News to Start Your Weekend 2.23.07

Hey, I went to Ring of Honor last weekend. Friday and Saturday. It was awesomeness. I of course didn’t bother with No Way Out, although I do have a copy of it. Eventually I’ll check it out, I guess. I did, however, grab a view of the first disc of Night 1 of the Ted Petty Invitational presented by IWA Mid South. A lot of good stuff in there, including some fantastic hold-counterhold and overall chicanery between Colt Cabana and Mike Quackenbush, lots and lots of moonsaults between M-Dogg 20 Matt Cross and Ricochet, and a sweet match from Chris Bosh and El Generico. ¡OLE! Some other goodness as well. I also caught a few matches from Volume 1 of the best of Mike Quackenbush, including a match from Germany’s WXW between him and Claudio Castagnoli. Quack had his EVIL Van Dyke goatee (even though he had it back when he and Hero were faces together… odd), and Claudio was in an awkward stage with his hair growth. And it was in a wacky German night club, and the wonderful PAL 25FPS frame rate. Lots of fun. Looked all cinematic.

So what do I talk about this week as far as news? The ‘fireball’ episode of WSX has been edited a bit and cleared to air this upcoming Tuesday the 27th, so that’s good. We’ll see if the ratings go up. I don’t think the small amount of internet controversy will do much for it.

People thought Dean Malenko was coming out of retirement to wrestle for the Toryumon Mexico promotion, but it’s just Chad Collyer working as Chad Malenko. Woops. Way to get people excited, Mike Johnson. Or Buck Woodward. You’re no Bob Woodward, I’ll tell you what! Whoever reported it. Ya big crap heads. Yeah, I said it. War between 411 and PWInsider! It’s gonna happen! You’ll see!

Trump is picking Lashley to represent him at WrestleMania and Steve Austin will be the guest referee. If I spoiled that for you and it actually bothers you, please reevaluate the garbage that you care about. I just wish it was Lashley vs. Snitsky and for the ECW Title. That way you get to overshadow a title match with a hair vs. hair stipulation between two non wrestlers, one of whom isn’t even involved with the business other than his occasional business relationship with Vince. That devalues the belt more than having two champions in there, because at least the belts aren’t being defended. Overshadowing a title defense is much funnier. Plus, everybody involved in the match is bald, and they’re the ones who get to decide which person with hair will get to join the club.

Saturday Night’s Main Event is cancelled. Ha ha. Oh well.

Elix Skipper and David Young are no longer with TNA. It’s news, I guess. It took long enough.

Oh, and Slammiversary will take place outside of Orlando this Summer. Nashville is the top candidate. If they do it at the old Asylum, that would be pretty cool.

Of course, Mike Awesome passed away over the weekend. It’s a real shame, but to be honest I couldn’t feasibly write a heartfelt and meaningful statement on it, because he didn’t mean all that much to me as a performer, and I don’t know anything about how he may have been as a person. I enjoyed the limited amount of stuff I saw him do and appreciate his ability to do stuff that most guys his size couldn’t do, so if nothing else, that’s what I have to say in memoriam. I feel that it’s worthwhile and noteworthy to mention, though, so here’s the obligatory statement. My condolences to his family.

In Ring of Honor news, Delirious’ concussion suffered at the hands of Roderick Strong on Saturday night will keep him out of action this weekend in Dayton and Chicago. He will appear, however, just not in a wrestling role.

Ring of Honor will be making its debut in the heart of the city of Chicago at the Windy City Fieldhouse tomorrow, Saturday, February 24. Morishima and McGuinness vs. Samoa Joe and Homicide will be the main event alongside the Lords of the Ring (Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal) defending their Tag Team Championship gold against the Briscoes. Austin Aries will also reveal the first member of his new stable and will team with that man to take on the two current members of the No Remorse Corps of Roderick Strong and Davey Richards.

The night before, which is tonight, Friday, February 23 in Dayton, Ohio will see new World Champion Takeshi Morishima making his first defense against number one contender BJ Whitmer in BJ’s backyard. Whitmer has some momentum going, especially after his huge win over Brent Albright last Friday night in New York City in the incredible ‘Tables Are Legal’ match and his team’s win over the trio of Lacey, Adam Pearce and Jimmy Jacobs on Saturday night in Philly. Can he take out the outsider and make sure that Ring of Honor doesn’t lose its World Title to a star from Japan’s NOAH promotion?

These two shows have also seen some big shakeups to the cards due to last week’s injuries to Davey Richards (and he’ll be taking on Samoa Joe tonight, 2/23) and Delirious (who will not be working either date this weekend). For a roundtable review featuring plenty of good writers, including somebody from the Games Zone, check out this link.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this little column, I attended last weekend’s Ring of Honor festivities in NYC and Philly. Outside of the obligatory getting lost coming home from Philly because I missed the easy to not miss exit, the weekend was fantastic. Not only was Friday’s show just amazing, but it also included a bunch of interesting developments. Xavier made another return to ROH, and he showed some pretty cool stuff. Evans won the match over his sometimes partner Shingo. That Jack is massively over. And you know this, maaaaan-ah!

