It’s here, it’s here”¦it’s your weekly Ring of Honor News Report. It’s been a big couple of weeks for the boys from Pennsylvania as they finished their Third Anniversary Celebration with cards in Dayton and Chicago last Friday and Saturday. After running three big events in eight days you would think that they would be ready for an extended break, but instead they look to build on their momentum with another show this Saturday in Philadelphia. But before we look back to last weekends events and before we preview this weekend’s card let us take a trip to last Monday night.
Chris Masters and the squash heard around RoH
During this past Raw Chris Masters defeated an unnamed wrestler in what can only be described as a squash match as his opponent literally did not get in a single offensive maneuver. After the match all hell broke out in RoH land and a few other internet websites as it turned out that Master’s jobber fodder wasn’t just any random indy circuit wrestler, but it was in fact RoH Pure Champion John Walters. It didn’t take long for the negative feedback to begin, and one would think that this was one of the biggest insults in the history of professional wrestling based off of the majority of messages that I was reading. Many have had the blame placed at their feet, but the two names that have popped up the as the most deserving of blame are Walters and Vince McMahon.
Now before moving on let us all take a deep breath and relax. Feel better now? Good now let me try to explain why I agree with the minority on this issue that neither of these people deserve any blame, as nothing wrong was done. The main critique of the match was that RoH should not let one of their champions be jobbed on a national television show, as it lowers the prestige of their federation. I actually do agree with this point, but only if at some point it would have been mentioned on air that Walter’s was another federation’s champion, but he wasn’t. In fact nowhere during the Masters/Walters match did I hear the words “John,” “Walters,” “Ring of Honor,” “Pure,” or “Champion.” If you take the time to go to WWE’s website to look at the results of Raw you would see Chris Masters def. Providence local wrestler. I think the WWE should actually be commended for going out of their way not to mention RoH or John Walters by name, and thus in my opinion not insulting RoH or its fans.
As for Walters I think that he handled the situation like the professional that he is. It is obvious like most wrestlers that he has aspirations to one day earn a contract with WWE, and so when they contacted him and asked him to work for them this past Monday of course he agreed to. And so on Raw Walters went out there and did what he was paid to do, but in a respectful manner. He did not wear the RoH Pure Championship belt to the ring, in fact he didn’t even have his name announced to the crowd. Because of this I honestly believe that both parties handled this in a professional way, and as such they managed to avoid hurting RoH’s prestige in what was a delicate situation. If you don’t agree with my conclusions then I would ask that you think about how easy it would have been for either side to actually demean the RoH name, and if you need an example to help you out I reference Medusa’s jump to WCW while being WWF’s Women’s Champion. Now that I have that out of my system lets move on to some real news.
Third Anniversary Celebration Shows #2 & #3 Results
2/25 from Dayton, Ohio:
Air Devils (Matt Sydal & Fast Eddie) defeated Dunn & Marcos. (Post match Eddie turned on Sydal and joined The Embassy).
Homicide defeated Puma
Colt Cabana defeated Nigel McGuiness
Dan Maff & BJ Whitmer defeated Jimmy Jacobs & Delerious to retain the RoH Tag Team Championship.
James Gibson defeated Spanky.
Daizee Haze defeated Lacey, Traci Brooks, and Allison Danger.
CM Punk defeated Alex Shelley
Samoa Joe & Bryan Danielson defeated Austin Aries & Jack Evans
Jimmy Rave defeated AJ Styles
2/26 from Chicago, Illinois:
Lacey defeated Traci Brooks, Allison Danger, and Daizee Haze.
Fast Eddie defeated Matt Sydal.
Dunn & Marcos defeated Delirious and Golden Vampire.
Alex Shelly defeated Jack Evans.
Colt Cabana & Nigel McGuiness w/Bobby Heenan defeated Dan Maff & BJ Whitmer w/Jim Cornette in a non-title match.
Bryan Danielson defeated Homicide in a Falls Count Anywhere Match to make their Best of 5 series 2 – 1 in Homicide’s favor.
Spanky defeated Jimmy Jacobs.
