doing the spin, the OH YEAH, he has the glasses and robe and is throwing out Slim Jims. Debra is the ring announcer for no apparent reason.

It says a lot when Show needed seasoning and was a former world champion. Show is still kind of slim here. Hopefully this is quick. Henry talks trash and they shove each other a bit. Henry charges and Show gets a freaking drop toe hold of all things. I told you Show was a completely different guy back then.

They do the basic power stuff as this is a nice throwback to the very old school freak show battles of the monsters. Show gets him into the corner and stomps away with a ton of force. Henry gets a clothesline which Show just shrugs off. A superkick puts Henry down but the attorney interferes and here comes Henry. Henry more or less punts Show and his ribs are in trouble. Bolin comes out and holds up the briefcase which of course Henry goes into. Chokeslam ends this. Quick and mostly harmless so no rating.

Post match Bolin distracts Show and Henry beats him up and adds some splashes to Show’s bad ribs.

Hardy Boys/Lita vs. Disciples of Sinn/Sinn

Sinn is the female manager of Payne and Damien, the OVW tag champions at the time. Hardys are over as all goodness. The Disciples were a big deal in OVW but never went anywhere. Their stable mate is Leviathan as I mentioned earlier but he’s not here for this one. The main thing people want to see here is Lita more or less kill Sinn.

Matt and Damien start us off. Apparently Damien hears voices. Payne is apparently the new member of the team. They’re tagging in very fast. Sinn comes in to slap Matt and gets caught in there against the fat man himself. Off to Lita but Sinn runs away to bring in Damien. Lita tags in both Hardys and the referee seems cool with it. They destroy the Disciples and it’s off to Jeff now.

Very fast paced stuff so far which is weird for the Disciples as they’re pretty decent sized guys. Payne gets a big clothesline to Jeff to take over. Spinebuster gets two for Payne on Jeff. A pretty bad powerslam by Damien gets two. Oh wait that’s Payne. They look a bit alike and the lighting makes it impossible to tell which is which.

Matt acts kind of stupid as he comes in and Jeff gets double teamed. Granted it’s not as stupid as the referee who lets the Disciples switch without tagging twice in a row. Well I guess that puts them back to even. Chinlock has Jeff in trouble. Cornette talks about how much the cheers mean to Jeff. I guess he hasn’t been watching his TNA lately.

Jeff finally gets the tag to bring in Matt and the beating is on. Everyone comes in again and it’s a double clothesline to put Matt and both Disciples down. Sinn tags herself in and so does Lita. Lita takes down Damien because she’s more awesome than everyone else in there. Sinn takes over for a bit but Lita slams her off the top and gets a spear.

Moonsault hits but everyone comes in and it’s a big brawl. Payne hits a Sky High on Lita and Sinn is the only one left. It’s table time now but Jeff saves. Double DDT by Matt and Lita. Jeff throws out a Swanton on the chick through the table. The pin is academic and the pop is pretty solid.

Rating: B-. It’s probably not that good but I’m kind of feeling sorry for this show as the matches haven’t been that good at all. Still though this wasn’t too bad and the Hardys helped it a lot. The point here was for Sinn to get beaten down and that’s exactly what happened. Fun little six person match which worked fine.

OVW Title: Chris Benoit vs. Nick Dinsmore

Dinsmore is more famous as Eugene and is more or less the best wrestler of all time in OVW. He more or less was a Benoit clone so this should be interesting. Benoit had lost the IC Title ten days before this so he was pretty big as you would expect. He yells at the crowd about how awesome he is and still gets a face pop. Benoit is freaking jacked. Cornette talks about how great Dinsmore’s German suplex is.

It’s weird to see Dinsmore looking in great shape as opposed to being kind of chubby as Eugene. We start with a technical match of course as that’s both guys’ bread and butter. They hit a Test of Strength and Benoit gets him down onto the mat but Dinsmore bridges out. In an incredibly impressive spot, Benoit jumps into the air and drops down onto said bridge but can’t break it. He does it again and STILL Dinsmore stays up. That was awesome looking.

Pinfall reversal sequence gets two for both guys. Benoit outmaneuvers Dinsmore with relative ease because he’s Chris Benoit. Chris works the arm and hooks a surfboard. Dinsmore fights back a bit but it doesn’t last long as Benoit works on the knee a bit. He drapes Nick over the top rope and might have hurt his ribs.

Dinsmore hasn’t been in control for the whole match so far as Benoit is dominating. Nick gets a small package for two and Benoit is like OH NO YOU DIDN’T and chops the heck out of him. Off to a chinlock as this has been going almost ten minutes now. OVW was part of the NWA at this point. I didn’t realize that and it kind of surprises me as they’re also part of the WWF system.

Another rollup gets two so Benoit takes his head off again. Benoit pounds on him some more but Dinsmore goes for a backslide. Benoit blocks so Dinsmore rolls through into a sunset flip. As he has every time though, once Dinsmore gets a rollup he gets his head taken off by Benoit. Nick gets a Dragon Screw Leg Whip out of nowhere which gets him nowhere also.

Dinsmore gets a fifth or sixth rollup and for the fifth or sixth time he gets his head taken off. Benoit goes up but Nick runs up the ropes and chops the tar out of him. Superplex puts Benoit down but Dinsmore is half dead too. They slug it out and here comes Dinsmore. Superkick (is there anyone in OVW that doesn’t use that move?) sets up a missile dropkick which sets up the German Suplex but Rico Constantino runs in for the DQ as he goes after Dinsmore.

Rating: B. Good match here but nothing classic. This was more or less Benoit beating the heck out of Nick for about 15 minutes and then Dinsmore finally getting some offense in. The ending works as you can’t have Benoit win the title but you don’t want to have him lose to Dinsmore clean either. Constantino would take the title from Dinsmore in about a month. Best match of the night so far.

Post match Benoit decks Constantino because he cost him the match. How weird is it that Rico went from being awesome to being a comedy character?

Here comes Good Old JR to interview STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD! Considering Austin had just won his third Rumble and was on his way to Wrestlemania, this was a pretty big deal. They acknowledge JR as the VP of talent, as in the guy responsible for bringing in new guys. Huge pop for Austin of course.

This is the big segment of the night of course. JR says that his money is on Austin winning the title at Mania which makes sense I’d think. He talks about beating HHH up for what he did to him and wants a yeah if you think he’s ready for Wrestlemania. JR asks what Austin thinks of Mr. McMahon. That’ll take awhile to answer so Austin needs a beer to pass the time.

Make that two beers as JR needs one too. He could go on forever about Vince but he’ll pass as he wants to see the rest of the show. Austin says that Vince is a huge piece of trash which gets a big pop. JR brings up Rico which is just weird to hear in the same discussion as Austin. He talks about Rico’s balls for no apparent reason.

Here are Bolin and Rico to talk to Austin and I think you know what’s coming here. You can barely understand Rico given how loud the booing is. What in the heck happened to him on the way to the main roster? Rico says that when he gets to the WWF he’s coming for Austin and says he’s a role model which is his thing at the time. Stone Cold is in a good mood so he’s going to let Rico live. Rico says don’t turn your back on me, and there’s a Stunner for the future stylist.

We get some music videos on Leviathan who is kind of freaky looking actually. The other is about Kane and how they have a rivalry which more or less means they talked about each other and Leviathan got to beat people up before this.

This is the largest non-PPV crowd in Louisville since 1977.

Leviathan vs. Kane

Remember that Leviathan is Batista and is undefeated here. Batista comes out with Sinn from earlier. Sinn says that every bone in her body hurts and draws the biggest non-Austin pop of the night. She says no one can beat Leviathan, including Austin himself. They stare each other down and Big Dave sends Kane to the corner which lasts for about a second.

Clipped a bit to Kane hitting an odd running clothesline. The ring is smaller than a standard WWF one so he’s probably a bit thrown off by it. Chokeslam doesn’t hit as Sinn distracts him. Belly to belly puts Kane down and we hit the floor for a bit. Clipped again to Kane hitting a DDT but walking into a big old spinebuster for two. MORE clipping as Kane is coming back now.

I’ve seen the full match before and they’re clipping the heck out of it here. Top rope clothesline hits but the tombstone is reversed and down goes the referee. Chokeslam hits but there’s no referee. Sinn comes in and here come the Disciples for the save. Batista gets a spear to put Kane down as the Hardys and Lita make the save. Austin comes out and stares down Batista. Double bird and a Stunner puts Batista down. Chokeslam ends this.

Rating: C. Really hard to give this a fair grade given how much clipping they gave it. This wasn’t horrible though as Kane and Batista were working pretty hard out there and it worked ok. This was about making a main event seem huge and they did that for the most part. It’s no classic or anything but being so short and clipped as much as it was it’s hard to grade it fairly. Fun though.

Overall Rating: B. Now keep a few things in mind here. First off, this was a massive house show for an indy company. An indy company had Kane, the Hardys, Lita, Big Show, Benoit, and the guy that was about to main event Wrestlemania on their show. I think that more than makes this a success. There isn’t a truly bad match here although some aren’t so good.

You get guys like Lesnar and Orton and Benjamin way before they were stars and the whole thing was rather fun. Again keeping in mind that this was a house show and a very good one at that, this is pretty awesome stuff. Benoit vs. Dinsmore was good but aside from that there isn’t really a great match on here. Still though there are enough decent ones and nothing horrible to make this a very solid show, with an emphasis on the words all things considered. Now go check out that Shooting Star Press.

http://www.tmz.com/2011/05/20/randy-savage-car-accident-macho-man-dead-dies-died-killed-wwe-wrestler-florida/

This looks legit.  I have no idea what to think about this yet as I’m still in shock I think.

Death Before Dishonor VIII
Date: June 19, 2010
Location: Ted Reeve Arena, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Commentators: Dave Prazak, Joe DeGrowski

This is a few months old but at the time I remember more or less hearing that it was the most awesome show EVER. Granted this is normal for ROH fans as they swear up and down that only they know what REAL wrestling is which normally makes me laugh. This one however continues to get praise so I figured I should check it out. The main event is Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards, who is claimed by most ROH fans to be the best in the world. I’ve seen some of his stuff and find him vastly overrated, but maybe I’m wrong. Let’s get to it.

We open with the Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli, the current ROH Tag Champions) yelling about the Briscoes and how they’ll pay for their actions. Standard stuff but they come off as faces here.

Cabana and Corino do the talking for Generico and Steen respectively.

Richards, who is TOWERED over by Black, says he wants the world title. Black says he’s keeping the belt.

This was a PPV broadcast on the internet which isn’t a bad idea.

We’re supposed to open with Cheech and Cloudy but here’s El Generico, who wants Steen NOW. Steve Corino comes out as Steen’s mouthpiece and says Steen will never wrestle in the opening match as he’s all about the main event. Generico still says NOW. Steen sprints past Corino and IT’S ON!

El Gernerico vs. Kevin Steen

Steen is a rather fat Canadian and is supposed to be the heel but we’re in Toronto so it’s kind of split. Big old dive over the top by Generico and he controls on the floor. Standard feud here: former tag partners and tag champions but an outsider gets in one of their ears and turns him heel, setting up the big grudge match. The dueling chants start up as they slug it out on the ropes.

All Generico here in the early going and as he hits a leg lariat the audio feed starts to break up a bit. Spinning rope walk DDT is countered very nicely into a back breaker by Steen and followed up by a senton in a nice combination. They slug it out a bit and of course Steen throws a superkick. What is with so many people in this company using a superkick? Loud F YOU STEEN chant which says a lot as a Canadian (ok so they’re both Canadian which that explains a lot) is getting heel heat in Canada.

Generico makes a quick comeback and hits a Generico Driver for two. It’s more of a midlevel move for him I think so it’s not as annoying to have him kick out of it so early in the match. Package piledriver (odds are if you’re reading an ROH review you know what these moves are. If not there’s a handy device called Youtube) attempt on the apron is blocked and Generico hits a tornado DDT to the floor.

The masked dude goes up top for a big old splash that gets two. Steen manages to go for the Sharpshooter but it’s blocked. Is there a quota of Sharpshooters every Canadian wrestler has to use in a year or something? Since this is an ROH match we trade STIFF looking strikes before both guys go down. I get the whole adrenaline argument, but how can a second superkick not put Generico down while the first one did when he’s taken more punishment in between? I’ve never gotten that.

Moonsault misses and the masked Canadian hooks the Sharpshooter to fill his quota. Generico goes for…something, but in a nice counter Steen hooks him into a Package Piledriver for two. That would have been awesome if I had known what it was supposed to be in the first place. Generico proceeds to kick the heck out of Steen and we go up where Steen finds a wrench to blast him in the head with. A brainbuster type move from the top ends it for Steen.

Rating: B-. Pretty solid match here but I kind of question the whole having a big grudge match this early on the card. Granted they addressed that at the beginning of the match so I can’t complain much there. This feud continued on so the ending makes sense here. This was an intense match so points for that. Nothing incredible but a solid choice for an opener I would think.

Some wrestlers are asked who is going to win the title match. Cornette won’t answer and Steen only talks about Generico. The money seems to be on Richards. Austin Aries predicts there will be a winner and that winner will be world champion. Whoever it is though will never be as good as he is. That’s a heel promo right there.

Up in Smoke vs. All Night Express

Up in Smoke is Cheech and Cloudy who I’ve heard a lot about but never seen. The All Night Express is Rhett Titus and Kenny King, who come of you might vaguely remember as Kenny from Tough Enough 2. Rhett Titus is like Rick Rude on crack but in a good way. They’re a comedy team but they’re rather good from the little I’ve seen out of them. King jumps Cloudy to start as they follow the Code of Honor by shaking hands.

