ROHbot Report
The ROHbot Report: July HDNet Tapings (Part 2), Results From The Midwest, Chicago Preview, And More
By James Bullock
Jul 24, 2010 - 10:56 AM

Hello to each and everyone, and welcome to the ROHbot Report. Today really is a results special, with a preview and Right and Wrongs to ice the cake. There’s a lot to go through, so lets get started.

HDNet Tapings
7/19/10
*The Briscoes defeated Alex Anthony and Bobby Shields. Mark pinned Shields after a Doomsday Device. Alex Anthony got a Jay-driller for his troubles.
* Super Smash Brothers vs. American Wolves. Great match that ended when Dos tapped to Eddie's Achilles Lock.
* The Embassy vs. Rasche Brown, Dark City Fight Club, and Grizzly Redwood. At one point, Rasche threw Grizzly on to the Embassy members on the floor. Daivari pinned Chavis with a small package after Nana hit him with a low blow.
* In a Pick Six Challenge match, Kevin Steen kept his spot, defeating Jerry Lynn. Corino was ejected from ringside, but a Rhett Titus distraction allowed Steen to sit down on a sunset flip attempt. The House of Truth and Roderick Strong def Mike Bennett, J Freddie, and Andy Ridge.
* Sara Del Rey def Taeler with an arm bar.
* Lumberjack Match: Austin Aries vs. Delirious. Lumberjacks include the Embassy, Dark City Fight Club, Rasche Brown, Grizzly Redwood, the Bravados, Bobby Dempsey, Sid Reeves, John Kermon, Slyk Wagner Brown, and Damien Dragon. After a brawl of the lumberjacks distracted the ref, Rhett Titus hit his knee drop and Austin Aries hit a new finisher I've never seen before to get the pin.
* The cameras were turned off for Jim Cornette to come to the ring to induct Jerry Lynn into The Arena's Hardcore Hall of Fame.
* The Bravado Brothers def the Super Smash Brothers with a small package out of Uno's finisher attempt. The match was hurt by the lack of crowd reaction, because a bunch of the crowd left or went for a smoke break.
* Christopher Daniels defeated Rhett Titus with a BME.
* The Kings of Wrestling defeated Colt Cabana and El Generico when Hero hit Colt with a rolling elbow to the back of the head when Steen and Corino appeared on the stage with their chain.
* Eddie Edwards beat Mike Sydal in a Ten Minute Hunt with the Achilles Lock. Cool spot where Edwards caught Sydal's kick and pulled him down into a split and kicked him in the chest.
* Tyler Black defeated Steve Corino despite Corino trying to use a chain, a fork, and what I believe to be false teeth. Corino and Steen attacked Black with the chain, which brought out Generico and Cabana with their own chain. Corino/Steen/Generico/Cabana brawled to the back while Roddy and Truth snuck in to attack Black. Tyler got the upper hand, and Roddy bailed. Tyler thanked the crowd from coming out in the heat, and Steen attacked again. Tyler eventually did a dive on Steen and the rest of the locker room that poured out of the back.