James Gibson defeated Puma.
Jimmy Rave defeated CM Punk.
Austin Aries defeated Samoa Joe to retain the RoH World Championship.
Here come the tidbits
Tidbit: As a result of their victory on 2/26 Cabana & McGuiness will challenge Maff & Whitmer for the RoH Tag Titles at the 3/12 RoH show.
-This should be a good match, but I would be tremendously surprised if Maff & Whitmer lose the titles as they could use a long run with the belts now that they have them and Cabana & McGuiness both seem set to have singles programs at this time.
Tidbit: RoH have signed a Six Man Mayhem match for this Saturday’s card in Philadelphia featuring B-Boy vs. Deranged vs. Dixie vs. Izzy vs. Azrieal vs. Kevin Steen.
-While not a huge fan of spot-fests this match should be entertaining just based off of the competitors and the fact that there are no other matches on the card that will offer the same style. In the end I would expect either Azrieal or Kevin Steen to pull out the victory.
Tidbit: Diablo Santiago of the Outcast Killaz was injured this past weekend, and as a result will be replaced by Weapon of Mask Destruction #3 in the Six Man Tournament.
-While I am disappointed that Santiago wont be able to participate this weekend, Prince Nana finding another Weapon of Mask Destruction fits right in with the Embassy gimmick, and maybe WOMD #3 will be able to help the Embassy pull the big upset.
Tidbit: The Special K feud looks like it could be approaching its conclusion as Izzy & Deranged will face Azrieal & Dixie at the 3/12 show, with the winning team getting the rights to the Special K name.
-Well I am glad to this feud hopefully coming to an end, and I expect that Izzy & Deranged will get the win as I think that they need the gimmick more of the two teams. While I am not sure what RoH will do with Dixie, I definitely think that Azrieal is ready to go on to become a full-time singles wrestlers.
That’s it for the tidbits as it has been a bit of a slow news week, so lets move on to the promised reader e-mail.
The RoH E-mail Bag
Well I finally feel accepted to the internet community as I got my first hate mail this week! Here it is in all of its glory.
Dear ROH Dumbass:
I hate to be the one to tell you this but ROH sucks. They have no production values, most of their matches are no better than average, and their workers are more plain than vanilla ice cream. I would advise that if you want to watch a polish product then you watch WWE if you want to watch good wrestling with EXCITING wrestlers then watch TNA. ROH sucks and hardly anybody watches them, you suck and cover ROH so no one will read you. DEAL WITH IT.
Hope you quit soon so I don’t have to see you worthless column posted anymore. And don’t worry you will never here from me again as I aint reading your column ever again.
The Sweet Pea
Wow, what a great and informative e-mail Sweet Pea. I would like to thank you for your input and don’t you worry as I will take everything that you said into consideration so as to make my column even better.
The 3/05 Six Man Tournament is upon us
Another weekend and RoH is back with another show.
Six Man Tag Tournament Bracket:
-Generation Next (Austin Aries, Jack Evans & Roderick Strong) vs. RoH Wrestling School Graduates (Davey Andrews, Shane Hagadorn & Anthony Franco)
-CM Punk, Colt Cabana, & Steve Corino vs. The Embassy (Jimmy Rave, Oman Tortuga & Weapon of Mask Destruction #3).
-The Rottweilers (Homicide, Ricky Reyes, and Rocky Romero) vs. El Generico, Dunn & Marcos.
-Spanky, James Gibson, and Nigel McGuiness vs. Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, and Vordell Walker.
Also on the card:
Jay Lethal vs. John Walters for the RoH Pure Championship
Izzy vs. Azrieal vs. Kevin Steen vs. B-Boy vs. Deranged vs. Dixie in a Six Man Mayhem Match.
And the winners are: I’m guessing that Generation Next will come out on top in the tournament, Lethal captures the Pure Championship, and Steen makes a big splash by winning the Six Man Mayhem.
And we are done”¦keep the feedback coming as it is greatly appreciated and I will be back next week with another installment of the RoH news.
Credit: All italicized news tidbits were gathered from rohwrestling.com