Kind of a botch on a double armdrag as the heels are sent to the floor. Cheech backdrops Cloudy onto the heels to take them out. Back in the ring and they speed things up again but a nice double team move nearly kills Cloudy. Up In Smoke are both really small guys but wrestle kind of like the Guns do. The Briscoes might not be here for their match later. Austin Aries, the Express’ manager, pulls a Jericho and runs to the announcers shouting ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME?

King can move out there. He was kind of memorable on Tough Enough but wasn’t really anything great. From what I’ve seen of him in ROH he’s gotten a good deal better. Rollup gets two on King. Up in Smoke pulls out something called Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Cheech. It doesn’t hit but that’s an awesome name. Kind of an eye roller but still great. A lot of double teaming here but it keeps getting broken up.

And now we get to the problem I have with a lot of wrestling companies today, including indys for the most part. The Express hits a SWEET powerbomb/springboard Blockbuster combo into a pin and Cheech kicks out of it. If you’re going to break out these huge moves then have them end the match. If they don’t get pins then yeah they’re big and flashy but they don’t actually end anything, which makes them look weak.

We get the awesomely named move from earlier which is a 619 from one and a dropkick to the back of the head from the other. And since we can’t have a double team move like that end it, King hits a spinning backbreaker onto his back (think Chris Harris’ Catatonic) but keeps Cloudy on his back, allowing Titus to go up and hit a knee drop onto Cloudy for the pin. Yeah the other move looked much better.

Rating: D+. Pretty much just a basic tag match here to get the Express on the show. It’s not bad but the breaking up of pins and constant double teaming from both teams took me out of the match too often. At times you need to just have one guy vs. one guy as it allows the double team moves to look more important and impactful. This wasn’t bad but it needed to be changed a lot to make it a truly good match.

Post match the Express talks about how awesome they are and how awesome Aries is, bringing him to the ring. Aries really is solid on the mic with basic heel stuff. Here’s Delirious for their match.

Delirious vs. Austin Aries

Delirious is in his insane red tonight. Aries tried to injure Delirious and hurt his throat, setting this up. Again, simple booking can work best at times. The Express gets thrown out for the sake of a match. Mist is shot out almost immediately and Aries is in trouble. Who came up with that thing in the first place? It’s such a staple anymore that if you had trademarked it you would make a fortune.

Chokebomb by Delirious which is a rather cool move actually. Aries is still blind about 3 minutes in. Aries goes for a brainbuster on the referee, I guess just not noticing the shirt there. He gets some water in his eyes and now we’re ready to go. Out on the floor and Aries sets Delirious up for the Savage/Steamboat axe handle spot that set up their Mania 3 match and was also used to put Delirious out. This one of course misses though as we need to brawl more.

Hot shot gets two for Aries as he takes over. Cobra Clutch suplex gets two for Delirious as he hits it out of nowhere. He starts his comeback and lands like 5 sentons to the back of Aries. Cobra Clutch is countered and Delirious goes to the floor. Aries goes for a suicide dive and faceplants into the wall in a SICK looking bump. And here’s the Express for the CHEAP DQ! This feud is still going on today so you get the idea here.

Rating: C+. This was ok but the ending crippled it. Delirious is certainly different than most guys but in the ring I’ve never quite gotten the appeal of Aries. He’s good but I’ve never found him to be great at all. This was a decent match but the ending hurt it badly. The idea was supposed to be for Delirious to get his revenge and to this day he still hasn’t. I get stretching an angle out but this is a bit much.

Fans are split on the world title match.

Gauntlet Match

This is a 6 man gauntlet where the winner gets a future title shot. The idea is two people start us off and have a match. Winner gets man #3 and so on until the last man is standing. We start with Tyson Dux vs. the TV Champion Eddie Edwards. Edwards is the partner of Davey Richards in the American Wolves. Feeling out process to start us off with some nice wrestling stuff.

They chop it out and Dux takes over. It’s pronounced Dukes if you’re curious for some odd reason. Not a lot going on here as they both want to conserve energy for later. Edwards as the TV Champion is used to having ten minute matches which is a nice little explanation for why he’s not used to going long times in the ring.

Edwards rolls through something into his half crab submission but Dux makes the ropes. Reverse chinlock goes on as Dux’s back is hurt. Dux runs into a pair of big boots as we get to the striking which just has to happen here. Release gordbuster and a snap DDT get 2 for Dux. Briscoes still aren’t here but a clothesline takes the head off of Dux. Edwards gets a Codebreaker from the middle rope into the half crab (called an Achilles Lock here because ROH has to be smarter than we are) but after getting to the ropes Dux gets a rollup out of nowhere for the SHOCKING upset.

Daivari of the Embassy is next and the overly muscular one goes after the leg. After a lot of leg work we get a decent figure four as Dux is in trouble. He slaps the mat but of course that’s not a tap because he’s trying to get the crowd into things right? And now his leg is ok once he gets out of the hold? Death Valley Driver, Dux’s finisher, hits but hey since we’re in ROH you have to have someone kick out of a finisher right (Yes I know everyone does it anymore)?

Nice neckbreaker by Dux but Prince Nana gets the foot of Daivari on the rope. And now it’s the Rude vs. Warrior at Mania 5 ending as Nana hooks the foot on a suplex and holds it down for the pin.

Colt Cabana vs. Daivari now which is a rematch from last night. A reverse Boston Crab literally ends this in less than a minute with Cabana getting the win.

Steve Corino comes in 5th and we get a reference to Bitter Friends Stiffer Enemies II which is a show I’ve actually reviewed. We get a Phil Brooks reference as a former associate of Cabana. He’s out of ROH now and got knocked out last night by Big Show in an idiotic match. Billy Goat’s Curse (the reverse Boston Crab) is hooked but we head to the floor.

Corino gets a fork from somewhere but it gets taken away. This allows a low blow to turn the tide and Steve takes over. He gets something and jabs it into Cabana’s eye and hits the Old School Expulsion. He goes for a running elbow and gets caught in a SLICK crucifix for the pin!

Roderick Strong, freshly heel, hits the ring and kicks the tar out of Cabana for two. I like Strong so this should go well. He has Truth Martini as his manager now who is rather annoying but you have to expect that in some managers. Strong kicks the heck out of him but Cabana hits a standing Lionsault for two. The camera is shaking here which is kind of annoying but acceptable given the level of this company. Strong’s knee is hurt so Martini runs in and drills Cabana in the head with his book for the pin.

Rating: C+. Pretty solid stuff here and they managed to get the quick eliminations out of the way but at the end of the day a gauntlet match doesn’t usually work that well. This was one of the better ones I’ve seen but everyone pretty much knows whoever the last guy to come in is will be the winner which is why these kind of miss the mark more often than not. Also, there was no way a freshly heel Strong was going to lose. Pretty good wrestling makes it worth watching though.

This would be intermission time at the show. The Briscoes aren’t here yet still which likely isn’t legit. Ad for ROHwrestling.com as they just say it’s intermission. Since this isn’t the live broadcast I get a screen with the sponsor’s name instead.

Davey Richards talks about his family life. Black talks about working hard. It’s one of those interviews where they each talk about something and then you cut to the other guy who answers the same question. I like those as they’re very rapid fire. This goes on for a good while but it makes you want to see the match all the more which is the idea here.

We shift into a promo about Strong wanting the title and how that ties into Edwards vs. Black. It’s kind of odd seeing how much taller Black is than Edwards. Somehow Austin Aries is involved in this too. I really need to actually watch the show to get what’s going on.

We come back to the arena which is more or less empty due to intermission going on but Generico and Steen brawl to the ring out of nowhere. Cabana and Corino come out to make it a four person brawl with Generico winning for the most part before stealing a tie from someone to choke Steen. Nice little bonus here to fill in some time. The tie choking was kind of funny as I’m pretty sure this is after Justin Roberts.

Video airs on the Briscoe Brothers vs. the Kings of Wrestling. Hero got on the Briscoes’ dad and beat him up. This should be a solid match actually. Somehow we have just now hit the halfway point of this show.

Ad for Gofightlive who is airing the PPV. It’s an MMA ad which is weird to see on a wrestling show.

Same ask the fans video from earlier.

Long shot of the arena with the GFL logo on the screen while Missippi Queen plays in the background. And now we get another song as this intermission has now broken 20 minutes. Literally the last 4 minutes have been a logo with music playing and the fans sitting around bored. This is still better than Summerslam 91 where they had a graphic and a countdown clock up for FIFTEEN MINUTES.

Jim Cornette comes out to fill in some more time. Toronto and ROH are awesome don’t you know.

Pick Six Match: Christopher Daniels vs. Kenny Omega

For those of you unfamiliar with the Pick Six, it’s the ranking system for ROH. The idea is that there are six guys ranked 1-6 with Richards being #1 at the moment. Only they can challenge for the title (most of the time. You can win special matches like the gauntlet earlier too) and to get into the list you have to beat a guy on the list. Daniels is #2 and this match is for his spot. If Omega wins here he’s the new #2 and Daniels is #3, and whoever was #6 is off the list.

We start off on the match so I have a feeling this is going to be a long match, especially with an hour and a half to go with three matches left scheduled. We get the dueling chant to show how split the crowd is here. A nice counter to a Rock Bottom results in a standoff. Very even match so far with an emphasis on arm drags. The announcers point out that this isn’t about hatred which is rare to see in wrestling anymore.

Daniels works the neck and hooks a seated Tazmission and a suplex for two. Nice sequence of a slingshot moonsault into a crossface by the bald one. Omega comes back with chops as this isn’t incredibly great but it’s ok. Springboard missile dropkick by Omega doesn’t get a cover. And naturally 3 seconds later he’s in the Koji Clutch, which is a rather difficult looking neck submission which is broken by the ropes.

More neck work doesn’t end this either. Angel’s Wings are countered again as this match is kind of dragging. We slug it out even more and Daniels does the palm strike to the chest and the Rock Bottom sets up the BME which misses. Omega hits a finisher for two of course. I really am starting to hate that. Daniels hits Angel’s Wings, another finisher, and say it with me: it gets two.

Omega hits a double palm strike (Haduken) and it’s called a knockout blow. You know what happens so I’m not even going to validate it with a joke. The fans chant THIS IS WRESTLING. I’m not sure what’s wrong with them but it’s not what I think of when I think of wrestling. An STO sets up the Best Moonsault Ever which ends it.

Rating: B-. Ok. I get the idea of the strong style where you kick out of just about everything, but dude, doing it in every single match makes it look stupid. There’s a reason a move is considered a finisher: it’s supposed to FINISH a match. Back in the late 80s can you imagine a guy kicking out of Hogan’s legdrop? The world would have come to an end. In this match there were at least three finishers that were kicked out of. When that happens continuously it makes the moves look like they’re just big moves rather than devastating ones. I can’t stand that and ROH does it as much as almost any American company. Again, there’s a place for it but don’t do it all the time.

Daniels helps him up and shakes his hand which is always nice to see.

Tag Titles: Briscoe Brothers vs. Kings of Wrestling

This should be awesome. It’s kind of weird watching the Kings as they’re both about 6’5 which means they tower over the vast majority of the roster. Hero and Claudio cut promos saying they appreciate the Briscoes not being allowed to be here, so of course they hit the ring and it’s on. No DQ here which is a surprise I think. Big dive by one of the Brothers takes out the Kings. I’ve never been able to remember which is which so bear with me.

Why do they have to tag in and out? If you can’t get disqualified then what’s stopping them? Hero starts and it’s been one sided the whole way so far. Claudio is finally up in his corner after getting destroyed. The challengers get after Shane Hagadorn and I think you know this isn’t going to work. Claudio is busted open already. Someone that’s either a young boy or an adult woman shouts that Hero is a pussy. I hope it was a girl.

Everything breaks down early and Mark Briscoe is busted open pretty well. Ok now I can tell one from the other. Oh man Mark is busted BAD. The heels have taken over here and we get a gay chant against Hero. Nice double cross body and there’s the hot tag to Jay. He drives Hero’s head into the buckle about 25 times and now he’s busted open. O’Connor Roll gets two but Hagadorn pelts Jay with a chair to put him on the floor. Hagadorn is the Kings’ manager if I forgot to mention that earlier.

Jay is busted open too now. Hero ties Jay to the post with the tag rope Total bloodbath here but they said that at the previous show they had a long technical match so this is far more acceptable. Doomsday Device but with a European Uppercut gets two on Mark. The referee gets a knife from somewhere and cuts Jay free. A Roaring Elbow (Hero’s finisher) gets two.

Jay gets a freaking fire extinguisher of all things and the Kings are in trouble. Table is brought in as Claudio’s cut is more or less closed. The heels are thrown into the table but it doesn’t break. Double team neckbreaker/powerbomb gets no cover. Claudio counters a slam through the table but the Briscoes tackle him into it where his shoulder goes through the edge of it in a painful looking spot.

Doomsday Device to Shane and the Briscoes are standing tall. Hero pops up with his loaded elbow pad and drills Jay with it for TWO and a big pop. We get more gay slurs at Hero with people saying F YOU Hero. If he’s gay as you say you are, wouldn’t he enjoy that in theory? In an AWESOME looking finish, Castagnoli gets a giant swing and the pad is put on Hero’s foot which he kicks Jay in the head with for the pin.

