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ROH YEAR TWO ARCHIVE: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT RING OF HONOR'S SOPHOMORE EFFORT

ROH MAIN EVENT SPECTACLES

RING OF HONOR IN ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY LIVE REPORT
by Mike Johnson

Ring of Honor returned for it's sophmore appearance at the Rexplex in Elizabeth, New Jersey on 11/1. Complete results:

*The Outcast Killas defeated Special K's Lit and Cloudy.

*Luis Ortiz defeated Jose Perez went 6:53. Both are regulars in the MA wrestling scene.

*Slyk Wagner Brown and the Grimm Reefer (with April Hunter) defeated Dunn and Marcos in 7:02.

*Danny Maff pinned Colt Cabana in 7:26, setting up a Three-Way tie between Maff, Cabana and BJ Whitmer for the promotion's Field of Honor tournament. Samoa Joe and manager Jim Cornette attacked Maff and Allison Danger. Christopher Daniels hit the ring for the save and The Prophecy backed off. Cornette gave a speech and began introducing his charge when The Briscoe Brothers came out. Cornette told them that if they wanted a piece of Joe, they could have one, and then hit Joe with the Tennis Racquet. The Briscoes put the boots to Joe and were announced as Cornette's new charges. Cornette explained it as he didn't want to manage someone who was already champion when he could mold younger talent to become stars.

*Nigel McGinnis and Xavier defeated John Walters and Tony Mamaluke in 11:26 when Xavier pinned Mamaluke.

*Matt Stryker forced Justin Credible to tap out in 10:38.

*Jay and Mark Briscoe (with Jim Cornette) defeated Special K's Izzy and Dixie to win the ROH Tag Team championships in 9:55.

*Homicide pinned a bloodied BJ Whitmer in 20 minutes after a clothesline. Whitmer took a hell of a beating but had kicked up out of several moves including Homicide's CopKiller finisher.

*The Backseat Boyz defeated The Carnage Crew, the SATs, Special K's Hydro and Angeldust, and The Hart Foundation 2003 of Teddy Hart and Jack Evans in a Scramble Cage Match in 14:17. Amazing bout with tons of incredible aerial moves off platforms places atop the cage to set up insane aerial moves. The SATs gave the Spanish Fly to Hydro from the top of the cage. Hart and Evans (who bumped his butt off and looked good) did tons of dives. Crew were both bloody. Hart puked in the ring after the bout. More on Hart in the Notes section.

*CM Punk and Steve Corino were both named the winners of a Four-Way bout when they both scored a simultaneous pinfall on Christopher Daniels in 28:29 with a back suplex, also defeating ROH champion Samoa Joe in a non-title match. Punk worked on a hurt knee, which actually delayed the start of the bout as it popped out backstage and he had to get it back in place in order to work. Given his knee being so badly banged up, his work was excellent. Corino's ring announcer Bobby Cruise again gave a long introduction to his charge, this time reciting 81 names of wrestlers who had held the Southern championship. Brilliant stuff.

*AJ Styles defeated American Dragon Bryan Danielson in 24:17 of an excellent bout.

Notes: The crowd appeared to be in the 700-800 range. The building was set up for a smaller capacity this time around....Teddy Hart is done with the promotion. After the Scramble Cage match, as the Backseat Boyz were celebrating their win, Hart stopped selling and began climbing to the top of the cage and doing moonsaults and dives again and again and popping the crowd, taking the attention away from the Backseats. The Carnage Crew, seeing this as disrespectful, whipped Hart down so he had a reason to sell, but he jumped up and did the same again, angering the locker room. The Crew attempted to get back in the cage but were told to return to the back. several other workers were going to hit the ring, but were stopped at the curtain. When Hart returned to the locker room, the Carnage Crew and several others were angry and wanted to go after him for being "a glory hound" as one worker put it, but were stopped by ROH management. Hart's attitude in the back when he returned did him no favors, and he was eventually tossed out of the locker room, bags and all. Unfortunately, as talented as Hart is, his breach of etiquette was the worst thing he could have done and it killed his credibility with the ROH locker room. After the show, Hart's conduct was the biggest topic among the workers, all of whom seemed united in the opinion that Hart had tried to upstage the show at the expense of everyone he worked with and then had a callous attitude when he should have been apologetic. The feeling from ROH management is that there was no way Hart could be brought back without enraging the locker room....A fan took a shot at CM Punk after the Four-Way Match and was thrown out....The promotion filmed a live shoot interview with Jim Cornette before the event where about 100 fans got to ask questions for a future video release....Cornette sat down with everyone in the Tag Team championship bout afterwards, going over things about the match that could have been improved on and things that could have been done differently to build the bout. One of the strengths of having Cornette on the shows is that he can provide advice and critical comments to the younger members of the locker room....Once again the heat of the building and the length of the show had a draining effect on the crowd. In my opinion, even the best wrestling show is unbearable to sit through if the crowd isn't comfortable and this was the case tonight....The promotion returns to the building the day before Wrestlemania XX on 3/13/04 with a show and convention in the afternoon. Roddy Piper was the first name announced as appearing. There will be other names added in the next few weeks....There were fans from as far away as Michigan and Japan at the show.

ROH NOTES

In my Ring of Honor live report from the 11/1 Elizabeth, New Jersey event. I neglected to note that after the Homicide vs. BJ Whitmer bout, Steve Corino and cornerman Guillotine LeGrande laid out Homicide in the aisle to set up Corino & LeGrande vs. Homicide and Dream Partner Abdullah the Butcher on 11/29 in Cambridge, MA. Also scheduled for 11/29 is ROH champion Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles. That will be the second night of the promotion's first doubleheader, as they are running 11/28 in Fairfield, CT.

Jack Evans, who debuted as part of the ill-fated Hart Foundation 2003 team on 11/1, impressed and will be brought back into ROH down the line. Nigel McGuiness will also be back in.

As noted earlier in the Newsline, Evans' partner Teddy Hart won't be back. The following was posted in the "Locker Room Scoops" section of the ROH website, obviously in regard to the Hart situation: "There is a credo in the ROH locker room that you try to get over the other guy before yourself. Those who are selfish, unwilling to cooperate for the good of the company or only care about making themselves look good will not be welcome in the ROH locker room. Those who built ROH with their hard work in the ring protect that credo. It is this attitude that gives you fans the high quality in ring action you've come to expect from ROH." The scene in the locker room was said to have been very hostile, especially after Hart seemed to blow off a talk from Jim Cornette. While the crowd loved every bit of Hart's antics live, just about everyone in the locker room felt it was done to benefit no one but Ted Hart, and that isn't the way ROH does things.

Special K's Deranged will return to the promotion on 12/27 in Philadelphia, PA. He was in attendance at the Elizabeth event. American Dragon Bryan Danielson will be back full-time on 12/27 show as well. Danielson had been working regularly in Great Britain.

Jim Cornette will continue to work semi-regularly with the promotion. He'll return in January at their 1/10/04 bout in Wilmington, Ohio, managing the Briscoes.

Among those visiting at the 11/1 event were New York City regulars The Solution, Stryker, The Dirty Rotten Scoundrelz (who recently debuted in CZW), and several members of the JAPW management team.

ROH Main Event Spectacles can be ordered at ROHWrestling.com.