Column of Honor: 09.03.11: Chopped

Welcome to the Column. By the end of this column, one of you will be chopped. I may or may not mean that to be the Val Venis-Kaientai DX segment from the Attitude era. Choppy choppy.

There’s nothing like a beautiful, delicious chop you can just tear into- chewing up the flesh, grinding up the meat and having at it.

Now, I’m not talking about pork chops here or any other kind of sirloin meat. This is a wrestling column, after all. What I am referring to is the wrestling technique known as the chop, or by its full name the reverse knife-edge chop. I’m talking about skin blasting against skin, with full-force contact at your enemy. I’m talking about chopping and being chopped, one of the more basic and yet endemic tactics to be found within the arsenal of a professional wrestler.

Jim Ross has referred to it as “slapping leather” and in many ways that is what a harsh chop feels like when it lands on an opponent’s body. Whacking a guy with a wet towel may be an old boy’s prank, but try whipping someone with a belt or a whip. The best practitioners of wrestling chop-suey know how to make their strikes hurt just as if using those implements, perfecting the art of the chop so that it is a precise weapon of pain and torture.

Now, one chop may not get the job done as far as winning a match, but the results of being chopped multiple times (and especially in the same area of the body) are not pretty. It’s as if one thousand over-bearing grandmothers decided to pinch you as hard as possible, all-at-once, in one particular party of your body, minus the embarrassment of being pinched by your grandmother.

The chop inflames and reddens the skin, bursts capillaries and can even break the skin. In the worst cases the chop causes bloodshed, sometimes in gruesome amounts. However, the pain doesn’t end with the completion of the strike to the body. After the chop is taken, one has to deal with the after-burn—the stinging, tingling sensation along with the heat of smoldering flesh—and that is not fun.

There are so many places to throw the chop, though it is most commonly done to the chest of an opponent. Former ROH World Champion Roderick Strong has been known for throwing chops to the chest with such force that it can purple up a body almost immediately. He’s caused massive bleeding to opponents several times in his career. The chop has been a huge motif of many a Roderick Strong match and even though he has been known at times as “The Messiah of the Backbreaker”, he just as well could be referred to as “The Messiah of the Chop”.

Recently Strong has been met with some stiff competition when it comes to who throws down the fiercest chop in the form of another former ROH World Champion, Eddie Edwards. One of the big deals about their title match back at Manhattan Mayhem IV was a chop battle sequence where Edwards outlasted and outpaced Strong in throwing the chop. Heck, Strong backed down from the challenge!

Edwards throws his chop with a more open hand and a slightly more downward trajectory as compared to Strong. On the other hand, Strong has more snap to his strikes and pops it up to the upper chest or lower neck.

There are of course many variations of the chop–the Mongolian (double overhead) Chop (as seen by many a Samoa wrestler and the likes of Low Ki or Christopher Daniels), the back chop (sometimes used by Roderick Strong or Austin Aries) , the overhand chop (as perfected by big men such as The Big Show) and the double chop to the chest (as made famous by Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and now often used these days by the likes of Colt Cabana and Kofi Kingston). Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat notably did the flying chops to the head, while even the Little Lumberjack Grizzly Redwood has dipped into the chopping pool when he chops down an opponents’ knee.

However if one were to ask a casual fan to name a wrestler who uses the chops, the likely answer would be “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Flair’s effective use of chops as a signature has become so ingrained within wrestling culture that the move has become synonymous with the incredibly fun shout-out of “Wooo” after it has been unleashed, in honor of Flair who used the call of the “Wooo” in his matches throughout the last several decades. The “Wooo” and the chop have gone hand-in-hand such that even when Flair isn’t wrestling live audiences are just as liable to shout it out in tribute. In fact, sometimes one can be outside of the main venue area such as in concessions or the entrance to a building during WWE (or many other wrestling) shows and just shout that word out. Almost immediately a “Wooo” wave will pick up and swirl around the entire area, engulfing the attention and entertainment of anyone within earshot.

I digress; however, as this column isn’t about the “Wooo”, but about the chop—the powerful, glorious and awesome chop.

The one sequence I have come to dislike somewhat is the Kenta Kobashi-marathon chop sequence. Now, don’t get me wrong. It was absolutely fantastic when it was the legend of Japanese wrestling Kobashi throwing down those rapid-fire Gatling-gun-like chops to the chest. It was his trademark and a sequence he made famous throughout his many years in Pro Wrestling NOAH. Likewise, it was incredibly enjoyable to see Kenta Kobashi’s multiple chop sequences live-and-in-person, which enhanced his dream-match encounter against Samoa Joe back in 2005. Those chops were not filler- they were meaningful strikes that Kobashi unleashed against the “hometown hero” in Joe, not simply to test him but to take the man down and make sure he didn’t get up again.

