That Was Then, Is This Too? 03.30.10: Big Bang Or Small Whimper?

Welcome to yet another installment of That Was Then, Is This Too?, the column that looks for parallel lines in all the right places. As usual, we have comments:

WrestleMania XXVI has come and gone, and it was certainly a show to remember, if only for the epic main event. However, with the show just barely in the books, we already have another PPV looking forward to. While ROH Big Bang, which will be streamed through the GoFightLive website. Of course it pales in comparison to WrestleMania, but in a way it’s just as important for ROH as WrestleMania is for WWE.

The show is built around a three way dance in which Tyler Black defends the ROH world title against former two time ROH champion Austin Aries and ROH veteran and betrayed friend Roderick Strong. The match has been built very well, with several strong video packages and promos airing on ROH on HDnet. The story going into this match is that Tyler Black, in the process of winning the ROH world championship at the Eigth Anniversary show, superkicked Roderick Strong, who had been hand picked by Black to be one of the three judges that were to pass their verdict should the match go to a finish other than a pinfall or submission. It was a simple mistake. Black had gone to the top to deliver a Phoenix Splash to Aries, but Kenny King, who was representing Aries, had jumped on the apron to run interference. Strong came to Black’s rescue, but accidentally knocked his friend off the top rope as he eliminated King. Black took exception to this, and started superkicking everything in sight, including executive producer Jim Cornette.

So now the battle lines have been drawn. Cornette has given up on making Black happy, and is now looking out for nobody but the company he loves. Aries just wants his belt back, proving that he’s just as great as he says he is. Strong is tired of being used by others and wants to show that he is ready to carry the company he has been a part of for the past five years. Tyler Black meanwhile looks to establish his legacy, to prove that he’s not just a fluke who got lucky after receiving a dozen title shots.

The second title match builds directly off the last ROH PPV, as the newly reunited Kings of Wrestling challenge the Briscoe Brothers for the ROH world tag team champions. The kings reunited at Final Battle after almost three years apart to assault the newly crowned champions. Both champions have already done more than enough to prove their worth as tag team champions, with the Briscoes being in the middle of an unprecedented sixth reign as ROH world tag team champions and the Kings of Wrestling being a pairing of two of the biggest stars on the American independent scene, as well as former ROH tag team champions in their own right.

Another tag team match that could turn out to be just as intense as the championship match is the grudge match in which former tag team partners and ROH world tag team champions Kevin Steen and El Generico face each other, with Kevin Steen teaming with former ECW world champion and self-proclaimed King of Old School Steve Corino, and Generico teaming with Colt Cabana. Steen turned on Generico at Final Battle, with Cabana making the save, and it was soon revealed that the blame for that could be placed squarely on the shoulders of Steve Corino, who had been fanning the flames of Steen’s frustrations.

The only gimmick match on the card is a “Butcher’s Rules” match between Necro Butcher and Erick Stevens. While ROH hasn’t specified what Butcher’s Rules are, I think we can be fairly sure that it will be violent. Necro Butcher has done everything from street fights to no rope barbed wire matches, and in the latest chapter of his extended feud against Prince Nana and his cronies he looks to get his hands on Erick Stevens, the youngest member of the Embassy. Erick Stevens meanwhile looks to prove his worth to his new manager.

The final three matches on the card don’t have much in the way of a story. Kenny King defends his #5 ranking in the Pick Six against Davey Richards in what should be a great athletic matchup. The matches that truly stand out however, are the two lucha libre exhibition matches that have been announced. In the first match, the crossdressing veteran Cassandro el Exotico takes on independent luchador Magno, who is probably most well known for his appearance in the 2006 TNA World X-cup. The other match is a showcase of veterans, as former NWA world heavyweight champion Blue Demon Jr. teams up with Misterioso to take on Super Parka and Solar.

This PPV could be the show that makes or breaks the internet PPV concept. Time will tell whether they succeed here, but there’s certainly quite a few lessons that can be learned from their last attempt…

That Was Then…

Final Battle has traditionally been one of the biggest shows on the ROH calendar, and when they were looking for a show to air as their first internet PPV. Of course this wasn’t ROH’s first foray into the PPV business, but it was still interesting to watch simply because they were trying something no other company had tried before. With a $14.95 price tag and the Final Battle nametag to entice fans, ROH tried to sell its product in a whole new way.

The night started out with the unexpected return of Larry Sweeney, who had left the company (and the wrestling business in general) due to personal problems early in 2009, and while it was great to see Sweeney back, he has been completely absent since then. From there we went to a staple of ROH, the four corner survival match, with two Pick Six slots on the line. The match was pretty decent, with Claudio Castagnoli securing the win with a dragon suplex. After that we got a promo from Tyler Black, which was almost impossible to hear due to audio issues.