Rating: B. This was supposed to be a big fight and that’s exactly what it was. All kinds of blood (Mark’s face was COVERED), very good violence, the SICK ending and the whole thing going nearly 20 minutes worked very well. They had a technical match already so this is the next logical step. I’m fine with violence like this when it fits the story, which it did here due to the Kings attacking their dad. Very fun match that was exactly what it was supposed to be.

Hey let’s see the same video interviewing the fans again. Amazingly enough their opinions are the same this time too.

ROH World Title: Davey Richards vs. Tyler Black

Jim Cornette is on commentary here so all is right with the world. VERY mixed reaction for Black while the fans all cheer Davey. No handshake here and there’s the bell to a big pop. Fans are behind Davey it seems. Screw that as we slap it out. No real advantage for awhile but Richards gets an awesome surfboard on, only to have it reversed into one by Black.

Total standoff about three minutes in. And now we make fun of HHH because he has no talent or anything like that right? One little thing here is that they refer to Black as the top man in the promotion rather than the top man in the industry. At least they know their place. Sweet dropkick by Black gets one. Cornette lists off the main event scene as Black gets caught by a dropkick to take him down.

Richards has lost a tooth so he kicks the stuffing out of Black to make up for it. We get a modified and PAINFUL looking version of Konnan’s Tequila Sunrise as Richards is in control. Black is all like BRING IT ON and slaps Richards. They slug it out and an enziguri takes Davey down. Cornette on commentary is a nice thing as he can be dramatic but can talk moves as well as anyone.

Tyler throws Davey to the floor and then adds a front flip and a springboard clothesline. He gets chants of YOU STILL SUCK, despite being cheered to no end when he was chasing the title. Joe says the fans will have to respect Black if he wins. That’s just amusing. Richards goes for a German off the top but Black flips out of it. Richards is happy anyway and walks into a big boot. Richards looks like an idiot here because, to quote Marvin the Martian: “Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom!” Did he just not notice a lack of vibration or sound? Apparently he didn’t because he got kicked in the head.

Rubiks Cube (reverse Piledriver from the shoulders for like of a better term) gets two. Dueling chants of THIS IS AWESOME/YOU STILL SUCK. It turns into a slugout as Black can’t beat him or even get a near fall. Ok, why does no one grab Davey’s leg when he kicks the EXACT same way every time? Richards misses a front flip that puts him in about the third row. Cornette says Richards would walk across fire wearing gasoline underwear to be the best in the world. I’d love to see a show of nothing but Ross and Cornette trying to out metaphor each other.

Jim thinks this is what it was like in the gladiator days. I doubt they used as much spandex…or armdrags…..theme music either….and the fans would chant in Latin. I could probably come up with some more if I had to. Richards gets a shot to the knee and hooks a Texas Cloverleaf. Since that doesn’t work Black gets a suplex off the top and floats over into an F5 for two.

Phoenix Splash (moonsault into a 450) misses and Richards hooks an ankle lock. Screw you Ken Shamrock for making that to look like the best hold ever. Pinfall reversal sequence is always fun to see. We kick it out into a grapevined ankle lock like Angle uses. Richards suplexes both himself and Black over the top to the floor. Black goes into the crowd and Richards is down in the ring.

Hagadorn, Richards’ manager, comes down with a chair but Davey stops him, allowing Black to kick him in the face, knocking the chair into Richards’ face. They slug it out again on the apron and down they both go. Richards sprints back in to save the match as he gets in at about 19.5. Richards kicks out of another finisher, in this case God’s Last Gift which is a Fisherman’s Buster into a small package. Turnbuckle powerbomb sets up a superkick but hey, he only took two finishers so of course Richards can immediately counter into a Dragon Screw Leg Whip and a Cloverleaf.

Hey take a guess as to what we do now. If you guessed slug it out, HOW DID YOU KNOW? Davey takes a superkick and of course just snaps off a clothesline and takes over. Either Richards looks like he’s no selling or Black looks weak. Black’s turn to kick out of a finisher now. Davey gets caught in the buckles and a double stomp from the top gets two for Black.

Finisher #5 or so equals kick out for Richards of course. The fans chant YOU CAN’T BEAT HIM at Tyler so Black kicks him in the face again and another God’s Last Gift ends this kind of anti-climactically. Richards gets helped out of the ring but says now you’re a champion to Black. Black thanks him and we end the show.

Rating: B. This was entertaining, but there are some major flaws in it. Number one: the no selling. I don’t care if this is the ROH style. I don’t care about adrenaline or whatever. Taking back to back finishers and being fine literally 4 seconds later is STUPID. It makes Black look like a joke and it makes Richards look ridiculous. Answer this: if Richards can no sell a buckle bomb and kick with two minutes left in the match, why do the same moves end him 100 seconds later?

Black isn’t innocent here either as the leg work by Davey was completely forgotten 30 seconds later. Number two: Richards is supposed to be the best in the world? That’s a funny one. When 80% of your offense is kicking a guy in the chest over and over, I have an issue with calling you great. That’s my main issue with ROH: there is WAY too big of an emphasis on strikes. We get it: you can chop and kick and it looks like Japan. That isn’t wrestling, it’s a martial arts contest. People can chant this is awesome all they want but the match is flawed.

That being said, the match was indeed entertaining with Black doing everything he could to finish him but never being able to until the very end. However this goes back to what I said earlier about finishers: if you have to use the finisher 4 times to get the win, how is it still classified as a finisher? By that logic you could clothesline a guy 400 times and pin him. The match ended on a clothesline so that’s the finisher. I don’t get the whole best in the world aspect of Richards but he’s pretty good I guess. Black is solid but the psychology here brings it WAY down past what it’s built up to be. Still good though.

Overall Rating: B-. It’s a good show, but to call this the show of the year and give it eternal praise like it’s gotten for three months is absurd. The last two matches are definitely both good and the show as a whole is good, but there are some matches towards the beginning and middle that are just ok. The Daniels match is long and not incredibly entertaining. The gauntlet is ok at its very best. Delirious vs. Aries I don’t even remember and I watched it yesterday. The first two matches are decent but also forgettable. It’s a good show but at three and a half hours with seven matches it’s a far cry from best show of the year.

I saw this in the comment section and thought I’d throw this out there for you guys.  The debate was over where Edge ranks as an all time great.  I figured this might get some people talking, so here are my (thrown together off the top of my head) top ten greatest ever.  Also I’ll throw in approximately where Edge would rank.

1. Hulk Hogan

2. Steve Austin

3. The Rock

4. Shawn Michaels

5. Ric Flair

6. Harley Race

7. Sting

8. Andre the Giant

9. John Cena

10. HHH

Edge I would put in the high teens, probably around 18-19.

Your lists?  And also that list is off the top of my head remember, so I’d likely change things on it that I had forgotten about later.

Heroes of Wrestling
Date: October 10, 1999
Location: Casino Magic, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Attendance: 2,300
Commentators: Randy Rosenbloom, Dutch Mantel

Back in the late 90s, some lunkhead decided to try to use a bunch of old wrestlers for a legends/reunion thing and this is the result. This was somehow supposed to be the first of four shows. Basically, we have big names from the 80s and that’s about it. The main event was supposed to be King Kong Bundy vs. Yokozuna.

Yoko passed away a year after this so you know how well he was health wise. Other than that, this is the infamous Jake Roberts promo show, so let’s get to this and get it over with. This is widely regarded as the worst PPV ever, somehow getting 26,000 buys at 19.95 each, meaning that this show made half a million dollars. Let that be a lesson to you kids. Here we go.

Just to really show the 80s feel of this we start with a montage before we get to the commentators, one of whom was supposed to be Gordon Solie but luckily for him he got sick and couldn’t make it. Randy has no idea what he’s talking about. We go backstage to see Bundy who says he’s the best super heavyweight of all time and Yoko shows up to argue. We get a pull apart and we hear Bundy shout that he’s prettier.

The intro actually lists Gordon Solie as host, even though we’ve met the announcers and he’s not one of them. This is dedicated to Gorilla Monsoon, who passed away just four days before this aired. The voiceover guy says this could be the most powerful storm the Gulf Coast has ever seen. I’ve got nothing for that one.

We get a second highlight package for no apparent reason. There’s actually a decent crowd there which isn’t bad. Had this been even passable, this could be considered a success. We run over the card which looks passable. On paper, this could have been ok, but it would have been put straight to DVD today and it would have worked much better.

The thing is, this was the late 90s and a lot of these people hadn’t been on television in years so they would have been way out of shape. Having this be guys from the mid 90s would have been light years better, but they had a decent idea I guess.

Samoan Swat Team vs. Marty Jannetty/Tommy Rogers

So we have a Rocker and a Fantastic. This should be…yeah. The set and ring look decent too. The Swat Team are more commonly known as Tama from the Islanders and Samu from the Headshrinkers. Rikishi was the original member but he had a career at this point. Their manager talks for no apparent reason and talks about the faces being heroes.

I think he’s trying to be Jim Cornette or something like that, although we’re never told his name.. Note: there are children in the audience. That will come into play later. He goes on and on and even messes up the name of the town we’re in. Marty is known as the Rocker Marty Jannetty and his partner is Fantastic Tommy Rogers. Clever if nothing else. They have pictures of them before they come out and you can see Shawn Michaels’ legs in Marty’s picture. Well ok then.

They get Rogers’ old partner’s name wrong, calling him Jackie Fulton instead of Bobby. That’s Dutch Mantel, the wrestler, that said that mind you. Note: we’re 12 minutes into this show and both teams aren’t even in the ring yet. OH MAN Marty is wasted. You can see it in his eyes that he’s just gone.

Marty is in fairly decent shape actually. Tama is freaking FAT. He used to be awesome in the ring but I don’t think that’s going to happen here. The announcers are arguing about the first amendment or something like that. Apparently Dutch can tell that Marty looks tired from “years and years of experience in the ring”. I’m not even touching that one.

A dropkick is referred to as a leg kick by Randy which isn’t corrected at all. Mantel is worthless too. We’re still waiting on anything of note to actually happen but nothing has yet. Hey we get an actual wrestling move from Marty! It’s an armdrag which is called a throw by Randy. Tama, a savage mind you, offers a handshake.

This is just idiotic. Marty comes in without a tag and the referee just lets him stay. We’re on the chinlock inside of three minutes as I think Marty needs a shot. Marty has mastered the art of throwing his arm in the air as he’s managed to do it 4 times now. GOOD NIGHT Tama is a huge man. This is just mindless.

The heels take over with a kick to the back. Mantel says they know what each other is doing all the time. I do too. I know because I’m watching them do it. This is so stupid and bad I’m having trouble coming up with insults and jokes for it. And I made fun of the Doomsday Cage Match! If Dutch Mantel doesn’t freaking SHUT UP ABOUT HOW GREAT HE IS I’m going to freak.

I’m trying this whole capitalizing random words to keep myself interested here. We’re about 8 minutes in and Rodgers, the better wrestler, has been legal all of 20 seconds. Jannetty takes a horrible chair shot on the floor which is called unethical. Jannetty is wearing shorts by the way instead of tights.

Tama misses a Vader Bomb and finally Rogers comes in with another flying leg kick. He rams the Samoans’ heads together and naturally gets a double headbutt for his troubles. Marty jumps over the top rope with a plancha while Samu hits a TKO (seriously??? He has him in position for a SAMOAN drop and uses a TKO. Wow.

They call it a Samoan drop anyway mind you) on Tommy for the pin. Dutch says they can put that on their resumes forever now. Yes, because WILD SAMOANS HAVE RESUMES.

Rating: F+. Instead of calling every match average at first, it starts at an D instead and can move up. Dutch Mantel’s commentary keeps us at nearly failing on average so there we are. This was just a train wreck if there ever has been one. Seriously, Rogers is the only one with any talent that he’s capable of using out there and he was in there the least amount of time. That makes sense here though.

We get a clip of Sherri and George freaking Steele of all people walking off arm in arm. They’re sleeping together apparently. Sherri runs from him in an interview later on. This is just stupid.

Greg Valentine vs. George Steele

Valentine says he’s the son of the legend Johnny Valentine. Isn’t this supposed to be a legends show where Greg is the legend? He says he’ll leave with Sherri tonight whether she likes it or not. So he’s admitted he’s going to kidnap her and you could imply rape off of that but we’ll let it go.

Sherri comes out with George. Neither have music mind you. George looks exactly like he did over 20 years before this, as does Valentine. Valentine hits the floor and goes after Sherri with Randy saying he’s doing a bit of stalking, which he does while in essence in a pair of blue briefs. Can we get this guy arrested please? George eats a turnbuckle as somehow this is supposed to be serious.

He bites Greg’s arm and he’s hurt apparently. Sherri looks like she fell out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Apparently it’s a disqualification if Animal fights with a shirt on. Naturally Hammer jumps him while he’s taking it off and he can’t see. George’s shirt is over his head yet we’re going on anyway. Since he can’t see, Sherri beats on him also. Shouldn’t he be disqualified already?

He’s sitting in the corner with a shirt half on and half off while Valentine beats on him. He gets it off but doesn’t know Sherri beat on him. George pulls out a foreign object and gets a shot in with it before handing it to Sherri. Dutch says that Randy knows how women are but takes it back because Randy has never had a woman. I want to slap them with a cordless phone. See, even the stupid jokes don’t work.

Sherri of course hands the object to Valentine, which despite her kicking Steele earlier, this STUNS, yes STUNS I say, the announcers. Dutch takes his headset off to talk to Sherri. Why am I bothering with this? Oh yeah. ALL OF YOUR MORONS SAID I SHOULD DO THIS. You all owe me BIG TIME.

