Ring of Honor
Charbonneau Fieldhouse
Wakefield, MA
9/6/2003
Round five for Ring of Honor in Massachusetts, at their third different building (still don’t know why they got the boot from the National Guard Armory in Cambridge). The hook for this show was the opening of the Field of Honor, ROH’s answer to the G1-Climax. There are two blocks of four wrestlers, and everyone in each block wrestles each other. If you win you get points, and the top two point getters from Blocks A and B meet in the finals.
Block A:
Matt Stryker
Chris Sabin
Xavier
John Walters
Block B:
Colt Cabana
Dan Maff
BJ Whitmer
Jimmy Rave
Actually, since the G-1 climax has all the top guys, maybe the U-30 tournament would be a more accurate comparison.
I can’t tell East from West so we arrived late and missed Colt Cabana over Jimmy Rave in a Field of Honor match for Block B and Slyk Wagner Brown over Diablo Santiago of the Outkast Killaz. I wish I’d seen that first match, but couldn’t care less about the second one. We walk into the gym to see Slyk’s valet April Hunter beat up Santiago’s partner Oman Tortuga after the match. We also learn Trent Acid jumped Homicide in an angle prior to the show.
Low Ki (broken jaw courtesy of Wataru Sakata), Danny Maff (whiplash courtesy of Low Ki), and Xavier (dislocated shoulder courtesy of, uh, God) were all absent, so the card was shuffled around a bit.
Backseat Boyz vs. S.A.T. vs. Special K (Izzy and Dixie) vs. Ring Crew Express (Scramble Match): Izzy looked like he was wearing a hefty bag for a ring outfit. The usual insane spotfest, running about 10 minutes so it never wore out it’s welcome. Still, I’ve seen these matches with these wrestlers so many times I’m becoming desensitized. They need to add some new people and mix these up a bit more, methinks. Some highlights: Johnny Kashmere hitting his Cradle Breaker on someone on the apron, one of the Maximos nailing someone with a Northern Lights into a brainbuster, and craziest of all, Joel Maximo hitting a one-man Spanish Fly on Izzy from the top rope to the floor on the rest of Special K. Ye Gods. Lots of big moves and nearfalls before Acid hit the Yakuza Kick on a Maximo for the win.
Post-match Homicide, Julius Smokes, and that other guy come out, and after a loooooong interview segment, Acid accept Homicide’s offer to a one-on-one match that night, with the stipulation that Homicide has to leave ROH if he loses.
Matt Stryker vs. John Walters (Field of Honor match, Block A): Stryker got the usual “You’re not Stryker” chant (I think because there’s another Stryker wrestling in New York), and he had “Stryker” written on the front of his tights, so he just pointed at his crotch in response. Someday I hope when someone asks me a serious question I can point to my crotch in response. Anyway, the crux of the match saw Stryker work on Walters’ leg to set up the Strykerlock (same as Jamie Noble’s Trailer Hitch), but Walters managed to reach the ropes both times it was applied. Walters is a local guy so he got nice heat. He selling was a little sketchy, though: one minute he does the “collapse when I get Irish whipped” spot, the next he’s hoisting up Stryker for these big power moves. End sees Walters go for a powerbomb but his knee gives out and Stryker falls on top for the win. Post-match Walters puts over Stryker but promises to win at the next Wakefield show. Minor quibbles about selling aside, this was a nice little match I dug a lot. The best part was Stryker doing the “cutthroat” motion, but does it across his unibrow instead of his throat.
