Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Our man in Chi-town, Robert Dolezil, sends in this report from the front row of ROH’s third Pay-Per-View taping. Oh yeah, they had a pretty crazy angle or two, too.

September 15th 2007
ROH 3rd Ppv Taping
Chicago Ridge , IL

One of the first things I noticed was that there were about 20 guys wearing the black ski-masks and black bandannas covering their faces at the request of the people behind the Project 161/The Age of the Fall group.

Naomichi Marufuji made his way down to the ring. Shortly after that Dave Prazak & Lenny Leonard came down. Prazak did the PPV countdown to start the show. Prazak and Leonard were talking into microphones, while the wrestlers made their entrances. Each wrestler was interviewed by Prazak before the match while entrance music was playing so it was hard to understand. Each person mentioned getting the ROH title and using this match to work their way to a title shot. Sweeney cut a promo after all of this as well.

With the promo to start the show, I think the crowd may come off as a little dead. The crowd at the opening of the last ppv taping, Driven, was insanely hot because the show went right from the countdown to a great 6 man tag between the No Remorse Corps and the Resilience.

1. Nigel McGuinness defeated Naomichi Marufuji, Claudio Castagnoli, and Chris Hero in 18 minutes. Lots of cocky heel boasting antics from Hero. Hero was also playing the chickenshit heel in trying to avoid Claudio. The whole match was real good with lots of stiff lariats from both McGuinness and Marufuji. McGuinness would eventually win the match with his Jawbreaker Lariat on Claudio. Everyone hit all of their spots with the exception of Marufuji not hitting his turnbuckle to turnbuckle tree of woe dropkick. Good match with lots of action.

My only disappointment with this was that Naomichi Marufuji, a former GHC Heavyweight Champion from Pro Wrestling NOAH, was brought over and not given a feature roll.

Next up was the No Remorse Corps vs. The Resilience series of singles matches. The NRC won the coin toss and that meant that the Resilience had to announce their wrestler first, and then the NRC could then pick the wrestler they thought would provide the best match up for them.

2. Rocky Romero defeated Matt Cross in 4:46. This was a short but good match. Obviously being under five minutes the match never really got a chance to get going. At the end of the match, Cross went for like corkscrew Spiral Tap off the top rope and missed. Romero got the advantage and had Cross down to one knee and hit a hard kick to the side of the head on Cross for the pin. Good match for what it was.

Roderick Strong got in the ring and started waving in the next opponent from the Resilience, Aries got in the ring and Strong quickly got out the ring and Davey Richards came in.

3. Austin Aries defeated Davey Richards in 13:23. This was the good match that one would expect between these two great wrestlers. Good action throughout including Aries hitting one of his beautiful missile-like suicide dives. There weren’t very many nearfalls in this match as those were being saved for the next match, but this match was still very solid. Aries would end up hitting his famous combo of the kick to the head, brainbuster, and 450 splash for the win.

As far as the reports of Richards using a crossface, I would say that he did in fact use one. It wasn’t Benoit style with the arm between the leg or even both men on the mat. Davey was standing behind Aries who was on a knee and Richards was applying the crossface from there. This was the only Benoit related incident.

4. Roderick Strong defeated Erick Stevens in 16:26. This was a great back and forth battle featuring LOTS of stiff chops and power moves. These guys traded forearms and stiff wicked chops early. Both guys traded big moves throughout the middle of the match including Strong hitting his back suplex/drop on the ring apron. Later in the match Stevens hit a nice powerslam off the turnbuckles. After more nearfalls, Strong and Stevens walked up to each other and had an epic and brutal chop battle. We all know Strong throws wicked hard chops and Stevens was right there going chop for chop with Roderick and arguably throwing chops just as hard. The chop battle went on so long that the crowd gave it a standing ovation while it was going on. To end the match, Strong gave Stevens an Outsider’s Edge off the turnbuckles and then immediately followed it up with a Gibson (tiger) Driver for the win. This match was just an excellent match.

5. ROH World Title Match: Takeshi Morishima defeated American Dragon Bryan Danielson in 12:43. Obviously the big story going in to this match was the condition of Danielson’s eye after suffering a detached retina and broken orbital bone just 3 weeks ago. Danielson came out wearing an eye patch over his left eye. The crowd wasn’t as hot for this as one might expect most likely due to being concerned about Danielson’s eye.

Within a couple minutes of the match Morishima was hitting Danielson with hard forearms to left side of his face right next to his eye. The crowd was booing Morishima for this. Late in the match Morishima gave Danielson a powerbomb and stayed in that position for the pin, while being pinned Danielson applied a triangle choke. Danielson got the choke fully on and Morishima was eventually able to scoot backward to get his feet on the ropes. A few minutes later Danielson applied the triangle choke from the ground and started hitting the top of Morishima’s head with elbows. Morishima, while still being in the triangle, lifted Danielson up and powerbombed him to break the hold. The end of the match came when Morishima removed Danielson’s eye patch and began burying the point of his elbow in Danielson’s eye. Danielson wouldn’t give up and the referee was forced to stop the match.

This was a very good match while it lasted. I was worried about Danielson wrestling so soon and I don’t think he should have. With that being said, I thought the finish was clever considering the circumstances; Morishima wants to keep his title at all costs and Danielson is a warrior that won’t give up, even risking his eyesight to once again win the ROH World Title.

