Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Taped 4/9/09
Original Air Date 5/2/09
Report by Brian Streleckis & Steve Kriske

What Happened:

The show opened in the arena as opposed to in the studio, with the fans chanting for ROH and Cary Silken in the ring with Bobby Cruise. Cruise introduced Ric Flair as the Ambassador to ROH. Flair came out to a great ovation, gave Silken a hug, then took the mic. He said that he’s just not leaving wrestling behind and said that he’s a good fit with ROH. He put over the roster big time as hard workers dedicated to pro wrestling, then introduced ROH World Champion Jerry Lynn. Flair told Lynn he’s now The Man. Lynn talked of how he rejuvenated his career, then put over Flair for teaching him about honor, pride, and passion when they first wrestled each other in 1995 – a few days after Flair was in a major car wreck. Lynn said he not only beat The Man, but now he has to work even harder to hold onto the title and stay The Man. Austin Aries came out to interrupt, putting over himself and saying how he was The Man and held the world title before both Flair and Lynn even came to ROH. Aries said he’ll be coming for the title again and prove his worth tonight by beating Roderick Strong. Flair said he liked his attitude and said he hoped Aries could back up his word.

They aired a graphic for Strong-Aries main event, then cut right to the next match, without having any “Smacktalk” promos or “1…2…3!” bio graphics.

1) Chris Hero (w/ Sara Del Rey & Shane Hagadorn) defeated Kenny Omega. Del Rey distracted Omega and the ref while Hero retrieved the loaded elbow pad from Hagadorn (who Dave Prazak said was now the Head of Ringside Operations for Sweet & Sour Inc.). Hero then connected with the rolling elbow to score the victory in about 5 minutes.

Kyle Durden interviewed Strong backstage, who said it felt great to be on HDNet after returning from a tour of NOAH. Strong talked briefly about his past with Aries, how he figured out that Aries didn’t respect anyone but himself, and said he would make Aries respect him tonight.

They showed clips from two weeks ago of Necro Butcher getting a DQ win over Jimmy Jacobs after Brodie Lee ran in, which has led to a Necro-Brodie match this week. This was followed by consecutive “Smacktalk” by Brodie and Necro, in which both men said that they would punch and kick each other and not use any wrestling holds.

2) Necro Butcher defeated Brodie Lee (w/ Jimmy Jacobs). The sound in the arena fell out of sync with both the on-screen action and the commentary a minute or so in. The match began with a brawl outside the ring before the bell even rang, and it ended after Necro rammed Brodie into Jacobs on the apron, knocking Jacobs to the floor and pinning Brodie with an O’Connor Roll in what was officially 2 minutes. Necro avoided a post-match attack by backdropping Brodie out of the ring.

They re-aired the Erick Stevens “Buzz Words” promo from two weeks ago to plug his upcoming match this week.

After the ad break, they recapped the opening segment and hyped the main event again.

3) Erick Stevens defeated Sal Rinauro. Rinauro, a former ROH Tag Team Champion in 2005, didn’t get a ring entrance here. He got one cheap shot in before the bell, but Stevens plowed through him with a series of moves, ending the match with the Doctor Bomb in just over 40 seconds.

They recapped the main event last week where Bryan Danielson and Tyler Black wrestled to a 20-minute draw. They plugged next week’s episode will have a Danielson-Black rematch to decide the top contender for the world title, as well as an in-arena appearance by Nigel McGuinness. Then came a very even Tale of the Tape for the main event.

4) Austin Aries defeated Roderick Strong. They re-aired Aries’ promo from earlier about him going after the title. After a little over 15 minutes, Aries scored the victory with the brainbuster, and the announcers briefly argued whether or not Aries was worthy of a title shot.

They hyped up next week’s Danielson-Black match again. Both men cut separate promos in which both put over the other man. Danielson said he would become the top contender and prove who the best really is, while Tyler said he decided it was his destiny to get through Danielson and become the next world champion.

Brian Says:

A little better than a mixed bag of an episode. Simple but effective, by the numbers but still positive towards the company, Flair’s first TV appearance for ROH was a good one. More importantly, it was the beginning of an increased emphasis on who was worthy of the ROH World Title (specifically, whether Austin Aries was worthy of it). There were great leaps in presentation – more akin to what WWE does best – as they kept revisiting the opening segment to build to the main event and used clips from past episodes to build to upcoming matches. This was put to great use for next week’s main event; as I mentioned after attending the tapings, they’re doing simplest things right in building towards TV matches.

Unfortunately, with this being the first show with Flair and likely the one with the most hype, the match quality could have been a lot better. Strong and Aries had far more time than anything else outside the opening segment, and they put on a good match (but not a great one) that was a decent showcase for Strong but really benefited Aries as it should have (and credit to the wonderful world of post-production that covered up a botched Quebrada by Aries, leading to some brief selling of his knee shown on-screen). Hero-Omega was a decent opener, but the Stevens squash was more of the same (though definitely “Slap the Porpoise” worthy), and the less-than-stellar Necro-Brodie match was made even worse by the sound being out-of-sync. How does shit like that happen with a professional television crew? To the production team’s credit though, both the sound and the lighting in the arena seemed improved from the last tapings.

Necro and Brodie saying the same thing in their promos – not just variations on the same thing like in the Danielson and Black promos later, but the exact damn thing – got a legit laugh out of me. I was also amused by both men saying there wouldn’t be a single wrestling hold in their match – not a single one! – only to see that esteemed mat technician Necro break out the O’Connor Roll for the victory in a match that opened with a chair being used.

Steve Says:

NARY a one! Yeah, that bugged me, too. The sound gaffe during that match was absolutely inexcusable. Brian and I can get past stuff like that thanks to years of watching ROH’s widely-varying production values, but there are people who seem to care more about that sort of thing than good wrestling. Those are generally the people that ROH is trying rope in by airing on HDNet and bringing in Ric Flair, so this was really nothing short of a disaster.

As for Flair’s performance, it was very good (in a very by-the-book way), but again, little things got in the way. His graphic called him “Ambassador to ROH”. This implies that he’s representing some other entity; announcers and wrestlers mostly said “of” or “for”, which is more appropriate. He also said “The Ring of Honor” multiple times, and it even rubbed off on Hogewood once. And he seemingly used about half of the phrases on a list that a friend of ours has made of shoot-ish terms that he never wants to hear on a wrestling broadcast (“behind that curtain”, “this business”, etc.). All that said, the in-arena open was a nice fresh start to the show, and like Brian said, set the tone for a show that felt a bit more dynamic than usual.

I agree that the main event was good, but not great. Giving Strong a decisive win first and then putting him in a main event might have been a better approach. I liked the Hero-Omega opener in spite of Omega being a few tassles shy of Ultimate Warrior’s gear. Re-airing Stevens’ Buzz Words was odd, especially considering that there haven’t been any other Buzz Words segments. I really liked that they closed the show with promos for next week’s main event. Solid show overall, with the fresher format making up for some short-comings.