RING OF HONOR Presents:
BEATING THE ODDS
9/6/03
From Wakefield, MA

Show starts off with a CM Punk with Colt Cabana promo. Punk cuts a killer promo talking about his match with Raven in the Clockwork Orange House of Fun match. He talks about being straight edge and how Raven is a failure. Punk runs down past Raven failures. Punk runs down previous matches with Ravens, and talks about nailing him to his “X”. Seriously Punk is a promo god, and it shouldn’t be too long before he’s on Ric Flair level on selling any angle/storyline or match as the biggest thing in wrestling.
Punk leaves, and Cabana cuts a promo. He talks about Dunn and Marcos’s mom being his groupie. Cabana talks about the Field of Honor and puts it over as the best thing since sliced bread.

We cut to Raven who is sitting down. Raven talks about his match with Punk. He says there is a heaven and hell, and heaven is no longer an option for CM Punk. He says he’s going to kill CM Punk, and starts laughing. Wow, someone call Charles Manson.

Cut to AJ Styles who has some pep words for Jimmy Rave.

We then go to a Field of Honor graphic giving the stats on Jimmy Rave and Colt Cabana. This takes us to…
In a Field of Honor Match
Colt Cabana d. Jimmy Rave
Colt Cabana has to be one of the funniest men in wrestling, and it’s great seeing him have a shot in ROH.

During the match we cut to a promo at the RF table. The Backseat Boyz are talking to Gabe Sapolsky and Rob Feinstein. The Backseat Boys want to be let in. RF lets them know they are late, as they were supposed to be there at 5, not 7. Backseats are like whatever and walk past Homicide and Julius Smokes. Homicide says they are late. The Backseat Boys start arguing with Homicide and Julius Smokes. The grin on Smokes face is priceless. These 4 men start arguing. Homicide attacks Trent Acid, and Julius attacks Johnny Kashmere. These guys are broken up by the hardcore enforcer, Gabe Sapolsky. Homicide gets the better of Acid. Julius Smokes says “BIALK BIALK” a hundred times. Funny shit. Smokes calls The Backseat Boys “BITCHASS WIGGERS.” LOL this is supposed to be serious, but Smokes cracks you up.

We come back to the match. Unfortunately, the incident that just aired previously takes a little heat from the match, as it was more exciting. The match was pretty decent, with both guys getting a lot of offense in. The crowd is starting to warm up to Cabana, and for good reason, the guy is great. They do the Macho Man-Ricky Steamboat 2 count thing. Cabana has a great arsenal of unique maneuvers. Jimmy Rave has an arsenal of “The Best of Grim Reefer” maneuvers, as he does Reefers head scissors into a cross face on 3 separate occassions. What’s next, a mid rope senton bong? ROH should push the real thing, instead of Jimmy Rave. Colt finally gets the win with his impressive Colt 45.

We then go to the back for a Jimmy Rave promo. AJ Styles interrupts and says that Jimmy could’ve won if he tried working Colts neck. AJ says he has more advice and they leave.

We then go to Cabana who talks about his win. He’s happy about his match. He said he’s ready to win the Field of Honor tourney.

Slyk Wagner Brown w/April Hunter d. Diablo Santiago.
The pop Slyk Wagner Brown gets is incredible. It’s a wonder why he isn’t pushed more in ROH? It also helps that Slyk is from the Boston area. Then again, I’ve seen Slyk get monstrous pops at ROH shows in NJ, CT and PA. Slyk starts the match off fiercly, as he spears Oman Tortuga before he can start any shenanigans before the match. Slyk dominates Diablo for most of the match, and whips out moves that a man his size shouldn’t physically be able to do. Slyk hits what the announcers call a “butt butt”. You really gotta see it as it’s unique. Slyk gets the win with a sitdown powerbomb. This was more or less a squash for the crowd favorite, Slyk.
POSTMATCH: Oman Tortuga, Diablo Santiago’s partner from the Outcast Killahs gets the mic. Tortuga says he has chemistry with April. April denies Tortugas comments. Aprils slaps him in the face. Tortuga goes to beat her up, but April fucks him up, closing with her neckbreaker from the middle rope. Slyk is just cracking up and motions to the ref to kick Tortuga out of the ring. Crowd ate this up like a birthday cake.