Ring of Honor has streamlined its TV tapings as of late, giving us more action without too many matches; adding time for video packages and backstage promos. Glad to see ROH followed up on my hope of letting The Wolves and the SSB have an actual competitive match instead of Davey and Eddie just plowing through Uno and Dos. I don’t know if the SSB are booked for some other company during the end of August (or taking time off), but it seems they won’t be coming to the south after their elimination in Tag Wars. That’s pretty disappointing. No offence to The Bravados, but how can you not want to see the SSB live?
Pleasing moment to have The Embassy actually win a match. And with a nefarious victory, The Embassy is getting back on track. Lets just hope they stay there. Interaction between the former Steenerico and their respective buddies continues to move along. With a lack of Kenny King, Rhett Titus was seemingly thrust into some nice positions on these tapings. First he costs Jerry Lynn his match to continue their feud; then he’s involved in the Lumberjack match finish; and finally, he gets some ring time with the most recognizable star on the ROH roster in the form of Christopher Daniels. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again-Titus has all the tools to be a big star. He’s proven that he can be more than just a comedy figure with some seriously vicious actions in his matches. All he needs is some solid ring time with people like Lynn and Daniels, one memorable feud, and he could be a upper-midcard star for ROH for a long time.
A few weeks ago, Black and Corino had a solid main event in New York; surprising many in attendance. Hopefully rematch kept the streak alive (Corino going Original Sheik can’t help but make for great television). The aftermath has me questioning a few things (one I’ll get to later), and wondering if ROH is already setting up the World title match for Glory By Honor. When it appeared Roderick would get his World title shot on iPPV in April, Austin Aries was added to the mix. When it appeared Roderick would get a fair shake at Supercard of Honor V in his one on one title match, the match deteriorated into a bunch of ref bumps and controversy. So, will Roddy finally get a real chance at winning the World title at NYC? While it might not have the same anticipation as Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards, Black vs. Strong for the gold should be a match any ROHbot is looking forward to for the simple reason that Roderick has to win and finally achieve what seems like the unachievable for him, or lose and be deemed a failure in the ROH World title picture for good. Roderick has done everything in his power to win the title on his own; and it hasn’t worked. With Strong enlisting Truth Martini, and Martini proclaiming that Strong has turned his career around in a direction that guarantees him a ROH World title through his life coaching, all eyes have to be on Strong as the man to dethrone Tyler Black as ROH champion. But I’m just assuming that Strong and Black will headline GBH IX. Who knows, Strong might be involved in another multi-man World title match, or not even in a match involving the World champion.
Okay, that’s 1/3 of the results I’ve got for you today. Lets move west where ROH made its debut in Louisville with The Bluegrass Brawl.

Bluegrass Brawl
7/22/10
Cornette cuts a promo before the show putting over ROH and the Bluegrass Brawl.
1) Beef Wellington (OVW) opens the show with a win over Fifi (Kamikaze Kid/Paredyse) via rollup.
2) Non-Title: OVW Tag Champions The Elite (Ted McNaler & Adam Revolver) defeated Sucio & Fang with a little help from the ropes, as Revolver used them for leverage, pinning Sucio.
3) Daizee Haze beats Sara Del Ray with a sunset flip.
4) Delirious gets the win over OVW representative Mike Mondo after hitting Shadows Over Hell.
* The building looks to be sold out, I believe I read somewhere that capacity was between 300-400.
5) Pick 6 Challenge: Colt Cabana picks up the #4 spot in the Pick 6 after beating Chris Hero with a rollup.
6) Roderick Strong pinned Rhett Titus after his flying kick to give the House of Truth the win over Austin Aries & The All Night Express. Match was said to be good, but it seemed too short.
7) Non-Title Challenge Match: Tyler Black defeats Claudio Castagnoli in an awesome match. Claudio countered a first Super kick after a Buckle bomb only to get met with another which put him away.
8) Main Event: The Briscoes pick up the win over the American Wolves after Eddie Edwards is hit with a Spike Jay-Driller. Match was said to be fantastic.
* Hagadorn was not on the card tonight thereby managing nobody and continuing nothing with the Wolves. A return date has not been confirmed, however it was announced that they will return. No word on whether or not it will be the same venue or not.

From the live reports, ROH delivered the spectacular 1-2 knockout that turns an average show into a memorable one. If the main event was better than what The Briscoes and The American Wolves have done in the past (and from the sounds of it, it is), then this is a must-see DVD. And that’s not even acknowledging the match before it. I don’t know why a lot of people were demeaning Black vs. Claudio as a weak, thrown-together match, before it happened. As I said last week, Black and Claudio are two of the most athletically gifted wrestlers in ROH, and shouldn’t be able to put on anything less than a memorable encounter. I think they validated my opinion very well (good for them).
Even though the finish came off of a distraction, a little surprised that ROH would have Haze defeat Sara Del Rey on a huge weekend for “Death Rey”. Haze is definitely the top woman in Ring of Honor behind Sara, but Del Rey should be winning every match possible in preparation for Kong Saturday night. Strong continues to pick up wins; hopefully adding some weight to my assumption that he’ll be facing the champion at GBH IX. Wonder if The Kings of Wrestling have found their new long-term contenders in the form of Cabana and Generico? And another thought-what does Mike Mondo think of Vince McMahon? It’s sad to hear that a talented guy like him is so tainted by a failed gimmick that even when he’s just trying to wrestle, that horrible gimmick getting thrown in his face. I don’t know if we’ll see Mondo in ROH again, but maybe in front of a different crowd, he’ll get a reception that doesn’t have him thinking back to a time when he couldn’t beat Triple H five-on-one. Oh, what am I saying; no one’s going to let him forget that. Thanks a lot ‘H.
Two down, one more to go. Collinsville, IL, here we go.

