One week ago, Ring of Honor hosted what was to be one of, if not, the biggest events in its over six-year history. The results are in, and I must say that this show turned out to be more of a shocker than I could’ve predicted. Credit to Stuart Carapola and the ROH forums for this write up.

Glory By Honor VII

September 20th, 2008

Philadelphia, PA

 -The opening match saw Jerry Lynn defeat Kenny King. King looked good, he seems like he'll be someone to keep an eye on. Jerry was over huge here, and I would even say he got one of the biggest pops of the night.

-Adam Pearce defeated Brent Albright to regain the NWA World Title. I was kind of surprised at the result, not only because Pearce got the title back but also because he beat Albright by submission, and with his own hold (the crowbar) at that. I did see Mike's news posting that Albright may have suffered an arm injury that led to the title switch, but I guess we'll hear more about that if there's anything to it.

-Go Shiozaki defeated Kevin Steen to retain the FIP "World" Title. Good match, these two guys stiffed the hell out of each other, but you never really felt like Shiozaki's title was in any serious jeopardy here.

-Bryan Danielson defeated Katsuhiko Nakajima to retain the GHC Junior Heavyweight Title. This was an excellent match, and it was either this or the main event for match of the night, depending on whether you like strong wrestling or brawls. Nakajima has some of the stiffest kicks I've ever seen, and he basically kicked the crap out of Danielson for much of the match before Danielson came back, drilling Nakajima with a series of elbows to the head before hooking in Cattle Mutilation for the win.

-After intermission, we got Erick Stevens defeating Rhett Titus. Stevens seemed to take an accidental shot to the face because his nose started gushing blood within the first minute or so of the match. After the match, Larry Sweeney came out and offered Stevens a contract to join Sweet & Sour Inc, but Stevens blew him off, leading to all of Sweeney's guys attacking Stevens. Roderick Strong and the Vulture Squad made the save, leading to...

-Chris Hero, Eddie Edwards, and Shane Hagadorn defeated Roderick Strong, Ruckus, and Jigsaw. This was an excellent match and easily the best match Shane Hagadorn has ever been, and probably will ever be, a part of. Chris Hero picked up the win after knocking Roderick Strong out with his loaded elbow pad.

-GHC Heavyweight Champion Kensuke Sasaki defeated Claudio Castagnoli in a non-title bout. This was a good match, even though I didn't think Claudio was laying into him with some of his moves the way he usually does. Sasaki, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem laying into Claudio. I don't think I was necessarily expecting a classic, but this felt kind of pedestrian nonetheless, and Sasaki finished him off with the Snowplow.

-ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness defeated El Generico to retain the title. Nigel looked pretty dominating in this match, and even though Generico got in a bunch of hope spots and even had Kevin Steen interfere and attack Nigel with the title belt when the ref had his back turned, Nigel came through and pinned Generico with a jackknife rollup for the win. Interesting to note that Nigel really kept the lariats to a minimum this weekend, and didn't win either match with the rebound lariat.

- Steel Cage Warfare: Austin Aries & Tyler Black begin.
~3rd entrant: Jimmy Jacobs
~4th entrant: Necro Butcher
~Aries has been busted open.
~5th entrant: Jay Briscoe
~6th entrant: Delirious
~Jimmy Jacobs is busted open.
~7th and final entrant: Mark Briscoe
Necro Butcher is eliminated by Aries & Jacobs
~Mark Briscoe has brought in a barbed wire table!
~Black gives Mark a running powerbomb through the barbed wire table.
~Jay is pushed off the top of the cage through a table on the floor.
Austin Aries is eliminated by Jacobs' End Time.
~Jacobs gives Delirious his spike. He goes to spike Jay but Daizee tries to talk him out of it. Delirious spikes Daizee!
~Mark Briscoe climbs to the top of the cage and dives on to everyone!
Delirious is eliminated via a Doomsday Device from the Briscoes.
~Jacobs spikes both Briscoes. Jacobs & Black hit both with chairs.
~Briscoes totally no sell both shots.
Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black are eliminated with tandem Jay Driller/Cut-Throat Driver.