In a ROH Scramble Match
The Backseat Boyz (Trent Acid/Johnny Kashmere) d. The SAT (Joel/Jose Maximo), Special K (Izzie/Dixie) w/the rest of Special K and The Ring Crew Express (Dunn and Marcos)
The announcers talk about the Backseats incident with Homicide/Smokes from earlier. This match was very spotty, but hey, that’s what these matches are here for. This was an entertaining match. Izzy threw some beautiful hurranacarannas on the SAT. Great stuff here by Izzy, that even got him some Holy shit chants. Announcers with a cool comment, “Ref Hanson must lose 5 pounds every time he has to ref one of these scramble matches.” Definitely true, as the action is all over the place. Just lots of great tag team wrestling and double teams. Even though some of these matches are repetitive it always gets the live crowd to go nuts. It’s also good to see that ROH are starting to take these matches a bit seriously, as the winners of these matches have started to get tag team title shots. In a fucking crazy fucking move, Joel Maximo spanish flyed Izzy into the other 6 wrestlers. This got a well deserving HOLY SHIT chants and some SAT chants. The Backseats get the win after Acid hits a high knee on Joel’s face, and both Backseats roll up Joel Maximo. Entertaining.

In a Field of Honor Match
Matt Stryker d. John Walters
PAW match. Then again, when hasn’t a Walters match been excellent? Stryker is one of those guys who can have a great match with anyone. This would be a perfect finals for the upcoming ROH Pure Wrestling Championship tournament. These guys do what’s on the marquee, and that’s just flat out wrestle. I think Stryker, despite his 12/27 match, where he won Field of Honor, has been one of ROH’s top wrestlers of the year. Finish saw both guys go for a big move. As Walters went to powerbomb Stryker, his leg gave out, since Stryker was working on it the whole match, and Stryker fell on top of him and hooked his good leg for the pin. Pure wrestling at its finest.
POSTMATCH: John Walters showed respect to Stryker. He then talks about always wanting to win and says he wrestles for the fan. He then guaranteed the crowd (Wakefield, MA) a win, when ROH returns to the Massachusetts area. (November 29th, and he did win) Walters is from the MA area, so he got the hometown boy love.

Cut to a Rob Feinstein promo. Homicide talks to RF about what happened earlier with Backseats. Homicide wants Trent Acid, and is taking himself out of the running for the ROH title. RF agrees and says he’ll make Acid vs Homicide for later on. Smokes has some words for RF, which RF tries not to bust out laughing at.

We then go to Special K who are making their way to the ring, ok then.

The Carnage Crew (Justin Credible, Loc & Devito) defeated Special K members: Hydro, Angeldust & Deranged.
Deranged, as the de-facto leader of Special K doesn’t want to wrestle the Carnage Crew. The Carnage Crew get a huge fucking pop. Brutal match. Special K, despite the gimmick are fantastic wrestlers. I will say this every time, Hydro/Jay Lethal, doesn’t look right in Special K, and can tear the house down with anyone. Deranged is great in his Special K role, and I think he elevates Special K. Hopefully ROH and Deranged can reach an agreement, because Special K needs Deranged and the fans need Deranged in ROH. Credible opened up on Angeldust pretty hard with mutiple suplexes. The announcers in this match talk more about Special K’s drug gimmick than the match it self. Announcers are hating on Special K too much and it gets annoying. During the match, Slugger, who was Special K’s bodyguard for this match, came in the ring. Loc lowblowed Slugger, and Slugger didn’t feel it and hit a nice reverse chokeslam. Carnage Crew would rebound and hit a huge double powerbomb, which Slugger broke up. Credible knocks Slugger down with a big superkick, making Credible the first person to ever knock Slugger off his feat. Becky Bayless tried to interfere, and looked like she was gonna get something from Credible, but that was broken up. Julius Smokes then came out. He starts screaming at Slugger and talks about Rottweilers 2003. Smokes convinces Slugger to leave this, and Slugger and Smokes leave the ringside area. This would set up The Rottweilers. Credible wins this match with a “That’s Incredible” top rope piledriver. Pretty decent match with more focus on the storylines than the wrestling, which is different in ROH.
POSTMATCH: Devito lays everyone out with chair shots. Loc and Devito go to powerbomb Becky, but Credible breaks it up? What the fuck? Credible is like fuck that shit, let’s put her through a table, which the crowd goes nuts for. The Carnage Crew piledrives Becky through a table. Wow, I never saw Becky take something like that before. Impressive. And for all you puppy fans, I’m sure you can go in slow motion to see some jiggle. Heynow lol.

