ROH: 1st ever PPV Results

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Ring of Honor Results - 5/12/07

Location: New York City, New York

This show will air on Pay Per View starting July 1st.

- Brent Albright defeated Tank Tolland.

- ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima defeated BJ Whitmer.

After the match, Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson came out. Danielson and Morishima attacked McGuinness. Danielson then held up the ROH Title and Morishima took it from him and left.

- Naomichi Marufuji defeated Rocky Romero.

- Nigel McGuinness came back out and called out Morishima and Danielson. They came out and started taking him out until KENTA made the save. This set up Morishima & Danielson vs. McGuinness & KENTA later tonight.

- Davey Richards defeated Erick Stevens.

- ROH World Tag Team Champions The Briscoes defeated Claudio Castagnoli & Matt Sydal.

After the match, El Generico and Kevin Steen came out to brawl with The Briscoes.

- Homicide appeared in front of the crowd and gave a farewell speech.

- Sara Del Ray defeated Daizee Haze.

- Kevin Steen & El Generico defeated Pelle Primeau & Mitch Franklin, Irish Airborne and Jimmy Rave & Adam Pearce in a Tag Team Scramble Match.

- Roderick Strong defeated Delirious.

After the match, The No Remorse Corps. came out and beat down Delirious until Erick Stevens made the save.

- Takeshi Morishima & Bryan Danielson defeated KENTA & Nigel McGuiness.

Много яко шоу се е получило!

[Diamond_Dog]

Да има

This was a good start...everybody felt the buzz. The crowd was hot but some felt too smart for their own good, like pi$$ing on the length of the Strong-Delirious match. It was a good wrestling match, and it did not go too long.

- Toland and Albright both got cheered, but everybody was psyched just to see the show start. Toland has a few funny spots, like the jumping jacks on Albright's stomach and the sit-up elbows to the head.

- The opening Whitmer-Morishima match was good and showed Morishima to be the most intense I've seen him yet. Some jack@$$es were chanting "Yokozuna" and stupid stuff like that during his matches. I'd rather him be a little more aggressive, but I like him having the belt for while longer. Setting up Nigel and Danielson as the two top contenders for the belt is a good way to introduce who the top players on the main event level are in ROH.

- I don't know if Rocky rose to the occasion, or if the match was very very good bc Marifuji was in it, but this was the best Romero match I've seen.

- Oh here comes Kenta sticking his nose in someone else's business. A lot of people mark out for him, but he kinda strikes me as the Japanese Low Ki, who seems to take himself a tad too seriously.

- Davey and Stephens was good.

- The Briscoes are just awesome, and this match stole the show. Mark scared me with only true Holy S*** moment of the night where he got catapulted or something out of the ring. Steen and Generico are quickly becoming my second favorite tag team.

- I was getting tickets to the August show during most of Homicide's promo. I like Homicide, but Smokes never grew on me, and I just can't stand that "Brr-rat" chant and can't wait for that to go away.

- Del Rey and Daizee was a good match and anyone who says otherwise is just not going to give the women a fair shake. There's an element that's going to click with the Shimmer product and there's some that won't. It was entertaining to those who gave it a chance.

- I'm just not into Primeau or Franklin. Mitch seriously needs to change his gimmick from "A for Effort" to The Garden Gnome and come out with a pointy red hat and fuzzy beard. Generico has the most infectious entrance song to come along in a long long time - people sing it during OTHER guys' matches! A nice long Briscoe-Generico/Steen feud is a nice way to showcase tag team wrestling to ROH newbies.

- The Main Event was great, and Danielson tapping out Kenta AGAIN in NYC was the icing on the cake...especially since the pencil-necked geek sitting next to me kept yelling for Danielson to "go back to Disney."

The crowd was electric but too smarky at times and too chant-monkeyish as well in places, but it showed passion that hasn't been seen in the business since the glory days of ECW (and the One Night Stands). Good start and great job by all involved. Thanks for providing an example of what a real wrestling promotion is all about.

