Column of Honor: 06.21.08: Battle for 100 Percent Cotton Supremacy

What a week it’s been. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers along with Steve Winwood kicked it hard at MSG. Winwood even got in with Petty on the main set to do “Can’t Find My Way Home” and “Gimmie Some Lovin”. I absolutely went ballistic for the opening volley of hits beginning with “You Wreck Me”, “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, “I Won’t Back Down”, “Even the Losers” and ending with “Freefallin”. Later on there was an electrifying rendition of “Refugee” and fantastic singalongs of “Learning to Fly” and “Don’t Come Around Here No More”. Awesome. The next night I did a guys night out / quasi bachelor party for my brother in law to be and partied to late in the morning listening to some good live music and drinking some…and then I had to go to work!

ROH Call

ROH Champions—As of 06/21/2008

ROH World Champion—Nigel McGuinness (champion since 10/06/07, 17 successful defenses)
–defeated Takeshi Morishima in Edison, New Jersey to win the championship.

Next Defense::vs. NWA Heavyweight Champion Adam Pearce (title vs. title), Dayton, OH, 06/27/08

V.1 defeated Jay Briscoe, wristlock submission (10/21/07 San Francisco, CA)
V.2 defeated Chris Hero, wristlock submission (11/02/07 Philadelphia, PA)
V.3 defeated Austin Aries, Jawbreaker Lariat (12/29/07 Manhattan, NY)
V.4 defeated Go Shiozaki, London Dungeon (wristlock submission) (01/20/08 Tokyo, Japan,)
V.5 Steel Cage Match: defeated Chris Hero (01/25/08, Dayton, OH)
V.6 defeated Roderick Strong, Jawbreaker Lariat (01/26/08, Chicago Ridge, IL)
V.7 defeated Bryan Danielson, London Dungeon (02/23/08, Manhattan, NY)
V.8 defeated Tyler Black, London Dungeon (03/16/08, Philadelphia, PA)
V.9 defeated Larry Sweeney, Jawbreaker Lariat (03/22/08 Crystal River, FL)
V.10 defeated Austin Aries, Jawbreaker Lariat (03/29/08 Orlando, FL)
V.11 defeated Erick Stevens, London Dungeon (04/11/08 Boston, MA)
V.12 defeated Kevin Steen, roll up holding the ropes (04/12/08 Edison, NJ)
V.13 defeated Kevin Steen, Jawbreaker Lariat (04/19/08 Chicago Ridge, IL)
V.14 defeated Claudio Castagnoli, London Dungeon, (05/10/08, Manhattan, NY)
V.15 defeated KENTA and BJ Whitmer, Jawbreaker Lariat to Whitmer (05/15/08, Tokyo, Japan)
V.16 defeated Go Shiozaki, London Dungeon (06/07/08, Philadelphia, PA)
V.17 defeated Vic Viper, London Dungeon (06/14/08, Tallaght, Ireland)

**

ROH World Tag Team Champions—The Age of the Fall (champions since 06/06/08, NEW Champions)
–won an eight man, single elimination tournament on June 6th in Hartford, CT to determine new champions

Next Defense:TBD

V.1 defeated Austin Aries & Bryan Danielson (06/07/08, Philadelphia, PA)

**

Sweet & Sour Incorporated Presents The Intergender Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Of The World—Chris Hero & Sara Del Rey (champions since 01/12/08, 2 successful defenses)
Belt Reactivated as of 06/07/08 as both Hero & Del Rey are bringing them to ROH events.

V.1 defeated Ernie Osiris & Alexa Thatcher (01/12/08, Edison, NJ)
V.2 defeated Kyle Durden & Alex “Sugarfoot” Payne (01/26/08, Chicago Ridge, IL)

**

FIP Heavyweight Champion: Roderick Strong (since 02/16/2008)
-defeated Erick Stevens via count out to win the title (FIP title can change hands on count out)
SHIMMER Champion: MsChif (since 4/26/2008)
-defeated Sara Del Ray via pinfall with the Descrator DDT to win the title
Top of the Class Trophy (for ROH Students): Rhett “Addicted to Love” Titus (since 06/07/2008)
-defeated Ernie Osiris via pinfall to win the trophy.

**

Top Feuds & Pairings:
-Bryan Danielson’s road to an ROH World Title Shot
-Nigel McGuinness defends the belt against top contenders
-ROH and the NWA Heavyweight Title
-Austin Aries / Jimmy Jacobs
-The Age of the Fall vs. The Briscoes
-Sweet & Sour Inc. “Corporate Takeover”
-Albright vs. Sweet & Sour Inc.
-Roderick Strong wants payback on Sweet & Sour Inc. for Richards’ betrayal of the NRC
-Jigsaw vs. Eddie Kingston (Is Ruckus with The Vulture Squad or BLK OUT?)

ROH News
(via the ROHnewswire… and other sources when attributed)

Motor City Machine Guns vs. Steen & Generico at Death Before Dishonor VI in Hammerstein Ballroom Announced

“Death Before Dishonor VI” will be August 2nd at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan, NY. ROH hasn’t wasted any time in signing two huge matches for this event. The Motor City Machine Guns of Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin will be make a rare ROH appearance in New York. After defeating the ROH World Tag Team Champions recently in a non-title match, they are beginning to think about getting a ROH World Tag Team Title shot. Kevin Steen & El Generico claim that the belts are their destiny and they deserve a shot. We’ll find out who the better team is on 8/2 in NYC. Steen & Generico vs. Shelley & Sabin has been officially signed for “Death Before Dishonor VI” at the Hammerstein Ballroom!!!