Carnage Crew (Justin Credible, Loc, and Devito) vs. Special K (Angel Dust, Hydro, and Deranged): Special K has pretty much all 256 members present, including their valet Becky, carrying a lamb doll around for whatever reason. K stalls forever before the match, so Credible gets on the mic and pretty much threatens to rape Becky if they don’t get in the ring. Lovely. He even slides out of the ring and plants one on her early in the match. I think young Justin learned how to deal with women from his buddy X-Pac. Justin hit 7 locomotion suplexes for a big pop. The ravers have little luck against the Crew, so they send in their bodyguard Slugger. Slugger looks like a huge dude, but if you look, he wears these enormous lifts to look taller. He hits a reverse chokeslam on Devito. We ponder if it’s a true chokeslam if you grab them by the back of the neck, since you’re, you know, not actually choking them. Slugger gets taken out by an errant missile dropkick from K. Julius Smokes comes out and talks Slugger into following him to the back and Justin hits a second rope Tombstone on Angel Dust for the pin. Afterwards, Special K gets out of Dodge and the crew gives Becky a piledriver off the apron through a table. Hello, it’s 2003, who really gets off on this sort of thing? Match was ok, but I wanted a long shower afterwards.
Intermission. Nothing of note.
Marc Briscoe vs. BJ Whitmer: Whitmer was replacing Low Ki. Good hard-hitting match. Whitmer worked over Briscoe’s ribs for a good portion of the match. Briscoe hit a nutty shooting star bodypress from the top to the floor. End sees Whitmer go up top, and Briscoe runs up and hit an exploder for the upset pin. Really good stuff, especially since they probably had very little time to plan it out.
Trent Acid vs. Homicide: My match of the night. These two went all out and beat the crap out of each other. Acid was cut hardway under his right eye while Homicide broke his nose and was bleeding quite badly. Nutty spots including Acid giving Homicide an inverted suplex to the floor and Homicide doing his insane out of control somersault tope. This was supposed to be a straight up match, but Acid kept cheating (low blows, interference). Lots of very close nearfalls on Homicide. Finally he gives Acid a low blow of his own and hits the Cop Killer for the pin. Very good stuff.
Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles vs. Jay Briscoe vs. Chris Sabin (Four corners match): Stipulation here was if Joe pinned any of the other three, they would never receive a shot at his World Title, but if any of the others scored a pin, they would get a title shot down the road. I notice AJ gets a Jeff Hardy reaction from the girls in the audience. Pretty good match and I liked it more than the last two four-ways they had in Cambridge. Thankfully they didn’t have the clichéd “everyone does a dive to the floor” spot, as the only dive was from Jay hitting a somersault tope. Jay plays pinball for the other three for a while. Late in the match AJ screws up a springboard 450 and nearly kills himself. One thing I hate is late in the match when someone runs in the break up a pin, suddenly they become legal and the ref counts their pinfalls. Happens every time and makes no sense. Anyway, Jay kills Sabin with a Jay Driller and scores the upset pin. I guess they’re going to be pushing the Briscoes if they hang around, and if they do, I don’t have a problem with that.
CM Punk vs. Raven (Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match): Good Lord, this was bad. They were in a cage filled with piss-poor weapons. I’m talking pie tins and flimsy plastic frisbees (Raven even recognized this and broke one over his own head). Raven did take a rake to Punk’s groin, so I can’t complain about that. Raven murders Punk for a long time before Cabana saunters out. Oh goody, a cage match with interference. He tosses powder in Raven’s eyes and gives Punk a set of handcuffs. Punk cuffs Raven to the cage and beats on him forever. Then the cuffs break, so Cabana tosses another pair in, Punk cuffs Raven again and beats on him some more. Raven makes a ridiculous comeback while handcuffed (Raven punches Punk, who gets up and walks into another punch, lather, rinse, repeat. I guess it didn’t dawn on Punk to roll to the other side of the ring) and gets free. Raven goes for a pin and Cabana opens the door to try and lobs a chair at the ref, which lightly grazes him, so he sells it like he was run over by a Mac truck. Lots more nonsense and Raven DDTs Punk off the top through a table for the win in an admittedly cool finish. But this ran a mind bogglingly 30 minutes and was the worst ROH main event I’ve seen.
Afterwards, the lights go out and when they come up, we see Raven “crucified” to a big Red X. Punk says some stuff on the mic I can’t make out, but I guess the FEUD MUST CONTINUE.
Even though it ended on a sour note, still the usual good RoH show. They are back in Wakefield Thanksgiving weekend, as am I. That’s all.
Joe Gagne
bwo@infionline.net