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Like most wars, it began with a single confrontation that nobody expected to balloon into what it became...
After winning the ROH World Title from the departing James Gibson, Bryan Danielson put out an open contract to defend against anyone from any company to prove that he truly was the best in the world. TNA's Chris Sabin and Pro Wrestling NOAH's Naomichi Marufuji had both taken Danielson up on the contract, and both fell short. Danielson's first challenger of 2006 would also be someone from outside of the ROH roster as he faced CZW's Chris Hero.
Some people were surprised to see Hero get the shot since so many of the best wrestlers on the indies had appeared in ROH, but for some reason Hero was never one of them. Theories abounded as to why that may have been, and he worked it into the hype for the match through blogs and message board postings, saying that the guy who was never good enough to be in Ring of Honor would come in and become World Champion. Hero even came out of the crowd for his entrance, accompanied by a small group of CZW wrestlers. The match was supposed to be a one shot deal, but when ROH management saw the reaction Hero and the CZW guys got and the interest their presence created, it sent the company into an entirely new creative direction.
Even though he had been defeated, Hero and his CZW cronies began showing up uninvited to other ROH events, making a nuisance of themselves at the Midwest shows later that month and then crashing the party at ROH's 4th Anniversary Show, pouring out of the crowd during a Christopher Daniels-BJ Whitmer match and taking over the ring. A huge brawl broke out and the CZW guys were ejected, but ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette heard about what happened and was irate. He had gotten in the middle of a scuffle between ROH and CZW at one of the Midwest shows and had gotten his tooth knocked out and, in no uncertain terms (ie in his usual vividly descriptive fashion) told CZW that if they wanted a war, they'd get one.
As luck would have it, ROH's next event would be their first at the ECW Arena, and they would be going on in the afternoon as part of a double header that would include an evening CZW show. ROH may never have run there, but CZW had been doing so regularly for years and it was their home turf by this time. CZW's Necro Butcher was scheduled to compete on the ROH event, representing his company against BJ Whitmer, and most expected Necro to destroy Whitmer, but Whitmer actually held his own pretty well until Super Dragon came out of the crowd and interfered, leading to a 2-on-1 beatdown. Whitmer wasn't done after taking the beating, and called CZW out again at the end of the evening, and this time it turned into a massive brawl with members of both rosters fighting in the ring, out of the ring, through the crowd, and even out into the street. CZW came out on top and planted their flag by using a staplegun on Whitmer's head, spraypainting the CZW logo on his back, and then spraypainting the logo on ROH's ring mat.
CZW now had the advantage and continued their guerrilla warfare against ROH, mostly concentrating on Whitmer, Adam Pearce, and Samoa Joe, the three guys who had taken the lead in the charge back against CZW. However, one man who was something of a question mark was Claudio Castagnoli, who had been wrestling in ROH for six or eight months, but was a regular tag team partner of Chris Hero elsewhere, including in CZW. Nobody was quite sure where his loyalties lay, but when Hero and Necro continually interjected themselves into the Wrestlemania weekend events, Claudio came out to even the odds during an attack on Pearce and seemed to be on the ROH side.
ROH decided the time had come to settle the score, and challenged CZW to send a team of three to Philadelphia to face Joe, Whitmer, and Pearce in a no DQ streetfight at ROH's 100th Show. Cornette and CZW owner John Zandig had a verbal debate before the match, with Cornette arguing for pure professional wrestling and saying that CZW's hardcore crap belonged in the back rooms of strip clubs and peep shows and couldn't hold a candle to what ROH did. Zandig responded by saying half of ROH's roster came from CZW, Cornette hated hardcore because he was scared of it, and the building would be half full if it weren't for CZW bringing the house. They sniped back and forth until the CZW team of Hero, Necro, and Super Dragon came out and stalked Cornette, leading to the ROH team coming out to kick start the main event. What ensued was far and away THE most brutal brawl ever seen in ROH up to that point as CZW took on the ROH guys with fans from both companies in attendance to cheer their guys on. The deciding factor ended up being the involvement of Claudio Castagnoli, but this time he turned on ROH and sided with his CZW buddies, essentially handing them the victory.