Pro Wrestling NOAH has offered ROH a first time ever match for the Hammerstein Ballroom and ROH has jumped at the chance to be the first to promote this bout. “Death Before Dishonor VI” will have Naomichi Marufuji vs. Go Shiozaki in their first ever singles match!!! Marufuji vs. Shiozaki and Steen & Generico vs. Shelley & Sabin is only a start to what promises to be the biggest “Death Before Dishonor” ever!!!

Fans on the message board and here at 411 have already spent some time correcting the idea that Shiozaki vs. Marufuji is a first time ever match as the two have wrestled a handful of times in NOAH, going back to their first match back in 2004. This will be a first time encounter within Ring of Honor, however. It should be a very good bout that with a victory will likely rise Go’s status on the roster and back home in Japan.

Its great to see the Machine Guns vs. Steen & Generico match officially announced as that is what the fans have been clamoring to see ever since the beginning of the year when the Machine Guns’ appearances in early April were announced. It seems like ROH is trying to build the idea that Shelley and Sabin will continue to make occasional appearances for the company, although no future appearances past the August double shot have been announced. Its billed through the wording of the newswire ostensibly as a number one contender’s match, but that remains to be seen. I’d like to see Steen & Generico get a title shot for the show in Toronto or barring that, Generico vs. McGuinness for the title on that show and then a tag title match for the PPV tapings in Detroit.

I and many other fans of both teams are really looking forward to this one. However, this match might become a victim of its own hype. Everywhere I read that this match has the potential to be one of the best tag matches of the year. No doubt that is true, but since we’re still a ways away from the match I’d suggest not to let thine fandom’s thoughts be consumed with the match of the year possibilities of this one.

One last note is that this will be the third year in a row that a Death Before Dishonor show will take place in New York. It seems to be developing into an annual tradition to do so.

Nigel Defends Title Around the World

This was a pretty big week for ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness, as he spent the majority of the week touring internationally and putting the title on the line. The results of Nigel’s title defense against Darren Burridge in Doncaster have yet to come through, but Nigel did successfully defend the title as a part of an Irish Whip Wrestling show on June 14th. He was supposed to defend the title against IwW Champion Mandrake in a title vs. title scenario the following night in Cork. However, according to reports off the message board that show was cancelled. If Nigel comes back from his international tour as champion, he heads into Dayton on June 27th in a title vs. title scenario against NWA Heavyweight Champion Adam Pearce.

Updates on Bryan Danielson

No other news has broken about Bryan Danielson’s future in ROH other than he is booked for shows. ROH has remained silent on his WWE “tryout” last week.

Via Dave Meltzer: Bryan Danielson at TripleMania got good reviews from the office. His style of wrestling is completely different and the crowd didn’t treat him immediately like a superstar. Worse, on television, apparently Arturo Rivera didn’t know who he was and kept calling him Teddy Jack. But they thought he was a very good worker. His original plans were to move to Mexico City for the summer and work here full-time, and fly into ROH from Mexico. There really wasn’t any indication what his plans are now.

So, a lot of things are still up in the air about what Danielson will do for his future career and as such anything else would be purely speculation. I’ll update if we get anything more concrete, but I doubt we’ll get much more than what has already been said until something actually happens—i.e. he signs with WWE or he resigns a contract with ROH next year.

ROH Return to Japan Official. ROH Debut in Canada Announced

We said last week that we had some big negotiations going on. One of them has paid off. In case you missed it on the main page of ROHwrestling.com, Ring Of Honor has announced a return trip to Japan with two shows on 9/13 & 14 at Differ Ariake in Tokyo.

Ring of Honor will debut in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Friday night 11/7 at the Centre Jean-Claude Malepart (2633 rue Ontario Est). Tickets will go on sale on 6/24 at www.rohwrestling.com.

ROH makes an interesting move by going to Montreal, the other major city that is close within the range of their travels in the Northeast / New England area. Running Montreal in November has made fans on boards jumpy and calling for some sort of “screwjob”. Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen, or at least I hope it doesn’t. ROH has been above that sort of thing in previous years, but you never know. The temptation is there to recall history, but I’m hoping ROH will write some of its own.

I reported on Dave Meltzer’s breaking the Japan story last week, so now we have official confirmation as such. Tyler Black and Austin will be among the talent making their ROH in Japan debuts. Hopefully we get a mix of new matches and crossovers to keep things fresh and exciting.

DVD Sales Positive

Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com reports that The next ROH national DVD releases from KOCH are slated for 7/8 releases. The initial releases look to have sold about 6,000 copies each nationally, which is a really good number considering they’ve had no national TV advertising campaign and it’s been all word of mouth and print/internet advertising via wrestling outlets.

BY way of comparison, WWE usually sells within the tens of thousands (anywhere between 30,000 and above) for their average DVD releases, meanwhile TNA DVD’s top out at the 8,000 to 9,000 range. ROH being right up there with TNA’s sales figures looks to be a very promising statistic and keeps things in proper perspective as far as where ROH is at in comparison to the other companies.

Storyline in AAA with Jack Evans and Boxer Did Not Take Place

From Dave Meltzer: [AAA’s Triplemania] show was scheduled to end with an angle featuring Cristian Mijares, the new boxing superstar in the country, who was going to deck Jack Evans backstage, but after what happened to Roldan [AAA’s promoter was injured legit in an angle with Konnan], the show kind of fell apart.

Evans, skinny white boy vs. this guy:

Well, that would have been interesting…Evans could have floated like a breakdancer and stung like a B-boy…and Mijares probably would have knocked his ass out cold.

