Black History Month DAY 26

Segunda Caida Road Report: ROH 2/22/2008

So ROH is a promotion that I'm ostensibly a fan of, despite the fact that they really represent the antithesis of what I think wrestling is all about, and there's a general feeling of malaise hanging over the promotion, and I'm way behind on my ROH watching, and I'm in this odd phase where my wrestling fandom has basically come full circle and I'm back to just watching WWE programming on Saturday mornings (having Tivo'd them the night before, obviously). But I still dig what ROH does for some reason, or at least certain aspects of it, enough that my friends and I go to see them every time they come through Long Island. This was at the Deer Park Community Center, advertised as "the most intimate place to see ROH", like it's the fucking Village Vanguard. It's a tiny school gym (err, community center gym), and for the first time since we started going to the shows, we couldn't buy tickets to the next one, as they haven't secured another venue yet, and they sure ain't coming back here. Still, we got tickets to the Hammerstein Ballroom show, thus assuring I will achieve my lifelong dream of seeing ROH in both it's most intimate and least intimate venues within a four month span.

ERNIE OSIRIS & ALEX PAYNE vs. RHETT TITUS & KYLE DURDEN

Congratulations to Ernie Osiris on parlaying getting an erection while wrestling a woman into some degree of professional success. ROH is kinda screwed right now, because they need to develop credible new main event talent, but that would likely necessitate a stylistic change that would likely alienate the current fanbase and might even speed up their inevitable demise. However, if the new talent is a direct reflection of the fanbase, they might be able to circumvent that problem. If Gabe is secretly building towards Ernie Osiris, Kevin Steen, and Bobby Dempsey as ROH's Three Musketeers, I might have to take back every bad thing I ever said about him. This was fine. Main thing I remember is that Durden was really talkative. Got a lot of laughs, which might not be the best thing for a heel, but then again, it's ROH. I also kinda recall him not being that good once he got in the ring. Two days later, very little of this match stays with me.

Main show starts, and Bobby Cruise announces the guys who couldn't make it. You'd think they'd have known better than to try and run a Long Island show in February again, but Gabe is kinda forgetful apparently. Anyway, I don't mind. The card they came up with at the last minute was more interesting than the advertised one, plus I went with a friend who is a mark for one night tournaments, so he dug that. Plus Necro and Human Tornado made it, as did the previously unbooked Delirious, so it's not like it was that big of a loss.

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. ROCKY ROMERO

This was worked UWF-i style, which was a smart move. Not so much because it was UWF-i style specifically, but because it was any "style" match. Going into the match with a genre in mind means Rocky can't use his "puro tape randomizer" offense, thus negating his worst quality. So if you've ever wanted to see a Rocky Romero match that doesn't make you want to gouge your eyes out with a fork, this is it. Danielson is Danielson. You pretty much know he's going to deliver, and this was a lot of fun. Danielson taps Romero with a wakigatame, sparing us from further Romero bullshit while making his one appearance one of his better.

KEVIN STEEN vs. DELIRIOUS

This was Steen's big night, with his rise to glory illustrated by the crowd's reaction to his theme song. Here, they get on his case for how much it sucks. This was another dialogue heavy match. Delirious has abandoned the random gibberish, taking up a mostly English vocabulary used in the correct context, but phrased oddly (on a clean break: "CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN MISTER!") and really loud, punctuated with the occasional "BAH BAH BAH BAH!". Centerpiece of the match is Delirious's repeated attempts to bodyslam Steen ala Hogan/Andre, which eventually works, but only gets two, and he still falls to the Swanton Bomb.

AUSTIN ARIES vs. EL GENERICO

Not bad, but the least interesting of the first round matches. Eventually, Aries misses a diving headbutt and breaks his nose in the process. Generico ends up botching a backslide, and then grabbing an inside cradle for the win.

THE NECRO BUTCHER vs. GO SHIOSAKI

Kinda came away from this feeling like Go was the least interesting dude in the tournament. That's probably unfair, because Rocky Romero only had one match on the card, and didn't have the opportunities to fail that Go did. Anyway, this was the best of his matches for the night, which shouldn't be a huge surprise, and probably the best match of the night period. Necro was working kinda light by his standards, but he did eat Go's offense like he was the goddamn Necro Butcher. They stood right in front of me and Go just teed off on Necro with chops. Then they brawl over to the other side of the ring, and Necro swipes some dude's shoe, and starts wailing on Go with it, including an apron dive hit-him-on-the-head-with-a-shoe. He bends Go over and hits him in the back with a chair. Wouldn't it be great if the only guy who learned the lessons of Chris Benoit's death was the Necro Butcher? He ends up tossing a bunch of chairs in the ring so as to do something horrible to Go, but Go counters and German suplexes him onto the chairs to get the win. Understand that Go's American debut was going to be a successful one, but really wanted to see more Necro. Oh well.