It's looking like for the PPV:

0-Open with BJ Whitmer challenge

1-ROH World Title, Whitmer vs. Morishima (**, quick but good for what it was)

2-Nigel, Danielson and Morishima encounter

3-Marufuji vs. Romero (***3/4-****)

4-Nigel, Danielson and Morishima encore (w/ save from KENTA)

5-ROH World Tag Titles: Briscoes vs. Claudio and Sydal (****1/2 and just one hell of an awesome ride. This one is worth the cost alone)

6-Prazak and Leonard live shill, Generico and Steen challenge Briscoes and chaos ensues

7-Strong vs. Delirious (**, I'd edit it out and replace with something else though)

8-Main Event Tag: KENTA and Nigel vs. Dragon and Morishima (***1/2)

9-Show close with Morishima post match beatdown of Dragon and Nigel.

The crowd overall was good, but we had our ups and downs. A bit too demanding I think (like for the Strong-Delirious match) and a bit too "ECW" like for my tastes. Calm down with the chants with cursing and the You F'ed up chants, I just hate those. However, the crowd was with the show almost the whole way, just ate up anything with the main eventers, loved The Briscoes and Steen /Generico and loved Homicide and so on and so forth. I think Strong-Delirious and the main event suffered from a tired crowd who had just been so jacked and put so much energy into what came before. So like I said, ups and downs.

Regardless, this was an excellent show, almost on par with much of NYC's earlier outings. And worth getting the DVD or the PPV.

Just got back in the door.

I don't do ratings, so here's a bit of references to past matches according to how I liked them.

Briscoes/Sydal and Claudio was as good as, if not better than Briscoes/Kings of Wrestling from Final Battle. Amazing match.

The main event was on par with the Best In The World main event.

Pearce getting the Repo Man chants, then putting on the Repo Man mask was priceless.

Strong/Delirious had its moments, but seemed lost among the others.

The tag scramble match was spotty goodness. Steen and Generico looked good.

Marufuji/Rocky was good clean fun.

Stevens/Richards was better than I expected. Richards heeling it up to the crowd worked well.

First off, the Whitmer thing was incredible. If only for the matter that THIS was the way the first Whitmer vs. Morishima match should have gone.

If I hadn't seen it... I'd be TOTALLY with people who are like Whitmer is first person on PPV? deal... however.... when Morishima walked out .. out of nowhere, the pop was just insane... like, I read Meltzer's paper a couple weeks back saying "Morishima isn't getting over"... he's out of his ****in mind. He's been more and more over and the huuuge superstar pop he got walking out and then destroying the **** out of Morishima was something else. I couldn't ****in believe it. Such an awesome awesome opening 6-7 minutes. Honestly, I'll take a heated Morishima vs. Whitmer exchange even over what the MAIN EVENT produced..... honestly, it was so much better and exciting. On paper, maybe not, but to be in that place for the first hour or so....people were just out of their ****ing minds as far as reactions.

On that note, the OPENER with Toland and Whitmer sucked ..soooo bad.... but like.... didn't seem like it, as both were over soooo much. It was again, realllllly weird. Sweeney was just out of this world great in his role, Toland kept things kinda interesting with "Workout OFFENCE" like jumping jack double stomps!!! and sit-up elbows... it was funny as ****. As was FAT Dempsey made to do walking hindu squats at they all came to the ring.

I've said I didn't think much of Rocky Romero and as soon as Marufuji came out I was like WTF once again, but I swear to god I thought this match was in ****ing credible. Seriously, anyone not sold on Romero after this is wearing just as bad blinders as those that say CENA Suckz. Romero sold the leg huuuuuge toward the end, the opening was really great wrestling and he was great at heeling and man is Marufuji like 100 times better than I thought he was. I read a CAW comment, but honestly, I don't think Romero did ANYTHING wrong here and I was watching closely. Soooo much heat it was insane. Again the crowd heat on the early matches made them 1000 times better, but this one was amazing to begin with.

ES vs. Davey was decent enough. I think Stevens is really good and only going to get better. Tons of charisma and really just a hoss.

The angle busted with AD, Mori, Nigel.... and eventually KENTA was perfectly done. I really thought CT show looked ****ty based on literally NO angles. This show was a blast just based on how exciting it was and angles were ready made/placed into the show as it happened. It really added heat I thought.

I was like WTF when Sydal/CC got the title match, but oh my **** did it deliver. Just a MUST SEE match, total nonstop fun, Claudio looked better than I think I've ever seen him, crazy 30 rep giant swing this Briscoe and honestly, the Briscoes are by far the best thing in ROH, and nearly NEVER don't get over or have just a killer match that just flips **** out of an entire crowd. Too much cool **** to even talk about but my god was Marc Briscoe great in this.