The Latest on AAA-ROH, NOAH-ROH

From Mike Johnson: For those who have asked about stories of a talent agreement with Lucha promotion AAA, there have been meetings, but there are no immediate plans on Lucha talents coming in at this point. It’s something that may be on the horizon down the line. AAA has interest in booking ROH talents to have a regular crew of American talent working their shows, using the ROH name as well, which can only help the brand awareness internationally. Jack Evans and Teddy Hart have been regularly working for AAA of late.

A number of ROH stars will be appearing on the Pro Wrestling NOAH event this Saturday 6/21 in Great Britain at the Coventry Skydome, which TNA ran last weekend. The NOAH show features Kenta Kobashi & Go Shiozaki vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Naomichi Marufuji in the main event. Also scheduled for the show is GHC Junior champ Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Jay Briscoe, GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team champs KENTA & Taiji Ishimori vs. Bryan Danielson & Eddie Edwards, Jun Akiyama & Bison Smith vs. Takeshi Morishima & Mohammed Yone, Doug Williams & ROH champ Nigel McGuinness vs. Takashi Sugiura & Kotaro Suzuki, Junji Izumida & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Wade Fitzgerald & Martin Stone and Atsushi Aoki vs. Joel Redman. If anyone attends the NOAH event, please feel free to send along a live report by clicking my name above.

ROH later confirmed these meetings with AAA, although again nothing official has been worked out, just probably the first drafts of what if anything could happen down the line. ROH also touted their connections in a newsbit with working relationships with FIP, SHIMMER, NOAH, Dragon Gate and now the NWA.

Whitmer Update

BJ Whitmer, who’s return was teased on the most recent ROH PPV, injured his hand in Japan and will need surgery.

This looks to have Whitmer’s return, if any, put on hold for now.

Omega Factor

Canadian star Kenny Omega, who was under a WWE developmental deal at one point, will debut on 7/25 in Toronto..

It was also announced that Omega will also work 7/26 in Detroit.

Omega works kind of a wacky, out there cartoon like character, but that’s pretty much all I know of him. He’s gotten some buzz on the message boards as of late and will have the doubleshot to look to impress the fans in attendance.

Doin’ Business with Larry Sweeney

Pelle Primeau has been knocked out on recent shows by Chris Hero, but he keeps coming back for more. Primeau won’t back down. Now he has challenged Chris Hero to a bout in Chicago. However, Primeau doesn’t want just a regular contest. He wants a Lights Out Match where you can only win by knocking your opponent out for 10. Hero and Larry Sweeney have already accepted while laughing hysterically.

The new office voicemail at Sweet & Sour Inc. has revealed that Jonny Fairplay will be at the 6/28 Chicago event. The number is floating around the internet and if you call it you will hear Sweeney talk about Fairplay, the mystery partner in Chicago, adding the ROH World Title to the NWA World Heavyweight Title and more.

The latest DVD releases have a lot of Hero vs. Primeau interaction going on through various tag matches as such. Hero takes out Primeau on “Injustice” with a roaring forearm. These two have surprisingly been fun to watch in these matches, as Hero does the matches vs. face underdogs pretty well (look to his matches against Equinox ne:Vin Gerard in late 2007 CHIKARA shows for proof). I’d expect some interesting moments in the lights out match, especially if Hero takes Primeau too lightly.

I didn’t get to watch all that much wrestling this week, but did check out WWE Raw and ROH’s “Bedlam in Beantown”, which is where most of these fave five picks come from:

1. Chris Jericho and Ric Flair: It was shocking to see Flair return out of nowhere on this episode of Raw, but I did like that he took Y2J to task for the heinous actions against Shawn Michaels last week. Then if that weren’t enough I absolutely could not stop laughing at the cartoon like walk these two had to the back of the arena where they were supposedly about to fight it outside in the parking lot. Flair constantly turning around to goad Y2J to the back was terrific.
2. Erick Stevens: Mohawk-less and slimmed down considerably, Stevens is a fun to watch beat down his opponents with chops and power moves.
3. Kota Ibushi: I watched the first match of his four show run for ROH. He had a very good showcase against Davey Richards and even though he came up on the losing end of things he showed a nice repertoire of moves that got the crowd excited. Although I could definitely see some of his limitations being exposed if he were to appear on every show, especially if he were to repeat these spots that were seemingly spontaneous the first time around.
4. Charlie Haas: Surprisingly and hysterically funny in his hosting duties for the WWE Diva bikini whatever from this past week on Raw. Let him host one of these every week for kicks and giggles.
5. Jack Evans: is a whirling Sonic spinball in his return appearances for ROH. He is a Sonic blast to watch.

Honorarium

You know, Larry Sweeney has had quite the influence on popular culture. A little known fact is that Sweeney and many of his friends in Sweet & Sour Incorporated actually had a television show back in the sweet 70’s. I clicked onto TV Land and managed to catch the theme song to the show, which I’ve transcribed for you below:

Here’s the story of Larry Sweeney,
Who was representing three very hardy grapplers.
All of them had dreams of gold, like Chris Hero,
Bobby Dempsey and Tank Toland with their curls.
Here’s the story, of a man named Adam Pearce,
Who was busy with three Hangmen of his own.
They were four men, wrestling all together,
Yet they were all getting pwned.
Till the one day when Sweeney met this fellow,
And they knew that it was much more than a power lunch.
That this super group would somehow form a faction.
That’s the way we all became the Sweeney Bunch.
The Sweeney Bunch, The Sweeney Bunch.
That’s the way we became the Sweeney Bunch.

Then my cable blew out from all of the awesomeness.

Other quick thoughts from “Bedlam in Beantown”:

-Mike Bennett has the body and wrestling style of a WWE developmental wrestler (good for WWE, bad for ROH) and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him signed up at some point.

-Kota Ibushi’s running soccer kick style has me thinking he should probably fit right into the Euro Cup.