Cut to GMC who usually does these promos during intermissions. GMC talks about Low Ki breaking his jaw. He also talks about Red going for ACL surgery. GMC says that the tag champions, AJ and Red will be stripped. There will be a tournament at Glory by Honor for those belts. GMC catches up with The Briscoes. The Briscoes talk about being young and missing a few shows. The Briscoes say they are going to dedicate their lives to winning the ROH Tag Team titles. (Well they sure did that fast) GMC talks about their upcoming big matches. The SAT interrupt this interview, and accuse the Briscoes of trying to purposely injure Red. The SAT are like “it’s gotta be like dat.” Manup.

Mark Briscoe d. BJ Whitmer
BJ Whitmer is one of the stiffest white boys in the world lol. Mark Briscoe has a lot of freakin talent. These guys countered and recountered each other and put on a great wrestling match. The one thing I notice is that BJ doesn’t really do anything to connect with the fans. Briscoe hit a picture perfect shooting star press from the top rope to the floor on BJ. BJ was able to continue the match and hit a beautiful super plex. This match featured a lot of high impact moves. Mark Briscoe finally wins this hard fought match with a side suplex from the top rope.

RF promo. He talks about the 8/9 show in Dayton, Ohio. He says that his investigation on who attacked Lucy has turned up nothing. RF asks the fans to report it by going to ROHWrestling.com. Ok I’m at the site, where do you report it? lol. Cool way to further this angle though.

Homicide w/Julius Smokes d. Trent Acid w/Johnny Kashmere
Shit even the entrances to this match were dramatic. Surprisingly, the match started off with a handshake.
The match is broken up with an interview with Raven. Weak. This is not the type of match you interrupt. Raven just says, “Punk I’m going to kill you.” We then go back to the match. This could’ve been saved for something else.
We go back to the match and both guys are striking each other hard. The match goes to the outside fast, and Trent Acid asai moonsaults Homicide into the crowd. Wow. Smokes is easily becoming one of the better managers in the indies today. Both killed each other in this match and threw each other in the railings. Homicide hit his somersault suicide dive in a sweet move. Homicide busted open Trent Acid’s eye, and Acid’s eye was bleeding. Both guys wrestled a hell of a match. At one point, both guys yakuza kicked each other’s head off simultaneously. Homicide would get busted open too, after a stiff forearm from Trent. Julius Smokes riles up Homicide, and Homicide gets up and hits a diamond cutter from the top rope on Trent. Bigtime move. It looked like Homicide would get the win, but as the refs hand was going down for three, Johnny Kashmere pulled The ref out of the ring. Julius Smokes goes to get Kashmere, but Trent cuts him off and lays Smokes out. Kashmere then yakuzas Homicide and we got a great false finish. After some more back and forth action, Homicide finally gets the pinfall after a copkilla. Easily the best match of the show. Holy fucking shit, great match.
POSTMATCH: Both guys respect the code of honor and shake hands, and the crowd goes nuts for Homicide.

We cut to Chris Daniels w/Allison Danger. Danger is holding Daniel’s ECWA Heavyweight Title. Daniels talks about ROH trying to be serious, and that’s why Daniels is there. Daniels talks about ECWA and how he will defend that belt with pride. Daniels talks about wanting Joe’s title. Daniels was solid here.

Jay Briscoe d. (ROH World Heavyweight Champion) Samoa Joe, (NWA TNA World Heavyweight Champion) AJ Styles and Chris Sabin
Excellent 4 corner match, one of the better 4 ways in ROH’s history. This was a lot better than recent 4 ways in ROH. It’s something when you got the NWA and ROH champions in the same match. In the beginning of the match, AJ and Joe wouldn’t wrestle each other, and were satisfied wrestling Sabin and Briscoe. Joe did his ole spots on Sabin in this match. About 15 minutes in, Joe and AJ finally wrestled each other, with Joe getting the upperhand. Towards the end, all the wrestlers hit their finishers, and Styles hit a nice styles clash on Sabin. Styles then gets laid out. With Joe and Styles both out, Jay Briscoe hits the Jay Driller on Sabin for the win.
Both Briscoes won their matches, making that promo mean more in retrospect.