ROH's anniversary and 100th show were now both ruined due to the interference of CZW, and they had come out on the losing end of nearly every altercation between the two sides, and they continued to come out on the short end of the stick throughout the entire spring. Whitmer managed to put Super Dragon out of commission after a hard fought brawl in Cleveland, but CZW won another anything goes tag match in the main event of the first night of the Weekend Of Champions, then the Kings Of Wrestling made their first appearance as a team in ROH by defeating Pearce and Whitmer on Long Island. It didn't seem like ROH had an answer to anything CZW did, but Jim Cornette had one last resort up his sleeve. He knew it was a longshot, but there was somebody he could try and appeal to for help in the war with CZW, and that man was Homicide.
Unfortunately, Homicide wasn't exactly in the mood to listen to Cornette's pleas for help because he had his own problems. He had been in ROH since the beginning and had always been a top star, but had never managed to win the ROH World Title even though he had challenged for it several times. At the May show on Long Island, he and Ricky Reyes had been disqualified in a match for a shot at the ROH World Tag Team Title, after which he went on a profanity-laced tirade against ROH and walked out. By the time Adam Pearce caught up to Homicide the next night in Edison and asked him to join the ROH side, Homicide again walked off without giving an answer.
ROH didn't have enough time to worry about Homicide just then because Samoa Joe was set to face Necro Butcher in the main event of that show, and as you might have guessed, the match quickly degenerated into an all-out brawl between ROH and CZW, with Hero, Necro, and Claudio going back and forth with Joe, Pearce, and Whitmer yet again. Joe ended up getting laid out and had to be helped out, leaving Pearce and Whitmer fighting a desperate 3-on-2 situation that they fought valiantly, but the numbers were too many and they went down in the end. Suddenly, the lights went out and Homicide's music hit, and he came out to join Pearce and Whitmer and took out the CZW crew. Pearce and Whitmer fought to the back with Hero and Claudio, leaving Homicide alone to take Joe's place in the match against Necro Butcher. After a vicious brawl, Homicide pinned Necro with a piledriver onto a pile of chairs to FINALLY give ROH a solid victory over CZW.
Because he stuck his neck out for ROH, Jim Cornette rewarded Homicide with a shot at the ROH World Title in East Windsor, Connecticut in June. Bryan Danielson was still the champion, and he and Homicide knew one another well going back to a Best of Five series the year before. Danielson had won that series, but Homicide now had the chance to prove that he was the better wrestler and could be the ROH World Champion. Danielson got Homicide tied up and starting unloading on him with the MMA elbowsmashes he had beaten so many people with, and the referee again called for the bell and gave the match to Danielson. Homicide was livid, he argued that he hadn't submitted and the referee had called for the bell prematurely, but Adam Pearce came out to the ring with Cornette on the phone and announced that the referee's decision had to stand. Homicide flipped out and attacked the referee, causing Samoa Joe to have to physically restrain him, and Homicide again went off on the company and walked out.
As June continued, Homicide remained the only guy who could consistently beat the CZW side, because while ROH lost another hardcore six man to CZW in Chicago Ridge and Adam Pearce and BJ Whitmer were routinely left laying, he beat Chris Hero (who had won the CZW Title by that point) and also Claudio Castagnoli in separate singles matches.