Now, imo, the BEST part of the entire show was Prazak at the stage doing a talking head so to speak as the fans were flippin over Briscoes after their win. GENERICO and STEEN hit the scene cut a promo... hit the ring and it is ****in on. Fans went nuts for it and "students" ran out to break them up. During the breakup, Marc actually while fighting off dudes trying to keep him back jumped to the top and tried to hit a flying punch on Generico. THEN, and what I loved the most out of all this, Steen and Generico just OBLITERATED the job guys/students... I mean ****IN DESTROYED them to nuclear heat. At one point Steen hit a package piledriver then floated the lifeless victim job guy over right into a seemless Generico brainbuster. Just a sick beating and the trapped head backward powerbomb thing on a job guy had to be the sickest move of the entire night. THEN.... Generico RUNS across ring and hits somersault plancha into the ****in aisle. Just a wild and chaotic scene and I thought this was going to be the best show ever at this stage.

Then Homicide came the **** out.... I flipped and it was crazy crowd heat again. I'm talking COD from last summer type ****. Really loud as I've ever heard it at ROH. Great sendoff.

Now, here's where things get sketchy. Women's match. Eh, okay.

Then, Scramble.... This is gonna sound like sacrilege, but I honestly thought the scramble was the BEST match of the second half of the card. Yes, better than the main event tag. Airborne looked really sharp, Pelle and Mitch are just an awesome undercard babyface team and I like them more than even Ring Crew Express, just cause Pelle is incredible anymore. Pearce was really great here as he finally answered the REPO MAN chants with the ****in Repo Mask. Just a fun ****ing match with everyone looking great and again, STEEN and Generico show.... if anything this show was a fantastic vehicle to make two new huge ROH stars out of Steen and Generico.

Strong vs. Delilious. I read someone say "Why a grudge"... uh, dude, Strong nearly made Delirious a parapalegic in Philly, legit knocking him out, powerbombing him on the rail, attacking him again after that on at least a couple shows. This was definately perfectly ok with being billed as it was. Problem was, Strong, despite running away and Delirious doing his stuff.... people just weren't into this. I honestly don't think they did anything wrong, it went long, but people just were DEAD. I was too, I think ROH ****ed up in that they should have put the PPV MATCHES on first.....and everything else last. I told someone that at the show and they go.. "Nah, that's not fair to the live crowd" but honestly, ROH NEEDS to present their **** with heated matches. Honestly, this match and the main event tag were not as heated, just solely based on fans burning the **** out. I liked the finish to this, but honestly, it prob went too long and just HORRIBLE placement on the show.. AFTER a scramble???

AD/Mori vs. KENTA/Nigel. This match should have been abso****inlutely incredible. It really wasn't. It was a real good match, but faaar below my expectations. Opened up great... but heat in the middle just really was weird. It was worked in a really slow style. I am convinced AD is not a great tag wrestler, when it comes to getting over and keeping interest. As I recall last year's CAN'T MISS AD/Joe tag with KENTA/Fuji kinda dragged too. Honestly, KENTA and AD looked best in this. Nigel looked like he was suffering an injury and Morishima, while he did some really cool **** at times, really looked ****in bad at others. At one point and this will very likely not be seen on PPV with cam angles...but Nigel went to lariat Danielson off ropes and Mori got up too quick from KENTA and just stoooood there.... It looked bad.

Oh and WTF... why did KENTA barely get into it with Mori. I fully expected this to be a killer KENTA vs. Mori type tag...and it just never really became that at all. A good match, but NOT the match ROH wanted to showcase these four, imo.

A real good show, with the first half in particular and the angles being really effective and just flat out fun, but I think ROH really will have to try to come up with a way to NOT burn out NYC with live shows. They did three prior that really had a great balance, but I dont think even those shows had the heat of this particular first half, as it was off the charts.

Best matches:

Briscoes vs. Sydal/CC

Marufuji vs. Romero

Morishima vs. Whitmer

Scramble

All of the above were just really ****in good. If ROH doesn't put Marufuji vs. Romero on the PPV, they are insane. It was insane and the atmosphere was something any promotion could just really be proud of, as far as people being really into the wrestling.

It'll make for a fun PPV based on the angles all being shot early and really being homeruns...but its really too bad the main event kinda never got the heat for alot of the same KENTA vs. AD nearfalls that it got on 9/16 in same building.