They fight over the object which the referee has no problem with. A foreign object is fine but a shirt isn’t fine. And then Sherri hits him in the head with a chair so Valentine can get the pin. Again, the referee is fine with this and the heels leave together. Can’t say I blame them. I’d want to get out of there too.

Oh and Steele eats a lifeless object full of artificial material that makes it bigger and it takes like Styrofoam. Now, am I talking about Sherri or a turnbuckle? George throws chairs in the ring for no apparent reason. Hammer comes back for no apparent reason and hits him with a chair that does nothing. So Valentine hitting him with one doesn’t even make him flinch but Sherri’s shot knocks him out for a pin. This is making me want to watch someone watch grass grow.

Rating: F-. It was a comedy match and a bad one. I saw maybe three wrestling moves in here and all of them sucked. Seriously, who thought Steele and Sherri were good ideas here? We have a heel turn on a one off show. That makes sense.

They talk of a rematch to let Steele get his girl back. Yeah I’ve got nothing.

Julio Fantastico says that he’s great and will beat 2 Cold Scorpio.

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Julio Fantastico

Julio is more commonly known as Julio Dinero in case you’ve heard of him in ECW or old school TNA. Scorpio I’m sure you’ve heard of. If not, imagine a Godfather/Luchador combination. Yeah he was a weird one. Why is Julio on this show again? I have no idea either but whatever.

Why do these two and two tag teams have music but Steele and Valentine didn’t? Oh I guess it’s because they sucked. Scorpio is carrying a replica WCW Title belt. I know that because I see it, not because it’s mentioned or anything like that. This match might have potential to be something close to decent. Can’t you hear my enthusiasm in this show?

Lou Albano comes out for commentary for absolutely no apparent reason. I think he just wandered in here and needed a place to sit down. Albano, having no apparent power or anything, has the authority to give both announcers raises. You know, for the one night show, they’re getting raises for next week.

Albano babbles a lot but if you listen to him, he seems like he knows his stuff. Of course he does, but it’s so much rambling it’s hard to say. Can we just let him talk all night? He’s FAR more entertaining and interesting to listen to. He’s not bragging the whole time and he’s actually offering some insight and says that it’s a dropkick instead of a flying leg kick.

He then offers this and I had to listen at least three times to get all this. He says this about Randy: he’s a nice guy but he looks like he’s got the brain of a dehydrated baby if they put him in a pigeon pack and had him fly backwards. Ladies and gentlemen, this man was responsible for what became Wrestlemania. Apparently Lou looks like a pitbull in heat next to Dinero. This is making the show, hands down.

The match is very sloppy as Scorpio is having to carry this, but that’s the best choice I guess. There’s some decent stuff in there though but it’s just sloppy. We see Scorpio holding the ropes and pulling back for something but we go to a shot of Dinero and just see him being crashed on. Nice one guys. Scorpio’s hair is braided by the way.

Dinero isn’t bad at all actually and it was this match that got him a job with ECW of all things. In other words, Heyman or someone under him actually watched this and scouted talent from it. What does that tell you? Dinero takes a nice backdrop over the railing onto the floor.

They fight into the crowd and we can’t see crap because of the lighting and an annoying kid in a 49ers jersey. And the announcers point out that they don’t know what’s going on. Nice one guys. The referee sees a low blow and is fine with it of course. Dutch: we have a 2 count. The referee counted two. THANKS FOR THAT.

Albano gets on Randy for the leg kick thing again which is kind of amusing I guess. This needs to end like NOW. Dinero shoves the referee into the ropes to crotch Scorpio and that’s fine too.

Scorpio hits Trouble in Paradise which Dinero was going down from before it hit but whatever and a 2nd rope Tumbleweed (Harlem Hangover) hits then he goes up for a moonsault where he twists into another leg drop. He misses by a foot and a half, but that’s decent here.

Rating: D-. By FAR the best mach so far. This got something close to entertaining if you can believe that. The sloppiness just freaking kills it though as Scorpio just can’t do anything at all without botching it at all. There was something close to a decent match here though so that’s better than nothing.

Albano is the new commissioner and he makes a brief acceptance speech on the headset which the fans can’t hear. Brilliant guys, brilliant.

We have 5 matches to go. I can’t take this.

We go to the back for another Bundy interview. He says that he’s going to beat Yoko. I’ll give them points for trying to build to a main event if nothing else.

Bushwackers vs. Nikolai Volkoff/Iron Sheik

I’m calling them the Bushwackers as they’re Luke and Butch, formerly the Bushwackers. There’s some guy with Volkoff but he’s another guy that is imitating a better manager. I’m just not sure who he’s imitating. We get the USA chant going, despite the faces being from New Zealand but this isn’t the smartest crowd in the world.

The manager is dressed up in a Russian military uniform. Oh dear. He speaks English with a so bad it’s funny but the show is so bad it’s not funny accent if that makes sense. Oh and Volkoff is now an Olympian also. We get the Russian National Anthem of course and the Persian clubs which are as old school as possible.

The clubs become Iranian all of a sudden and we’re three minutes into this. Sheik needs to humble someone. It would be more entertaining. We hear about Hogan and Backlund for no reason at all but whatever. That’s my word for this show: whatever. We’re at about 5 minutes of build for this disaster. I guess Bushwackers is a copyrighted term.

Somehow they look better than anyone else. Luke licked my face once. Can we get the tape of the Bushwackers on Family Matters instead of me having to watch this atrocity? Apparently they’ve won tag titles in 26 countries. Well ok then. The heels jump them early to start to further establish that they’re EVIL. Dutch explains the term short end of the stick which has some kind of scale according to him. Please, just take me now.

Sheik gets on the mic and says if they keep chanting USA then he’ll leave. You know what comes next. The announcers argue about cutting each other off. I hate this show quite a bit. They’re really trying to get this whole they’re Heroes thing embedded in. Can we just watch Heroes instead? Just the first season though as it’s by far the best. Sheik is wearing shorts also.

The kicks they’re throwing aren’t even close at all. How much are these guys being paid? I guarantee you it’s too much. After a “slam” Nikolai covers Luke and Butch comes in for the save. He doesn’t need to though as Nikolai reacts to the saving shot before it hits so there we are again.

The camel clutch, which made British Bulldog tap inside of 5 seconds in 1986 is on for 15 seconds before Butch saves. At least I think he saved as we cut to a shot of the manager so for all I know Butch just did the Charleston for awhile and Sheik didn’t like his movement and showed him what to do. Who knows though?

I do however know that the manager raised his right arm. You can hear individual lines from the fans by the way. And I mean individual conversations, not just random screams. ANOTHER foreign object misses and Luke pins Sheik with the fastest count this side of Nick Patrick gets the three. The heels almost fight afterwards but they hug it out.

Rating: G+. That’s below an F-. This was stupid and bad. I think it was a comedy match but I couldn’t tell. They did manage to name the heel team The Iron Curtain though which I can’t believe no one got that before. We’re half done with this and I want to cry. Or die, either one. Getting humbled wouldn’t be bad either. When the Bushwackers are the best workers in there, that’s not saying a lot at all.

They plug a site with memorabilia from this show on it for the second time tonight. I can live with that since they were really just trying to break even here.

Tully Blanchard says nothing as Stan Lane hits him and dumps him into the trunk of the limo. He doesn’t shut it though, making the limo rental completely pointless. We get another promo from Tully where he says this was supposed to be fun and he doesn’t need to do this anymore.

He goes into a promo on Lane which is actually good. The first half could totally be put into an ad about how much this show sucked. Blanchard can definitely still talk. This was actually really good. It’s complete nonsense, but it’s very well delivered and actually got me buying the match. Tully really is awesome and that’s the first time I’ve ever said that I think.

Tully Blanchard vs. Stan Lane

So Blanchard, a career heel, is the face here while one of the Fabulous Ones, a career face team, is the heel? (Yes I know that he was a heel for a lot of his career). Lane pulls a Kennedy and does his own intro. He says he works for ESPN which is true. He once covered a boating race for them, I kid you not.

He even looks like Kennedy. This is kind of weird. Blanchard is in and we’re immediately at it. Yeah Lane is definitely heel here. Screw the Horsemen. Lane was a FABULOUS ONE. He definitely knows how to be the heel better than Tully. Mantel calls the ring the crib. I want to shoot myself even harder now. Surprisingly they both look decent considering how old they are.

They clearly stay in at least decent shape. Tully has a bit of a gut but that’s more than understandable. Also, let it be made clear: Tully Blanchard, a guy that has broken all kinds of arms and legs and more or less tried to murder both Dusty Rhodes and Magnum TA is a HERO of wrestling.

We get a figure four on the floor for no apparent reason as this match is slow and lumbering but it could be much worse. We get a belly to back suplex and both guys’ arms are down but Blanchard gets it up just in time. I guess he called his doctor about Cialis.

Rating: D-. This is likely your match of the night. It was far from great or even good but it could have been far worse. Both guys kept things in the 80s but that’s what they’re best at so I can’t argue that. It was watchable and at seven minutes it’s the second shortest match of the night so that’s all fine and not very good but somehow that’s high praise for this show.

We see Anvil and Bundy (again). Anvil does his usual insane interview and I already feel sorry for what he’s going to have to deal with later on.

One Man Gang vs. Abdullah the Butcher

Oh this isn’t going to be easy. Gang has issues getting into the ring. We have an interview with him where he shouts the whole time. I would have preferred Akeem but whatever. Abdullah’s manager is named Honest John Cheatum. We’re a minute in and Abdullah is bleeding.

That man should have a blood bank named after him. I think this is a hardcore match but I’m not sure as it’s never actually told, but we’re told this should be a treat for hardcore fans. We have chairs and chains used so I’d assume it is one. Butcher is bleeding badly to the shock of no one at all.

It can’t be a good idea to have One Man Gang run the match. This just isn’t going to go well but somehow Gang has won a more prestigious title: he actually held the US Title for a few months in 1995. Abdullah’s manager gets on commentary for no apparent reason. I guess he just wandered over there and got bored with the match. He’s from Paducah, Kentucky of all places and talks like a southern preacher. And believe me, as I’ve heard a lot of southern preachers.

He likes saying where he’s from. Apparently Butcher is here to destroy the idols. This is just odd indeed. And he’s gone now. So Butcher is the favorite here, and therefore the man that’s being cheered, but he’s not the idol? Either that or he’s going to destroy himself. Gang is bleeding too due to the fork shots.

The elbow hits, although you wouldn’t know it because the cameras were elsewhere. Have we seen a single finisher tonight??? We get a double countout. Really? Really? These guys were afraid to lay down here? REALLY??? The brawl goes on forever as they fix/clean the ring.

Rating: F-. It was a hardcore brawl, but just not a very good one. They went with the smart thing here of the brawling but it just wasn’t that good, although this was the best they could do. It was a freak show match, but still, this is hardly a kid friendly show like they seem to be marketing it as.

We have replays forever from this match.

We see a clip from a poker game between Snuka, Orton, Albano and some guy we don’t know. Orton is apparently cheating. This sets up the match for tonight. This makes great sense because, you know, in a CASINO they clearly couldn’t find a card game to play in and it’s perfectly common to play poker with a guy you’re having a GRUDGE MATCH with. Also, WHO FILMS A POKER GAME???

Albano says nothing of note. He’s managing Snuka, even though he’s Commissioner.

Orton says nothing of note.

Bob Orton vs. Jimmy Snuka

They say Orton is from Kansas City, Kansas even though it’s been Missouri his whole career. They say they’ve been excited for this match since the video of the poker game, meaning all of 3 minutes. Albano is stepping down as Commissioner after tonight. Good to know I guess.

They do a long mat sequence which is the highlight of the match but gets an Orton is gay chant. Yeah because good wrestling is such a terrible thing to have on the card. Ok to be fair he does work the arm way too long, as in he does it nearly 5 minutes. Nothing at all of note happens in this match, but it’s by far the least sloppy of them all.

Snuka wins with a crossbody from the top. Why? You have one of the most famous finishers of all time and you use a freaking high cross body that they act like is the same thing as the splash. I don’t know what to even say to this.

Rating: F+. Somehow this was 11 minutes long. I think nearly half of that was arm work by Orton. Did any of that actually mean anything? Not at all of course as that would have been psychology and a good thing and we can’t have our HEROES do that.

And here it is. The moment that makes this show so infamous. Jake Roberts cuts a promo before his match with Neidhart, and he can’t even look straight. He’s babbling, he’s slurring his words, he’s playing with his hair. Think about Roberts messing with his hair. Think about all of his promos and have you ever seen him do that?

He says he cheats at cards, making me wonder if he coached Orton earlier. He rambles on and on and on about playing cards and gambling and the snake and none of this makes any sense whatsoever. Jake is being loud and ridiculous. Think about who I’m saying is doing this. Jake Roberts is being loud. He staggers around to show the snake to Anvil and then starts saying DDT over and over again. Jake has to lean on the interviewer to stand up and the poor guy is clearly not comfortable with this. That takes us to ringside.

Jake Roberts vs. Jim Neidhart

Now the person that I feel sorry for here is Anvil. He’s a 44 year old man that was a decent wrestler but his time has gone. He was in WCW about a year before this doing nothing at all and he hasn’t meant anything in wrestling since. He gets a phone call one day offering him to come to Mississippi to wrestle in front of a few thousand people for more or less a legends show.