I spoke of the Albright/Whitmer ‘Tables Are Legal’ match earlier. This has to be seen to really be able to understand the awesomeness. It was just a bunch of crazy table spots and Brent Albright overall being a badass. When a table breaks on its own and you finish the job by putting your foot through it and then flip it off, you’re a badass. Brent may have just become a made man in Ring of Honor after Friday night, even in a loss.

Austin Aries looked to have re-aggravated a knee injury after missing a Lionsault attempt, but at least he didn’t break his neck after that bad fall where he landed on his head Hayabusa style. It was a bit of a frightening moment, but the match actually picked up after that, as the crowd started rallying behind Aries, and everybody appeared to be working a little harder to possibly compensate for the injury. Not that they weren’t working hard before, but the match wasn’t really clicking for the majority of the beginning. It got good for a while, though, and Daniels and Sydal retained their titles with the awesome BME/SSP combination. The real story comes from Roderick Strong shocking the world (though it had been rumored, it was still shocking) by turning on Aries after a distraction from Davey Richards following the match. Austin was pissed, Roddy and Davey look to be trying to step into the limelight, and Jack Evans just wants to continue being friends with everybody. For the time being, at least, as of Friday.

Samoa Joe not only beat Takeshi Morishima, but choked his big ass out after a damn good match that saw Morishima absolutely dominating early. Joe rose up and just had to choke a bitch, so that’s what he did. This was a lot of fun to watch live, and of course Joe got to close out his final Ring of Honor appearance in NYC by making good on his promise to beat whoever NOAH sent to challenge him.

Jimmy Rave vs. Homicide closed out the event with a very good title match that saw Rave using the banned Rave Clash, from the second rope no less, but still falling short and falling victim to the Cop Killa. Great effort that even saw Rave get some crowd support, but February 16 was just not his night.

Saturday night was another great show. Not as good as Friday, however there were some standout performances, especially in the Match of the Night that saw The Briscoes defeat El Generico and Kevin Steen, two Canadians who are regulars out in the California area. I’ve seen very limited work from Steen, but he completely won me over and won over the crowd, some of whom were a bit skeptical about his abilities, even those familiar with him. Generico is always awesome, as are Jay and Mark. Just awesome stuff here with a large amount of very believable near falls and some great high spots. Definitely worth checking out when it becomes available on DVD, but then, the whole show is.

TJ Perkins, better known to most people, I’d assume, as Puma (to be honest, I didn’t even know when I saw him wrestle on Saturday) had a really good opener going up against Nigel McGuinness in a very competitive match. It might turn out being an ROHVideos.com match. In fact, I think that’s what they announced it as, but I don’t remember. If it is, check it out when they put it up. It’s probably the best one yet.

Davey Richards called his new group the No Remorse Corps (he pronounced the P), and Austin Aries made fun of him for it. More noteworthy, however, is that since Jack Evans doesn’t want to choose between his former Gen Next cohorts, Austin Aries announced that he will be looking to get together and lead a new group of young up-and-comers to combat the NRC. Jack, apparently feeling left out and possibly scorned, decided that he just might do the same, so expect the beginning of three new stables in the upcoming weeks. The first member of Aries’ group will be revealed this Saturday night in Chicago. A lot of people are putting their proverbial money on Matt Cross, so we’ll see how this turns out.

The biggest news coming out of this show, obviously, is the fact that we now have a new ROH World Champion, as Takeshi Morishima surprised everybody by defeating Homicide after a lariat and a pair of backdrop drivers. The crowd popped huge for the title change, but afterward it got oddly quiet and a lot of people were questioning what they just saw. Will Morishima leave ROH with the belt if he gets past BJ Whitmer in Dayton? Will he schedule more dates with the company, since he isn’t scheduled to be in America any time in the near future following this Saturday in Chicago? Hell, does Morishima even respect the title?

It is very possible that Ring of Honor will be left without a World Champion in a mere two days, and it could last for the next 5 months, and this may be a little message from Pro Wrestling NOAH. You let your wrestlers bad mouth us and we’ll make you pay for it. Could that be what is happening here? Samoa Joe is leaving Ring of Honor after the first two shows in March over in England, so the battle he started, the controversy that led to this event occurring, will have to now be taken up by others. Maybe Joe is satisfied with his big win over Morishima, but how could he possibly not be outraged by what happened to his good friend Homicide on 2/17? Joe will get another shot at Morishima in Chicago, but the belt won’t be on the line if Takeshi defeats Whitmer, because it will be in a tag team match. Joe is teaming with the former champion in Homicide and Morishima has Nigel McGuinness by his side. What role does Nigel play in all of this? He has taken many trips overseas to Japan and has worked very often with the NOAH promotion – does he feel any loyalty to them? This is all so interesting, and we may or may not get answers to these questions this upcoming weekend. 2007 is starting off on a very hot note.

Anyway, I’m already late with this and I’ve got nothing else to say anyway. So until next week, I love ya.

Oh… listen to RocketBusta Radio this Saturday, February 24. We have the second half of our interview with Jimmy Jacobs that will air, and much, much more. Download the podcast of last week’s show with Part 1 if you haven’t already listened to the episode. It’s good stuff, and you get to hear me be funny and make a fool out of myself as I stumble over half of everything I say with my damn mush mouth.

Okay, now I’m gone. See ya next week.