-I don’t necessarily like how Claudio Castagnoli won the six man elimination match considering Sweeney was never eliminated. Yes it was logical that because Sweeney was not there and that there were no other Inc. wrestlers on that team that he would be declared the winner. It just would have been nice to have an official ruling on Sweeney’s elimination (no count outs in ROH but he could have been DQ’ed by the ref for being outside the ring for too long, as we are reminded on every show).

-I like how Jigsaw plays off of J-Train and how he seems to react to him as a mentor of sorts for the street style, but he still needs that extra something to jazz up his efforts in the ring. Like maybe…a mask or something? Okay, just kidding.

-I was thinking that with The Vulture Squad representing New York and Eddie Edwards representing New England we could have done a NY-Boston home-away team type feeling with their matches. They were supposed to fight back to back here and in Jersey so it could have worked, but instead the Vulture Squad were embraced surprisingly well by the Massachusetts crowd.

-Steen vs. Necro came off as an okay hardcore match, but fell a bit flat. I thought the very beginning with the chair shot from out of nowhere was awesome (and received a huge crowd reaction). I also liked the end with the thumbtacks and barbed wire. Maybe that’s all that should have been in the match and that would have been enough.

Black T-Shirt Squad: Dragon vs. Joe

Bryan Danielson has often expressed his disinterest in having his own T-Shirt designs, but over the years ROH has pressed and sold quite a few based on his image and persona. They recently released another shirt based on the “revolution” concept of a previously independently released Danielson T-shirt. At around the same time, TNA has released the latest shirt for their current TNA champion (and ROH legend) Samoa Joe. So while these two have engaged in plenty of in ring battle over the years on the independent scene, how do these two stack up in the 100% Cotton battlefield? Let’s find out!

ROH: Bryan Danielson “Revolution Fist”

Description: A grey shirt with maroon coloring, the fist striking outward is the central image, supplemented with a “three star” effect and the number 99 (I believe to represent the year Danielson broke into the business) and the word “Revolution”.

Hip: I like the star and fist design—its compelling and attracts attention. It’s a fairly clean design that doesn’t go too overboard. It doesn’t scream out “wrestling shirt”, which is always a plus in my book.

Zip: Nothing says “Revolt” more than maroon on grey. That’s an interesting color clash. Also, why just three stars? Everyone knows that with Danielson, you’re talking a four star plus match just about every time out!

Wear or Tear?: Unfortunately, this shirt doesn’t compare to Danielson’s self-released Revolution shirt, which is available on his myspace page has a maroon and white color scheme. I’m not sure why ROH didn’t go ahead and just sell those on the website. This one is just an okay facsimile.
Grade: B-

TNA: Samoa Joe: Submission Machine

Description: Joe continues to let you know just what he’s about with his T-shirt catch phrases. He’s rocked the “Drastic Times, Drastic Measure” promo as a Joeism for many years, so now that and his “submission machine” moniker are on display for all to see. The shirt is beige and has some more tribal patterns to complete the design.

Hip: As opposed to the last TNA Joe shirt I reviewed, I like this tribal design and the overall layout of the whole shirt. Again, this doesn’t seem like a “wrestling shirt” and you have to look closely to find the TNA logo.

Zip: The two catchphrases almost seems a bit too much Tony Robbins for my liking. While I don’t usually favor wrestler’s likenesses on shirts, there is NOTHING on this shirt that suggests the name or likeness of Samoa Joe unless you already know those two catchphrases are associated with Joe.

Wear or Tear?: Its one of the better Joe shirts released from TNA, so I would think to get it because there may not be anything better than that for a while. Its not the most exciting shirt in the world, but it gets the job done.
Grade: B+

Samoa Joe muscle busts his T-shirt past Danielson’s new design by a decent margin. I’m still waiting for the “I have until 5 shirt!” and wish ROH would bite the bullet and get on that—it would sell huge! For now, the T-shirt stand is closed.

ROH Preview: Battle for Supremacy: Dayton, OH, June 27th, 2008

Montgomery County Fairgrounds
1043 S. Main St, Dayton, Ohio, 45409
8:00 pm belltime

Title vs. Title Match
ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness vs. NWA World Heavyweight Champion Adam Pearce with Larry Sweeney

This match developed very rapidly. Nigel is being positioned as a face here, calling upon the Dayton fans who have always been for him from day one to support him. Pearce walks in as the recognized NWA champion and with something to prove to the fans—that he is just as much a champion in his own right as Nigel. Both men have something to gain and something to lose in this situation. I don’t think it’s a unification match per se but the winner will have both belts at the end of this one, and that means the winner will have ultimate power in two different independent promotions. That means a lot in this day and age. There is a distinct chance for some shenanigans here and some chaos as far as DQs or a disputed finish. We could even see a one hour draw. Ultimately whatever happens will determine the short term future of the landscape of both the NWA and ROH.

Grudge Match
Austin Aries vs. The Necro Butcher

The Aries vs. Age of the Fall feud continues in earnest here as Aries goes up against the unpredictable and uncontrollable Necro Butcher. Aries must use his speed and range to knock Necro off balance and hopefully come up with the right combination to discombobulate his opponent. It will take a lot of offensive firepower to do that, because Necro is one tough man. He is almost Mick Foley-like in his ability to take damage, fight back hurt and come back asking for more. Aries also needs to be aware that this match may also simply be a trap to get him out in the open, whereupon Jimmy Jacobs and the rest of his crew can beat him down without consequences.

“Transform” Rematch
Bryan Danielson vs. Erick Stevens

I’m going to be interested to see the reaction to Danielson for this one—will he be unanimously supported by the ROH fanbase or will some start to question his loyalties and feel rejected by his appearance with WWE? It could take this match, which was simply going to be an athletic based rematch and make into something else. We shall see.