Say for argument’s sake he’s getting a thousand dollars for a ten minute match. That’s not bad really. He gets his gear together and shows up ready to work for the pay promised. Based on who he’s fighting, it’s fairly safe to think that Anvil is going to lose to a DDT. The match is about to begin, and he gets this. Jake can barely talk yet he’s supposed to be able to wrestle a coherent match?

Oh and the announcer says Jake is accompanied by his little friend Damien. We’ll ignore that Damien is about 12 feet long and that he died back in 1991 thanks to Earthquake but whatever. The announcer that earlier made fun of the guy that called it Biloxi, you guessed it, calls it Biloxi. Jake can barely walk to the ring and then puts the snake down and walks back up the ramp. His boots aren’t even laced up. Think about that for a minute.

Again, Anvil is playing to the referee about the snake being there and is stretching a bit before the match. In other words, he’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing. And now Jake goes back through the curtain for a bit. Sadly enough, the first thing that came into my mind was he needed a hit to keep going.

Anvil again is left to make something of this but people didn’t pay to see him stand in the ring and throw his arms up. To be fair to him though, he signed up to wrestle Jake Roberts, not do a one man show. I can easily see why this is considered a bad show. Imagine paying for this and watching it live. Ah there’s Jake, sans shirt.

Jake grabs a fan’s hands and rubs them on his chest. She doesn’t seem to mind, but what if she did. Keep in mind, the match hasn’t actually started yet. Hey he made it into the ring!

The snake has gotten partially out of the bag, so Jake, likely having no clue what country he’s in at this point, takes it out and puts part of it between his legs and, you guessed it, jerks it off, thankfully on a wide shot. He lays down on the mat, which more than likely wasn’t his intention, and licks the stupid thing while Anvil just walks around. What in the world did he ever do to deserve this?

They mention Jake’s Intercontinental Title reign. For those of you racking your brain to remember it, it aired on the same tape that the Rockers won the tag titles on and that Hogan beat Flair in MSG for the world title aired on. (For those of you that don’t get it, Jake never won the IC Title. Those other things happened, but they never aired on TV or tape but they both happened.)

Anvil tries to work the arm and run the match, I think as the heel. After a LONG sequence with Anvil being in control on the mat since I don’t think Jake is capable of walking more than thirty seconds at a time. Jake loses his boots and is now in his socks as this is continuing to somehow get even worse than it already was. I didn’t think that was possible but somehow I’m wrong again.

Bundy comes out for no adequately explained reason. He breaks up the DDT for no apparent reason either and gets flipped off by Jake, again with kids in the audience. We get a 2-1 beatdown until “The Former” Yokozuna come out. Yeah that’s what they call him. It turns into a tag match with Yoko and Jake vs. Neidhart and Bundy.

They say we have 650 of Yoko and Bundy and 450 and Neidhart at over 300, even though he was announced at 256. Now we have a problem. Yoko is SO freaking fat that he can’t do anything in the ring longer than about 8 seconds. Our other option is Jake and even though they were sent out to prevent him from looking terrible, they pick him to work the majority of the match.

Oh good night this is almost too much. So it’s a standard tag match, or at least standard when one guy can’t stand up. Yoko and Bundy, the main event, interact for about 8 seconds if that. Eventually we hit the floor for no reason and Anvil hits Jake twice with a chair. I wonder if there were some extra hard shots there.

See Jake if you’re interested in shots I guess. Other than that, this is a mess. We go back into the ring and Jake makes the clear tag but Bundy splashes him and pins him anyway. Jake and Yoko beat up Bundy’s manager who didn’t appear until the end. The fans chant DDT and Yoko says give it to him but Jake won’t do it so Yoko has to give him a Samoan Drop instead. Jake puts the snake on him and it just ends without anything other than that.

Rating: Agoobwa. I have no idea what that means, but there was no rating around that I could think of to adequately describe this. It was an embarrassment to wrestling to allow this to happen and an embarrassment to Jake to allow himself to do this in front of both fans and especially children.

I get that he has demons, but he needs to get rid of them before he climbs in a ring again. If he wants to wrestle then fine, but if I was the promoter and saw him in that condition, there would be no way I would send him out there, period.

Make the main event a triple threat or something, but no way do you send him out there. This show goes WAY up if he doesn’t appear. This wasn’t funny or entertaining. It was very sad and very disturbing. Grow up Jake. You need to.

Overall Rating: S. As in I am speechless about how bad this was. The intention was there. The idea itself isn’t completely terrible but it wasn’t thought out at all. The matches were bad, the commentary was awful, nothing made sense, the stories kept changing and it just was a disgrace.

This actually cost $20. You should be given that back and a sincere apology if you bought this show. This was a complete train wreck where Tully Blanchard, who hadn’t wrestled in a mainstream company in nearly ten years had the best match. I have no idea what they were thinking backstage, but I don’t want to know.

This was just flat out bad and as Norcal put it, it’s infamous for all the wrong reasons. Avoid completely, as usually I would say to watch it for the comedy, but it’s not funny in the slightest. This could actually be the worst show ever.

Survival of the Fittest 2009
Date: October 10, 2009
Location: Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis, Indiana
Commentators: Dave Prazak, Chris Hero

Never let it be said that KB won’t go check out other federations. I have never watched a full ROH DVD so this is truly brand new territory for me. I do know a bit about the company so I’m not flying blind by any means. From what I understand this was just after Danielson and McGuinness announced that they were leaving so this is a shaky time for the company. Tonight is a tournament, so I’ll get to see a lot of guys for the first time. Let’s see if this place lives up to the hype.

Keep in mind: I have never seen this before so I very well won’t know a lot of backstories or characters, so I apologize in advance for that.

The ring announcer who isn’t named says that you’ll see six men qualify and then those six will have a survival match at the end of the night to crown a winner. Sounds good enough. He then introduces Jim Cornette who is I guess the GM or something. Oh he’s the Executive Producer of the TV show.

That’s coming soon by the way. Oh apparently he really is the Executive Producer. Ok then. He puts over ROH as you would expect and says that ROH gives the fans what they want. The arena is really small but it’s a glorified indy company so that’s just fine. Jim is great at this stuff so there we are.

The night before this in St. Louis Delirious had a great match with Aries. Delirious gets a bye into the finals of the tournament and if he wins he gets a rematch with Aries. Cornette is perfect for something like this as he’s so smooth and collected on a mic. Also, it caught us up a bit so there we are.

Claudio Castangoli wants to know who the greatest is and then says something in not English. It sounds German but I’m not sure. He has a box of popcorn and crushes some of it, saying that’s like his opponents. He’s very European.

House of Truth vs. Young Bucks

The Young Bucks are Generation ME from TNA now. Hero, the commentator, is in the tournament and is the defending champion of it. I think the House of Truth is comprised of Christian Abel and Josh Raymond. I have no idea if that’s what they said as their manager has a lisp. They’re heels here. The Bucks are named Matt and Nick. I’ll likely not remember those names but whatever.

The commentary is obviously recorded later as the sound is odd but that’s fine. The heels’ manager is named Truth Martini. Ok Matt and Josh start. Ok Christian is in green and Josh has hair. I think I’ve got it. I’ve seen the Bucks before and they’re awesome. No clue about the other guys but there we are. Both make tags and apparently Abel is a hooker, getting us a Lou Thesz reference to make this sound cool. Yep the Bucks like to flip a lot.

The commentary is kind of bad here as Prazak sounds like a fan doing commentary but not terrible. The turnbuckles are really big here. In something I like the crowd is noticeably dead but Raymond plays to them a bit which gets them going a bit more. The House of Truth haven’t actually won a match at this point but they’ve been successful. That’s a bit odd but whatever.

The problem with the commentary is they’re both just kind of calling moves and there’s little analysis. Some heel shenanigans change the control here. That’s such a fun word to say too. The House of Truth has some solid double team stuff if nothing else. In a nice spot, Nick backflips out of a belly to back suplex but into another which he also backflips out of.

That was nice and he gets the tag. Matt does a standing moonsault to avoid a clothesline which is something you would see in a movie. I think Peter Parker does it in Spiderman. After some bad manager interference, the Bucks hit their finisher called More Bang For Your Buck which is a rolling over the shoulder slam (Kennedy and Finlay have both used it. It’s a Fireman’s Carry but they roll forward) followed by the other guy hitting a 450 and the first guy hitting a moonsauilt. Not bad at all.

Rating: B+. VERY fun tag match here and a great way to open a show. It was fast paced and formula driven stuff but it worked very well. This was flashbacks to WCW cruiserweight openers and that’s a very good thing. If this is what the rest of the night is going to be like I’ll enjoy it a lot.

Colt Cabana, Scotty Goldman for all of two months on Smackdown, talks about Survivor which wasn’t very funny at all.

Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match: Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen

Steen is named Mr. Wrestling and I’ve heard good things about him. Cabana is someone I’ve seen a bit of and I wasn’t incredibly impressed. He’s mostly a comedy guy from what I understand so there we are. He’s over as all goodness if nothing else but this is face vs. face. They actually talk before the match but Hero won’t shut up so we can’t hear it.

The fans chant SAY YOU’RE SORRY to Steen who I think is all of a sudden heel here. He’s a bit fat mind you and he apologizes with a hug, earning him a pair of spanks. I feel a comedy match coming on. Hero talks about the tournament while the fans chant for Cabana. And back to the grabbing talking.

Hero keeps making fat jokes which are rather amusing actually. This match is nowhere near as crisp as the previous match. It’s also much shorter as Steen goes up top and launches a front flip straight at Cabana’s knees, causing severe pain and Colt gets the pin.

Rating: D. This wasn’t anywhere near the opener but it wasn’t terrible either. It was sloppy which was my main thing. The comedy in it was ok and had me chuckling a bit. The good thing was they kept it short as comedy matches should be. The ending left a lot to be desired though as it just felt like an ending rather than a finish if that makes sense. Not a good match to me.

Roderick Strong says that tonight is his big opportunity. He’s been on a roll lately and won this back in 2005.

Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match: Rhett Titus vs. Roderick Strong

Titus is a like a male stripper or something like that but he has a tiny figure. That’s my contribution to the discussion tonightThere’s no joke there. I was just bored. Strong is WAY over. Apparently a ton of people want to sleep Rhett. Ok then. According to the Code of Honor, they have to shake hands first.

Titus is wearing the stripper tie and we’re off fast. Nothing wrong with that one. Strong is working on the back, so I guess he took his psychology pill today. Strong has a decent look but it’s nothing great. They go to the floor and nearly run over the timekeeper, who is a timekeeping machine apparently.

Titus’ signature moves are known as the Muff Driver, the Taint-alizer, the Super Sex Factor or the Thrust Buster. I love this guy already. Apparently Strong is known for hitting a really quick burst of offense in a row for the end of it. Nothing wrong with that. Prazak is ignoring Hero’s jokes here which might be a good thing. Titus’ tights are REALLY small. Not complaining mind you.

Strong with some GREAT chops. These moves are freaking LOUD if nothing else so that’s a nice plus. A Falcon Arrow (suplex into a spinebuster kind of thing. Go look it up on No Mercy) gets two for Strong. We get to see the Thrust Buster, which is a Fameasser from behind. Make your own ASSer and from behind joke. A standing blockbuster, which is one of my favorite moves, gets two.

This is much better than the last match. The Super Sex Factor connects, which is an X Factor from the second match. Now we’ve reached that bad part that a lot of matches get to where it’s just spot after spot with no transition at all. That’s rarely a good sign but thankfully a Gibson Driver (double underhook into a powerbomb) ends it.

Rating: C+. Not bad but the last third of it they were dropping fast. The transition and a lot of the psychology went out the window and they were just trying to hit big moves which rarely works. It can, but it’s between few and far between. Still though, this was pretty good indeed and worked fine.

Merchandise plug, which makes a lot more sense for a much smaller company like ROH.

Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match: Kenny King vs. Tyler Black

King is one of the finalists from Tough Enough II. Black is more or less the big name in ROH that hasn’t been world champion along with Hero. More or less they just refuse to pull the trigger on the guy and the fans seem to be getting tired of it. He looks awesome if nothing else.

And we hear about Ronnie Garvin, making this match fall apart immediately. SHUT UP ABOUT GARVIN! Ok I’m liking Black already. Apparently Hero fought him last night so he’s automatically not liking him. King is Titus’ tag partner too. They haven’t been in the ring yet and I continue my streak of bad timing with lines like that.

Black is more or less dominating but he stomps on the mat for about 20 seconds before running blindly at King. Thankfully he gets his head kicked off as he deserves. I hate things like that as it’s just completely stupid looking. A kind of F5 move hits and looked awesome. More or less he just throws them in the air instead of spinning around but the landing is the same. Love that.

King hits a sweet spinebuster for two. After a sweet move based off an F5 again from King, with him flipping the guy the other way on the landing, he gets two but the referee stopped counting a split second before Black kicked out, which made it clear that that’s not the finish. Very minor though and not something I’d hold against them.

One thing I really like here is they call moves by their more common names, such as the X Factor, the F5 and the Pele. Those are the more common names and it makes thing easier than asking the fans to remember a different name when they’re just going to call them the original name most of the time anyway. I like that. They speed things up a lot but a missed knee shot from King lets Black hit a NICE superkick for the pin.

Rating: B. This was very solid and they did a nice thing here: they took a match that looked like a total squash and made it into something fun. Not only is that hard to do, but it’s very rare. I don’t think anyone thought King was going to win, but they let him get some offense in and showcase himself. A squash doesn’t really help either guy so I really like this idea. Fun match too.

