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MIKE JOHNSON TAKES A DETAILED LOOK INTO THE MOST IMPORTANT SHOW IN RING OF HONOR HISTORY - THEIR NEW YORK CITY DEBUT

This past Saturday evening, Ring of Honor took one of the most important steps in its three year plus run, running an excellent show in the heart of Manhattan, New York City. Whether it was a fan who had religiously followed the promotion through its highs and lows or a fan who was coming to his first wrestling show in some time (and I saw a lot of old faces I hadn't seen at shows since the demise of ECW), everyone left the show on a high, which is the best way to debut and the best way to get paying fans to come back.

There's a lot of irony to that fact, as this may be the first time in recorded history where a venue change actually helped spur ticket sales. The original venue, located far up in Washington Heights actually turned off a number of potential customers since it wasn't in the most inviting neighborhood and would have required a train ride far uptown. With the move to West 34th Street and 8th Avenue, ROH put themselves within a 1-8 block walk of every subway line as well as every train from Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York and Connecticut. If you wanted to go to this show, you had no excuse not to make it to the building.

There’s no denying that ROH had a rough 2004 and were forced to rebuild much of the company. Some of the characters and storylines have taken off, some haven’t been as successful, but the one defining factor through it all has been the work rate of the company, from the ring crew all the way up to the top performers of the company. ROH has for the most part stuck together and created a unique team.

Walking into the venue on Saturday, it was almost like watching a graduation for that team, as they moved up to the next class. Everyone on the roster (minus a few of the older workers, who were taking it as business as usual) all knew this was important and you could feel the excitement in the voices of everyone involved in the company. They were in a real venue in a real market, as opposed to a suburb of Boston or an Armory in Northeast Philadelphia. They were two blocks from Madison Square Garden. They were in NYC, the top market anywhere in the world. With the possible exception of Tokyo, every wrestler deep down wants to work in NYC.

The NYC fans, meanwhile, seemed to take immediately to the company. There were fans lined up in the lobby of the New Yorker Hotel before ROH management even arrived at the venue. There were faces I haven’t seen since ECW stopped running the Elks Lodge in Queens. There were fans who had devoted hours to taking bus trips, ecstatic ROH was now in their hometown. There were fans from Canada and all over the Eastern seaboard, some visiting NYC for the first time, who came because ROH was in town. Looking down on this motley crew of characters, I couldn’t help but think back to the days of ECW packing them in at the Elks, especially since there were many, many fans who paid for the chance to stand and watch the show once seating was gone. There were fans who rather than stand, chose to pay more for ringside seats, because they wanted a good view of the show. This wasn’t just your fly by night indy show – this was a destination event to these fans.

In the end Ring of Honor drew an estimated 700-800 of these fans to their Manhattan, New York City debut at the New Yorker Hotel on Saturday 5/7. The end result was a show that some described to me as the best top to bottom ROH event since the days of running the intimate Murphy Rec Center in Philly, with a boisterous NYC crowd inside.

The show opened with Dunn and Marcos coming to the ring for their scheduled Three-Way match, only for the Carnage Crew, who were hiding under the ring, to return to ROH by attacking them with hubcaps. The Crew piledrove Marcos off the apron through a table, then turned heel ripping on the fans for not caring about them being out for 90 days. They ended up using the catch phrase that they were “drunk and p*ssed off.” The crowd didn’t seem to know the Crew but once they got a piledriver through a table, they chanted “Holy sh*t” and the show was off and running. Obviously this is going to set up a new feud, with the Crew back to their throwback brawling ways similar to the old school Moondogs, right down to the hubcaps.

With Dunn and Marcos out, it turned into a traditional tag with Izzy & Deranged (now dressing like some kind of lounge lizards with bright shirts and suit jackets) defeating Dixie & Azrieal in a match where the losing team had to split up. It was another of their really good matches. One can see Azrieal is ready for the slot of undercard babyface trying to build his way up.