Special Challenge Match
Roderick Strong vs. Chris Hero with Larry Sweeney, Sara Del Rey, Shane Hagadorn & Bobby Dempsey

Strong is sort of in the middle of a change in direction—he hasn’t clearly become a face yet, but he is in against one of the top heels in the promotion. Chris Hero could use a big win to bolster his placement within ROH and a win against Strong could definitely do that here. He has been more serious as of late and should look to take the physical action up a notch against someone who can really go in that direction. Hero has a ton of back up and Strong seemingly has nobody there to look out for him…unless Brent Albright chooses to help out in that old “enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality.

Tag Team Challenge Match
ROH World Tag Team Champion Jimmy Jacobs & Joey Matthews with Allison Wonderland vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico

Steen & Generico have slowly tipped their toes in the pool that is the fight against The Age of the Fall. They want the tag team belts and Jacobs and Black have them. Unfortunately for them they will only fight one of the tag champions, but if either one can pin Jacobs, then that should immediately place them back in the top contender position for the belts. Matthews should look to slow down the pace and be the more methodical man in the match; meanwhile Jacobs’ mental anguish may push him to extremes of violence and in ring depravity. Steen and Generico for their part will look to blitz their opponents with their tag team moves and will rely on the support of the fans to get them through any trouble spots.

Special Attraction Match
ROH World Tag Team Champion Tyler Black vs. Delirious

Black is beginning to be focused upon more heavily in the wake of his Pay Per View title match. Now Black gets to test his wrestling ability in singles action against Delirious. Expect Delirious to confuse the champion initially but Black should overpower and dominate the lizard man in the later stages and get the win.

Plus: Brent Albright; Claudio Castagnoli; Jay Briscoe; Daizee Haze; Pelle Primeau; Top Of The Class Trophy holder Rhett Titus plus others!!!

Going Home

Honor System: following what’s naughty and what’s not in ROH:

Here’s a new feature to the column, a bit of a quickie that goes through what have been the more honorable or dishonorable actions in recent weeks within ROH. See if you can identify which wrestlers I’m referring to as a bit of a bonus game.

Name That Tune Week 38

Clue: four leaf clover
Lyric:“What’s so new about what you’re saying? / It’s a new generation with the same sad song.”

This would have been The Walking Dead by Dropkick Murphys, whose music were used by Irish Airborne.

This Week’s Winners (listed in order of entry)
Jeremy Sirio
soulpower
Ryan Holiday
Dino Zucconi (a blast from the 411 past! Check out some of Dino’s work here!)
Ernesto Moreno
tonyface (via the comments board)

There are only THREE more weeks of Name That Tune! So let’s make the last few weeks count and play Name that Tune! for this week, June 21st, 2008!

Clue: Mandy
Lyric: “And while she tried to be a star, Tony always tended bar”

What’s the name of the song and the artist?

Send in your answers here and if you’re correct I’ll list your name in next week’s column!

Ringtones

Comments from last week’s column, including the editorial about Jim Ross suggesting WWE should “subsidize” ROH:

I think ROH being subsidized by WWE would be a good thing. WWE can
already get any ROH worker they want as it is, they might as well get
some money and exposure out of it.

Posted By: Bob (Guest) on June 14, 2008 at 04:04 PM

I understand the take the money and run mentality but in the end it also gives ROH no ground to stand on if they were ever to complain to fans that their top talent was being taken away from them…well, you guys took the money didn’t you? What do you have to complain about? It might be very short sighted to take money, because the presence of top talent will draw fans to shows and thus more money to you in the form of merchandise sold at shows and DVD’s sold due to top tier matches taking place. If Danielson goes, a huge part of the quality wrestling matches goes with him. As far as exposure, I don’t see how that works. WWE would never in a million years acknowledge a wrestler coming from ROH. They didn’t do it with CM Punk and they didn’t do it just now with Matt Sydal / Evan Bourne. There is no way to get exposure for ROH by losing their own talent, other than the story itself of ROH losing talent. That would likely cause people NOT to buy their product because it will become a sort of lame duck status

WWE should buy TNA and ROH so they don’t become threats. Put TNA on
Wednesdays and ROH on Thursdays. Then, we can get wrestling every
weekday!

Posted By: WWE Fanatic (Guest) on June 14, 2008 at 09:12 PM

Idealistically that could work. It didn’t do so hot for WCW though back in 2001-2002.

I hate WWE. I wish ROH stays completely independent.

Posted By: Rohbot (Guest) on June 14, 2008 at 09:23 PM

I don’t know if this was some sort of sarcastic comment mocking ROH fans or if this was truly the thought of an ROH fan. In either case, most readers know my history of starting out as a WWE fan and that despite my best attempts to do otherwise; I usually watch Raw every Monday and ECW every Tuesday. It’s not about hating WWE, but it is about ROH staying completely independent and doing business for themselves and not because the big bull of the industry tells them what and when to do something.

You’re really helping to turn my attention towards ROH, and I can’t
thank you enough for it.

Posted By: Matt P. (Guest) on June 14, 2008 at 10:29 PM

If you’re looking for current CHIKLARA shows and events, you can’t go wrong with King of Trios, which had a little bit of everything and sets up some angles and issues for the current season (see below for a write up of Nights Two and Three of the KOT tournament). A whole bunch of the more recent shows have just come out and while I haven’t seen them I know the two Aniversario shows for 2008 were well received. I’d also recommend last year’s “Anniverario!” Show with Hero vs. Quackenbush finally coming down to an epic battle.