Petey Williams says he’ll be reborn in ROH.

Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match: Petey Williams vs. Claudio Castagnoli

Claudio is freaking RIPPED. He’s announced as being VERY EUROPEAN. I love that. Williams is still doing the dumb Maple Leaf Muscle thing that got him nowhere in TNA but whatever. Claudio was trained by Honky Tonk Man. Oh dear help him. The visual here is really funny as Claudio is 6’5 and Williams is 5’7, so it’s really weird looking.

I love all the little jokes we’re getting here to old wrestlers and move names that you don’t get elsewhere. They’re doing a lot of mat stuff here but it’s actually good so I can’t complain at all. Claudio is the heel here but he’s ridiculously popular so it means nothing at all. Petey gets to use some of his highflying stuff that wasn’t allowed in TNA because he had to work slow to not show Steiner up.

He hits a jumping over the top rope thing into a Codebreaker. Nice but it’s just two. Claudio does a move called the UFO, which is a rack but he spins in a circle really fast, at one point letting his arms go and then just throws Petey to the mat. Again though it’s just two, which makes it seem far less impressive.

A Canadian uses a Russian Legsweep onto a Swiss man into an Oklahoma Roll. I love wrestling. Claudio grabs the referee to avoid a Canadian Destroyer and hits a low blow and a European uppercut to end it.

Rating: C+. Not bad but not great either. Petey got to show off a whole lot and that’s something you don’t get to see from him that often. Also here you didn’t have the whole big man vs. little man formula stuff going on and they got to play off of each other a bit. Again, very nice for a change.

Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match: Chris Hero vs. Kenny Omega

Omega is apparently a bit odd. Hero’s finishing move of the week is a spinning elbow smash. Omega does the Kamehameha from Dragon Ball Z and has various Street Fighter names on his shirt. There’s a new commentator named Eric and that means nothing at all to me. Hero is more or less a legend of indy wrestling but I’ve never seen much of his stuff.

Some fans chant boring and far more chant shut the heck up. Still better than the crucial crew. It really is amazing to see such a totally different style than I usually see in WWE or TNA as Hero for example has so many different styles and is Punk’s age. For some reason that’s amazing to me.

Now they’re just beating the holy goodness out of each other and it’s freaking sweet. Omega has this weird striking style and it’s working for him. I don’t even think Hero is sweating. He avoids a charge and just knocks the freaking heck out of Omega with the spinning elbow.

Rating: B-. Again, Omega wasn’t going to win but they made him look good. That builds up credibility and is something WWE needs to do badly again. This was fairly long too with both guys being in control for long portions of the match. Hero is indeed good but not as great as he’s made out to be.

Briscoes vs. Austin Aries/Davey Richards

So this is a dream tag team match. Richards is a tag team champion and Aries is world champion. The Briscoes are more or less tag team gods in ROH. Actually there’s no pretty much to that. Good night those are some awesomely bad sideburns.

This is random but you have to remember that their TV show is taped about 6 weeks in advance in big long blocks of TV tapings. So therefore, what’s going to happen in say early November has already been taped, so the outcomes are already known. Apparently in this taping cycle, Austin’s chant has switched from Austin Pervert, which he makes sure the crowd knows. That’s just funny to me for some reason.

Davey has a title shot that he can cash in but his tag partner is injured so he needed Aries to help him her. The deal is he won’t cash in tonight and he has a tag partner. Ok then. The Briscoes are named Mark and Jay mind you and Mark and Davey start us off. They spend a LONG time talking about Aries defending against Ruckus in Poland. I mean they go on for probably three minutes about it.

The announcers debate which team is better. Why would you even argue that? You have two guys that aren’t partners normally and brothers who have won more tag titles than anyone. Where’s the argument here? This is a rather slow paced match but it’s a slow build and not boring at all so I can’t complain there.

Apparently the Briscoes like to drink a lot. Good to know then. The odd thing about ROH is that in their I think 7 year existence, they’ve had one two time champion: Aries. That’s very odd when you think about it. He and Davey have a competition of throwing kicks on Jay. Not bad I guess.

And yep there’s your miscommunication as Richards misses an enziguri and Austin gets kicked in the head, allowing Jay to get the hot tag to Mark. They’re keeping it basic and there’s nothing wrong with that. With one match to go we have a match and a half left. That’s quite odd indeed.

The Briscoes crank it up by throwing off some double team stuff but the Doomsday Device doesn’t get to launch. Now we’re cranking up the speed and it’s getting better. Not that it was bad earlier but this is better.

Mark and Davey do a brief strong style which works really well. I’m digging this in case you can’t tell. Aries accidentally kicks Richards in the head and just walks out, allowing the Doomsday Device to connect for the pin.

Rating: B-. This was good but not great. I’ve never been a big fan of these kinds of matches but it certainly wasn’t that bad at all. The Briscoes are good but something tells me this wasn’t their best stuff. Aries and Richards seem pretty good but I didn’t get to see enough of Aries to really know. This was good but I wouldn’t call it a dream match.

Ad for the training school. We have over fifty minutes to go heading into the final.

Survival of the Fittest Finals: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Chris Hero vs. Delirious vs. Roderick Strong vs. Colt Cabana vs. Tyler Black

Now for those of you that haven’t heard of Delirious, this guy is freaking INSANE. He babbles incoherently and has been known to wrestle matches in slow motion. What does that tell you? Oh and he’s awesome in the ring by the way. He and Punk had an AWESOME match in I think IWA-MS that got me into both guys.

The cool thing about this for me is I legitimately don’t know who is going to win. Most of the time I know the results but here I’m completely blank on them. Black sells the injury to his neck from earlier on the way in which is nice. I hope there are tags in this.

Claudio and Hero used to be in a team that dominated indy tag wrestling for awhile called the Kings of Wrestling and Delirious and Black were in the Age of the Fall together. Ah good it is tagging. Delirious, Strong and Hero have all won. Black and Delirious start, and my money is on Black to win it.

They start with a lot of technical stuff before Cabana comes in for Black. Let the comedy begins. Black is criticized for never being able to win the big one, which is a common criticism that there was for ROH. I’m not going to list off all the tags as they’re going rather fast. We get Castagnoli vs. Hero, which is a battle of the skyscrapers in ROH as both guys are 6’5, which is enormous in this company.

A thing I like about indy wrestling is you can use other stuff than signature moves in a match. For example, they trade full nelsons. That move makes sense, but in WWE no one but Masters can use it. See what I mean? Now I don’t mean everyone uses the FU or the Pedigree, but a transitional move like the spinebuster shouldn’t be only reserved for HHH and two other guys.

In a WEIRD looking spot, both guys interlock their legs and then wind up standing on their heads. They shake hands while in this position. That’s rather…uh…yeah. It’s Black and Claudio now as we’re definitely in for the long haul here. Everyone is still in at this point. Prazak is in love with Hero I think. He refuses to shut up about how awesome he is. In a PAINFUL looking spot Claudio spins Black around by the hair.

That has to hurt badly. In a great sequence that gets the crowd going, Delirious drills Claudio with about 10 clotheslines in the corner before Hero saves him. Cabana comes in and we get a mini tag match. The Kings of Wrestling are thrown to the floor and get stereo suicide dives, but then Strong and Black get in and launch themselves over the top rope at both guys. Very awesome and fast paced spot.

It’s Delirious vs. Claudio now and the crazy masked man is in trouble. In a movie I haven’t seen before, Claudio uses a hip toss from the second rope. That’s different if nothing else. I like Hero’s facial expressions. Delirious goes for a backslide on Claudio but Hero knocks the European’s head off with the elbow, allowing Delirious to get the backslide and the pin. Immediately as in less than 5 seconds later, he rolls up Cabana and we’re down to four. I’ll give this match this much: it’s not boring.

After an elbow from Hero he covers Delirious and the referee does that same thing he did earlier on with the count stopping at two even though the kickout hasn’t happened yet. We hit a messy segment and Strong hits a big kick into the chest of Delirious to put him out. Immediately after he kicks out of the elbow from Hero and a Liger Bomb.

We have Strong, Hero and Black left in case you weren’t sure. If I remember right Strong is known as the Messiah of the Backbreaker, as he uses a ton of them. That’s unique if nothing else. Hero and Black just pound the tar out of each other with forearms. And there goes Hero to a move called God’s Last Gift. Think of a Perfectplex but instead it’s a really compact DDT where he just hooks the legs into a small package for the pin. I like that.

So it’s Strong vs. Black for the title. Works for me. Black gets a NICE flying elbow from the top for two. They’re cranking up the speed here and I’m digging this. Strong hits a bunch of backbreakers and then we hit the Strong Hold: a Boston Crab. That’s psychology, even though Black has a bad neck. It’s passable though as his finisher is a back submission.

Strong gets knocked into the crowd and Black goes up with a flying clothesline into about the third row. I love the shot of the fans just moving backwards for them. I like that for some reason. I love Black’s springboards. He doesn’t use a bunch flips or anything but just launches himself at Strong. We’re back in the Strong Hold and the fans chant tap.

Somehow he kicks out and then Black hits his two finishers for two. This is great stuff here. Strong gets the loudest kick to the back of Black’s head that I’ve ever heard. Fans are WAY into this. Strong just goes insane on Black with knee shots and an AWESOME kick to the head for TWO.

The kicking out is getting to be a bit much here. I get the survival thing, but this is getting to be a bit much. Ok yeah three straight superkicks gets two. The fourth gets it but Strong kicked out anyway, so the fans boo the finish. That’s never good. Black wins and then gets on the mic and says thank you to Strong in a cool moment. He then says that Cornette was wrong. These guys aren’t the future, but the future is now, and Strong deserves a rematch to end the show.

Rating: A-. This was about 45 minutes long and awesome throughout. The fans were way into it and by the end I was buying into it also. The key thing for me was that all 6 guys looked like potential winners and while based on the way Black had been built up throughout the night it was kind of clear he would win, it was never a lock, which makes the match instantly better. Very fun stuff here and while I usually don’t like multi-man matches, this was an exception, which is saying a lot for me.

Overall Rating: B+. The one issue I have here was the dream tag match. It just wasn’t that interesting to me as I never bought into the dream aspect of it. It’s the best tag team ever against the world champion and a guy he’s trying to keep the title from? How is that a dream? The match was pretty good, but that story isn’t the best in the world.

Overall though, this was a VERY fun show and I definitely had a good time watching it. Everything on here is completely watchable with a point to everything (the tournament so that helps to prevent the need for stories) and matches that were able to be fleshed out. I think the shortest was about 8 minutes which is acceptable.

I would definitely check this out again as this is what I think of when I think of an alternative to WWE and TNA, which are becoming more and more alike every day, which isn’t good. This was fun and I’ll definitely be watching the TV show weekly now. Check this out if you can as it’s a very fun show.

Here are Meltzer’s WON Awards for last year.  Not a fan of the guy but this is a big deal in a way.  Still hate the mixing of MMA and wrestling but for the most part I think this list is pretty solid.  There are some that I think are completely idiotic and is nothing but Meltzer trying to show off that he’s smarter than the average fan, but a lot of these make sense.  Your thoughts?  Awards listed below.

Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award (Wrestler of the Year)

1. John Cena (1,451)
2. Takashi Sugiura (802)
3. Masato Yoshino (754)
4. Prince Devitt (634)
5. Chris Jericho (551)
6. Davey Richards (473)
7. Shinsuke Nakamura (394)
8. The Miz (383)
9. Kurt Angle (340)
10. Mistico (322)

Honorable Mentions: Daniel Bryan (281), Rey Mysterio (278), Satoshi Kojima (268), Randy Orton (266), Daisuke Sekimoto (240), Naomichi Marufuji (178), Dr. Wagner Jr (164), Naruki Doi (142), L.A. Park (115), Tyler Black (113), Chris Hero (101), Shawn Michaels (100), Sheamus (96), Hiroshi Tanahashi (95), YAMATO (86), BxB Hulk (72)

MMA Most Valuable

1. Brock Lesnar (2,951)
2. Georges St. Pierre (2,609)
3. Cain Velasquez (543)
4. Quinton Jackson (274)
5. Anderson Silva (242)
6. Jose Aldo Jr (196)
7. Alistair Overeem (134)
8. Chael Sonnen (119)
-. Urijah Faber (119)
10. Frankie Edgar (90)

Most Outstanding Wrestler

1. Daniel Bryan (2,037)
2. Davey Richards (1,835)
3. Prince Devitt (1,525)
4. Naomichi Marufuji (758)
5. Shingo Takagi (515)
6. Chris Hero (509)
7. Kurt Angle (448)
8. YAMATO (209)
9. Chris Jericho (190)
10. AJ Styles (158)

Honorable Mentions: Shinsuke Nakamura (125), Daisuke Sekimoto (115), Rey Mysterio (87)

Most Outstanding Fighter of the Year

1. George St. Pierre (1,789)
2. Jose Aldo Jr (1,736)
3. Cain Velasquez (1,428)
4. Frankie Edgar (514)
5. Anderson Silva (411)
6. Alistair Overeem (244)
7. Ben Henderson (90)
8. Nick Diaz (72)
9. Dominick Cruz (57)
10. Urijah Faber (48)

Best Box Office Draw

1. Brock Lesnar (3,813)
2. Georges St. Pierre (1,667)
3. John Cena (1,542)
4. Mistico (348)
5. Quinton Jackson (199)
6. Chael Sonnen (155)
7. BJ Penn (151)
8. Rey Mysterio (136)
9. Josh Koscheck (35)
10. Urijah Faber (30)

