Indy Wrestling Express

I forgot to mention in the ROH results that world champion Kevin Steen was involved in an incident with two fans after his match, which resulted in him punching both of them. It is unclear whether they were actually plants or not. I’d assume that was the case, otherwise punching them was a very bad idea on Steen’s part. 

Thanks to my friend Arlene for sharing! 

I’ve been on holiday (“vacation” to you Americans), and totally forgot ROH had an IPPV last night. The questionably named “Boiling Point” took place in Rhode Island, and here are the results: 

Roderick Strong defeated Mike Mondo

QT Marshall won a four way, and an ROH contract (vs Matt Taven vs Vinny Marseglia vs Antonio Thomas)

Adam Cole beat Bob Evans

Charlie Haas defeated Michael Elgin

The Briscoes beat Jimmy Jacobs & Steve Corino

2 out of 3 falls: Jay Lethal beat Tommaso Ciampa

Eddie Edwards & Sara Del Rey defeated Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis

ROH World Championship - No DQ: Kevin Steen retained against CHIKARA Grand Champion Eddie Kingston

Thoughts: I’ve read two reviews of this show. Matt Waters at PWponderings liked it, Chris Shore at Prowrestling.net wasn’t so keen. You can read their reviews on those sites! 

Nothing looks “must see” to me, but I imagine the second half was fun.

- Lee

Here is the card so far for Ring of Honor’s “Best in the World” show, which is taking place at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, and will air live on IPPV on the 24th of June:

Special Challenge Match: Finlay vs Michael Elgin (w/Truth Martini)

3-Way Elimination Match for the ROH World TV Championship: Roderick Strong (c) vs Jay Lethal vs Tomasso Ciampa

Eddie Edwards vs Homicide

Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly

Thoughts: So far so good. A lot of dirt sheets are reporting a Steen/Richards rematch and it’s pretty obvious that that’s going to happen here, but I can’t find anything official about it so I’ve omitted it for now. On that subject, they should probably change the poster really. Also, ROH appear to have added the tagline “HOSTAGE CRISIS” to the show’s name. Come on guys.

-Adrian

The title says it all. 

- Lee

This took place on Saturday, the 12th of May in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know any spoilers, look away now.

THE GOOD

Kevin Steen vs Davey Richards (ROH World Title)

Like most people, I was desperate to see Steen walk out of Border Wars with the ROH title. With the face/heel roles overwhelmingly reversed, both wrestlers played to the crowd perfectly, creating for all the drama and emotion that was necessary in a match of this importance. The hard-hitting brawling that was expected in this bout was interspersed by some fantastic submission sequences, as well as some brilliant high spots from both guys. And quite frankly, the right man won. Steen is just the person that ROH needs to inject some life into their technically wonderful but creatively and charismatically stale product.

Young Bucks and Mike Mondo vs ANX and TJ Perkins

While Steen and Richards had the match of the night as far as telling a story goes, the showstealer on the undercard was this six-man tag bout. An action-packed, high-octane rollercoaster ride of a match featuring six young, up-and-coming stars that have extremely bright futures in this business. It’s just a shame nobody got to see it, but we’ll get to that later.

Finlay vs Roderick Strong (ROH TV Title)

Another great match, with Finlay really getting the opportunity to show what he can do outside of the confines of ‘sports entertainment’, and Strong putting in another stellar performance. Finlay did the right thing in doing the job, and recieved a standing ovation from the crowd post-match for his efforts. There’s always something special about seeing living legends ‘passing on the torch’, so to speak, to younger guys.

Adam Cole vs Michael Elgin

A superb match between the two fastest-rising stars in ROH right now, which saw Elgin continue to gain momentum following his five-star performance against Davey Richards at Showdown in the Sun. Seeds of a possible face turn were planted when Elgin reluctantly carried an unconscious Truth Martini to the back, so this is sure to get interesting in the coming weeks and months.

Undercard depth

Every match on the card was excellent. Eddie Edwards and Rhino had an excellent opening match, and Rhino showed no signs of slowing down at his age, Jay Lethal and Tomasso Ciampa wrestled a corker which saw Ciampa’s streak finally end after ten consecutive backbreakers into a Lethal Injection, and Lance Storm proved that he still has plenty left in the tank against Mike Bennett (who, for the record, love him or hate him, is big time. Watch him get signed to WWE in the next year or so, mark my words).

