Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Brian Streleckis posted this in the comments section of last night’s live report. In case you missed it, I’m re-posting the details from Brian here.

FURTHER DETAILS:

This night was fun for the three main events (all quite good) and the in-ring promos, which I’ll go into more depth here. Flair – who apparently is now an authority figure as the “Ambassador for ROH” – was fucking money all night. An awesome moment came when he was talking about deciding the #1 contender (the Black-Danielson match was announced as a #1 Contender’s Match before hand), and someone shouted out that he should challenge for it. Flair acknowledged it, and people went nuts with chants of “Next World Champ” and “17!”. Flair then goes, “Don’t think that didn’t cross my mind,” but then calls out Jerry Lynn to introduce him to his challenger. Black comes out first, then Danielson, then Aries by himself comes out and lets Flair “break the news to the other guys.” They do the deal where Aries’ name is announced first, he’s all happy, but then Flair adds on Black and Danielson.

Flair’s first promo, which will open up Episode 7, saw him put over the locker room. He invited out Jerry Lynn, who talked about them first wrestling one another (they may have said ‘85, but I thought I heard ‘95) a few days after Flair had been in a car wreck. Then Aries broke it up and said what was recapped above. Flair’s “dark” promo, which was just for the fans after the title match was announced, was classic Naitch. “All Night Long,” including talk of South Street. Also included was him giving props to the the city’s sports teams topping with the Phillies, saying he made amends with Foley after mentioning how this was the home of ECW, and how while the hardcore guys taught him how to fall on tacks, he taught them how to bleed. He closed by saying how the Definitive Flair Collection was a great collector’s item for the men, but soft porn for the women.

I take it Prazak and Hogewood coming out was simply just something special done for the fans, now that their faces are on TV. Not sure if they were calling matches in person. More than likely, they could have been doing stuff backstage. Prazak mentioned how this is the home for ROH’s TV. Hogewood, looking quite old, said he was happy to be here, pointed out some fans in my section from Allentown that I may have seen him talking to earlier (he credited them for filling him in on some stuff), and closed by saying, “Slap the porpoise! Let’s get it goin’!” You’ll be happy to know that while there were a couple of boos for the guy and one person shouting out that he wanted Lenny Leonard, there was a slight chant for, “Slap the porpoise.”

Cabana’s promo, which will likely open Episode 8, saw him coming out to a big ovation and how he has a list of goals. He got through his first two items – wrestling a little person and defeating a little person – before Nana and Osirus interrupted, running him down and hyping up Bison Smith and Jimmy Rave, but Cabana mocked him for spitting all over the place and joked that he had a Jamaican accent. This little issue continued in the Albright-Claudio post-match stuff. Speaking of which, the Embassy’s interference consisted of Ernie throwing a shoe at Albright while he had Claudio in the crowbar. Claudio then kicked him in the groin while the ref dealt with the Embassy to get the win.

Nigel’s promo was definitely more babyface than anything, kind of similar to a classic Joe promo in that he remained confident without playing down to the crowd. He talked of how his title reign began with a torn bicep, a concussion and 20+ stitches at Rising Above, and the fans turning on him at Final Battle ‘07. He said he’d never lose the belt as long as the fans doubted him, but said that by the time he did lose it to Lynn while both his arms were in bad shape, he saw that nobody was doubting him. He put over Lynn’s win by way of Flair’s Be the Man/Beat the Man line, but said he would heal up and become the man again.

Danielson-Black didn’t quite have the atmosphere of their last match, but it was maybe my favorite of the night, and the fans definitely got into at the end. Poetic justice came big when a couple people started chanting “Boring,” many more shouted them down big time, and then immediately afterward the two did the big closing spot that lead to the double count-out. The chair was thrown while both guys were down. People still gave both a big ovation as they stared down one another after the match.

Then after both guys left, out came Aries to SHOOT on the chair-throwing incident. OLD SCHOOL POLICING OF THE CROWD! Culprit gets pointed out, Aries tells him he can either leave or step in the ring, and the guy gets ejected. Aries then mentions that anyone else who wants to be an asshole and try to put themselves over can try to get in the ring. Needless to say, this was a lot more preferable than, say, getting in a hands-on fight with someone, and I give credit to Aries for not dropping the f-bomb every other word nor closing his rant with, “and that’s a shoot!” This might be the first prolonged shoot I witnessed in person.

I like that there was a lot of angles done in front of the crowd, though it was a bitch to text all of it, and it did eat into the wrestling time. Crowd was obviously smaller than both nights of tapings the last time (the section I was in had a very barren third row), plus there were a lot of kids.

One final note: I was in the second row and wearing my Generico shirt again. Generico is getting worn down by the heels in the Episode 9 main event. Steen sees that I’m wearing Generico’s shirt and directly tells me to cheer him on, so of course I have to comply and get an Ole chant going. He tells me to keep it up in a very Homer Simpson manner (”I didn’t say stop.”). Highlight of my evening next to Flair.

I’ll be giving live results tomorrow.