Feud of the Year

1. Kevin Steen vs. El Generico (2,004)
2. Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen (1,036)
3. Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans (972)
4. Georges St. Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck (713)
5. Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels (681)
6. John Cena vs. Nexus (643)
7. BxB Hulk vs. Shingo Takagi (402)
8. Beer Money vs. Motor City Machine Guns (373)
9. Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk (309)
10. L.A. Park vs. La Parka (255)

Honorable Mentions: Prince Devitt vs. Naomichi Marufuji (210), Mistico vs. Volador Jr (187), New Japan vs. NOAH (127), Chris Hero/Claudio Castagnoli vs. Mark & Jay Briscoe (116), Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz (87), John Cena vs. Batista (86)

Tag Team of the Year

1. Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli (2,506)
2. Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley (1,948)
3. Robert Roode & James Storm (780)
4. Prince Devitt & Ryusuke Taguchi (733)
5. Mark & Jay Briscoe (396)
6. Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson (375)
7. Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi (343)
8. Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards (214)
9. Shingo Takagi & YAMATO (153)
10. David Hart Smith & Tyson Kidd (86)

Honorable Mention: Generation Me/Young Bucks (75)

Most Improved

1. Sheamus (1,053)
2. The Miz (976)
3. Dolph Ziggler (822)
4. Eddie Edwards (520)
5. Bobby Fish (432)
6. Alberto Del Rio (404)
7. Akira Tozawa (279)
8. Wade Barrett (277)
9. Ricochet (242)
10. Jack Swagger (207)

Honorable Mentions: Rhett Titus (150), Magnus (147), Cody Rhodes (118), Hiroshi Yamato (90), Claudio Castagnoli (81), Kenny Omega (74)

Best on Interviews

1. Chael Sonnen (2,783)
2. The Miz (1,036)
3. CM Punk (920)
4. Chris Jericho (690)
5. Kevin Steen (614)
6. Ric Flair (478)
7. Jon Moxley (454)
8. Wade Barrett (275)
9. Josh Koscheck (215)
10. John Cena (164)

Honorable Mentions: Batista (96), Alberto Del Rio (90), Frank Mir (72)

Most Charismatic

1. John Cena (1,959)
2. Brock Lesnar (1,162)
3. The Miz (763)
4. Alberto Del Rio (370)
5. YAMATO (367)
6. Georges St. Pierre (319)
7. Josh Koscheck (253)
8. Hiroshi Tanahashi (245)
9. CM Punk (208)
10. Chael Sonnen (167)

Honorable Mentions: Ric Flair (159), Jeff Hardy (142), Batista (119), Wade Barrett (83)

Best Technical Wrestler

1. Daniel Bryan (2,765)
2. Davey Richards (1,719)
3. Prince Devitt (1,205)
4. Kurt Angle (874)
5. Naomichi Marufuji (148)
6. Douglas Williams (96)
7. AJ Styles (87)
8. Mike Quackenbush (84)
9. Eddie Edwards (72)
10. Chris Jericho (69)

Bruiser Brody Memorial Award (Best Brawler)

1. Kevin Steen (1,174)
2. Jon Moxley (918)
3. Togi Makabe (647)
4. Masato Tanaka (467)
5. Necro Butcher (453)
6. Samoa Joe (388)
7. Brodie Lee (334)
8. Sheamus (300)
9. Abyss (298)
10. Jimmy Jacobs (220)

Honorable Mentions: Yuji Nagata (211), Daisuke Sekimoto (188), El Generico (150), Shingo Takagi (125), Steve Corino (88)

Best Flying Wrestler

1. Kota Ibushi (1,903)
2. Ricochet (1,591)
3. Pac (1,149)
4. Mascara Dorada (1,093)
5. Evan Bourne (994)
6. Prince Devitt (767)
7. Dragon Kid (398)
8. Rey Mysterio (292)
9. Jack Evans (215)
10. La Sombra (187)

Honorable Mentions: Aero Star (184), El Generico (175), AJ Styles (147), BxB Hulk (124), Volador Jr (91), Masato Yoshino (78)

Most Overrated

1. Kane (1,596)
2. Randy Orton (677)
3. Abyss (402)
4. Rob Van Dam (338)
5. Drew McIntyre (318)
6. Matt Morgan (301)
7. Mr. Anderson (299)
8. Jeff Hardy (289)
9. Big Show (206)
10. Tommy Dreamer (205)

Honorable Mentions: David Otunga (199), Rob Terry (150), John Cena (139), Michelle McCool (99), Team 3D (81), The Miz (75), Kevin Nash (75)

Most Underrated

1. Kaval (786)
2. Christian (683)
3. Evan Bourne (607)
4. Yoshi Tatsu (542)
5. Jack Swagger (418)
6. Desmond Wolfe (306)
7. Samoa Joe (258)
8. Tyson Kidd (255)
9. Daniel Bryan (229)
10. Dolph Ziggler (186)

Honorable Mentions: Zach Ryder (159), John Morrison (145), William Regal (123), Prime (116), Katsuhiko Nakajima (115), Goldust (114), Trent Baretta (99), MVP (96)

Promotion of the Year

1. Ultimate Fighting Championships (2,713)
2. Dragon Gate (1,293)
3. New Japan Pro Wrestling (1,089)
4. Ring of Honor (1,080)
5. World Wrestling Entertainment (851)
6. World Extreme Cagefighting (766)
7. Pro Wrestling Guerilla (268)
8. Consejo Mundial Lucha Libre (161)
9. Pro Wrestling NOAH (143)
10. CHIKARA (117)

Honorable Mentions: DDT (97), Big Japan Pro Wrestling (88)

Best Weekly TV Show

1. Ring of Honor on HDNet (2,129)
2. UFC Ultimate Fighter (1,422)
3. WWE Monday Night Raw (1,119)
4. Dragon Gate Infinity (867)
5. WWE Smackdown (634)
6. Bellator Fighting (489)
7. New Japan Pro wrestling (223)
8. WWE Superstars (206)
9. AAA (162)
10. CMLL (125)

Honorable Mention: TNA Impact (108)

Worked Match of the Year

1. Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels 3/28 Phoenix (1,885)
2. Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards 6/19 Toronto (1,711)
3. Bryan Danielson vs. Shingo Takagi 7/24 Philadelphia (1,099)
4. BxB Hulk vs. Shingo Takagi 7/11 Kobe (695)
5. Chris Hero vs. Akira Tozara 9/5 Reseda (566)
6. Prince Devitt vs. Naomichi Marufuji 6/19 Osaka (365)
7. Koji Kanemoto vs. Fujita Hayato 12/20/09 Tokyo (321) (Why is this included?)
8. Chris Hero/Claudio Castagnoli vs. Shelton Benjamin/Charlie Haas 9/11 New York (282)
9. Chris Sabin/Alex Shelley vs. Robert Roode/James Storm 8/12 Orlando (277)
10. Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler 10/24 Minneapolis (189)

Honorable Mentions: Prince Devitt/Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Kota Ibushi/Kenny Omega 10/11 Tokyo (182), Prince Devitt vs. Naomichi Marufuji 1/20 Tokyo (178), Kurt Angle vs. Mr. Anderson 4/18 St. Charles (165), Naomichi Marufuji vs. Koji Kanemoto 3/5 Tokyo (145), Volador Jr vs. La Sombra 8/30 Mexico City (122), LA Park vs. La Parka 6/6 Mexico City (94), BxB Hulk/Masato Yoshino/Naruki Doi vs. GAMMA/CIMA/Dragon Kid 3/27 Phoenix (87), Prince Devitt vs. Kota Ibushi 6/13 Sapporo (83), Naruki Doi vs. Masato Yoshino 3/22 Tokyo (70)

SHOOT MATCH OF THE YEAR

1. LEONARD GARCIA VS. CHAN SUNG JUNG 4/24 SACRAMENTO (1,834)
2. Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen 8/7 Oakland (1,794)
3. Chris Leben vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama 7/3 Las Vegas (1,302)
4. Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin 7/3 Las Vegas (847)
5. Josh Thomson vs. Gilbert Melendez 12/19/09 San Jose (736)
6. Jorge Santiago vs. Kazuo Misaki 8/22 Tokyo (463)
7. Michael Zambidis vs. Chahid 10/3 Seoul (365)
8. Yves Jabouin vs. Mark Hominick 6/20 Edmonton (205)
9. Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez 10/23 Anaheim (182)
10. Shane Roller vs. Anthony Pettis 8/18 Las Vegas (91)

HONORABLE MENTION: Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Urijah Faber 4/24 Sacramento (72)

Rookie of the Year

1. Adam Cole (2,189)
2. Green Ant (989)
3. Rich Swann (805)
4. Kazuki Hashimoto (703)
5. Tama Tonga (694)
6. Percy Watson (388)
7. The Usos (271)
8. Naomi (173)
9. King Fale (149)
10. Christina Von Eerie (139)

Honorable Mentions: Kyosuke Mikami (120), Hiromu Takahashi (108), Tamina (77)

Best Non-Wrestler

1. Vickie Guerrero (1,935)
2. Jim Cornette (1,072)
3. Ricardo Rodriguez (698)
4. Michael Cole (679)
5. Mike Briscoe (342)
6. Ric Flair (285)
7. Eric Bischoff (273)
8. Paul Bearer (198)
9. Truth Martini (16)
10. Teddy Long (156)

Honorable Mentions: Hulk Hogan (147), Dana White (135), Vince McMahon (84)

Best TV Announcer

1. Joe Rogan (1,912)
2. Michael Schiavello (784)
3. CM Punk (525)
4. Mike Goldberg (480)
5. Josh Matthews (477)
6. Mike Hogewood (442)
7. Taz (313)
8. Michael Cole (302)
9. Dave Prazak (279)
10. Stephan Bonnar (270)

Honorable Mentions: Mike Tenay (217), Jimmy Smith (158), Kevin Kelly (142), Dr. Alfonso Morales (120), Mauro Ranallo (115), Matt Striker (100), Jim Cornette (96), Jerry Lawler (75)

Worst TV Announcer

1. Michael Cole (2,167)
2. Matt Striker (1,645)
3. Todd Grisham (726)
4. Jerry Lawler (448)
5. Mike Tenay (313)
6. Mike Hogewood (292)
7. Taz (185)
8. Dave Prazak (157)
9. Josh Matthews (106)
10. Maruo Ranailo (99)

Best Major Wrestling Show

1. UFC 116 7/3 Las Vegas (1,312)
2. ROH Death Before Dishonor 6/19 Toronto (1,264)
3. WWE Wrestlemania 3/28 Phoenix (762)
4. PWG 7 7/30 Reseda (626)
5. New Japan 10/11 Yokyo (624)
6. Dragon Gate USA: Enter the Dragon 7/24 Philadelphia (536)
7. WEC 48 4/24 Sacramento (533)
8. Strikeforce 12/19/09 San Jose (294)
9. New Japan 1/4 Tokyo Dome (291)
10. WWE Money in the Bank 7/18 Kansas City (267)

Honorable Mentions: Dragon Gate Uprising 5/8 Mississauga (255), K-1 World Grand Prix 12/5/09 Tokyo (235), CMLL Dos Leyenadas 3/19 Mexico City (175), Dragon Gate 7/11 Kobe (163), UFC 117 8/7 Oakland (163), ROH Big Bang 4/3 Charlotte (158), ROH Glory By Honor 9/11 New York (114), Dragon Gate USA Mercury Rising 3/27 Phoenix (81)

WORST MAJOR WRESTLING SHOW

1. TNA HARDCORE JUSTICE 8/8 ORLANDO172
2. TNA Turning Point 11/7 Orlando126
3. WWE Bragging Rights 10/24 Minneapolis72
4. WWE Survivor Series 11/21 Miami37
5. TNA Destination X 3/21 Orlando33
6. WWE Over the Limit 5/23 Detroit18
7. TNA Bound for Glory 10/10 Daytona Beach17
8. Strikeforce on CBS 4/17 Nashville17
9. TNA Sacrifice 5/16 Orlando15
10. Impact Fighting Championships 7/18 Sydney14

BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER

1. RICOCHET DOUBLE ROTATION MOONSAULT178
2. Daniel Bryan LeBell lock117
3. Justin Gabriel 450 splash57
4. Prince Devitt Bloody Sunday DDT56
5. Kota Ibushi Golden star press40
6. Shinsuke Nakamura bom a ye39
7. Randy Orton DDT37
8. Naomichi Marufuji Tiger frosien27
9. Evan Bourne shooting star press24
10. Pac 360 shooting star press20

HONORABLE MENTION: Generation Me More Bang for Your Buck 19, Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli KRS-1 17,
Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley Skull & Bones 15

MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC

1. STAND UP FOR WWE CAMPAIGN168
2. Rob Terry chair shot75
3. Tommy Dreamer bloodbath in front of his young daughters57
4. John Cena firing angle46
5. Vickie Guerrero constantly promoted as fat and ugly39
6. Eric Young concussion angle comedy19
7. TNA making Jeff Hardy world champion while indicted17

WORST TELEVISION SHOW

1. TNA IMPACT402
2. WWE NXT184
3. WWE Smackdown25
4. WWE Raw22
5. AAA18

WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR

1. KAITLYN VS. MAXINE 10/19 EDMONTON223
2. Vince McMahon vs. Bret Hart 3/28 Phoenix197
3. Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia 4/10 Abu Dhabi53
4. Undertaker vs. Kane Hell in a Cell 10/3 Dallas51
5. Andre Winner vs. Nik Lentz 8/28 Boston32
6. Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop 9/25 Indianapolis26
7. Konnan vs. Cibernetico 3/12 Aguascalientes10

WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR

1. EDGE VS. KANE296
2. Undertaker vs. Kane113
3. Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff vs. Dixie Carter62
4. EV 2 vs. Fortune55
5. John Cena vs. Nexus41
6. Randy Orton vs. Ted DiBiase vs. Cody Rhodes25
7. Team 3-D vs. Nasty Boys19

WORST PROMOTION OF THE YEAR

1. TNA562
2. IWA Mid South38
3. WWE25
4. AAA18
5. Strikeforce11

BEST BOOKER

1. JOE SILVA298
2. Gedo & Jado161
3. Mike Quackenbush119
4. Gabe Sapolsky67
5. Adam Pearce58
6. Sean Shelby49
7. Konnan36
8. Hunter Johnston31

PROMOTER OF THE YEAR

1. DANA WHITE709
2. Sanshiro Takagi49
3. Cary Silkin27
4. Vince McMahon12

BEST GIMMICK
1. ALBERTO DEL RIO259
2. Nexus79
3. C.M. Punk Straight Edge Society47
4. Santino Marella29
5. Batista25
6. Dashing Cody Rhodes21
7. Pope D’Angelo Dinero18
8. Chael Sonnen12

WORST GIMMICK

1. ORLANDO JORDAN148
2. Mystery General Manager55
3. Eric Young concussion angle52
4. Robbie E51
5. Abyss49
6. Michael Cole32
7. Winter30
8. Hornswoggle26
9. Jeff Hardy heel16
10. EV 215

BEST PRO WRESTLING BOOK

1. COUNTDOWN TO LOCKDOWN BY MICK FOLEY286
2. The World According to Dutch by Dutch Mantel23
3. Heart for the fight by Brian Stann19
4. 101 Strangest matches by Oliver Hurley16

BEST PRO WRESTLING DVD

1. CHRIS JERICHO BREAKING THE CODE274
2. Ricky Steamboat Life Story of the Dragon75
3. Hart Family Anthology62
4. Shawn Michaels My Journey43
5. Best of Raw 1993 & 199432

?

Thanks to X who I totally copied and pasted this from.

Sorry for not having anything up yesterday as I fell asleep watching football.  Here you are.

Enter the Dragon
Date: September 4, 2009
Location: The Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Lenny Leonard, Chikarason, Mike Quackenbush

Ok, so a lot of you likely don’t know what this is. In short, this is my latest attempt to shut X up. He’s raved about this Dragon Gate USA company for months now and it’s been the hottest thing on the indy scene for like 8 months or something so I figured I’d pop in the first PPV and see if it’s worth anything. I should note that I have no idea who most of these people are so don’t expect an incredibly in depth analysis. Also it’s less than two hours long so I can’t review much since there isn’t much to review. Let’s get to this.

Dawn Marie is the hostess/ring announcer. Well at least it’s nice to look at. We go straight to the first match.

BxB Hulk vs. YAMATO

Now Hulk is the main guy from this promotion it seems as he won the title at the next PPV. He has thunder sticks and fairly hot dancing girls. Ok then. Apparently the x is silent or something. Makes no sense but whatever. The production values are pretty good actually which is a nice surprise. Yamato (Not doing the stupid capitalization thing. It’s pronounced the same) looks pretty clearly to be the heel here.

Nice technical sequence to start us out which is nice. The whole lack of lights does little to give me confidence in the attendance, but for a debut show I can understand that. This is definitely a smart promotion as they list off a ton of Japanese stables that we’re just expected to recognize. Yamato goes for the leg so maybe that’ll gives us something in the area of psychology. Hey let’s brawl on the floor a bit. No one has ever seen that before!

Hulk gets caught in a leg lock and the BB HULK chants are rapidly getting annoying. So he can’t run across the ring on his bad leg but he can do all kinds of kicks and flips. Got it. Yeah all the knee work is just gone now with no apparent question about it. In a nice cover, Yamato hooks the legs so that after the kickout he can go straight to a cloverleaf. And now he TICKS ME OFF by using a crossface because it’s his finisher.

Pay no attention to the total lack of back or neck work. It’s his finisher so instead of using all the leg stuff, let’s go for the finisher that isn’t softened up at all. That my friends is what gets on my nerves about a lack of psychology. If he’s going to use the crossface that’s fine but WHY WORK ON THE LEG IF YOU’RE GOING FOR A NECK SUBMISSION? Oh and his leg is fine all of a sudden again.

EVO, which is an Emerald Flosion, gets a 4 or so as this referee has a weird style of counting. His foot was on the rope though so it’s not like it matters. A big flip splash misses but it would have missed by AT LEAST five feet. He was in the corner and the splash landed in the middle of the ring. That looked awful. Plus Jimmy Wang can do a much better looking one of those.

Hulk gets a big spin kick to the back of his head. Naturally Yamato just shakes it off and puts on a sleeper. The lack of selling is getting old. A reverse sitout piledriver (How Owen broke Austin’s neck) with a different kind of lift gets the pin for Yamato.

Rating: D+. This was a spotfest and not a very good one. Was it exciting? Yes it was. Was it back and forth? Yes it was. Did it make much sense? Nope. Was it overrated as hel;? Yes it was.

We go to the back to see one of the main event guys. We get some mini bios on the two guys. THIS is what is needed here. This is the debut PPV. We more than likely don’t know who most of these people are, so short bios of who they are and their history is NICE. Short version: Naruki Doi is a young kid that has taken the company by storm and Shingo is the top star over there.

Doi took Shingo’s title and tonight is a non-title rematch for respect more or less. FINE. That right there is all I need. I know their names, I know a little bit about each guy, and I know why these two are fighting and why they’re in the main event. WHY IS THIS SO COMPLICATED???

2 Cold Scorpio and Ken Doane had a dark match at this point. Yes, the Kenny Dykstra that so many people want back in WWF is in a dark match at the debut of an indy PPV. That’s just amusing.

Soldier Ant/Fire Ant/Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw vs. Icarus/Gran Akuma/Amasis/Hallowicked

This is all CHIKARA here which is a promotion that appeals to me as it’s so over the top and insane that it stops trying to be real wrestling which makes it awesome. I have no idea who most of these people are, so I’m really not going to try to keep track of who is who. I know the main storyline in CHIKARA that came after this and it involves mind control with a mystical object so there you are.

Quackenbush is more or less God in that company so he’ll be the focus of the match. I kind of like Dawn Marie’s style. She just says the names. Simple yet effective I suppose. This is the home promotion for this arena so these guys are very familiar. All four of the faces, the first team listed, get chants. For example, two of these people are insects and one of the heels dances a lot.

Mike trained all of them so that’s fun. CHIKARA seems like a show that is pure fun. Looks like lucha rules as when you hit the floor your partner can come in. This is more acrobatic stuff, meaning not a lot of actual pain but rather high spots. Or as Lawler called it, psychological damage. Scratch that as Soldier Ant takes a massive powerbomb. That works. Soldier Ant is taking a freaking beating.

Mike gets the hot tag and we crank it up a bit. Jigsaw and Icarus do some solid stuff which is nice looking indeed. In the words of a wrestler more famous than all 8 of these guys, this is the part where we crank it up, let’s crank it up. High spots a go-go begins and the fans are way into it all of a sudden. After about a dozen near falls (likely too few), the faces just go insane with dives and flips before Jigsaw hits the same kind of piledriver that Kazarian uses to get the pin. He calls it the Jig and Tonic. Clever.

Rating: B+. This wasn’t technically sound, it wasn’t coherent, it wasn’t logical. What it was though was FUN. What you had here was 8 guys just going out there and having a blast. They weren’t trying to have a traditional match, they weren’t trying to be the best wrestlers in the world or have some big deep storyline. They were having fun and giving the crowd something to cheer for. THIS is what TNA needs if it wants to be competitive. Not everything has to be so serious and of epic proportions. I’d watch this again.

Quackenbush gets on the mic and says that CHIKARA and DGUSA works really well together, but we should really thank Jorge Rivera, who trained everyone here tonight. Cool. He issues an open challenge: anyone from Dragon Gate vs. any guy from CHIKARA. Again, this is something that there needs to be more of.

Yamato, the guy from earlier comes out. He says something in Japanese (apparently more or less saying screw Rivera, it’s our time) and kicks Mike low. Jigsaw and Akuma make the save but Akuma helps Yamato and it’s a big beat down. Faces come out to make the save. Naturally there was a tag match at the next PPV.

Dragon Kid vs. Masato Yoshino

Ok then. Yoshino is popular. Very popular actually. Both have people with them. Ok then. Oh the guy with Dragon Kid is Shingo. Got it. Apparently this is a big rivalry and has been for a few years. Dragon Kid is on a three match losing streak and broke Yoshino’s neck in the last match. See what a little exposition gives you? That information took 8 seconds to say and I’m perfectly satisfied with it.

Oh and the other guy in the corner is Shingo’s opponent tonight. This is another fast paced one. If nothing else I like that they don’t try to make things about themselves as they regularly use common names for moves such as the 619. Everyone else is going to call it that so why over complicate things? Apparently these are the two most exciting guys in Dragon Gate. Good to know. Let them prove it. Yoshino goes for Kid’s arm. Better than the leg if nothing else. Kid hits a 619.

Remember kids: this is NEVER BEFORE SEEN STUFF. It’s so never before seen we already have names for the stuff! Apparently Dragon Kid has a move called Jesus. Nothing tricky there or anything. It’s just called Jesus. That’s either very stupid or awesome and I’m not sure which.

The difference here with the first match though is that while we had arm work earlier, Dragon Kid is having trouble with his offense because HIS ARM HURTS. See? Is that too much to ask for? Seriously? They hit a ton of high spots and we get an arm bar. I think it was on Dragon Kid but I’m not sure. Kid hits an Ultra Hurricanrana (West Coast Pop with a front flip) for the pin. Yeah he used a 619 and a modified West Coast Pop for the pin. Yeah he’s really innovative.

Rating: B-. Not bad but not the classic they tried to make it seem like. It’s far better than the first match if nothing else. If nothing else the arm injury stayed around this time which is one of my biggest issues with most wrestling, either indy or mainstream. This was fine for what it was though.

Young Bucks vs. CIMA/Susumu Yokosuka

Heard of CIMA, not so much on the other guy. Young Bucks are more commonly known as Generation ME in TNA. CIMA gets in a fight with some streamers. That’s rather amusing. Four faces here it seems. Quackenbush is on commentary now. THANKFULLY Quackenbush says it’s not about him and it’s about the four guys in the ring. Wow that’s nice to hear. The Bucks go insane with tags. They’re just fun to watch.

The non-Americans are in control at the moment. Matt gets the heck beaten out of him for a good while. He tries to Hulk Up but gets kicked down. That was nice. They bust out some of the stuff you would see Generation ME do at Destination X. Nice to see them adapt it. After a few tons of near falls, More Bang For Your Buck (450 followed immediately by a moonsault) ends it.

Rating: B+. Another match that was just about getting people excited. There’s no flow or structure to it and there wasn’t supposed to be. There were some great double team moves in there. It’s very entertaining. It’s not great wrestling at all, but it’s great entertainment which is what this was supposed to be so I’ll give it that.

We go to the main event guys’ dressing rooms. The title isn’t on the line. Is there a reason that it’s not?

Naruki Doi vs. Shingo

I still don’t get the whole lack of title on the line here, but I’m sure it has something to do with some overly complicated system of earning a title shot and tradition or something like that. Shingo is strong. Good to know. Long feeling out process which is fine as they have a lot of time to play with. I like Shingo to an extent I think.

Doi works over the knee and we get a Figure Four. In a nice move after getting out of the hold he grabs a fast powerbomb and immediately falls with his knee. It was fast enough to buy I guess, but it was a bit shaky as far as psychology goes. They chop the living heck out of each other and they might be the loudest sequence of them I’ve ever heard. Great ones indeed. Shingo shakes his leg a bit to sell the injury. Nicely done.

In a cool moment, he hooks a British Bulldog suplex and the fans count the seconds he holds him for, which winds up at 30. According to Mike, the chops that are quiet that hurt worst. Why should I listen to that? Because Quackenbush is a wrestler. Lawler and Taz need to let us know that more often. We’re into the segment of let’s do big moves over and over again until we get to a pin.

Shingo kills him with a lariat but it just gets two. Doi hits his finisher, a running boot to the face when the guy is on one knee. It’s better than it sounds. Another one sets up a Tiger Suplex for two. Shingo starts no selling kicks to the FACE. How is that possible? The Muscular Bomb, which is like a wheelbarrow slam into a rollup where the guy lands on his head, ends this. Solid ending. Oh Doi got the win. Might be important information.

Rating: B. This was a different kind of match but it worked all the same. There was far more of a slow build here and that made things work much better for me. The ending was great with Doi just beating the heck out of Shingo until he finally went down. Solid match, although I have no clue why it was non-title if Doi was going to win.

Overall Rating: B. First match aside, this was fun. See what happens when you explain what’s going on in Puro to fans like me? It gets a lot better. Now this isn’t something I’d want to see weekly, but once in awhile would be fine. This came off pretty well I think though and they did a good job of introducing things to the audience. I liked it and it could work well for an every other month thing. Not bad at all.