Ari, I do agree with you that ROH shouldn’t take WWE’s money, however
I think some sort of agreement between the two companies might be
nice. They have showed signs in the past that they could work
together in small doses, I think an official agreement between the
two would be nice. The only reason I could see that not being
feasible is the fact that ROH is now on PPV and that would
technically make them competition. Still, one can hope.

Posted By: Andy Clark (Guest) on June 14, 2008 at 11:49 PM

As much as I enjoyed the original ECW invasion of Raw in 1997, I don’t think it would work the same way for ROH in 2008. I also think that Age of the Fall may end up being the ironic saving grace of ROH against Sweet & Sour’s clutches, but we shall see.

ROH isn’t as big or as interesting as ECW was for WWE to subsidize
them or to do an invasion angle. I think Jim Ross was talking more
about the WWE fleecing ROH’s talent, which they should, since they’re
aren’t many other legit indy feds and ROH might be the only place for
young workers to prove themselves.

Posted By: Chopper (Guest) on June 15, 2008 at 02:11 AM

Which is what WWE did before in year’s past, although the wrestlers themselves came to the decision to leave to try their hand at making it in WWE. There were never any overtures simply on their own from WWE’s side to my recollection, usually the ROH wrestlers had to come to them to get the tryout. WWE “fleecing talent” is another good reason that ROH signed their core talent to contracts.

ROH has lost talent before like aj styles, homicide, samoa joe,
christopher daniels, spanky, paul london, etc., yet they are still
able to put up great shows like these. with all the uproar and
positive feedback that tyler black recently received, (harsh as i may
sound) it won’t affect ROH that much if danielson chose to go to WWE.
besides, i think jimmy jacobs had been overlooked for so long that i
don’t know how many talent would have to leave ROH just for the
bookers to realize the ROH title would look good on him too

Posted By: kapengmabula (Guest) on June 15, 2008 at 10:02 AM

I think Danielson and Jay Briscoe are the core ROH originals left and for them to lose Danielson would hurt a lot. It wouldn’t kill the company as you are right to state there is plenty of other talent in the company such as Black who could fill that void, but it would definitely cost them some as far as in ring quality and a true “face” for the company in the short term. No one right now is quite a beloved in ROH as Danielson is right now.

Ari’s right about the downsides to WWE subsidizing ROH. That’s what
they did with ECW until they finally took it over. And instead of
capitalizing on ECDub’s popularity, they then set a path — now
complete in my opinion — of destroying it and everything it once
stood for. I’d stop watching wrestling forever if they did that to
ROH!!!

Posted By: nomark (Guest) on June 16, 2008 at 12:51 PM

This is exactly what I fear when we talk about the “subsidy” issue. It’s a slippery slope to how much WWE would influence ROH’s future. It would be same if for some reason ROH became an official WWE developmental territory. We saw just how little they respected their own developmental territories by bringing talent up without advance notice to the bookers in OVW. That left Heyman and others scrambling to explain the sudden absence of their talent that were engaged in ongoing storylines. It would be heartbreaking to see that sort of action going on in ROH.

**The Independent Buy In**

2008
**CHIKARA “Cibernetico & Robin” (Torneo Cibernetico: Kings of Wrestling vs. Dorado’s Luchadores, The Olsen Twins / Cheech & Cloudy, Quackenbush / Donst, The Colony / BLK OUT ) High Recommendation
**CHIKARA “Brusied” (Kingston / Donst, Campeones de Parejas: F.I.S.T. vs. Incoherence / Castagnoli / Taylor, The Colony / Brodie Lee & Olsen Twins, Cheech & Cloudy / Osirian Portal ) High Recommendation
**Pro Wrestling NOAH “Special Budokan Double Shot”7/15 & 9/9/07 (Determination League Semi Finals & Finals, NTV Cup Finals)High Recommendation
**PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 1 (Castagnoli / Williams, Evans / Pac, Black / Shelley, Aries / Strong, PWG Tag Titles: Generico & Steen / Dragon Kid & Susumu Yokosuka)Medium Recommendation
**PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 2 (CIMA / Tornado, Steen / Butcher, McGuinness / Richards, Kid / Yokosuka) Low Recommendation
**PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 (the entire show) High Recommendation
**Shimmer Volume 11 (Sarah Stock / MsChif, Sarah Stock / Cheerleader Melissa, Sara Del Rey / Cindy Rogers, Nikki Roxx / Lacey, Daizee Haze / Malia Hosaka, Allison Danger / Hosaka)High Recommendation
**SHIMMER Volume 12 (Del Rey / Lacey, Del Rey / Sarah Stock, Haze / Lacey, Portuguese Princess Ariel / Josie / Nikki Roxx / Portia Perez, Melissa & MsChif / Lexie Fyfe & Hosaka)High Recommendation
**SHIMMER Women’s Athletes Volume 13 (Melissa / Portuguese Princess Ariel, “Dark Angel” Sarah Stock / Daizee Haze, Portia Perez / MsChif, Del Rey & Roxx vs. Rain & Lacey, O’Neal vs. Melissa) Medium Recommendation
**SHIMMER Women’s Athletes Volume 14 (SHIMMER Title: Del Rey / Lacey, Nikki Roxx / Amazing Kong, Two out of Three falls: Allison Danger / Cindy Rogers, Portuguese Princess Ariel / Amber O’Neal) Medium Recommendation
**CHIKARA The Battle of Who Could Care Less (Incoherence & Tim Donst / BLK OUT, Claudio Castagnoli & Equinox / Hero & Hawke, Lince Dorado & Pantera / Olsen Twins, Quackenbush & The Colony / F.I.S.T. / Osirian Portal) High Recommendation
**CHIKARA The Sordid Perils of Everyday Existence (Campeones de Parejas: Incoherence / Cheech & Cloudy, Lucha de Apresta: Chris Hero / Equinox, F.I.S.T., Ellis, Ryder / Quack / Donst / Super Smash Bros.) Medium Recommendation
**CHIKARA Chapter 11 (Hallowicked / Kingston, Colony / Super Smash Brothers & Shane Storm, Tex-Arkana Title Match: Alvarez / Sweeney, Quack, Trik Davis & Helios / Shayne Hawke & The Osirian Portal, MIYAWAKI, Hasegawa & Pantera / Cheech & Cloudy & Delirious) High Recommendation
**SHIMMER Women’s Athletes Volume 15 (SHIMMER Title: Sara Del Rey / Amazing Kong, Daizee Haze / Sara Stock, Cheerleader Melissa / Alexa Thatcher, Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew / Ariel & Josie, Sereena Deeb / Jetta) High Recommendation
**SHIMMER Women’s Athletes Volume 16 (SHIMMER Title Two Out of Three Falls: Sara Del Rey / Sara Stock, Amazing Kong / Cheerleader Melissa, Daizee Haze MsChif & Eden Black / Lacey, Rain & Jetta, Portia Perez & Nicole Matthews / Ariel & Josie, Sereena Deeb / Jetta) High Recommendation
**CHIKARA Two Eyebrows Are Better Than One (Castagnoli, Lince Dorado & Ophidian / Quackenbush, Donst & Amasis, Kingston / Storm, Colony / F.I.S.T., Moravian Greyhound / Zombie Plantain / Hydra)Medium Recommendation
**CHIKARA King of Trios Night One (Colony / Go, Nakazawam Shimizu, Osirian Portal & Mecha Mummy / Quackenbush, Storm & Skayde, Cheech & Cloudy & M.C. KZ / Quackenbush, Storm & Skayde, Delirious, Hallowicked & Helios / The Cartel) (NEW ADDITION) High Recommendation

