Ring of Honor show report
March 27, 2010
Phoenix, Ariz.
Report by Luke Fleeman Martinez, Torch VIP member

As part of the WrestleMania weekend festivities, ROH held their second show at Phoenix College. Even before the show, the gym was more full than last night's DGUSA show. Jim Cornette signed autographs and took pictures as well.

(a) Dark Match: Awesome Andy beat a wrestler whose name I missed. They had a good match, Andy won.

(b) Dark Match: The names were garbled, but Johnny Goodtime & Mike Sydal & Johnny Yuma beat Robert Evans & Anchors Away. "Anchors Away" wrestles in fatigues, and Evans does a decent comedy act. Goodtime was great as usual. The two Johnnys and Sydal won with a nice spot.

Main show

(1) Kenny Omega beat Rocky Romero in a very strong opener. Good start, crowd was hot.

(2) Shawn Daivari (wPrince Nana) beat Human Tornado, who apparently came out of retirement. That was quick.

(3) Kevin Steen beat Scott Lost in a good match where Steen antagonized the crowd with great results. Very fun, solid match with fans chanting for Scott to return.

(4) Rasche Brown & Necro Butcher & ROH tag champions Briscoes beat Prince Nana & Joey Ryan & Bison Smith & Claudio Castagnoli. Chris Hero was advertised, but he was injured and missed the show. Good match with Nana playing a good coward. The Briscoes had the new ROH tag belts with them.

[Intermission]

(5) Kenny King beat Scorpio Sky in a Pick Six Challenge match to retain his #5 ranking. They had a good match, but the crowd didn't get into it, which was sad, because they did really well.

(6) Jerry Lynn beat Steve Corino. Steve Corino cut a long promo that got a "boring" chant. He asked Jerry Lynn to not wrestle, and save their bodies. Jerry proposed and got a hardcore match. The match was a standard blood, guts, and contrived spots match, but it was hard to watch. Lynn is still good enough not to resort to this. They really hurt each other for a standard hardcore fan reaction. I felt bummed. It told a fine story and all, but not worth it. Both Steen and El Generico interfered.

(7) Colt Cabana & El Generico beat the American Wolves (Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards w/ Shane Hagadorn). This was a fine match, but disappointing considering what the teams are capable of. Afterwards, Steen came in again, cutting a scathing promo on Generico to further their angle for the Charlotte show.

Jim Cornette cut a promo for the main event and the Charlotte PPV next Saturday.

(8a) Austin Aries and Roderick Strong were supposed to wrestle, and went a few minutes until Strong took a bad bump off the turnbuckle outside of the ring. They threw up the X indicating injury, and the crew came out. Austin cut a promo to cover time. They called Tyler Black out, changing the main event to Black-Aries for the title. It was quiet and people seemed worried.

(8b) ROH champion Tyler Black and Austin Aries wrestled while they took Roderick to the back. During the match, Roderick came back and was reinserted to great acclaim. The crowd finally got hot.

(8c) ROH champion Tyler Black beat Roderick Strong via submission with Austin Aries in the match to retain the ROH World Title. Black retained by submitting Strong while Austin Aries was out of the ring. The crowd was hot, and the action was good, but the match was short.

Overall, the show was good, but not great. A mostly docile crowd hurt the energy, but I think the pre-intermission wrestling was better than post-intermission, most of which felt like dressing things up for the more important Charlotte show.

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