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The Undercard
-Austin Aries and Roderick Strong started the show with an in-ring promo coming off their tag title win at Final Battle 2005. Strong also says he has his eyes on Bryan Danielson's ROH World Title, but first he's going to win the FIP Title tonight. Aries sends Strong to the back and calls out Ricky Reyes for the opening match.
-Austin Aries pinned Ricky Reyes (Reyes had the dragon sleeper on and pinned himself by keeping his shoulders on the mat while the referee counted three. He kept the dragon sleeper on after the match, and challenged Aries to put the tag title on the line against he and Homicide while Aries lay in the ring)
-Nigel McGuinness defeated Tony Mamaluke to retain the ROH Pure Title
-Jimmy Rave & Alex Shelley defeated Claudio Castagnoli & Azrieal (subbing for an injured Colt Cabana, who was at ringside for the match to support Castagnoli & Azrieal)
-Christopher Daniels defeated Jay Lethal (Samoa Joe ran in and attacked Lethal after the match, leading to a brawl between Daniels and Joe, and then BJ Whitmer ran in and laid Daniels out with an exploder suplex)
-Jack Evans defeated Kid Mikaze, Jason Blade, Sal Rinauro, Trik Davis, and Adam Pearce in a Six Man Mayhem match
The Main Stuff
-Bryan Danielson defeated Homicide and Roderick Strong to win the FIP World Title
For those who only know FIP as one of the WWNLive family of promotions, it was actually the original independent promotion run by WWNLive owner Sal Hamaoui, who also happened to be the guy producing ROH's DVDs for most of the mid-to-late 2000s. There was a TON of crossover between the two promotions during the time they worked together, not surprising since Gabe Sapolsky was booking both companies. Many of the same wrestlers worked in both companies, storylines would occasionally spill from one company into the other, and at one point the FIP Title became the secondary title in ROH after the Pure Title was done away with.
This match, which was originally put on the show as a way of helping to promote the FIP brand to ROH fans, turned into one of these storyline crossover moments because Danielson, who was a member of DP Associates and had been feuding with Strong in both companies, interjected himself into what was originally supposed to be a singles title match between Homicide and Strong, making it a three way. Homicide was the FIP Champion coming in, but also had a really bad shoulder injury he had suffered a month or so earlier, so this became a three way to let Danielson and Strong do most of the heavy lifting while Colt Cabana ran in and took Homicide out by "re-injuring" Homicide's shoulder.
Danielson still had the main event later in the evening, but still gave his best effort in the five minutes or so that this match got. He and Strong brawled through the crowd and back into the ring where Homicide finally rejoined the fray. Danielson quickly seized on the opportunity and caught Homicide in a Fujiwara armbar to force a pretty much instantaneous submission. Danielson wins the FIP Title and now holds the top gold in both companies.
-Samoa Joe defeated BJ Whitmer by knockout
2006 was a big year from BJ Whitmer, who started out as a career tag guy and went on to be proven as one of the toughest guy in the company between his war with Jimmy Jacobs and his leadership in the CZW feud. He and Jacobs were still teaming at this point and had just taken on Lacey as their manager, though that would be over with before too long. This was BJ's first major test and was a total strong style war as they battled both in the ring and on the floor. Neither guy held anything back, including Whitmer giving Joe an exploder on the floor that looked like it dropped the big guy right on his head. Joe was happy to respond with slightly amped up versions of his usual array of strikes before knocking Whitmer out with a huge kick to the face and then hammering him with elbows to the head until the referee stopped the match. That kick at the end was so vicious they showed a couple of replays afterward that just made you cringe as Whitmer got creamed.
-Jimmy Jacobs Expresses His Love For Lacey
Between matches, we get a segment where Jimmy Jacobs talks about how great his time in ROH has been and how much it meant to him to have Ricky Steamboat see something in him and when he and BJ Whitmer took on the best in the world as ROH Tag Team Champions, but then there was a void after they lost the title. Lacey came into his life and filled that void, and even though it's just a business relationship right now, he wants Lacey to know he loves her, and we're treated to a clip of Jacobs sitting in bed, symbolically pouring glasses of wine for a photo of her. This was the start of the Jimmy's career-defining storyline, one that would literally span through to his final ROH appearance earlier this year.
-AJ Styles defeated Matt Sydal
AJ Styles requested this match with the then-very young Matt Sydal, who was a member of Generation Next but hadn't really accomplished much in terms of wins and titles yet. AJ said he wanted this match as a test for himself, but was vague about the larger ramifications of this one. This was one of those matches that Gabe Sapolsky would smartly book to give younger guys he saw something in a chance to break out and show what they could do and that they could hang with the big stars. I enjoyed the match a lot because AJ gave Sydal a ton of offense let him counter many of his key moves, and gave Sydal several real close two counts before going over by countering a top rope Frankensteiner to a sunset flip. Great match, and Sydal came out of this looking like a superstar because of how close he came to putting AJ away so many times, and the finish where AJ only won by catching Sydal with a reversal was terrific because it made the two of them look even on ability and it was just AJ's experience that made the difference. AJ revealed his true intentions after the match when he again said this match was a test, and that he wanted Sydal to team with him and pursue the ROH World Tag Team Title. Sydal accepted AJ's proposal, setting up an interesting conflict for him since his GenNext teammates, Austin Aries and Roderick Strong, were the ROH World Tag Team Champions.
-Bryan Danielson defeated Chris Hero to retain the ROH World Title
This is the match the show was named after because, despite all the top indy talent that had come through ROH during its first four years, Chris Hero was never brought in even once. A lot of fans thought that ROH management had something against Hero and thought he'd never wrestle in ROH, so this match got a lot of attention when it was announced. They played up the whole "outsider" aspect by having Hero come out through the crowd with Necro Butcher, "Spyder" Nate Webb, and Adam Flash from CZW, and even brought a CZW referee with him to ensure the calls would be fair. He got in the ring and cut a promo saying that the guy who was never good enough for ROH was here, and he would take the ROH World Title back to CZW and throw it in the trash where it belonged.
The crowd heat for this one was so off the charts that the match itself was almost secondary to the pro- and anti-Hero chants. Danielson came in with both the ROH and FIP belts and had Bobby Cruise introduce him as "YOUR World Champion...and the man too good to ever wrestle in CZW" to get more heat with the CZW folks who just showed up to watch Hero challenge Danielson. Even Gabe Sapolsky (as announcer Jimmy Bower) got in on the fun, popping into the announce booth to call Hero's backup at ringside a bunch of homeless guys and talking about how Danielson showed up at the CZW show across town earlier today just to say he would never lower himself to wrestle someplace like CZW.
Hero would have probably been back anyway as part of the CZW war, but he worked hard to show that he could hang with the ROH style, going over a half hour with Danielson in a mat and submission wrestling clinic. Hero got a couple of close falls with a hangman's clutch version of the crippler crossface, but the outcome of this was never really in any doubt and Danielson eventually caught him in the crossface chickenwing and tapped Hero out.
Prince Nana came out after the match and tried to buy Danielson off with a big check from the Bank of Ghana, but Danielson refused. Nana responded by slapping Danielson in the face, leading to Jimmy Rave and Alex Shelley running in and laying Danielson out.
The Bottom Line
Really good show to start the year and set up all the major storylines that would play out over the course of 2006. Sydal vs Styles was probably the best match in terms of in-ring content, but the Danielson vs Hero match has to be seen just because of the immense crowd heat that made the ROH-CZW feud to come a no-brainer. Thumbs up show, and I'll be back soon to cover Tag Wars!
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