Justin Credible had a question and answer session with the crowd, while the fans were waiting for the steel cage to be set up. A couple of fans ask him some questions and Credible answers them all. An old guy asks Credible what he thinks about Ecstasy. Credible went to answer, then all of a sudden he was attacked by Special K. Loc and Devito came out to make the save, but Special K outnumbered The Carnage Crew. Special K called themselves the real impact players. Special K whips Carnage Crew with belts and leaves. Carnage Crew aren’t too pleased.

In a Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match
Raven d. CM Punk
This got the 1st runner up in the DOI’s feud of the year, (behind Homicide/Corino) and this match proved the hatred between these two. Just a brutal match here between these two. This series between these two guys in ROH has been the best thing for CM Punk’s career as well as the elevation of ROH. There is no entrance better in the indies than CM Punk’s.
A Clockwork Orange House of Fun match, is pretty much a steel cage filled with weapons. Chains, chairs, dog collars, garbage cans, tables and anything else you can think of, including the kitchen sink were in the ring. Raven busted Punk in less than 2 minutes, and blood was pouring from Punks head like a busted pipe. Punk was able to bust up Raven as well, and then handcuffed Raven to the cage. Punk just opened up on a bloody, trapped, beat up Raven. This match was reminiscent of the old ECW cage matches, where nothing was off limits. Raven was able to swing and kneelift Punk, and Punk just kept going back for more. Raven finally got the keys for the handcuffs and started fucking up Punk. Raven DDTS Punk, and Colt Cabana throws a chair at the ref breaking up the count. Cabana throws the door and Punk looks like he got the match won, but only gets 2. Both men fight over getting a DDT on each other, with Punk being victorious and he ddts Raven. This only gets 2. The announcers keep screaming about Punk’s alcoholic father. Enough already you dolts. Raven is able to get up and chairs Punk and Cabana, but can only get a two count. As Punk climbs the cage, you can notice from the camera angle that the cage wasn’t even, as one side was slanted down. Raven joined Punk at the top of the cage, and throws Punk of the cage and Punk goes crashing through a table in the ring, but this only gets a 2 count. The ring in this match looked like an earthquake hit a Home Depot. Raven DDTS CM Punk from the top rope through a cage for the win. Fucking great cage match, on par with the match they had on 11/28 in CT. Insane.

POSTMATCH: The lights go out. The announcers are fucking retarded. The lights come back, and we see Raven crucified on an “X”. There is all barbed wire around Raven as he’s tied to this cross. Apparently, Cabana helped put him on the X, as he’s right there. The X stands for straightedge, which is the philosophy that CM Punk lives and embraces. Punk then says Raven may have won the battle, but he won the war. Great visual. Raven looks like that Jesus from Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box video.

Promo time:
Samoa Joe talks about destiny and talks about his upcoming title match with Chris Daniels. Joe talks about his match from before, and talks about how he will end all this destiny talk and will still be the ROH Champion. Samoa Joe says he is the ROH champion, which means he is pro wrestling. Deep shit there. Final McWord
Another solid outing by Ring of Honor. The tape is worth getting alone for the Homicide/Trent Acid match. The Punk/Raven match was another classic match in their feud. It was funny that Daniels had a promo on the show, but didn’t wrestle. Not a bad match on the show, even though I’m not a fan of Jimmy Rave. The scramble match was pretty good, as well as the Special K/Carnage Crew match. I thought this was one of the tighter ROH shows, as it wasn’t lengthy and had great action. This was a show that focused on some story lines as well, which is something I’m a fan of. The wrestling was bar none and with the story lines being an integral part of the show, I enjoyed the tape a lot. Overall, I highly recommend this tape, and it’s definitely worth watching even if you’ve never seen ROH before.

You can get this tape by either going to http://www.rohwrestling.com or going to the below link directly:
http://www.rfvideo.com/merchant/index.cfm?action=moreinfo&id=8097

Overall another great show that proved why ROH is the number 2 wrestling promotion in the US today.

Sean “The MiC” McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com