However, when it’s someone else who does this sequence there is a good chance it looks silly and ridiculous, even for professional wrestling. The inability to suspend disbelief about these chops stem from the reality-busting thought as to why an opponent would just stand there and take the chop sequence. As well, why would one repeatedly move their body back-and-forth in the same motion over-and-over again as if someone was constantly pressing the replay button on a remote control? This is one of the wonders of professional wrestling physics, up there with why someone remains in a seated position for long, long seconds in order to take a kick to the chest and of course, Disco Inferno’s inability to apply his Figure-Four variation (that one’s for the old school WCW fans out there). While Eddie Edwards’ singular chops are scintillating and sensational, it is when he shifts into the Kobashi sequence that his chops move from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Much more credible (and enjoyable to watch in a sort of perverse display of masochism) is the “can you top this?” mentality of back-and-forth “chop battles”. Here, each wrestler takes turns unleashes a hellacious chop on their opponent, to see who can take it the most. This is a battle of bravery, pride and machismo. It is Chip Diller in Animal House saying “Thank you sir, may I have another?” Invariably, there will be one man who cannot take the pain anymore (usually the more cunning and villainous-leaning man who is smart enough to know he can outwit his opponent) and after the barrage of chop exchanges will simply go for an eye poke, eye rake or other cheap tactic in order to regain control of the match. A more honorable individual might not take the low road, an instead switch up their offense to other tide-changing moves such as a forearm or spinning heel kick.

The chop may not pack the visual wallop of all the wild-and-crazy high impact moves used in today’s wrestling matches that make the fans mark out like crazy and think “how the hell did they think that up?” It also may not rank among famous finishers such as the Stone Cold Stunner, Rock Bottom or Diamond Cutter for the damage sustained under sudden impact. However, the chop is still one of the most effective and consistent wrestling attacks one will find in any given match. It joins the headlock, collar-and-elbow, hammerlock and armbar as an Everyman of wrestling, and its workman-like ethic carries with it beauty, speed and burning impact that should be appreciated as much as those bigger moves.

For when someone is chopped, he or she knows it.

Great video production–HALELUJAH! Someone must have woken up from their slumber enough to get their act together and redeem the piss-poor production and video quality of the last ROH Videowire. GOOD JOB! Now let’s keep it up like this on a consistent basis and then we’re talking. Nothing like the last videowire should ever make it to public consumption. This one-was a home run the whole way through, both with the quality, the content of the promos and using high-quality clips from previous matches to build up the ones at Death Before Dishonor IX.

Speaking of chops, this video begins with a whole barrage between Eddie and Roderick. See, ROH was vibing on what I was going to write about this week—I see you ROH! Roderick Strong is on-point this week in one of the more natural-sounding promos he’s done in some time. I like the interspersing of clips of his big moves and how they can help him to win the two-of-three-falls match versus Edwards (still hate that name though-Ringmaster’s Challenge? Good lord). Tomasso Ciampa does very well here with his short speech- I like it. I like his gravelly voice and I like that he exudes a menacing presence even while dressed up in fine threads. This shows a lot of promise and now all he has to do is step it up some more in the ring and make sure he cleanly executes his powerbomb-to-double knees finisher every time out. Cole and O’Reilly do their usual solid babyface fire promo. Good on ROH for showing some of the bonus match between them and The Young Bucks to hype the three-way elimination match. Finally, an interesting twist to the Corino-Generico situation (see below) as Jacobs offers to fill in for Corino, though that hasn’t been made official either and may just be a red herring. Eventually, as Jacobs puts it, Corino is going to have to come face-to-face with the past. Love the reference to Steen as the Smoke Monster as well—very apropos. All around good job this week.

An example of what the local ads running on Sinclair look like in the advertisement of Ring of Honor’s TV debut this September. The voice over says “The future of pro wrestling is here” while showing footage of Mike Bennett is quite telling.

