Erick Stevens debuted without much fanfare to ROH. It was 2006, Takeshi Morishima had just taken the World Title back to Japan and everybody was thinking about the Briscoes’s title issues or Bryan Danielson’s return.
He wasn’t flashy or stylish, beyond the mohawk. He demolished two students in two nights, relying almost entirely on power. He threw them high and hit them hard. Destroying smaller, weaker and inexperienced opponents simply didn’t impress on shows where Jacobs and Whitmer almost killed each other in a cage.
Stevens began to turn heads at Good Times, Great Memories, taking Christopher Daniels to a time limit draw. As the last seconds ticked off the clock, Daniels clutched to Stevens’s leg, desperately trying to prevent his Doctor Bomb finisher. Taking it to a veteran like that showed how dangerous Stevens could be. It remains one of his defining characteristics to this day.
Afterwards, Daniels wanted a moment alone in the ring to address the crowd. He asked Stevens to leave out of respect for his position as a founding father of this company. The rookie complied respectfully.
It was our first glimpse at his character.
Around this time Roderick Strong turned on long-time friend and partner Austin Aries. They had been one of the best teams ROH had ever seen, but Strong felt underappreciated and craved the spotlight. He founded the No Remorse Corps, his personal club of jocks. Aries was furious and founded the Resilience, starting up faction warfare. Both recruited rookies. Stevens was one of the first recruits either man looked at.
Though Strong had actually been Stevens’s wrestling teacher, Aries asked him first. The first man to pay him that respect won his services, and Stevens became the biggest man in the faction warfare, backing up Matt Cross’s flying ability. Both Stevens and Cross vocally looked to learn from their veteran mentor, and followed his cause against Strong.
Or so it was intended. But Aries was yanked from ROH by TNA, and quickly Cross and Stevens were stranded against three opponents: Strong and his jock buddies, Davey Richards and Rocky Romero. For months they were out-numbered and beaten down, unable to figure out their opponents. Stevens’s simplicity shone through again, as he was woefully unable to take up the leadership Aries had dropped. Jack Evans formed his flyer-heavy Vulture Squad, and the Resilience quickly became the whipping boys of ROH.
Indeed, the only chance they had in the war was when Aries made his heated return at Driven 2007. On Night 1 of Death Before Dishonor 5, Aries and Stevens handed Strong and Romero a decisive loss, signaling a possible turn of the tide. But Stevens’s true character was better displayed on Night 2, where the entire Resilience and No Remorse Corps brawled throughout the building. Stevens stood up to Strong more evenly than he’d ever done before, and had to be thrown off the top rope and through a ladder to be finally kept down. The boost of morale with Aries’s return had Stevens fighting harder than ever.
It seemed to fit him. He was a simple wrestler, relying on a few power moves and his strength to carry him through brawling. Under extreme pressure in the feud, he didn’t adapt much in or out of the ring. He had a simple personality, taking encouragement to heart and refusing to give up the cause. It’s often the simple that exhibit virtue, while the complex find excuses for their selfishness.
Such was the case of his mentor. Stevens and Cross maintained the Resilience through his absence, even when it was obvious they could not win the feud alone. Aries returned and led them for a time, but only he picked up a winning streak. Soon those victories qualified him for the World Title and “Ace†status. He had conveniently gotten his revenge on Strong, and more than one decisive victory left his feud with their group concluded. Seeing his two charges still floundering, he gave up on them for personal glory and disbanded the Resilience.
This, shortly after Undeniable when Cross was banned from ROH following another loss to the NRC, and Stevens was brutally attacked. Stevens would get Aries’s news second hand, at home, recovering from a broken arm.
Even abandoned, Stevens refused to become simply bitter or vindictive. Instead he swore to prove Aries had made a bad call, and buried himself in his rivalry with the No Remorse Corps. He returned with his eyes on Strong’s FIP World Title; taking it would make up for all the losses until now. The faction didn’t sweat him as badly, figuring to regain the face Strong had lost at the Undeniable PPV in the loss to Aries by trouncing Stevens one more time.
It was Strong’s mistake. Stevens walked into Final Battle 2007 for the fight of his life, battling Strong in the ring, near the crowd and up the aisle. This was his strategy; maybe he couldn’t change, but he could do everything he always did with even more vigor. Strong could not keep him down, and Stevens eventually caught him with a Doctor Bomb to with the FIP World Title, the second only time the belt had ever changed hands outside of Florida.
Stevens was going to be a fighting champion. He marched in 2008 and signed defenses against Austin Aries at Proving Ground and against Bryan Danielson at Transform, the first two shows of ROH’s year. The first was to prove that old point to Aries, but both were obvious tests against the very best in ROH.