WINNERS of Steel Cage Warfare: Austin Aries & The Briscoes

Before I get to the results, I’d like to touch on something that ROHbots around the ICW have been complaining about: the fans in attendance. Seemingly, the Philly, old school ECW fans were in full effect, heckling many ROH favorites, including Bryan Danielson. I don’t know why, but those old ECW fans haven’t been able to figure out that they aren’t the show. It’s nothing wrong about being into the show, but to purposely boo fan favorites because that’s the “cool” thing to do is so 1995. For all of you fans who want to come to wrestling shows just to try to get your face on a DVD, please don’t come next time. The show will be much more enjoyable for the fans in attendance without you.

Now, onto the show; as you can see, my predictions didn’t go too well. But that’s good in my opinion. When you can predict everything that’s going to happen, you lose the excitement. The main event was said to be hampered by a tired audience, but should translate well on DVD. The biggest story coming out of the match was Delirious, who refused to listen to Daizee Haze’s plea to go back to his old happy ways. Instead, Delirious used Jimmy Jacobs’ railroad spike to…spike Daizee in the face! Delirious’ heel turn has brought this AOTF’s recruiting to a whole new level. Kind of shocked that both Generico and Steen lost one night after the biggest win of their ROH tenure. From the reports, Generico/McGuinness II wasn’t the spectacle as the first, but still great. Sasaki/Claudio wasn’t a great match from the sounds of it, mainly because Claudio doesn’t look like much of a threat right now (something I’ll touch on later). The unanimous show stealer of ROHbots around the country was the GHC Jr. Heavyweight title match. I really can’t wait to see this show on DVD.

ROH drew roughly 1000 fans to their show on Saturday night at the former ECW Arena. They will have another show there on 12/26

Very good number as the Arena can hold up to 1200 people last time I checked. The next time they’re in Philly will be the night before Final Battle 2008, so it should be an excellent weekend for the northeast fans.

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, The Japanese tour this past weekend saw so-so for attendance, with the 9/13 show at Differ Ariake doing 600 fans (All Japan, DDT and Dragon Gate all had shows within 30 minutes) and the 9/14 show did 1,000. But crowds were hot and the wrestling was said to be incredible both nights.

Very disappointing turnout for the first show, but with all the competition, it’s hard to blame the fans for choosing known companies over visiting ones. The second night attendance is a good sign as Dragon Gate helped this show big time. I don’t know how much of a financial success it was for ROH, but lets hope it didn’t hurt the bank.

I had the news and matches regarding ROH’s next shows in Florida ready to go. Then I found this out on the ROH forums:

The 10/10 Coral Springs and 10/11 Orlando events have been postponed and will be rescheduled for early 2009. All tickets purchased for these events will be honored on the new dates. We hope to have new dates announced next week. Sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you for your support. There’s no word yet on the 10/12 Full Impact Pro event scheduled for that weekend that would have featured some of the same talents. I believe, but do not have confirmed, that light pre-sales for the ROH shows led to the postponement.

That means Survival of the Fittest 2008, The Briscoes vs. Steenerico for the Tag title, and Strong/Richards II will happen in Danbury or Edison on the 24th and 25th respectively, or maybe not at all. Everyone remembers what happened to the Trios Tournament last year when it was postponed. For those who don’t know, we never got it. Hopefully SOTF doesn’t succumb to the same fate. As for the ticket sales, I don’t know what to think of that. Both shows in Manassas saw people buying tickets to get in more than those who bought them in advance.

The Motor City Machine Guns of Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin are heading back to ROH for the final time of 2008 on 10/24 in Danbury, CT and 10/25 in Edison, NJ. There is no telling if or when they will return. This could be your last shot to see them compete in a ROH ring. ROH always prides itself on its tag team wrestling. The Motor City Machine Guns are one of the best teams in the world. Now ROH find out who is truly the best. 10/24 in Danbury, CT will feature the first ever Iron Team Match. There will be four teams. The match will be 30 minutes. The team that scores the most falls in that 30 minutes will have bragging rights of being the best. This match will bring tag wrestling to a new level. The first ever Iron Team Match will pit ROH World Tag Team Champions Kevin Steen & El Generico vs. Shelley & Sabin vs. Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. the Sweet & Sour Inc. team of Chris Hero & Davey Richards with Larry Sweeney. This one will be insane!!!