The decision was finally mutually agreed upon to blow off the feud in Philadelphia, both companies' home market, in CZW's specialty match: the Cage of Death. CZW would send Hero, Claudio, Necro, Nate Webb, and a mystery fifth partner to face the ROH team of Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer, Adam Pearce, Ace Steel, and a mystery fifth man of their own. However, ROH's fifth man wasn't a mystery because they had some great secret weapon, it was because Cornette wanted Homicide to do it and he wouldn't. For weeks, Cornette tried to convince Homicide to join the ROH team and even tried to appeal to him one last time the day of the match at Death Before Dishonor IV, and again Homicide refused. Seeing this, Bryan Danielson came out and offered to join the ROH side even though he already had a title defense against CZW's Sonjay Dutt earlier in the show, and was officially named the fifth man.
With Jim Cornette at ringside and longtime Wargames veteran JJ Dillon doing the coin toss and working the cage door, the two sides met for the final time. Danielson did his part in laying out the CZW side upon his entry to the match, but then attacked Samoa Joe and clipped his knee out from under him and walked out of the cage. Danielson had a title defense against Joe the following month, and it was now clear that he only ever got into this match to try and hurt Joe before he had to face him. Joe ended up being carried out as well, and CZW now had a major numbers advantage with five guys against three, and the situation only got worse for ROH when Hero announced that he wanted to beat ROH so badly that he had made a deal with the devil and introduced his hated enemy, Eddie Kingston, as the fifth member of the CZW team.
Kingston and Hero weren't exactly happy to be working together, but held it together well enough to continue beating down the ROH team 5-on-3. Suddenly, Homicide's music hit once more and he came out to defend ROH's honor and defeat CZW once and for all. He tore through the CZW group and gave Webb a Cop Killa onto a barbed wire board to win the match and send CZW packing.
Cornette and Dillon got into the ring after the match and Cornette thanked Homicide for coming through in the end, and granted him three wishes of his choosing. Homicide got the first two, which were a shot at the ROH World Title and a match with Steve Corino, with whom he had a long-standing issue that had never been settled, but Cornette absolutely refused to give him the third, which was to reinstate Low Ki. Cornette's tooth had (in storylines) been knocked out by Low Ki during that brawl way back in January, and he wasn't about to bring the guy back after that. Homicide got mad and spit in Cornette's face, leading to Cornette macing Homicide and, with JJ Dillon locking the cage door Horsemen style, Cornette and Pearce proceeded to leave Homicide in a heap, with Pearce beating Homicide down and handcuffing him to the ropes while Cornette whipped him with his belt.
Homicide had done what Cornette had asked and won the CZW war for ROH, but now found himself in a tough spot, having crossed Cornette and putting himself in the crosshairs of the guy who ran the whole show. Homicide may have gotten his title shot and match with Corino, but Cornette was now dedicated to making his life hell until he got there.
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ROH had always been regarded as a place where you'd get strong wrestling that you wouldn't find anywhere else and nobody ever doubted the quality of the product, but the CZW feud really took the company to another level. The perception by ROH fans that these hardcore scrubs were invading "their" company and polluting it with their garbage brawls helped get the fans emotionally invested in the company as a whole rather than just "ROH wrestler vs CZW wrestler" as an individual feud. The CZW fans clearly regarded the ROH fans and style the same way and it translated to increased attendance for the duration of the feud, and the fact that ROH's attendance in Philadelphia has never hit the same levels since the feud ended is a testament to how well it got over.
Beyond that, it sent ROH in some important new storyline directions. Chris Hero had gotten into ROH by way of the feud, and by September would be back and teamed with Claudio Castagnoli to claim the ROH World Tag Team Title from Austin Aries and Roderick Strong. Necro Butcher, who was once considered the absolute polar opposite of anything you'd ever see in ROH, would come back as well about a year later as a member of Age Of The Fall and went on to a pretty successful singles run.
But most importantly, it provided the catalyst for Homicide to rededicate himself to winning the ROH World Title, a quest that would see him tie up all his loose ends from a storyline standpoint before reaching his final showdown with Bryan Danielson, the man who had left ROH high and dry in the Cage Of Death, for the ROH World Title at Final Battle 2006. I'll pick up there next time as we look at Homicide's Road To The Title!
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