Nigel McGuinness pinned Colt Cabana in a decent match with some good wrestling and comedy. Cabana has this great likeable personality and pulls out some goofy references in his promos to the point that you can’t help but want to like the guy. He’s like that friend who always knows exactly the right corny thing to say – that’s the key to his persona. McGuiness is a British worker who’s really come into his own in the last year, upping his physique and looking really strong and fluid in the ring. I wouldn’t be shocked to see WWE pick him up down the line. This was another solid bout based off the pair’s tenuous tag relationship. In the afternoon prior to the show, ROH filmed a “Good Times, Great Memories” segment (Cabana’s “talk show”) with Cabana walking around the streets of NYC, asking people what they thought of McGuiness.

James Gibson forced Black Tiger (a masked Rocky Romero) to tap out with a front choke. At this point, the former Jamie Knoble may be the most fluid performer in the company, which is really high praise. A really good back and forth wrestling match with submissions in that New Japan vein.

ROH Tag Team champions BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs defeated Roderick Strong & Jack Evans in a very good match. This was a tremendous back and forth match although it may be quietly overlooked due to some of the top matches on the show. That said, everyone involved deserves a huge amount of credit for this. The ROH Tag belts’ credibility have been diminished left and right for various reasons over the last year, but these four worked their tails off to bring fans into the match and give them some awesome false finishes. The crowd was really into Evans’ at the onset. Evans may be one of the most gifted aerial performers I’ve ever seen in my life – on par with Sabu, Rob Van Dam and the earlier work of Low Ki. Roderick Strong continues to improve both his look and his work, reminding me of Dean Malenko with his variety of backbreaker combinations. BJ Whitmer is that great worker who never gets the acclaim because he’s not flashy, but he’s an old school kickass performer. Jimmy Jacobs brings some pizzaz to Whitmer’s work, pulling off his Bruiser Brody-style “Huss” silliness without disturbing the credibility of his work. When you get to see the tape, don’t skip past this match or you will miss out on a real diamond in the rough.

Gary Michael Cappetta came to the ring and put over the NYC debut and the fans, before announcing that Matt Hardy would debut on 7/16 in New Haven, CT for Hardy’s first independent wrestling appearance.

Samoa Joe pinned Jay Lethal in an excellent match to win the ROH Pure championship. From the second he came out, it was obvious Joe owned the crowd as they saw him as a true star. I can only equate it to an ECW event in Middletown, New York when The Sandman came out before the show to introduce a band that would be playing a pre-show concert. The crowd went nuts for him, to the point I suddenly realized that Sandman wasn’t just an indy guy from Philly anymore, but a bonafide star. When Joe hit the ring with the crowd rapping along to LL Cool J’s “I’m Gonna Knock You Out” I knew ROH was changed forever with this night. The match itself was a great, great Pure Wrestling bout between teacher and student. Jay Lethal is someone who a lot of fans have taken to in the last year and with good reason. He’s got great facials, he’s got tremendous hard hitting offense, and he’s got an entire underdog dimension partially due to his loudly cheering family at the shows. There were some excellent back and forth matches and another insane table spot. Lethal had a sleeper on Joe while both were stationed on the apron of the ring. Unable to fight it out, Joe ran and threw himself and Lethal through a table at ringside, almost like an ode to Taz vs. Bigelow. The crowd ate it up. When Joe finally scored the pin and his “The Champ is Here” music began to play the crowd popped like they saw a Super Bowl win, jumping up and down and singing the song they have been wanting to sing since he lost the belt in December. All was right in the ROH world.

Until The Rottweilers came to the ring. It was perfect timing with their music hitting. The second they came out, the mood was changed, like they had truly taken a great moment and crapped all over it. ROH had the fans in the palm of their hand and it was everything that a good wrestling angle was supposed to be. With Joe distracted, Monsta Mack returned, attacking him from behind. The Rotts all beat down Lethal and Joe with Ki doing an awesome job on the mic. Low Ki warned that NYC was their turf and if ROH wasn’t going to book them, they were going to take matters into their own hands. Forcing Joe to watch, Ki revealed he was the one who had attacked Lethal several shows ago backstage and continued the beating now. The entire segment harkened back to the days of the Fabulous Freebirds as the gang not to be messed with in Texas. It was just plain awesome as it should have been, Homicide and Ki weren't going to get shown up in NYC.