Honestly, I’m not too happy about this one. The major reason is it really has nothing for the winning team outside of bragging rights. Steenerico are the Tag champs, so they have ultimate bragging rights already. If another team wins the belts before then, then they have those same rights. I know this match will give all the teams a chance to shine, but you know we’re going to get some quick falls with no essence behind them. Whatever happened to Ultimate Endurance? I always thought that was a cool match, with each fall telling a different story. It worked perfectly with tag matches. Sometimes going back is better than trying something new. Works with wrestling, but women…not so much

Chris Sabin and especially Alex Shelley have a little unfinished business in ROH. We saw a Generation Next reunion between Shelley and Austin Aries after an Age Of The Fall attack at the last Manassas event. Now Edison, NJ on 10/25 will see the fallout. Aries and Shelley will join forces for the first time since 2004. 10/25 in Edison, NJ will see Aries, Shelley & Sabin vs. The Age Of The Fall of Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black & Delirious!!!

Unlike the match they’re in the previous night, I love this match up. This will be nothing short of a show stealer. Hopefully a level of drama will be added to the match between Shelley and Aries. Maybe a miscommunication? No matter, you know MCMG have this match won since they already lost to the AOTF once. No way it’s happening again.

Ring of Honor returns to the Pittsburgh, PA area on Friday night, March 20th, 2009 with a 7:30pm belltime. The event will take place at Court Times Sports Center, 95 Elizabeth Drive, Elizabeth, PA 15037. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, October 1st at 11am EST on www.rohwrestling.com

Hopefully the Philly mutants will stay locked in their mother’s basement. True fans from Philly, please come. Just don’t tell the mutants.  

Jerry Lynn earned a regular spot on the ROH roster with his showings last weekend. Lynn's goals will become clear in the next ROH Video Wire.

Cool that Lynn will be around more often. Every great wrestling company needs a few veterans that can teach them youngens how to work. And Lynn is one of the best out there.

The Wrestler , which rocked in Canada a few weeks ago, will be debuting in the U.S. in two weeks as part of the New York film festival. New York Magazine published a story with the top 10 things you need to know about the movie prior to its release. No. 10: "Seriously, you're totally going to cry."

The more I hear about this, the more I want to find it on the internet…uh…I mean…uh, I can’t wait for it to come out in theaters. Seriously, I want to see this movie when it comes to a big screen near me. Hopefully ROH will get more mainstream coverage after this. And to all the actors in the movie, you can plug the company if you want to. Ring of Honor loves good publicity. And so do I.

NWA champ Adam Pearce finished up with Ring of Honor for the foreseeable future at this past Saturday's Glory by Honor event where he regained the title from Brent Albright in Philadelphia, PA.
Pearce's departure was announced by manager Larry Sweeney on his voicemail hotline (215-781-2250) as Sweeney announced he was "flexing his muscle" by pulling Pearce out of the company.
Pearce was aware he was finishing up over the weekend and said his goodbyes to the crew. I believe it was simply a cost-cutting issue as ROH simply had too many people being brought in regularly, but there was no heat and the door is open for Pearce to be used down the line.
Pearce will be a big part of the NWA's planned relaunch of their Wrestling Showcase series on The Dish Network's Colours channel in the fall.
The decision to stop using Pearce was mostly a cost-cutting move by ROH.

-PWInsider.com

Easily the biggest news to hit the headlines pertaining to ROH is this little piece of business. I was expecting that Brent Albright would get a nice run as champion, but with his apparent bicep injury, those plans changed, giving Pearce the gold again. That wasn’t a big deal. This, on the other hand is, as Pearce has become a solid midcard figure in ROH. Now, I’m not the biggest Adam Pearce fan in the world, but “The Scrap Daddy” has done some entertaining stuff in his Ring of Honor tenure. 2006 was the year of Pearce to a certain extent, as he was the one forces behind ROH in its war against CZW, as well as a major catalyst in Homicide’s ROH World title win. By the end of 2007, he was leading The Hangmen 3, with Brent Albright as the muscle, giving some of the best promos in wrestling. Also in 2007, Pearce became the NWA champion, something ROH just recognized in June. One of the most enjoyable things he’s ever done is his work with Brent Albright. I just received Death Before Dishonor VI, and I must say I’ve never seen an Adam Pearce match that good. As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest Pearce fan in the world (outside of the times I mentioned, and sometimes during) as I felt he was bland in the ring, and a little too much of a throwback wrestler. So throwback, it almost seemed jobberish. But you can’t deny that the man put himself through some Hellas his matches for us ROHbots, and I can’t say anything but thank you.