THE BAD

The stream being down for half the show

Considering how good the event was, it’s truly sad that it was marred by such awful technical difficulties. The majority of viewers were unable to even access the ROH homepage for the first hour and a half of the show, let alone log in and watch the PPV. People can say all they like about GoFightLive and its problems, but at least I could see the damn thing. To make matters worse, ROH waited until about an hour in before even acknowledging that there was a problem, and the half-baked apology did little to quell the anger of the paying viewers, many of whom (myself included) resorted to finding illegal streams, or even jumping ship and ordering the EVOLVE show that was on at the same time. All paying customers have been offered a full refund or the next PPV, ‘Best in the World’ for free, but that may be too little too late for a lot of fans. This was a PR disaster for ROH, not to mention extremely disappointing for young wrestlers like Mike Mondo who I’m sure were looking forward to a rare appearance on PPV. They seriously need to get their act together in time for the next show, else the trust from the fans that is already dwindling will be irreconcilably gone.

Maria’s absence

Nuff said.

THE QUESTIONABLE

The finish to Briscoes vs Haas and Benjamin (ROH Tag Team Titles)

The match itself was brilliant. Haas and Benjamin have been given a second wind since their heel turn, and the Briscoes are two of the most watchable people in all of wrestling. The finish, however, raised a lot of eyebrows. Haas sprayed something (believed to be ether or hairspray) onto a rag and shoved it into Mark Briscoe’s face, knocking him out. As it was an unsanctioned match, it counted despite the hysteria from the officials, and thus WGTT are tag champs again. While I like the curveball, and I like the shock value and the monstrously heelish nature of the finish, having the titles switch hands in such controversial fashion only devalues the belts. Not to mention that this means the WGTT/Briscoes feud, which has been rinsed to death and back again, is going to continue, despite everyone believing that this match would be the one that put it to rest.

All in all, disregarding the technical issues, the show was excellent, and I highly recommend ordering the replay if you haven’t seen it. Unfortunately, the gravity of the technical issues is such that it’s impossible to disregard, and if ROH fail to deliver at their next attempt, I worry for their credibility as North America’s third biggest wrestling promotion. If they want to be able to grow and eventually compete against the likes of WWE and TNA, they need to sort this out and accept some responsibility.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Feel free to email in your thoughts to indywrestling@hotmail.co.uk.

-Adrian

Hi guys, Adrian here with live coverage of Ring of Honor’s “Border Wars” IPPV. The show is expected to start at 19:30 EST, or half past midnight over here in the UK. Stay tuned!

Initial Thoughts: It’s not letting me log in to my ROH account, and judging by several worried messages on the ROH Facebook page, I’m not alone. This could be a long night.

…And now the entire site’s gone down. Excellent.

19:39 - Site still down. No news about what’s going on, neither in the ring nor backstage/wherever they’re doing the technical stuff.

19:47 - Still no stream, no news, even no acknowledgement that this is even happening from ROH. The fans online are getting very annoyed now.

19:50 - News on certain forums from a few people that managed to get the stream is that Eddie Edwards vs Rhino is starting us off.

19:52 - Or rather, started us off. Apparently Edwards got the win on Rhino with a rollup. In other news, I’ve been told the dark match was Grizzly Redwood vs Delirious!

19:53 - All Night Express and TJ Perkins vs The Young Bucks and Mike Mondo up next. Stuff like this happening makes me feel really sorry for guys like Mondo who rarely get to perform live on pay-per-view.

19:59 - It’s starting to work for a few more people now, it seems. Not me though. The EVOLVE show should be starting round about now…

20:10 - I’ve been told ANX and Perkins got the win in the 6-man tag. Lethal vs Ciampa up next. This is frankly ridiculous.

20:27 - An hour later, ROH finally produce a statement acknowledging and apologising for the problems. “We will resolve ALL concerns and issues”, they say. We’ll be the judge of that.

20:31 - Word just got in that Lethal got the win against Ciampa. Ciampa’s streak is over!

20:36 -Storm vs Bennett right now. Still no stream here. I will soldier on.

20:49 - Storm gets the win, but right now I don’t really care. The annoying thing is that normally I find ROH’s undercard matches a bit superfluous, but apparently every match so far has been fantastic.

20:54 - We go to intermission. Hopefully when the show restarts I’ll be able to bring you some live coverage. I feel like David Dimbleby on election night.

21:12 - Cole vs Elgin starts the second half. Still no stream at this end.

21:16 - Another statement from ROH, apologising once again and explaining the technical side of the problem. Refunds have been promised, alongside free access to Best in the World on June 24th. Nothing less than should be expected, to be honest. 

21:24 - I’ve been sent a means of watching the stream. Admittedly it’s not via the ROH website, but right now can we be faulted? Adam Cole vs Michael Elgin is still on, looks very fast-paced.