Collinsville, IL
7/23/10
Pre-show:
A) Jordan McEntyre (?), Mark Sterling (?), and ?? w/ Sly Stetson vs. Mike Sydal, C.J. Esparza (?), & Brett Gakiya (?). Mike Sydal picks up the win.
B) Tony Kozina beats Andy Ridge after reversing a Super kick into an Ankle Lock Submission.
Main Show:
Jim Cornette is out to hype the show prior to the opener.
1) The House of Truth (Christian Able & Josh Raymond get the win against the Bravados after hitting their double team finisher on Harlem.
2) Grizzly Redwood defeated Erick Stevens via disqualification after the Necro Butcher comes out and attacks Grizzly with a chair. Rasche Brown is out for the save, culminating in Brown tossing Grizzly onto the Embassy on the ramp.
3) Necro Butcher vs. Rasche Brown ends in a no contest. This match was basically a continuation of the last, but was over as quickly as it started. Locker room empties to break up the brawl, even Pearce was out.
4) Pick 6 Contenders Series: Roderick Strong maintains his #1 position after Colt Cabana was hit with the Book of Truth during a "Flying stinkymouth" attempt. Roddy hit the stomach buster and then his flying boot for the win.
5) The American Wolves defeated Generation Me when Eddie Edwards made Jeremy Buck tap to the Single Leg Crab. Match of the Night so far. (GenMe were the heels, Wolves were the default face)
6) Red Poison Delirious gets the pin on Aries after Aries distracts himself talking crap on Daizee Haze giving his team with Tyler Black and Jerry Lynn winning over Aries and The All Night Express. After the match, the Titus & King attack their opponents while Austin Aries grabs Daizee Haze and runs to the back, kidnapping her. Steen comes out and attacks Tyler Black...which brings out El Generico to start...
7) Hate: Chapter II: El Generico wins as the result of a disqualification after Kevin Steen used a chair on Generico, but the fight didn't end there. Cabana came out to aide Generico but was stopped by Steen and a chain. Crazy post match stuff including Paul Turner getting choked by Steen and his chain and Generico diving onto Steen from the hard camera scaffolding.
8) Main Event: Jay Briscoe, teaming with Mark Briscoe and Amazing Kong, gets the pin on Chris Hero, who teamed with Claudio Castagnoli and Sara Del Rey. Kings of Wrestling went for a double team maneuver on Jay but Mark broke up the attempt allowing Jay to roll up Hero.
* Final attendance estimate is 500. No return date.

Honestly, there’s not much to really get into this one. Other than the main event, everything played out as I expected (I not only didn’t expect The Briscoes to win, I also didn’t expect this to be the main event). El Generico was able to win, but not through his own will. And you know what that means; this feud must continue. With Glory By Honor IX looming, you know that the finale will occur in New York. So they had to hold something back, and Collinsville was the recipient. Like his fellow masked man, Delirious-in the awesome Red Poison form-got a slight measure of vengeance over A-Double, only to have his woman stolen. Now, will everything go back to normal tonight, or will ROH try to push the envelope, and do something never seen before in ROH? Something similar to the old storyline of Baby Doll becoming Dusty Rhodes’ property for 30 days due to a pre-match stipulation. I hate to talk about the version with Pillman and Goldust for obvious reasons, and the TNA version of that storyline sucked, and made no sense from what I’ve read from my fellow WWI columnists.
Roderick Strong continues to pick up wins with the help of his Life Coach; The House of Truth continues to prove they are a team to keep our eyes on; and Embassy brawls continue to end in short fashion due to disqualifications. The match I assumed would be the main event did become the great match I expected it to be; and that’s The American Wolves vs. Generation Me. The Wolves and the former Young Bucks have always had great chemistry, but The Wolves were the heels in all of those matches. I can’t wait to see GM heeling on one of the best heel teams in ROH history.
Whew, that’s a lot of results. Even though I can catch my breath, ROH can’t because they continue on their road through the Midwest tonight when they head to Chicago. Lets look at what’s planned to happen for the “Windy City”.