**CHIKARA King of Trios Night Two (Player Uno, Stupified & El Generico / Cannon & North Star Express, Lince, Pantera & Incognito / Los Ice Creams & Glacier, Sweet & Sour Inc. / F.I.S.T. & Taylor, Donst, Gulak & Sumner / Fabulous Three / ) (NEW ADDITION) Medium Recommendation
Why You Should Buy In: If you ordered night one of the tournament and saw how the first half of opening brackets worked out, then you’d likely want to check out night two for the second half. However, there are plenty of other good reasons to check out this DVD, including special guest galore in the original Demolition and One Man Gang, plus of all of the most out there wrestlers to make an appearance, who would have ever guessed Glacier? Not that these wrestlers have great matches on this DVD, but they do provide a nice touch of nostalgia and are entertaining in their own right.
Match of the DVD: Super Smash Brothers & El Generico vs. North Star Express & Arik Cannon. I don’t usually like watching Cannon in the ring but he was very good on this DVD, both in a wacky pre match promo and in this match. Lots of fast wrestling action on both sides, with Uno and Stupified in particular showcasing some excellent moves and double teams. Although for the life of me, I don’t know why the NSE come out to Vengaboys’ “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom”. Although for the life of me I also don’t know why I find that song unrelentingly catchy.
Positives & Negatives: The Soul Touchaz received a ton of attention immediately after this show for their two matches in the tournament. Even though they entered to Soulja Boy’s “Superman” and did that god dammed dance, it wasn’t too cheese and I was able to get past that. I got into their act, especially with their manager / pastor guy C-Red leading the charge. Although, for the life of me I cannot understand their constant chanting. Maybe I don’t or shouldn’t want to know. They did perform well in the ring and most importantly looked like a team. Willie “da Bomb” Richardson was immediately embraced due to a big man his size really teraing it up in the ring. Their opponents in the fist round, Team B.S.E. (Kobra Kai, Xtremo & Sombra Canadienese) were pretty terrible. I didn’t get into Xtremo’s appearance last time he was in CHIKARA due to his flat character and average in ring ability and here he was joined by two others in the same category or worse. At least they worked a disagreement angle with Kobra being the rudo on their team…Sweet & Sour Inc. were in their original incarnation on this show and we had a rarity of seeing Toland, Del Rey & Dempsey together in action (why didn’t we see them team up proper in ROH?). They worked their interactions based on their ROH storyline, with Toland being a little less of a dick to Dempsey in order to help get them to the next round. There are definitely positives and negatives of seeing Del Rey against men such as Team F.I.S.T. Obviously its great to see Del Rey positioned in a way where here wrestling abilities allow her to go toe-to-toe against guys like Icarus, Akuma and Taylor. However, putting her on equal playing field with them means it has to work the other way around as well, and that means we have to see her get beat down by men during the match, and I don’t feel 100% comfortable with that. It is a give and take though and I understand why it happens…Tim Donst received a huge push last year as a rookie trying to make good, and when he leads his team of Gulak and Sumner for the second time in a King of Trios Tournament, the fans actually respond to him as a leader—giving him massive pops and wanting to see him take care of business. It helps rub off on his partners…unfortunately their opponents are the Fabulous Three trio of Mitch Ryder, Larry Sweeney and Shayne Hawke, all of whom sport bad ass jackets and boas. They prove too much for the younger wrestlers to deal with and make it into the next round…Glacier enters to Da Rude’s “Sandstorm” and I can’t think of any song more appropriate. His entrance, complete with (two) lasers and (light) snow really gets the crowd rocking. I think CHIKARA fans may be the only ones to just straight up embrace a wrestler like Glacier, who was so clearly treated like a joke in WCW, but seems to fit right in with the CHIKARA environment. In fact, I’d like to see a return appearance one of these days, even though he did the minimum possible in both night two and night three (we didn’t even see the cryonic kick!)…One Man Gang and Demolition were able to cut a terrific promo before their match and even though they are the very definition of aging veterans I have to admit their words were intimidating and believable. Seeing One Man Gang do the Akeem dance may in and of itself be worth the price of this DVD above and beyond the wrestling action.

