Ring of Honor Wrestling
New York, NY
May 10, 2008
7:30 PM EDT
ROH Debut @ The Manhattan Center's Hammerstein Ballroom
1) FIP World Heavyweight Championship: Roderick Strong defeats Go Shiozaki & Erick Stevens to retain the FIP World Championship. Strong pinned Erick Stevens. "Great opener" (Note: Possibly better than Collyer & Stryker from Expect The Unexpected)
2) Tag Team Challenge Match: Kevin Steen & El Generico defeat Rocky Romero & Davey Richards. Steenerico wins with the Piledriver/Brainbuster combination as Generico pins Davey Richards.
3) Tag Team Scramble: Delirious & Pelle defeat Hero & Albright and Evans & Jigsaw. Delirious pins Chris Hero.
- Brent ALBRIGHT quits Sweet & Sour, Inc. ALBRIGHT destroys all members and leaves! Huge ovation for Mr. ALBRIGHT!
- Attendence near 2,000.
- ROH Returns to the Manhattan Center's Hammerstein Ballroom on August 2, 2008 w/ MURDER CITY MACHINE GUNS!
4) NOAH vs ROH Rematch: Bryan Danielson defeats Naomichi Marufuji via Arms Across America.
-INTERMISSION-
- Daizee Haze & Delirious in ring segment. Delirious, dressed up, asks Daizee Haze on a date. Rhett Titus comes out and "cockblocks Delirious". Said to be hilarious live.
5) Mike Adamle Special: The Takeshi Morishima defeats The Necro Butcher. Necro was "way over," but "the match didn't click" - JSWO
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1949/rohly8.jpg
6) ROH Tag Team Championships (No DQ): Jay Briscoe & Austin Aries retain the ROH World Tag Team Championships. Jay pins Tyler after a Mark Briscoe run in.
7) ROH World Championship: Nigel McGuinness defeats Claudio Castagnoli.
Thoughts :
Let me preface this by saying ROH is my favorite wrestling organization in the world and even not-so-hot shows are much better than what is offered by the competition.
That being said, tonight's show was a bit... okay, very disappointing. It started off with an FIP title match that degenerated into a chop fest, which even prompted a "No More Chopping" chant. Just as the match was picking up some momentum with nice counters, Strong picked up the victory with a rollup. This couldn't have been more than 10-12 minutes.
The second match was probably the most enjoyable match of the night as the crowd was super into Steenrico and their antics. A really solid tag team match that featured some pretty innovative double team moves by both Steenrico and No Remorse.
The tag team scramble was a spot-fest with all the teams doing planchas and other assorted moves off the top ropes onto the floor. Crowd was really into Albright finally turning on Sweet & Sour. I think Hagadorn landed really badly when he was thrown onto the outside onto a table, hope he's okay.
Dragon-Marifuji was good but I was really hoping it would go longer with the 45 minute time limit. Story of the match was Dragon doing a move then Marifuji countering and using the same move on Danielson which was fun the first time or two but then I got a bit too predictable. Match was about 20-25 minutes.
The second half opened up with a really underwhelming "Battle of the Brawlers" encounter between Necro and Morishima. I wasn't surprised this was an extended squash but the chemistry wasn't there at all. Necro was handcuffed in not being able to bust out the hardcore offense. Definitely the worst match of the night, people in the crowd did not enjoy this.
The tag team title match got off to an iffy start when a table being set up for an eventual big spot broke. The competitors tried to salvage the table by placing it on the guard rail but that didn't work either. Eventually they found another table which didn't break but by this point, the action was grinded to a half and the crowd was getting a bit restless. Thankfully, the teams picked it up with Jacobs doing a really cool spear through the ropes onto the outside.
The crowd was pretty dead for the main event, mostly because no one thought Claudio was actually going to beat Nigel. Match started really slow which would have been fine if the crowd hadn't just witnessed a disappointing Necro-Shima match and a tag team title match that never completely got off the ground. There were even a few "Boring" chants which I thought was pretty rude. Crowd didn't really pop big until the end when Claudio hit the ricola bomb. Things picked up at the end with some nice counters and a cool flying european uppercut. I think this could have gone longer with the crowd finally pulling behind Claudio but unfortunately the carpet was yanked out when Claudio tapped out almost instantly to the London Dungeon after Nigel had targeted the hand most of the match.
Final thoughts: As I said earlier, this was a bit of a disappintment and the pacing of the overall card was rather inconsistent. With a match order announced in advance as well as the time limit to commemorate ROH moving to the Hammerstein, I was expecting much longer matches. The FIP Title Match was over much too quickly and Danielson-Marifuji could have gone longer as well. The main event would have gone over better if the crowd wasn't so restless from the prior two matches and they actually believed Claudio had a shot at winning.
More News :
World Tag Titles Vacated
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Right after returning to the locker room after last night's bout, one half of the ROH World Tag Team Champions Jay Briscoe vacated the belts. We will have more information within 24 hours in the next ROHwrestling.com Newswire.
Plus Murder City MachineGuns will be in ROH August 2ND in NYC !!!