With Pearce’s exit also comes the exit of the NWA title. Now, I don’t know if the cost cutting story is just a cover up for the fact that the relationship between ROH and the NWA has disintegrated, and Pearce chose NWA over ROH. Whatever may be the case, ROH is minus another title. But does it really matter? No matter what champion, or title they bring firm another origination, ROHbots only care about titles with “ROH” in the name. Yeah, they love the hardcore FIP title brawls, the intense old school NWA title battles, the mesmerizing Shimmer title rarities, but ROHbots doesn’t go around message boards, and talk with each other at shows about, “Who do you think will unseat Go Shiozaki for the FIP title?” What ROHbots, like yours truly, think when they look at an ROH card is, “Who are the ROH World champion and ROH Tag Team champions taking on.” And that’s where the problem comes in; ROH has only two true championships.

In 2004, Ring of Honor did a little tournament at its 2nd Anniversary Show to crown a champion for its third and newest title, the Pure Wrestling title. While the belt had a shaky start with the first champion leaving for TNA, rules being a little too confusing while not being followed by the referee properly, and the next few champions being not so memorable, we finally got a champion worthy of making the belt just as important as the ROH World title, Samoa Joe. But in reality, the man who made the ROH title a “world” title was just the set up for the man who epitomized the Pure title, Nigel McGuinness. Nigel made that belt as the belt helped legitimize him. Then they unified the Pure title with the ROH World title, and we were back to a two title world. Overall, I think this has hurt the development of a lot of wrestlers.

Midcard wrestlers have nothing to strive for outside of the belts from other companies. And how does that make the other companies look when a midcarder in ROH, who has no chance of winning anything in ROH can win your company’s top belt. Yes, we have the Survival of the Fittest tournament, and we had the Race To the Top tournament last year, and they’ve both helped their respective winners and participants. But nothing helps more than a title belt around your waist. Just ask Nigel. Look at Claudio Castagnoli, the first, and maybe only, Race To the Top winner. He’s done extremely well since winning the tournament last summer, but hasn’t been able to win the big one. Then he turned heel, and it seems he’s floundering. Why? Because he has nothing to strive for. He’s too big of a star to go after the FIP title. He’s a heel, so he has no chance of facing Nigel anytime soon, let alone defeating him. And Danielson is a little too busy to continue what they started at Death Before Dishonor VI. If there was another title, Claudio could win it and use it to make himself appear more of a threat to Danielson, like Nigel did.

As great as tournaments are, wrestlers have an easier time breaking through to the main events when they have a nice run with the “secondary” title in an organization. Just look at the Intercontinental title in the WWF (they haven’t done too well with it when it became WWE) did for Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, The Ultimate Warrior, Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, and Chris Jericho. The fans were groomed in the WWF to believe that if you won the Intercontinental title, you were just a stone’s throw away from becoming the WWF champion. But even those who didn’t win the big one in the WWF still had memorable careers, and became synonymous with Intercontinental greatness (Owen Hart, Mr. Perfect, Ricky Steamboat, Razor Ramon).

Why can’t we have the same in Ring of Honor? I say wait until next summer. Drop some hints before making the announcement that next year’s Death Before Dishonor will host a series of matches to crown a new champion in ROH. Make sure the fans understand that this title, as important as it is, isn’t a World title like the ROH World title. This ensures that it doesn’t fall in the same pit that the Pure title did during its early days. Make sure you have the first champion be a solid hand in the ring, and is an up and coming star (a Kenny King, or a Rhett Titus), or a veteran who could help give the title some shine with great matches while grooming future title holders (Jerry Lynn would be a great choice for that category), then let it ride. I guarantee you’ll see more stars being made this way without having to work so hard to put them in a storyline, or breaking into someone else’s. ROH becomes less dependent on other company title matches, and stars are made at the same time.

Well, that’s all for this week. I should have a PPV edition of Worth Your Money: ROH New Horizons up next week so be on the look out. And don’t forget to keep tabs on rohwrestling.com for all the latest news as well as sale deals that you can’t beat.

Till then