6. ROH World Tag Team Title Ladder Match: Jay & Mark Briscoe defeat Kevin Steen & El Generico in 27:24. This match was ridiculously brutal. This match had more dangerous spots than any other match that I’ve ever seen. This match was brought terms “off the charts” or “insane” to a whole new level. It was almost hard to watch due to the incredible brutality of the bumps and the very unsafe and risky vibe the whole match had to it.

The match started with the teams breaking off into pairs and brawling into the crowd. Mark and Steen were brawling right by my front row seat. Steen then gave Mark a running throw/powerslam over the guardrail into the crowd sending Mark into a bunch of evacuated chairs. This match was just simply fucking crazy. There were probably like 20 spots in this match that could have ended any other street fight/ pinfalls count anywhere match, but these tough bastards just kept going.

There were too many spots for me to try and remember in the right order; so here is a list:

Spots I remember

- big double hip toss onto El Generico on a ladder leaning against the turnbuckle
- ladder laying on El Generico, Mark hits a Shooting Star onto the ladder
- Running awesome bomb from Steen onto Mark where the ladder is set up on the apron and guardrails, Mark on the way down bounces off the side of the ladder and hits the floor, hard.
- Steen takes a DVD onto a sturdy ladder, that is open but laying on its side, there was no give to ladder and it looked really painful
- big ladder standing up in the ring, smaller ladder laying horizontally across from the big ladder to the turnbuckle, Steen package piledrives Mark thru the ladder
-big ladder standing up in the ring, smaller ladder laying horizontally across from the big ladder to the turnbuckle, Jay driller on El Generi co thru the ladder. This is where I think El Generico hurts his knee, but that could have happenned anywhere, I saw the ref go over to him when he was laying on the floor and Generico just keep shaking his head no and grabbing his leg.
- Jay is on climbing the ladder to get the belts and the ladder is tipped toward a turnbuckle where there is another ladder in that same corner. Jay gets sandwiched between the ladders and gets a golf ball sized bump on the back of his head that is bleeding out of the top AND a huge gash where the ladder in front of him apparently hit him in the face causing a huge cut/gash right underneath his eye on his cheekbone that is bleeding pretty badly. Apparently it wasn’t his eye that was cut, thank God.

- lots more spots

By the way, the ladders they were first using were literally almost blowing up causing the ladders too fall apart and send ladder shrapnel to go everywhere. At one point part of a ladder broke off and swung toward Mark’s throat looking like it cut his throat. Apparently it didn’t.

Jay Briscoe got the belts down after having a very hard time getting the belts off their industrial hook that was being used.

The Briscoes win. This was without question the wildest and most spectacular match I have ever seen.

After the match there were repeated women’s screams in the background. Then Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black, and Lacey (dressed in “dark” clothes or perhaps gothic”) all hopped the guard rail. The Necro Butcher hopped the guard rail on the other side and had barbed wire wrapped around his fist. While this was going on all of the 161 supporters wearing the black ski masks and bandannas made their way to the front row and banged the guardrails in support. So the 3 wrestlers beat down and Jay and tied his feet to the device that was holding the belts. So Jay is hanging upside down with his head like 10 feet above the ring and bleeding very badly. So Jacobs stands directly underneath Jay and is purposely letting Jay’s blood drip all over him. Jacobs starts cutting his promo while Jay is just dripping blood all over him. Some of the things that Jacobs sa id were that the Briscoes are drunks and bad people, and that the fans only like them because of their athletic ability, and that ROH would never give Black a chance. Jacobs was saying how the ROH fans wouldn’t give Necro a chance just because of his look, which is wrong and conceded. They said the Briscoes were the heart and soul of ROH and they are targeting the top (or something very close to that). They eventually let Mark down and left.

END OF THE PPV TAPING

7. Mitch Franklin pinned Alex “Sugarfoot” Payne in 2:25. Not much to say.

8. Amazing Kong & Daizee Haze defeat Sara Del Rey & Lacey in 14:49. This match was just great with great booking/psychology too. For example Haze and Lacey were wrestling, then Del Rey and Haze, then Lacey and Haze, then Haze tagged in Kong and she walked in like “What now bitch?” to Lacey. Lacey ran and tagged in Del Rey who wasn’t going to back down and just walked right up to her, Kong and Del Rey were just staring each other down and everyone in the crowd was like”ooh, here we go.” It was really good. It is the best women’s match I have ever seen, but keep in mind I have never seen Shimmer. I intend to check out some Shimmer now though.

9. BJ Whitmer & Brent Albright defeat Kenny King & Chasyn Rance in 5:40. They win with like a huge double spine buster. This was short and mediocre. Whitmer & Albright have matching executioner-style gear and their faction with Adam Pearce is now called the Hangman Three.

10. Jack Evans came out like he was going to start talking on the mic. Tyler Black came out and attacked him. A match started between them. Like two minutes into it Jacobs & Necro came out and started beating on Evans. The Irish Airborne came out to help Evans. A 6 man brawl then ensued that apparently didn’t have rules as weapons were used the whole time. Evans took a brutal sidewalk slam off the top rope on to two chairs that were standing up and back to back and Evans’ back just slammed down right across the top of the two chairs. Evans was pinned after that.

11. Delirious defeats Matt Sydal in 21:52. At the beginning of the match there were loud “thank you Sydal” chants. This was a decent match, but the crowd was just completely exhausted from the ladder match. A solid match with nothing must see or anything. Delirious got the pin with the Chemical Imbalance 2. Post match there were more thank you Sydal chants. Sydal bowed to the fans and left.

This was a solid show that was made a must see by the amazing spectacle of violence that was the tag team title ladder match.