ROH runs Saturday in Chicago Ridge, IL:
* ROH champion Tyler Black vs. Kevin Steen
* ROH Tag Team Champions The Kings of Wrestling vs. Generation Me
* Tag Wars 2010 Opening Round: Colt Cabana & El Generico vs. The American Wolves
* Roderick Strong with Truth Martini vs. Austin Aries
* Tag Wars 2010 Opening Round: The All-Night Express vs. Jerry Lynn & Delirious with Daizee Haze
* Sara del Rey w/ Shane Hagadorn vs. Amazing Kong
* Tag Wars 2010 Opening Round: Necro Butcher & Erick Stevens vs. "Skullkrusher" Rasche Brown & Grizzly Redwood
* Tag Wars 2010 Opening Round: The Briscoe Brothers vs. The House of Truth with Truth Martini

I hate to sound like a broken record, but ROH really has produced a solid card here. Actually, this is a spectacular card for a spectacular audience (I love those Chicago fans; who deserve a pay-per-view). When first announced, the main event seemed like one of those matches that ROH would put on a card just to have a World title match. Instead, they’ve used precious television time to give this match some heat. While it’s highly unlikely that Steen walks out of Chicago as the champion, I don’t doubt for one second that this match will have the fans on the edge of their seats, thinking that they are about to witness a title change. And even if Steen doesn’t win, the way the HDNet tapings played out, this feud might continue pass Chicago. The only thing I hope is that if there’s a screwy finish, they put this match in the semi-main event, and let The KOW and Generation Me tear down the house to send the fans home happy and satisfied. Maybe, having the aforementioned tag match might the smartest thing for the simple fact that if they’re allowed to actually have a conclusive finish (unlike The KOW vs. Motor City Machine Guns from Supercard of Honor V), there’s no other match on the card that’ll be able to follow it; and that’s saying something with matches like Strong vs. Aries, Del Rey vs. Kong, and Cabana & Generico vs. The Wolves on the undercard.
It’s really hard to make a guess at who will advance in the Tag Wars openers, but I’ll take a stab. Necro and Stevens are a fresh team facing off against two of their biggest rivals. Out of the three, no one looks more capable of taking a pin fall loss than Redwood; and that’s what will probably happen. The All-Night Express is also stuck with their current enemies of Jerry Lynn and Delirious. Jerry Lynn and Delirious haven’t gotten a little bit of revenge last night, King and Titus should have a win locked tonight. Plus, The Express getting an advancement in a tag team tournament such as this would do a lot more for them than for a team that might not be around when Tag Wars is over.
The winner of The All-Night Express vs. Jerry Lynn & Delirious has the dubious honor of opposing the winner of The American Wolves vs. Cabana & Generico. It would be easy to say Cabana and Generico win due to some kind of distraction or interference by Steen, but Steen will most likely not be seen until his match. The Wolves are doing their thing on their own, while Generico & Cabana have targeted the champs over the past couple of weeks. Expect a surprise upset by Generico & Cabana so they can have a hilarious semi-final contest with King & Titus before making it to the finals. You know the craziest thing? The Briscoes vs. The House of Truth is probably one of the hardest matches to pick a winner for. Yeah, I know that sounds wild since the obvious choice would be for the team who has defeated any and everybody in ROH’s tag team division at one time or another. But The HOT has been on a roll lately, and being paired with one of Ring of Honor’s top stars shows that ROH is high on them. Proof of that would be them beating The Briscoes. The promo Hero and Claudio cut on HDNet this past week alluded to the champs moving away from The Briscoe after this weekend. The Briscoes losing to a hot-rising team wouldn’t hurt them in the least, and could help propel Raymond an Able to a status they haven’t achieved with their past wins on HDNet and at live events.
Speaking of HDNet, lets see what was Right and Wrong about this week’s episode.