For lo tho ye walk in the valley of the shadow of death, thou shalt not fear it, for in it lies the miracle of Truth, that there is no life so rich and full that cannot be ripped asunder and no life so meager and wanting that cannot be built upon and improved. Ergo, listen ye well to this treasured advice found within The Book of Truth, for these words are worth their weight in gold. So sayeth The Truth, so sayeth The House:

Just as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were dens of iniquity in ancient times, so it is with the many cities which Ring of Honor runs its shows, and its populace. New York City, Chicago, Toronto, Louisville, Charlotte and all of New Jersey—places where sin is not only accepted but encouraged, where trespass and treachery are the rule of the day. These people who come to the ROH shows, they are the Visigoths, the Savages, the Barbarians (but not The Warlord) of the Twenty-First century. One can tell by their appearance, by their behavior at shows and by their horrendously offensive chants directed towards The House of Truth that these men, women, children and otherwise amorphous beasts of burden are reprobates. IMPURITY! They are impure malefactors of a degenerative culture, which is encouraged by Ring of Honor officials. THEY MUST BE CHANGED! For when The Truth changes what you know, The Truth changes who you are. You, who read these words, are merely beginning to understand the wisdom and righteous nature of The Truth, but you are already one step higher, one level above all of the other plebeians. THEY MUST BE CHANGED OR THEY MUST BE CAST OUT! The House of Truth shall be the guiding light to effect that change, to cleanse and purify these Sodoms and Gomorrahs. You lucky few who make it through the rigorous testing processes will be on the frontlines of these holy missions. Together we will change each Ring of Honor city and each Ring of Honor wrestler—and if need be it will be done one person at a time.

-Excerpted from Essay on The Mission of Truth in The Book of Truth

-I want to send a quick thank you to Bobby Youngblood for his candid comments to me both in the response section to last week’s Column of Honor and through email. We had an earnest and genuine exchange about our thoughts on the presentation of National Wrestling Superstars on last week’s NatGeo documentary Slammed: Inside Indie Wrestling. Bobby also writes occasionally for this very website in our Games section, which is very cool.

-Speaking of, according to PWInsider.com, Slammed: Inside Indie Wrestling which aired on August 24th did a 0.37 rating with 345,000 viewers. The replay that aired at 1 AM did a 0.31 rating with 259,000 viewers.

-Hinted at in the above ROH Videowire is an appearance by Homicide at the Death Before Dishonor IX iPPV. Homicide was last seen at Best in the World in New York City this past June, where he defeated Rhino via sunset flip roll-up but was then demolished by a Gore through a table.

-Jay Briscoe issued an apology on Twitter for homophobic comments he made in relation to Hurricane Irene: “I apologize to everyone for my insensitive comments from June and this past weekend. It will not happen again.” It seems you can’t get away with being a Southern Delawarian in this new Sinclair Broadcast Group era.

-I’ve been trying to make sense of this news item for days now and still I can’t figure it out. Apparently ROH will be on Buffalo television some days but that same feed will be in some cities in Canada on other days but not in other Canadian towns on those same days but perhaps on different days. This is the mess you have to deal with when you go from one cable channel to a network of syndicated stations—it gets complicated.

–Glory By Honor X will take place at the Chicago Fieldhouse in Chicago Ridge, Illinois on November 19th. No word as yet if this will be an iPPV or not. While it would be two months after the previous one it would also be about one month before a potential Final Battle 2011 show, which has been an iPPV for the past two years. ROH hopefully makes it up to the Chicago crowd for the technical issues and long delays of the TV taping show a few weeks back.

-Caprice Coleman and Cedric Alexander will be back as a regular tag team in ROH. Hopefully they take the fan dubbed C&C Wrestling Factory name and make that official. They worked really well as a tag team during the July DVDs, including a wicked awesome tag team finisher I’d never seen before that made me mark-out like crazy—a hold and release twisting neckbreaker that finishes up as a German Suplex with a bridge—it’s a fast and crisp move with a lot of snap and power to it and I freaking loved it.

-More matches for Death Before Dishonor IX were announced this week: The ROH World Tag Team Champions Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team will be split up and wrestling singles matches. Shelton Benjamin vs. “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett and Charlie Haas vs. “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin. Haas vs. Elgin is fine and actually has some intrigue with two guys who have some brawn and mass on them going at it. As for Benjamin / Bennett… good lord… thanks for nothing Ring of Honor. Thanks for giving me exactly what I didn’t want to see.

You can just feel my excitement for Benjamin vs. Bennett can’t you? CAN’T YOU? FEEL IT! FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!

Steve Corino was scheduled to wrestle against El Generico at Death Before Dishonor IX. This essentially guaranteed that Kevin Steen (who has intense past history with both men) is going to make an appearance at some point before, during or after this match to confront both men. The match was being billed as “Corino’s biggest test of sobriety”, i.e. his attempt to avoid committing evil actions. If Corino protected Generico or saves him from Steen’s attack, then he would have proven once and for all that his intent is sincere. Considering Steen destroyed Corino at the last show, I’m in full belief that this is what will happen.