Both nights of that weekend Stevens showed his passion and his honor. He and Aries brawled to a double count-out, both men collapsing on the ringside floor. He actually beat Danielson by another count-out. But in neither match would he accept the easy way out, demanding both be restarted. Technically, he wrestled four falls in one weekend.
True to his character, he won those matches on guts and strength. Aries and Danielson decisively out-wrestled him after both restarts, but Stevens could hang long enough to drop them with his Doctor Bomb and walk out a noble champion. They were victories that showed how great his few shining characteristics were, but also how many flaws he had. He couldn’t handle technical wrestling, Aries’s aggressive flying could neutralize his power, and he wasn’t as good at planning ahead as the veterans. He was all heart, and little craft.
That showed when Stevens returned to Florida to defend his title against Roderick Strong in FIP itself at FIP’s self-titled “Redefined†event. Strong blindsided him with the belt and let his former student be counted out, bleeding and possibly concussed. Where Stevens might have demanded it restarted had he won, Strong held the title over his head. In less than two months Stevens had gone from a world-beater to a former champion.
At Rising Above 2007 Stevens was distracted by an athlete in the crowd and Richards embarrassed him in what should have been a match of revenge for breaking his arm. At the Sixth Anniversary Show he was too busy brawling with Necro Butcher and wound up losing his chance to get the belt back from Strong. At Double Feature, Tyler Black rolled him up to qualify for a world title shot that would make him on PPV. Stevens would fall back down the card.
Strong and his Corps continued to abuse Stevens. At Supercard of Honor 3 in Florida the entire crew jumped him and shaved his trademark mohawk. Stevens won an ROH World Title shot at Bedlam in Beantown, only to be attacked and injured by Strong; an injury that cost him the match. He’d strike back, but hardly enough to claim he was getting one up on Strong.
It all came down to a Fight Without Honor at Respect is Earned 2. They beat each other with chairs, tables, and once again, ladders. Strong Superplexed him off a ladder and through tables to beat him one more time.
Stevens couldn’t ride promise anymore. He choked.
When news came back from FIP that Stevens had beaten Strong for the title in a Dog Collar Match, the reception was quieter than for his first title win. He’d failed so many times on the big stage that this victory wasn’t so meaningful. Then he followed ROH for their first visit to Canada at Northern Navigation, only to go to a draw against Go Shiozaki. Honorably, he awarded go the next title shot. Disappointingly, he lost the title in that match.
Despite all his failures, Stevens remained a largely respectable man. He refused to join Larry Sweeney’s Sweet & Sour Incorporated because of Sweeney’s sleaze. The choice dragged him into the massive feud with the group. His allies weren’t friends. They were merely other people Sweeney had burned.
That takes us to today. It’s no surprise that now Sweet & Sour Inc. are running the feud, tossing out matches and out-scheming him in others. Brent Albright is a big guy, but not what Stevens needs. Stevens has gotten so desperate that he’s making a truce with Strong to fight their new mutual enemies.
But Strong was never a brilliant leader, either. He and the No Remorse Corps were only good at kicking around weaker opponents. With Hero knocking him out and Go chopping just as hard, Strong is outnumbered and out-muscled. He doesn’t have what Stevens needs –versatility and the ability to plan for Sweeney’s contingencies.
So while Stevens may get a valiant victory over them in December, even putting the bad blood with Strong aside will not fix his problems. He’ll naively walk right into another rivalry he doesn’t have the ingenuity to win. Right now their group need to watch each others’ backs, and in the future Stevens will need that same kind of reliable guidance and support.
In this writer’s opinion, he may need someone immoral on his side. Not a bully like Strong, but a schemer. Prince Nana is asking for work.
In recent appearances Nana has seemed like a broken man. On two consecutive nights he charged the ring and begged for work. He no longer cares for shrimp cocktail, but lives off “the dollar menu.†Financial woes and desperation may leave him willing to play on Stevens’s terms rather than with the moral ambivalence he ran the Embassy.
It’s those Embassy credentials that should cry out to Stevens today. No matter how bad things are for him, Nana has a brilliant mind. This is the man who bought off Matt Sydal’s girlfriend, bribed partners from TNA and Dragon Gate, and ran roughshod over Generation Next – the faction that put Aries and Strong on the map.
Still, calling someone like Nana would be a hard move for him. Look at how long it took him to retaliate and run in on one of Strong’s matches in their bloodfeud. If that much was so hard for him, even the embarrassments Sweeney heaps on him now may not be able to break his morality. Perhaps he’s even worried that someone like Nana will tempt him into changing.
That’s what is necessary about Erick Stevens. Yes, he has enormous heart. Yes, he has the brute strength to overpower any single other talent an opponent can throw at him. But there is a fortitude to him that few others have. It is a necessary fortitude so long as “Honor†is on the banner. But it’s also necessary that, if he will not change his heart, he become smarter about how to handle it.
