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Ring of Honor show results
June 13, 2009
New York City at the Hammerstein Ballroom
Report by Mike Metzger, Torch reader

Please Note: I'm an extremely casual ROH follower. By extremely casual, I mean to say that the only exposure I've had to this promotion is one of their first DVDs back in 2002 and part of one of their TV shows a few weeks ago. Let's see if "The" ROH (j/k) can hook me tonight.

The show started with a ten bell salute and a moment of silence for Mitsuharu Misawa. First big pop goes to Flair, as he was on hand for this very classy tribute.

Austin Aries cut a really solid promo to officially get things going. The crowd seemed to be behind him as he declared that "the best way to start the show is with A Double." That soon came to an end as Aries started to heel, even going as far as to talk about 9/11. "Too soon?" Yeah, but it was effective. He said a few words about winning the title, but then shifted the focus to his new proteges, Riptitus. Sorta had the Legacy feel, but I think Aries just looks more like a heel should.

(1) Young Bucks (Nick & Matt Jackson) beat Kenny King & Rhett Titus. I heard some things on the way in about the Bucks. Picture a perfect mixture of the Hardys and the Rockers. Lots of good double teaming from the Bucks. At first, it seems like they're going for the typical tag moves, but they seemed to always add an extra crank in their neckbreakers and such. The one guy from Riptitus looked a lot like Shelton Benjamin, but had stiffer kicks. Riptitus won with a really sick swanton/moonsault combination in about nine minutes. Really hot opener. Would've been higher if Riptitus had more offense. (**1/2)

(2) Necro Butcher beat Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana and Dirty Ernie Osiris.) Fun spot of the night: All night, the crowd was tossing those Japanese streamer things into the ring. Prince Nana, by contrast, had rolls of toilet paper thrown at him. Nana took the mic and talked about "the movie stars walking into ROH, thinking they're big time." Is he talking about Flair? Nope it's star of "The Wrestler," Necro Butcher! They brawl on the outside for a while. Nana distracts the ref and Rave smashes the knee with one of those non-folding metal chairs from Hammerstein. Rave works on the knee for a few minutes until Necro gets a surprise rollup. Match was blah. After the match, Rave & Co. beat down Necro until Colt Cabana made the save. (*)

-- Ric Flair came out for his promo. It struck me as going a little short in the moment, but especially now knowing that this would be his only official appearance of the night. Flair hyped the main event and put over ROH (sans the definite article) as being "the big time." Flair then started hitting on some ladies in the audience, even telling one, "I'll take you home, and make a woman out of you." Went about five minutes.

(3) Roderick Strong beat Sonjay Dutt. This match reminds me of why it took so long to start watching TNA regularly. Sonjay was wearing doorag throughout the match, which drew a lot of heat for his bald spot. Us New Yorkers... Match started with some good chain wrestling, until it turned into the battle of the backbreaker vs the spinning rama. Lots and lots of those moves, plus a nice asai moonsault of the railing by Dutt and a sick tornado DDT from the top rope by Strong. Strong wins with 2 backbreakers and a powerbomb. Solid. (***)

-- They then announced that Bret Hart will be at the next show at Hammerstein Ballroom (in the Grand Ballroom) on September 26.

(4) Jimmy Jacobs beat Tyler Black in a First Blood Match.
Started with some outside brawling. After a few minutes, I'm pretty sure Jacobs torched Black's head with a barbeque lighter, but I'm not entirely sure because of the bad seats (buy in advance, folks). Really disappointing (DUD)

After the match, Black cut a whiny promo about being screwed and hyped their rematch in Detroit. This seemed stupid at first, considering this is NYC and we hate everywhere else. Black knew what he was doing, though, because he then announced he was going to play the World Title shot card he's been holding in his back pocket.

There was then a long... long intermission. Thank you, ROH, for thinking about all the smokers out there.

(5) Colt Cabana beat Claudio Castagnoli, D-Lo Brown, and Bryan Danielson in a Four Corner Survival match. This basically broke down to Claudio/D-Lo vs. Cabana/Danielson. Cabana and Danielson did a comedy spot where Cabana gets Danielson to dance. Match was nothing special. Went about ten minutes until Cabana awkwardly didn't go for a pin he was in perfect position for, but instead applied his inverted Boston Crab. Disappointing for the participants involved, I thought. (*1/2)

(6) ROH tag team champions American Wolves (Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) beat El Generico & Mr. Wrestling Kevin Steen in a submissions match to retain the ROH tag titles in 19:00. This started with more outside brawling. Steen hit a nice sommersault plancha for a guy his size. Steen also played the face in peril for a few minutes. At about ten minutes, he eventually made the hot tag to Generico, who's "Ole" gimmick is way over. One of the Wolves showed his skills with a nice shooting star press to the outside. There was a really exciting sequence that climaxed with Generico and Steen applying double sharpshooters. Moment of the Night! The Wolves's manager, Shane Hagadorn, eventually distracted the ref, while Generico was hit in the leg with a foreign object of some sort. One of the Wolves applied the leglock, and that was all she wrote. Some good old school tag wrestling that had enough time to build anticipation. Match of the night. (****)

Match 7: Jay Briscoe beat Guido "Nunzio" Maritato. Standard match here. There was some outside brawling in the beginning; Briscoe eventually won with a double underhook piledriver. Decent. After the match, Guido received a standing ovation from his hometown and even some "ECW" chants. (**)

Match 8: Austin Aries beat ROH champion Jerry Lynn and Tyler Black in a 3-way elimination ROH World Title Match to become new ROH champion. Aries started by announcing that Flair could not be outside enforcer "due to circumstances beyond ROH's control." Nigel McGuiness came out to a big pop, and declared that he would make sure Aries would not get away with anything and then pulled out a referee shirt. Lynn got an okay pop at first, but the crowd really turned on him during the match. Lots of "Jerry-atric" chants. Lynn brought it, though, with a nice sommersault to the outside early on in the match. Good in-ring action and psychology as well with Aries using a lot of Flair moves and motions. He did the flip over the top rope, even getting caught up top on the top turnbuckle and also applied the figure four on the ringpost (more of a Bret Hart move). Lynn did a nice plancha and a memorable double bulldog, but was pinned by at Black at 15 minutes.

The match went on with some big spots and false finishes. Aries eventually applied the figure four, using the ropes for leverage. This was broken up by McGuiness, but to no avail as Aries hit what was probably his finisher and pinned black at 20 minutes. Good main event. Awesome to see a title change, when I figured it was just a house show. (***1/2)

Overall Thoughts: Definitely worth the $25. It really did strike me as ROH truly being "the big time," as Flair at put it earlier. Usually, independent shows are really dragged down by the horrible 20 man battle royal featuring the kids still in wrestling school and all the unkown jobbers throughout the rest of the night. At this show, I felt familiar with almost every act and it was very easy to follow, even for the casual observer. But yeah, this definitely struck me as the #3 national promotion and not some indy. It seemed like it was an updated version of the original ECW, just with more wrestling yet still the same amount of outside brawling. Hey, it might even eclipse TNA as must-see TV for me... that is, depending on how easily I can find it on YouTube.

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