Larry Sweeney's talk show was up next. This was the thing I was most excited for from the original line-up, so you can imagine my surprise when it ended up being kind of dull. Larry got in a few good shots at the audience at first, some of his banter with Bobby Dempsey was good, but overall fell flat. They tried to spice it up the next night with...interesting results.

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. KEVIN STEEN

I remember this being good, and not much else. Further ragging on Steen for his theme music, but after he wins, some people are actually singing along.

EL GENERICO vs. GO SHIOSAKI

This is also a blank to me, although I also remember this being good, but not as good as the other tournament matches to this point. I think there's a lesson in here somewhere about not going all out in every single match, or else none of them are particularly special. Whatever.

JASON BLADE vs. HUMAN TORNADO vs. PELLE PRIMEAU vs. MITCH FRANKLIN

I'm the only dude in the world who likes Four Corner Survival matches. These usually work for me because of the compelling characters or feuds involved, though, so the presence of Blade and Franklin kinda hindered this to some degree. Still, HUMAN TORNADO, BABY! Really psyched up to see him, and he delivered. With Segunda Caida deep into it's Black History Month project, watching Human Tornado live makes me kinda glad to see the proud (?) tradition of jivey black workers continues in the 21st century. What this says about me, a white suburbanite, may or may not be good. But them's the breaks. The two-step kicks in the corner into the split low blow was particularly delightful.

He doesn't win, but he takes the mic post match and explains his main goal in ROH is to bring in more women. Like an idiot, I first assume he means drawing more female fans, before it becomes rapidly apparent that he's being booked as a face, and drawing female fans is a strictly heel move in ROH. No, he's actually talking about pimpin', which is far more sensible. He says
he's particularly interested in bringing in Lacey, which naturally draws her out from the back so that the fans can heap their misogyny on her. Tornado ducks a couple of slaps while casually continuing his interview before Jimmy Jacobs rushes out from the back and produces a shiv from his cane that convinces Tornado to bail. Jacobs then brings out Zach Gowen, much to the consternation of an audience that was advertised Joey Matthews, who was not listed amongst those unable to attend, but also ended up not showing anyway. No matter. Gowen fits in rather nicely with the AOTF concept, and is good enough that I can't really complain.

JIGSAW & RUCKUS vs. JIMMY JACOBS & ZACH GOWEN

Damn, it's good to see Julius Smokes again. This is a match that will likely come out worse on tape than it was live. A lot of it was missable, and Ruckus really stinks, but Smokes's ringside antics kept me entertained during the slow points while effectively drawing the crowd into the match as necessary. Also, Mercedes Martinez's ass is always a good distraction from things. Heels held up their end of the bargain. Gowen's one-legged springboard somersault plancha was boss. Jimmy draws some of the better crowd chants ("CRY!", "Your Dad hates you!"). Jigsaw gets the win for the Vulture Squad to set up the next night's title shot. Jimmy gets into it with a fan on the way out, hurling a chair at the guardrail in the process.

KEVIN STEEN vs. GO SHIOSAKI

The crowd's acceptance of Steen is complete, as everyone sings along to his theme music while he plays air guitar on the top turnbuckle. You know how anti-ROH dudes always bitch about them doing a bunch of faux 90's All Japan bullshit with a lot of big match spots and stiff strikes and head drops and finisher kickouts, none of which mean anything in absence of a really good story and an entire card of people wrestling "big matches" night after night? Well, this was that. Highlight of the match was the alarming racism of the crowd. Not alarming because it was racist, just alarming because ROH crowds typically go out of their way to be deferential to their Japanese idols, whereas here, they were mostly cracking wise about Hiroshima and how anime sucks. I'm not sure what this tells us, I just thought it was striking. Anyway, this was the one actively lousy match of the night, for all the reasons you might guess. No, the significance of this match does not merit Go kicking out of the Package Piledriver. You were dropped straight on your head with zero protection. Eat the pin. I know it's ROH. I know that's what I should expect. Doesn't make it any less pointless.