From there we went to a tag team match. Delirious was scheduled to team with Necro Butcher against the Embassy team of Bison Smith and Erick Stevens, but Necro was absent due to the weather (a recurring theme that weekend). The first wrestler to volunteer as Delirious’ partner was Pelle Primeau, but he got killed in short order by Bison Smith. Bobby Dempsey had more success, but in the end he fell victim to a Bison Smith powerbomb. This was followed by the most violent match on the card, as what has to be the longest running feud on the American independent scene came to a head in Ring of Honor. Eddie Kingston and Chris Hero had a brutal Fight Without Honor, with Kingston somehow kicking out of a top rope ganso bomb onto the barricade. Sara Del Rey ran interference for Hero, but she got a suplex for her trouble. In the end, Hero fell victim to Kingston’s roaring elbow, with his own loaded elbow pad adding insult to injury.

After all that we got insanity of a different nature, as the Young Bucks took on Kevin Steen and El Generico. The four men put on the match of the night, and the Bucks proved once again that they’re more than just spot monkeys. They pinned Steen after a series of superkicks, but the true story of the match was the heel turn that took place afterwards. It was fairly predictable, but still a great moment and a brutal beatdown that ended only when Colt Cabana made the save.

After that we went to intermission, and when we came back we had a singles match between Roderick Strong and Kenny King. Whhile it wasn’t a bad match by any stretch of the imagination, it didn’t exactly set the world on fire either. One of the most notable things about the match was the appearance of a local radio DJ, which was plagued with yet more audio issues, which persisted after Sweeney came back. From there we went to a special AAA showcase match. It was originally supposed to be Teddy Hart and Alex Koslov taking on Jack Evans and Rocky Romero, but with Evans and Hart being delayed by the weather we got a singles match in stead. Like the match before it was alright, but it was absolutely ruined by miscommunication between the referee and the timekeeper, which resulted in the bell being rung prematurely.

After that we got the ROH tag team championship match, as the Briscoes took on the American Wolves. It was a pretty good match, although I definitely expected better from both men. In the end the Briscoes would end the Wolves’ reign of terror to become six time ROH world tag team champions, but their celebration would be short lived. They were jumped by the newly reunited Kings of Wrestling, who laid out Jay Brisco with the KRS ONE. Immediately following the beatdown we got a surprise appearance from Jack Evans and Teddy Hart, who had finally made it to the show. We got a brief match between the two, which was pretty much just a sequence of crazy moves. In the end, it was Evans who would secure the win with his signature 630 splash.

The time had finally come for the main event. ROH world champion Austin Aries defended his championship against Tyler Black, who had been chasing Aries pretty much since he had won the world title six months earlier. The two men went the full sixty minutes, with Aries playing the cowardly heel pretty much throughout the match. This was an incredibly bad booking decision, and the crowd rightfully crapped all over it. They tried to go out on a high note with a brawl between the Briscoes and the Kings of Wrestling, but the time limit draw had definitely put a damper on the whole night.

All in all, Ring of Honor’s first attempt to put on an internet PPV could definitely have gone better. There were very few truly memorable matches outside of Steen and Generico vs. the Young Bucks. There were technical issues throughout the night, with both the audio and the stream. They’ll have to make some massive improvements if the Big Bang is going to be a success.

…Is This Too?

ROH is certainly taking some big risks with the way they’re putting on their Big Bang PPV, starting with their choice of venue. Charlotte is a great wrestling city, but it will be the first time Ring of Honor runs there, so the live crowd might not be familliar enough with the product. This could be a problem as, in the intimate venues that ROH generally runs in, the crowd can make or break a show.

Then there’s all the technical difficulties that plagued the show. While the stream itself worked well enough, both the video and audio quality were severely lacking. Of course Ring of Honor was never built on glitz and glamour, but they badly need to improve their production values. CHIKARA generally only has a fraction of the audience ROH has, but they still produce DVDs that outclass ROH in both video and audio quality and stage setup. Of course CHIKARA has the benefit of sponsoring from Smart Mark Video, but at this point that’s really no excuse. The ROH website recently got a much-needed overhaul, but it still doesn’t look like much, and for some reason they’re still using a hotmail address for their wrestling school.

The card itself is solid enough, and the hand of Jim Cornette can definitely be seen in the way the matches were built on their TV show. The three major matches have all received plenty of air time to explain why these people are fighting each other, which is exactly what ROH needs to do to sell people on the PPV. I am a little worried about the lucha matches on the card though, since I doubt they will get the same reaction from the Charlotte crowd as they would in Texas or California.

In the end, there are plenty of areas that ROH can and should improve on if they want to keep internet PPVs lucrative. The company is literally built on the internet, and it would be great for the company if they can produce these internet PPVs on a regular basis. The card certainly seems solid enough, and I’m sure they’ll avoid making the same booking mistakes twice, but they have a long ways to go when it comes to production values.