After intermission, Fast Eddie Vegas pinned Davey Andrews with a Fall Away Slam Moonsault. Andrews is a graduate of the ROH school and while green, has a look of a wrestler as opposed to someone who paid money to play wrestler on the weekend. Vegas is a really fun undercard guy who has some flashy moves and has gotten better continuously since I first saw his work.

Jimmy Rave pinned CM Punk in a Dog Collar Match. Punk came out wearing a Candido shirt. Again, the crowd treated Punk like a star. The Embassy reminds me of Raven’s nest with Prince Nana always trying to pull some scheme and this unique cast of characters surrounding him. This time, it was attempting to replace Rave with Mike Kruel because Rave was sick from drinking out of a water fountain in the NYC subways. That bit cracked me up. Nana is a really good talker, but the crowd saw right through him, chanting “Eddie Murphy” at him, noting Murphy’s “Coming to America” film. In one of those, only in wrestling small world deals, that was actually written by Beyond the Mat director Barry Blaustein. Punk bled a gusher, to the point it was ridiculous. They were working hard here to get Rave over to the next level and I think the crowd that was here it worked, because they were popping for all the false finishes and were buying Rave’s shining wizard as the real deal. Rave killed Punk with a series of chair shots to set up the win, with the crowd cringing at each one. After the win, The Embassy beat down Punk afterwards with Colt Cabana, James Gibson and others making the save. Punk laid in the ring for a long time selling, which is one of those little things that seem to be missing from wrestling today that always adds a great dimension of reality to the show. When he returned to the locker room, he headed for a bathroom, stalking right past me in a bloody and exhausted daze and I couldn’t help but think of Terry Funk or Tommy Dreamer and think, “Now that’s wrestling.”

ROH champion Austin Aries pinned Alex Shelley. Aries has a great looking entrance set to “Personal Jesus.” I wasn’t sold on this match as the main event only because in my opinion, they aren’t seen as top tier guys by the fans. Well, the fans proved me wrong as they were into both guys and all the false finishes. Another solid bout.

Low Ki and Homicide immediately came out and confronted Aries, teasing Ki going for the belt. Instead, Aries walked out just as Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal hit the ring looking to exact a beating and some revenge. This set up an impromptu main event....

Homicide and Low Ki defeated ROH Pure champion Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal as Homicide pinned Lethal with the Cop Killer after Low Ki hit his top rope double stomp into Lethal’s groin to increase the force of the move. An awesome match to send the crowd home on an extremely big high. If the rest of the show was a good concert, this was the encore to send you out of the show going “Wow.” Awesome work by everyone involved, including the always tremendous Julius Smokes at ringside. After the match, Samoa Joe promised to hunt the Rotts down after the match on the mic and stated that he “Samoa Joe is Pro Wrestling” which is the tag line he says on promos. If he keeps doing it before the crowd, it’ll get over within a few shows and the crowd will be reciting it for him.

Throughout the show, the ROH crew didn’t just take their paycheck and get out. They remained watching the show from the balcony, and when their fellow workers returned to the makeshift locker room, compliments were exchanged, followed by ideas of ways to improve the matches and their work. It wasn’t a locker room of people looking for their spots to be safe, it was a team looking to better the whole company. That’s one of the unique traits (along with fans that buy the company as the real deal) that will take ROH farther then anyone involved in the company likely even suspects they can go.

With the end of their debut came the start of a new chapter for Ring of Honor. They have their core names who fans see as “ROH stars.” They have a hard working crew who try to inspire each other to improve at the same time they are ribbing each other. They have an influx of new names coming in this summer, including AJ Styles, Matt Hardy, possibly Rhyno, and possibly (OK, likely but no one will admit this) Christopher Daniels. Most importantly, they have fans, real fans, who see ROH as their personal home town team. That in itself, is the greatest asset of a promotion already filled with talented individuals and will be the key to the future of the company.

Ring of Honor returns to New York City on Sunday afternoon June 12th at 1:30 PM, headlined by ROH champion Austin Aries vs. Low Ki.

Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com.

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