**CHIKARA King of Trios Night Three (KOT Quarter, Semi Finals & Finals, Tag Team Gauntlet) (NEW ADDITION) High Recommendation
Why You Should Buy In: If you want to know how the tournament concludes and which team is able to crown themselves the King of Trios, then this one is an obvious buy. F.I.S.T., The Colonty, Team Mexico, Quack’s team, Team Japan, BLK OUT, The Golden Trio (Incoherence & Helios) and The Fabulous Three are all in the bracketing. We get a ton of strong matches due to these wrestlers still being in the tournament.
Match of the DVD: A toss up between the semi final matches, both of which features a ton of energy and great tag team combinations.
Positives & Negatives The first thing I see on the DVD is Steve “The Turtle” on my screen—ahhhhh! Yeah I know the whole thing about if you criticize the guy then you don’t get the whole CHIKARA style, well…no. I’m sorry, but I don’t need to see this guy on my screen recapping the tournament tonight. I did think the production values were humorous with the use of a simple poster paper and black marker to create the brackets…reminds me of what I used to do as a kid…The Colony are terrific here and really puts the spotlight on their improvements and movement up the card. They are a terrific team and a fantastically entertaining gimmick…It was smart for Quack’s team to make it to night three as it sells their consistency and effort, but the champions of the 2007 tournament (at least Quack & Storm) do not make it to the finals this year so we are guaranteed new KOT champions…BLK OUT are absolutely at their most heelish here, and Eddie Kingston is downright incorrigible in his mocking of Lince Dorado…non tournament action includes the return of Michael Nakazawa, and that’s either a positive or a negative depending on how you feel about people pouring baby oil down their throat and spitting it out at their opponents. Yeah, I know… Vin Gerard was teased throughout the tournament of stalking or sulking throughout the New Alhambra, but his presence proves to be a distraction to The Colony on this night, although the way it comes off it seems to be most the fault of the ants. Anyway they immediately gain some revenge by dumping Vin into a trash can in a funny moment. However, in an interesting bit of karma, Vin gets the win in a non tournament four way match that also includes Glacier, Martin Stone and Reno Diamond…The tag team gauntlet makes a reprise from last year’s KOT showcase and features some of the teams who didn’t make it to the final rounds of the trios tourney. The last team in is Demolition, so not to give away the winners, but somebody does go up for the Demolition Decapitation.

This section needs your help! If you want to recommend some good independent wrestling to your fellow internet readers out there, drop me a line for the column.

Get With the pROHgram:

Here’s another new feature to the column I’d like to test out. Each week I’ll give a brief synopsis of what to watch for in the world of Ring of Honor.

June 28th, 2008 – Dayton, OH: Jerry Lynn vs. ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness (non-title): These two had a terrific scientific encounter over four years ago. Now Lynn sees if he is still up to snuff against the current ROH champion. Or will Nigel avenge his loss?

June 28th, 2008 – Dayton, OH: Bryan Danielson vs. Claudio Castagnoli: A first time match up in NYC (they have fought elswehere) could help to determine a new number one contender to the Ring of Honor World championship.

Late June / Early July 2008: ROH A New Level DVD release: ROH’s debut at the Hammerstein Ballroom features Claudio Castagnoil’s title shot against McGuinness and the incredible visual of 2,300 strong shouting at max decibel levels.

August 1st, 2008 – Manassas, VA: Motor City Machine Guns invade ROH: The attempts to bring in huge numbers for a relatively new market continues with appearances from the only TNA contracted talent making appearances for the company. Also appearing: Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Naomichi Marufuji

August 2nd, 2008 – Manhattan, NY: Motor City Machine Guns vs. El Generico & Kevin Steen: The fans have been craving for a dream match between El Generico & Kevin Steen and Detroit’s finest. Now Manhattan, known for big time matches, will be the location for this match.

ROH @ 411

Alex Mattis discusses what could be in the near future for Ring of Honor in this week’s Best of the Rest.

411 Buy or Sell has Steve Cook and John Gregory discussing Danielson’s future, Speed Muscle and more.

The Briscoes make it to number 6 on the Best of the 411 Mania era Tag Teams list.

J.D. Dunn reviews McGuinness vs. Steen and the rest of ROH Injustice.

ROH Outside of 411

Brad Garoon, Samuel Berman and Jake Ziegler interview ROH World Tag Team Champion Tyler Black in the latest podcast fromThe Cool Kids Table. It’s a good one for sure, with some new information about his career, how he almost became an ROH Wrestling School student and his experiences on the sets of WSX and The Wrestler.

Meanwhile another 411 alumnus (plenty of those mentioned in this week’s column), Nick Marsico is looking back through each of Ring of Honor’s Pay Per Views as a sort of “strategy guide” to the shows. Check out Nick with that write up and with Rocketbusta Radio every week. RBR just celebrated three years of internet radio and podcast, so congratulations to them!

A word of advance notice to readers—next week on Sunday is my sister’s wedding and so with all of the exciting chaos and activity that usually befalls such an event I would expect a much abbreviated column. I’ll have results from Dayton and a preview of Chicago Ridge, the latest news and that may be about it. The week after that it will be back to normal and then we’re almost at my third anniversary doing CoH!

See everyone next week.
BROOKLYN!
-Ari-