Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Taped 5/29/09
Original Air Date 6/13/09

First of all, after being out all day, I was very much shocked to hear of the death of Mitsuharu Misawa yesterday. My heart goes out to his family and everyone at Pro Wrestling NOAH. Chris Hero, one of the many wrestlers there the night he passed, posted a heartfelt blog on MySpace about this that you should check out. Now, more than ever, do I feel lucky to have seen him wrestle in person two years ago alongside John, Alyssa, and Bob Dolezil. RIP.

As for this week’s episode, it’s almost as if I just saw this stuff, say, two weeks ago? This was “The Austin Aries Show” I’ve mentioned before, in which A-Double opens the show talking about how great he is and demands that Jerry Lynn hand over the World Title to him. When he didn’t get what he asked for, he warned Lynn that reality would come to smack him in the face. Sure enough, following Lynn’s main event non-title bout with Chris Hero, Aries presents reality in the form of the World Title, clocking him with it and standing over him. As if all of this wasn’t enough, this scene proved to be a reality about two hours or so after this episode aired Saturday night, as Aries won the ROH World Title in the Hammerstein Ballroom, defeating both Lynn and Tyler Black (using his guaranteed shot) in a three way dance (with Black eliminating Lynn, and then Aries eliminating Black to seal the deal). As Aries is now the first-ever 2-time ROH World Champ and Black prepares for a hot and heavy chase, TV continuity gets thrown for a loop again (as it did when Lynn first won the title), my prediction on BSWH gets thrown back in my face, and already-scheduled TV main events for next weekend – Aries vs. Roderick Strong and Lynn vs. Black in what was going to be a title match – may get some modifications.

The wrestling action this week was all solid if unremarkable, with three of the four matches all happening on previous live events. D-Lo Brown debuted on HDNet and got himself intentionally counted out against Jay Briscoe. The bulk of the match was fine, but that finish left a bad taste in my mouth and will likely lead to more matches I’m not really psyched to see. Brown’s role as another heel using underhanded tactics elicits no excitement from me. The debuting Bobbyfish Fire (Bobby Fish & Silas Young) looked pretty good together in a losing effort against Kevin Steen & El Generico, despite Generico’s knee not being 100%. After Steenerico claimed victory with their combo, Steen took the mic from Project Mayhem reject Kyle Durden to make clear their intentions to take the World Tag Team Titles back from the American Wolves. The final undercard match was another HDNet newbie, Jimmy Rave, continuing his “Everything Old is New Again Tour” by defeating Grizzly Redwood and looking to cause further damage with the heel hook before his new foe Necro Butcher ran out to make the save for Griz. Either that or try to reach out to long-lost son Ernie Osiris.

The Hero-Lynn main event, in which Hero was accompanied by Sara Del Rey in her new do and Splenda & Sour Shane Hagadorn in his lounge lizard getup, had some very nice build to it as it went along, especially with Hero getting nearfalls after his elbow strikes and Lynn countering with some nearfalls of his own. More than it did in person, it felt like a main event to me. Also, watching it again, the spot where Hero slipped out of Lynn’s grasp in the corner and made him fall to the outside definitely seemed less like an awkward accident and more like an awkwardly presented move. Lynn dodged a loaded elbow shot and scored a small package to pick up the win. The match was preceded in the show by good backstage promos by both men, as well as reminders of some fans turning on Lynn last week via clips of the post-match happenings and a visit by Nigel “The Transporter” McGuinness. Lynn brushed off Nigel’s words and the hardships of the previous month’s week’s four-way title match, but he also promised Nigel a rematch for the title once he heels up. So much for that, huh?

In other, more minor news, they followed up a throwaway bit of announcer interplay from last week, where Mike Hogewood compared Dave Prazak’s hair to Bobby Dempsey’s locks. Prazak has now gone jet black up top, which is a much better look. Prazak in these cutaways is just starting to act as heelish as he is while calling matches, much the same way Hogewood is starting to act just as stupid. Also, the two announced Ric Flair’s departure from his ambassador role in the first cutaway, and Prazak future endeavored him. He assures us he’ll still make his scheduled appearances (which may be much shorter than planned based off this weekend’s live shows), though despite what the ad at the end of the show, one of those appearances will not be June 27th in Toronto (that’s a Chicago Ridge date). Stuff like this, saying the World Tag Title match was one week ago as opposed to two weeks ago, and the goofy-as-all-get-out promo for next week’s episode, looks like the work of HDNet’s production department. C’mon guys, try to be a little more professional if you’re trying to get in more households.

A decent yet skippable episode overall, with no Colt Cabana segment as I assumed (and ROH’s newswire mentioned just recently). Next week, however, has Strong vs. KENTA and the war of the Kennys, so keep a lookout for it.