ROH on HDNet 7/19/10 Quick Results:
Up In Smoke defeated The Set
Sara Del Rey defeated Jamilla Craft
Rasche Brown defeated Erick Stevens via disqualification
Kevin Steen & Steve Corino defeated Colt Cabana & El Generico in an Anything Goes Match

Right:
Del Rey Kills Them Dead: In preparation for Amazing Kong this weekend, Del Rey was placed in the ring with relative newcomer Jamilla Craft. Unfortunately for Craft, she didn’t have the chance to have a nice wrestling match with Del Rey like she did with Daizee Haze a couple of weeks ago. The brutality of Del Rey kicking, suplexing and just obliterating Craft to her heart’s content makes for one entertaining squash. Craft has a lot of potential, but tonight was about Del Rey, and her looking like a Kong-killer before this weekend.
Midwest Weekend Build: Ring of Honor has really turned up their live event promotion by integrating video packages, interviews (in this week’s case involving The Kings of Wrestling, Sara Del Rey, and Roderick Strong with Truth Martini), and matches that not only build to future HDNet episodes, but also the shows coming to a city near you. There are fans who only follow ROH through this show, and finding out that a live event will occur close to home brings a great chance that those fans will turn out to experience ROH live.
Brawl For It All: This might sound hypocritical compared to what I’ve said in the past, but having another Embassy brawl end in a disqualification wasn’t all that bad; for this week, mind you. The match did less to destroy the credibility of Stevens-like the brawls with short-lived brawls with Necro-and more to build a future clash between The Embassy and Rasche Brown, and his new allies, The Dark City Fight Club. The match was high impact from the start, and didn’t take up too much time that would’ve left a bad taste in your mouth with the finish. Hopefully we’ll get something similar to this week’s main event down the road so this doesn’t end up like the unnecessary, and tedious brawls doing Necro’s Embassy feud.
Brawl To End It All: If Corino and Steen didn’t give us a good preview with that eerily disturbing promo at the top of the show (with near barbed wire spooning), they made sure that no one would forget how sick they are during the main event. Over the course of this battle, we witnessed a Mexican standoff, in-crowd brawling (highlighted by a fisherman buster through a chair), a Brain Buster through chair (that didn’t end the match), a superplex through a guardrail atop four chairs, vicious chair shots, a northern lights bomb off a table through another table, Steen blowing snot rockets, kissing referees, and licking cameras; and that’s just some of the action that occurred during the match. There’s also a parking lot fight that sets up Tyler Black’s title defense against Kevin Steen this Saturday. This was easily one of the craziest matches this year in any company, and the most brutal in ROH on HDNet history. I honestly can’t find enough words to describe the insanity involved in this contest. This is a must-see match for any hardcore-loving fan missing the days of TV-14.

Wrong:
SLAP THE PORPOISE (Tag Team Opener): I’ve been entertained by The Set in their losses. I think Up In Smoke make for a great underdog team. But putting these two together without an established team in front of a television audience isn’t the right thing to do. The only thing that saved this match from the sounds of crickets ringing out was the piped audio featuring, “Oooh’s,” and “Ahhh’s.” And the sad part, I’m not even getting mad at the audience. Why would the fans care for this definitive indy-riffic match that saw so many unrealistic spots that I got confused and thought HDNet was imitating from the south of the border? Not a good way to start the in-ring action to say the least.

Overall: Really, by the end of the night, this was a one match show-but what a one match show! The four individuals involved in the main event went above and beyond anything a person can expect to see on free television. Even with the lack of blood, I couldn’t recommend this match to everyone (makes you want to see it more, doesn’t it). If you love a great, hateful tag team war for free, make sure you watch this episode. Also seeing Sara Del Rey doing her thing is always worth a recommendation.

That’s another week of Ring of Honor news and analysis from yours truly. Once again, thank each and every one of you for reading once again. Maybe I’ll thank a few of you personally in Richmond if you come to ROH’s debut show in my hometown because I got my ticket in the mail this week. I’ve got a golden ticket! Well, not really. But anytime I can feel like Peter Griffin imitating the Willy Wonka movie is a good time.

Till Then.