Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Brian Streleckis curses TNA some more and runs down the big Ring of Honor stories from Hartford and Manhattan, as well as plans for the immediate future. Any results courtesy of ROH’s message board.

I couldn’t contain myself with everything that’s gone down. Fairly brief, only not so much.

Chances are you’ve probably heard of the people let go by TNA recently. Yes, they actually fire people like any other business. No longer with the company are Jerry Lynn (who has apparently asked to be released), Matt Bentley (who, based on interviews, seems fine getting the axe), Doug Basham (whose partner Damaja AKA Danny Basham, just stopped showing up to tapings a while back), and Brother Runt (better known as Spike Dudley, who’s already rebounding with a booking for CZW next weekend). Why have so many left a company that has about 50 slots open on a 1-hour show? They needed the money to pay Pacman Jones’ salary. This company, for lack of a better term and avoidance of a dirtier one) is not smart.

The news sounds bigger and better for Ring of Honor. Friday’s event in Hartford was headlined by two steel cage grudge matches, in which Roderick Strong defeated Jack Evans and Jay & Mark Briscoe retained the World Tag Team Titles over Kevin Steen & El Generico. Also, in a match/segment taped for a future pay-per-view, Nigel McGuinness won a Four Corner Survival over BJ Whitmer, Adam Pearce, and Delirious, only for the constantly frustrated Whitmer to finally snap afterwards. Whitmer, Pearce, Brent Albright, and Pearce’s buddy Shane Hagadorn have formed a new faction, and their first act was stapling Delirious’ mask to his face!

Saturday’s show in the Manhattan Center (which John attended) saw another new faction come about as Jack Evans finally unveiled his own group to compete with Roderick Strong’s No Remorse Corps and Austin Aries’ Resilience. It has been dubbed “The Vulture Squad” (I have no clue what this name means. Anyone?) and so far includes Ruckus (a CZW mainstay as well as part of Wrestling Society X) and Homicide’s old cornerman of Julius Smokes. I’ve seen Ruckus in some good matches, as well as some bad matches full of superfluous flippity-do-dahs, but I think he could be a good fit with Evans (who has helped out Ruckus’ CZW stable of BLK OUT in the past), and the pairing of Evans and Smokes sounds perfect.

Once again, the Briscoes retained the tag titles over Steen & Generico Saturday (this time in a 2/3 Falls Match they once again won in two straight falls), and once again, Steen laid out the guys with a ladder. The dastardly Steen and his naive Mexican-Canadian partner stole the belts, so the final title match between these two has been signed: a ladder match at the September 15 PPV taping in Chicago Ridge. Again, perfect.

In what may be a trifecta of perfection (if not for one thing at the end), Bryan Danielson challenged Takeshi Morishima for the ROH World Title in a brutal-sounding match that John and everyone else seems to be raving about as one of them MOTY contenders. Morishima, who retained the previous night in an elimination three-way over Claudio Castagnoli and Brent Albright, retained again here in a match where Danielson absorbed a lot of punishment and Morishima survived a lot of signature holds. Danielson, unfortunatley, paid the price for this great match by suffering a detached retina. The whole situation is detailed by Gabe Sapolsky here, which also reveals Danielson had laser surgery yesterday which apparently went well, but will require him to take 4-6 weeks off. It’s already been reported by F4Wonline.com that this injury has taken Danielson out of a match on Saturday the 1st in Puerto Rico to crown the new NWA World Champion, and he’ll most likely miss PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles as well. I certainly hope Danielson gets better. In the meantime, we all have yet another big match to look forward to on DVD.

Also, in a followup from last week, Matt Sydal has only been offered a WWE developmental contract, but has yet to sign it. It’s expected he will sign it when he returns from his latest tour of Japan.

Finally, in IWA Mid-South, Samoa Joe and Low Ki were originally set to wrestle each other in the First Round of the Ted Petty Invitational. The match is currently off as Ian Rotten currently owes money to TNA for past booking fees. Quite a hit to the tournament to lose those two, but the feeling is that they could potentially be re-booked after the fees are paid off. The other 22 guys in the tournament should all be known by Friday the 31st at the next show in Midlothian, IL. Personally, despite losing Joe and Ki (as well as Alex Shelley a few weeks back due to a Japan tour), I think the company is still capable of booking great matches for this big tournament. 2005’s TPI, for example, had numerous cancellations, but still had some fantastic matches.

Oh, and all of WWE’s champions still have their titles after Summerslam.