Match 5: Adam Cole vs Michael Elgin

Winner: Michael Elgin

Thoughts: An excellent quarter of a match. Let’s hope the rest of the show is as good as what I missed.

Truth Martini cuts his usual heel promo,  before getting thrown out of the ring by Cole. Elgin picks Martini up and carries him out, but didn’t look particularly happy doing so. Big face pop for both Cole and Elgin.

Match 6: Roderick Strong (c) vs Finlay - ROH Television Championship

Plenty of respect for Finlay. Excellent camera work by the way, for a change.

Winner: Roderick Strong (retains the title)

Thoughts: A great, hard-hitting match that made me feel bruised just watching it. Finlay is still as tough as ever at 53.

Finlay gets a standing ovation from the crowd. Lovely stuff. The stream is up at last on the ROH website, by the way. With two matches left…

It’s a fantastic quality stream, mind.

Match 7: The Briscoes (c) vs Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team - Unsanctioned Match for the ROH Tag Team Championships

Jay comes out solo. Apparently Mark got stuck at the Canadian border. No, wait - out he comes in full ice hockey regalia! Brilliant stuff.

Winners: Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team (new ROH Tag Team Champions)

Thoughts: Well, that was unexpected. A great match, with plenty of big spots. The finish came when Haas sprayed some sort of spray onto a rag and smothered Mark Briscoe’s face with it, knocking him out. Absolute confusion post-match about whether to allow the finish, but it’s an unsanctioned match, and literally everything goes. Crazy. Nigel McGuinness is livid. 

Match 8: Davey Richards (c) vs Kevin Steen - ROH World Championship

Steen comes out with Zombie Princess Jacobs, to a huge pop. Lots of boos for Richards.

Winner and new ROH World Champion - Kevin Steen

Thoughts: What an incredible match. Both played to the crowd perfectly, with Davey seemingly relishing his heel status. Lots of ‘Same old shit’ chants towards him. Steen was sick as always (at one point picking up Richards’ mouthpiece and putting it on himself) and there was even some chain wrestling at times, which were nice little intervals between all the brawling. Steen even hit a perfect moonsault. 

After the match, Steen and Jacobs celebrate in the ring. Cary Silkin comes in to congratulate Steen as is tradition whenever a new world champ is crowned, but he can’t bear to do it, and makes a swift exit. Steve Corino, who had been silent at the commentary desk all match, then comes in, and he and Steen stare off, before embracing.

Thanks for joining me with our live coverage (well, what we had of it). I should have a full review up either tomorrow or the next day once I’ve watched the whole thing, so keep checking!

-Adrian

We won’t have live coverage of EVOLVE 12 tonight, but you should be able to find it at http://www.pwponderings.com and http://www.cheap-heat.com 

We’ll have the EVOLVE results up have the show. 

We will have live coverage of Ring Of Honor Border Wars tomorrow. EVOLVE have another show, as do CZW, but we’ll just have those results up afterwards. 

You can watch the EVOLVE pay per views over at WWNLive.com, ROH over at http://www.rohwrestling.com and CZW at http://www.hybrident.tv

You can find the full EVOLVE and ROH line ups on the Indy Wrestling Express homepage, and we’ll have the full line up for the CZW IPPV up tomorrow. 

- Lee

Saturday, May 12, 2012 07:30pm EDT

Ted Reeve Arena

175 Main Street

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M4E 2W2

ROH World Championship: Davey Richards (c) vs Kevin Steen

ROH TV Championship: Roderick Strong vs Fit Finlay

ROH Tag Team Championship - Fight Without Honor: Jay & Mark Briscoe (champions) vs Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team (Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin)

Eddie Edwards vs Rhino

Lance Storm vs Mike Bennett

Michael Elgin vs Adam Cole

Jay Lethal vs Tommaso Ciampa

The All Night Express (Kenny King & Rhett Titus) & TJ Perkins vs The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) & Mike Mondo

The show will air live on IPPV over at http://www.rohwrestling.com

Thoughts: That’s a loaded card with a huge main event. It should be a hell of a show. Hopefully the maiden voyage of in-house IPPV will go well for ROH.

- Lee

Ring Of Honor have made the first ROH meeting between CM Punk and Bryan “Daniel Bryan” Danielson available for free online, as well as an un-televised Briscoes/House Of Truth match. Here they are:

Thoughts: ROH uploaded this shortly after Punk vs Bryan was announced for the next WWE pay per view? What a coincidence! Ok, not really. Smart move there from Ring Of Honor. 

I’m not sure if I’ve seen this one before or not. I look forward to watching it. 

- Lee

Kevin Steen talks about his birthday, and why he needs to win the Ring Of Honor world title at Border Wars:

- Lee