However, Corino is also booked for Zero-1 in Japan on September 17th, according to his web site ihatestevecorino.com. The newest Videowire has Jacobs volunteering to take his place in the match against Generico. So, things are still up in the air as far as official announcements go for this match. Corino may have double-booked himself here and had to choose between one and the other. Or, that schedule could be a smoke-screen for an angle on the show (but probably not—it’s hard to believe Corino would do that given his connections to that promotion). Either way, Kevin Steen is not far behind all three of these men in terms of incurring his wrath.

Now, Corino and Generico have wrestled good-to-very good matches several times during 2010, so I am sure that if they were to wrestle on the seventeenth they could come through with another solid effort here. However, it seems to me that whatever storyline directions that will be done through this match still could have been accomplished if they had booked a match like Benjamin-Generico, which would have had the added effect of including a match with a guaranteed ability to generate buzz (and purchases) for the iPPV and would have been the best chance of a show-stealer.

Booking Benjamin against Bennett does not give a clear majority of the ROH fan base what they want to see—which is great matches. Benjamin vs. Bennett will not be great because of the restrictions of style that Bennett’s gimmick necessitates there being in his matches, unless they take a lot of the criticism that has been directed against it on the ROH message boards and decide to throw it back at the people (like me) who are spouting off against the match.

Mike Bennett has the right to build a successful career. He comes across as a super nice and cool guy in interviews and has a very positive attitude on his Twitter. I have no doubt I would absolutely like the guy if I met him in person.

However, when it comes down to it, I just don’t want to watch Mike Bennett matches anymore. I have the right as a customer to tell ROH what I want to see on a show and what I’d like to get for my money spent on their products. What I don’t want to see on a show and what I don’t want to spend my money on is a Mike Bennett match, which has proven to be unspectacular and average. To accept unspectacular and average in ROH or in any wrestling promotion is a joke and a crock.

I don’t want to hear anything about “he’s wrestling this style on purpose” or “they got you- they’re working you if you’re this upset about it” because really, I don’t care about any of that. Bennett can wrestle any style he wants—but that doesn’t mean I have to sit there and watch him do it. In fact, I won’t. I will be getting up from my seat during this match, a silent Bennett Boycott if you will. I’ll stretch, hit the bathroom, stare at the wall and generally do anything else besides watching that match.

If you’re counting, that means unless Jay Lethal defends the ROH TV Title on this show, this will be the first time in Ring of Honor internet Pay Per View history that not one title will be defended. This past April’s Honor Takes Center Stage Chapter Two did not have any ROH titles on the line, but the SHIMMER Tag Titles were defended on that show. Additionally, if one ordered both HTCS shows as a package for their special reduced price then one would have seen the titles defended on the previous night’s show.

Fans do have the right to be angry about that point of fact about Death Before Dishonor IX, which has been considered a major ROH show in years’ past. The unfortunate truth is that this show is sandwiched in-between the television taping in Chicago and the actual airdates of the show in September and October. Putting on any title matches for Death Before Dishonor IX wouldn’t make any sense because there would be no suspension of disbelief that the titles would change hands considering the results of the TV show are out there in the open for anyone to read. Davey Richards had a booking in Japan (which if he should have been on the show even to just wrestle a non-title or tag match with Edwards is another debate entirely), Haas and Benjamin defend their titles on the first episode of ROH TV (so they couldn’t lose a title match here) and Jay Lethal hasn’t even won the TV title “yet”, so why would it be on the line for this show and who could possibly believe that someone would beat him for it before the episode where he won the damned thing even aired? That just wouldn’t make sense.

ROH then announced on its Facebook this week that Jay Lethal’s prior booking for September 17th has fallen through and has now been added to the Death Before Dishonor IX card. He will team up with Homicide to wrestle against Tomasso Ciampa and the returning Rhino. Now THIS match has some meat on the bone and has piqued my interest. Lethal and Homicide have past history as they engaged in some very bitter battles during The Rottweiler days in 2005 (back when Lethal was feuding with Low Ki). However, Lethal also has past history with The Embassy, as one of his first major feuds as a breakout single in the promotion was a series of matches against John Walters and Jimmy Rave over the Pure Title.

The rest of the card aside from Benjamin / Bennett seems fine, really, and the two main-event advertised matches (Edwards / Strong, Briscoes / ANX) have delivered in the past and should deliver now.

The Briscoes versus All-Night Express is now officially a Ladder War match, with the stakes being a contract hanging up in the air giving the winning team a ROH World Tag Team Title shot against whomever the champions are at Glory By Honor X in November. Now that the stipulation is set and knowing the past history of previous Ladder Wars being all-out spectacles, this especially could be the killer match that sells the show.

The three-way elimination match between The Young Bucks, Future Shock and The Bravado Brothers could be a show-stealer as well. The Bravados have come a long way in-ring in a short period of time such that I think they will definitely hold up their end of the match.

Then there is Kevin Steen is promoting himself as being there (see below) and his appearance should make for a crazy, must-see situation, much like it was back in June during Best in the World.

There is a solid card here with some special buzz-worthy factors if one looks for them. However, like I wrote earlier in the year regarding 9th Anniversary Show, customers don’t generally order for “solid” and “fine”, they order for getting their money’s worth and more. The Ladder War main-event could deliver on that feeling, but I don’t know if ROH has the confidence of their customers for this show. I keep reading comments on multiple sites from fans who just don’t have a lot of conviction in the line-up and that may dissuade them from purchasing the show, even if it overachieves.

It’s not that this show is completely irrelevant (especially with the stakes in the Ladder War and the Edwards-Strong winner receiving a title shot), but it is an incredibly similar situation to February’s Ninth Anniversary Show, with matches that were a way-station rather than THE major event of the year for the promotion. Sometimes, that situation is a necessity, but it’s a hard pill to swallow who are putting down their dollars for a show (and the New York City shows are generally ROH’s top-dollar shows with front row seats on the floor at times nearing the three-digit mark).

The show is now taking hold but there may still be changes made to shake it up somewhat, with perhaps a Jacobs vs. Generico under card match. The additions of that match and the Lethal & Homicide tag match helps to shape up the overall look of the card, but will it be enough? Will it inspire iPPV purchases? When it comes down to it, will this ROH show deliver the experience ROH fans want out of their promotion? Lots of questions, and there are two weeks to go until any answers. In the meantime, the uneasiness permeates, but so does the excitement for Ladder War III.

-El Generico was good enough to win CHIKARA’s annual Rey de Voladores tournament back in April, being put over by someone with a lot of veteran standing in the business in X-Pac (as 1-2-3 Kid), who could have big-shotted and said no, but put the guy over. Apparently though, he isn’t good enough to hold onto the ROH TV Title as it enters a new television era. Just saying.

-On the same day as the Corino vs. Generico match was announced, Kevin Steen tweeted that he had to see the match in person. He later invaded the ROH message board again under the handle “The Generic Luchador Must Die” and wrote a message asking for tickets that read, in part:

I think Death Before Dishonor will be so awesome this year you guys!!!!!

PM me if you have a ticket for me ok thanks!

-Um…in commenting about recent CHIKARA shows on my Twitter, I may have provoked the anger of The Batiri-Obariyon and Kodama:

The Batiri: “@AriBerenstein: @kford13 Sugar Dunkerton’s trash talking on the Batiri is hysterical. #CHIKARA #Anniversarioandamazingfriends” We disagree

@TheBatiri @kford13 You know, come to think of it, that wasn’t funny at all. It was wrong. Sugar Dunkerton, Shame on you! #pleasedonthurtme

At this point I would like to apologize to The Batiri for any and all comments I may have made at their expense or could possibly have been interpreted as such, in perpetuity. Please, please, please don’t find me and eat my brains and turn me into a zombie. I have so much to live for. Thank you.

At the beginning of the year, “The Prodigy” Mike Bennett vowed that within one year that he would become the Ring of Honor World Champion. So let’s see how he’s done so far, eh?

Twitter me at: http://twitter.com/AriBerenstein.

Mike Campbell discusses ROH Final Battle 2008 with Takeshi Morishima vs. Bryan Danielson. Awesome match-worth the entire DVD purchase alone.

We go out of the 411Mania Universe for a short but interesting article by T.J. Hawke regarding The Eddie Edwards / Roderick Strong match at Death Before Dishonor IX. It’s a heck of a point he makes about the Edwards / Strong rivalry and how Edwards has already proven himself to be the Ringmaster between the two of them.

Your moment of QI (Quite Interesting) this week is all about environmental disaster! Featuring an invisible Alan Davies.

That’s it for The Column for this week. Thanks for reading and for the feedback. Until next time, you have been chopped.

BROOKLYN!
DAH EM BAH SEE FOR-EVAH!
–Ari–