Fairfield, CT

11/28/03

Guesstimated attendance: high 300s

ROH returned to Connecticut with another excellent show. Attendance looked down a bit from last time but still far better than anyone else draws in CT with the exception of WWE. And even the WWE could barely crack 1000 last time they were in town. A holiday weekend is a potentially tough time to run a show too. The positive side is that anyone who was here would almost certainly come back and bring a friend, the show was that good.

They had a showcase card from 7 until around 7:40. I missed most of the first two matches as I was either walking around or trying to find my seat. Good to see The Solution get a tryout though. Dunno who Slyk Wagner Brown pissed off that he got demoted to the showcase after having a good showing his last time here in a 4 way match on the regular card. One assumes it was a question of not having a logical spot for him on the main card this time. At any rate Slyk, as The Mic noted, got a huge pop. The less said about his opponent the better, the guy was terrible. Showcase card concluded with a fun match between perennial crowd favorites Dunn & Marcos and Angel Dust & Hydro from Special K. D&M lost as usual but had one of their better in-ring outings.

After about a 20 minute break the show proper opened with Gary Michael Capetta selecting from one of 5 blank envelopes to choose the Lottery From Hell match for the main event. The selection wound up being a steel cage match. I had mixed feelings about that after the surprisingly subpar outing from Raven/Punk in the Boston steel cage match in September, but my fears were to prove unfounded here. After the lottery, CM Punk hit the ring and cut an endless promo about his now-missing valet Lucy and said he was going to ruin every match on the show unless he found out who attacked her. Oh, joy. I guess some people liked this angle but I found it tiresome and it only got more tiresome as the night wore on. I don't understand centering an intensive show-long and multi-show angle around a performer [Lucy Furr aka WCW's Daffney, now signed with WWE] who is no longer with the company. Unless they have some sort of a one shot deal to allow her to cross over from WWE/OVW, this is a lot of time an energy spent on an angle that will be tough to bring to satisfactory conclusion given the fact that we will never hear from Lucy herself. I suppose it's a better angle than saying that someone kidnapped CM Punk's bulldog Matilda, but that's all I'll say for it. Of course the angle hasn't fully played out yet so I may eat my words before it's all over.

First match was more or less a squash as the Backseat Boyz defeated the Outkast Killaz. BB, who have been tweeners or outright heels at times in ROH, were straight up babyfaces here and were over big with the crowd. Enjoyable showcase for the Backseats' double team moves. Afterward CM Punk was back - already! - to confront the Backseats about Lucy and he stayed to get in Walters' and Homicide's faces also as they came out for the next match. I was dying all night for someone to knock Punk out and stop this nonsense [which I suppose was the intended reaction] but it never happened. Just to save myself repeating the same thing numerous times: everyone on the show who was questioned convincingly denied having any involvement in the attack on Lucy.

Homicide d. John Walters with an STF in the match of the night. This was one of three 'do or die' type matches on the show pitting less proven talent against ROH veterans, and even though he lost Walters came out of this looking every bit Homicide's equal. That's saying something. Homicide made several attempts to nail Walters with the Cop Killa but Walters countered them all, hence 'Cide beating him by submission rather than with his signature move. It would be worth buying the tape just for this match. Afterward Homicide called out Steve Corino and told him kiss your baby son goodbye, because he's never gonna see his daddy again. Strong stuff, and convincing.

Next was the scramble of the SAT vs TWA's Fast Eddie & Hotstuff Hernandez vs Carnage Crew [Loc & DeVito] vs Dixie and Cloudy of Special K. Special K had about 9000 hangers-on at ringside and I and several other fans had a fun time heckling them. Becky Bayless played up to the hecklers well. The only problem with having all these guys and girls at ringside is that unfortunately there are so damn many of them that they tend to block one's view of the match. That's not so good. Dixie's usual tag team partner Izzy was missing and missed. Cloudy looks like he weights about 90 lbs soaking wet and as if shouldn't be allowed to wrestle without his parents' permission. The guy is just too small. He took a pounding in this match and got legit hurt to the point that they had to take him out and quietly substitute Hydro, who would have been a better partner in the first place. I'll give Cloudy credit for having a lot of heart, but he just doesn't look like he belongs in the ring.

Match itself was the usual fast paced and exciting scramble action. Carnage Crew were over like mofos as usual, and got into a verbal confrontation with Special K immediately, which made sense given the storyline heat between the two. The Crew seem to be over like mofos on every ROH show I see. Hopefully they'll get a run at the tag belts one these days. Crowd didn't seem to know the TWA guys at all but got into them once they got in the ring. Eddie and Hernandez did some good double team moves including Eddie doing a rocket launcher off the outstretched feet of Hernandez. [You'll have to see it to see what I mean.] While they're not at the same level [yet], they reminded me a bit of early Eliminators. Hernandez did his patented insane dive to the floor, and everybody else did one too at some point. Match finally ended with SAT giving the Spanish Fly to Hydro while the rest of the combatants were fighting it out on the floor. It was a little confusing to have Hydro lose the pinfall when he didn't appear to be an official participant in the match. Sort of like one of those old WCW no-DQ matches where somehow the heel manager winds up taking the losing fall instead of one of the wrestlers. 3 or 4 teams seems like the right number for one of these as the action was easier to follow than it sometimes is in a scramble match, yet there were still at least 2 things going on at almost all times.

Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels d Jimmy Rave with the Last Rites in a near squash. Rave worked on Daniels' arm early and Daniels did a great job of selling it for the rest of the match, to the point where he had to adjust much of his trademark offense to compensate for the 'bad' arm. Once Daniels assumed control several minutes in he pretty much stayed in control the rest of the match aside from a couple of brief rallies by Rave. Daniels, theoretically a heel as leader of The Prophecy, was probably the most popular babyface of the night. Crowd went ape for every single thing he did and he played off of their energy beautifully. "Best! Moonsault! Ever!" One sided but very enjoyable match. This was the second 'do or die' match and it left me wondering about ROH's future plans for Rave.

Josh Daniels got the upset win over Steve Corino [w/Guillotine LeGrand] after Homicide interfered behind the ref's back. Where to start with this one? Well we could start with Corino's interminable ring introduction. This time he had his ring announcer read off the names of legendary midget wrestlers as a way of mocking Daniels' lack of height. Funny bit for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately it went on for over 5 minutes, with a break for the announcer to eat a Hostess cupcake in the middle. They took a cute joke, drove it into the ground, poured cement over it, and pounded THAT into the ground. Then we got to hear the announcer read off Corino's list of currently held titles, including the MLW World Heavyweight Championship, which got a big boo from the 20% of fans who got that this was supposed to be Corino heeling on ROH. The other 80% just sat there waiting for this nonsense to be done so they could maybe see a wrestling match some time tonight. Finally after about 10 years the match got underway, with Corino mostly stalling and playing the cowardly heel. One understands why he would choose to do so with a barbed wire match coming up the next day, but I thought that Corino phoned it in here. In my opinion he also went out his way to make Daniels look bad, no selling his offense and so forth. It went beyond the confines of being a heel to me; I felt like I was watching Zero One politics being played out in the ring. Corino wound up unexpectedly losing when Homicide yanked him off the ropes while the oblivious ref was tending to fallen Josh Daniels, and Daniels covered the stunned Corino. I'm probably reading WAY too much into all this, but I felt that Corino did one of those Hulk Hogan type jobs where even though you lose your opponent comes out of the match looking worse, not better. Contrast this to a Low Ki or Homicide who can win the match and yet still make their opponent look like a million bucks and a legitimate threat to anyone. After the match you could hear Homicide and Corino brawling in the back, presumably being taped for the video release.

Intermission. Picked up some ROH tapes [8/16, 9/6 and 10/16] and the NJ Fan Slam Q&A. I spend too much money on this stuff, but I can't help myself. It isn't going to get better any time soon either, since I will definitely be buying tapes of the 11/29 USA Pro and ROH shows when they are available.

First match back was Matt Stryker vs Xavier for the semifinals of the Field Of Honor tournament. You could tell the NY bus wasn't here as there were no "You're not Striker" chants. [Actually I heard those chants directed at the other Striker in Philly last week!] Good match that was based in scientific wrestling without becoming a dull armbar-fest, in part because both men were good at working the crowd. Fans HATED Xavier. One of these guys must have gotten a haircut that day, as every time someone did a move for the first 15 minutes of the match it caused hair to fly all over the ring. Bizarre. Late in the match Xavier went for the 450, missed it, and rolled through to land on his feet in an impressive move. Stryker tried to apply his leglock finisher but Xavier was able to painfully drag himself to the ropes. Stryker eventually got the pin with a DVD. That surprised me as I had figured former ROH champ Xavier would go the finals, possibly to meet his former Prophecy stablemate Maff. I was wrong.

Next match was the other semifinal of the Field Of Honor as Dan Maff, Colt Cabana, and BJ Whitmer fought a 3 way sudden death match for the vacant spot in the finals opposite Stryker. Man, did these guys beat the hell out each other. Maff threw Whitmer into two of the ringside barriers so hard that he crumpled the metal sheeting that covered them. Great looking stuff. Cabana was funny as hell and is a great comical heel who can also work his tail off. He had bandages on his shoulders, which would seem to connote an injury, but you'd never know it from his performance. Maff was brutally chopping the hell out of both Cabana and Whitmer and you could actually see big red patches on Cabana's chest. Crowd was much more receptive to Maff than the last time, where he had to listen to annoying disrespectful hecklers before ending up getting cold cocked by an errant Low Ki kick. To my surprise [again], BJ Whitmer wound up getting the duke in this one, so it will be Whitmer vs Stryker in the finals. Wow, that's not at all how I thought the tourney would end up. Not I'm complaining: Whitmer in particular has had outstanding matches with a wide variety of opponents this year. I just incorrectly assumed it would all play into the Prophecy storyline. Speaking of storylines, CM Punk hit the ring yet again after this one to harangue all the participants about Lucy. Whitmer went ballistic on Punk for ruining his night, and spoke for pretty much all the fans in attendance when he told Punk that no one gives a damn what happened to Lucy. Not exactly a denial, which may or may not come up again down the line. In a very emotional moment Maff swore on his father's grave that the prophecy had nothing to do with the Lucy incident. Almost TOO strong of a response for what it was trying to get across.

The Briscoe Brothers retained the ROH tag titles in a surprisingly even, back and forth match against AJ Styles & Samoa Joe. This one was almost bound to be significant since 3 out of 4 possible outcomes would have resulted in either a change of the tag team belts or someone getting a pin of the ROH world champ. As it turned out that's what happened as Mark wound up hitting the shooting star on Samoa Joe for the win following a miscue in which AJ styles, who was going for a kick on one of the Briscoes, clocked his own partner instead. Briscoes looked slightly outmatched against the more seasoned opposition, but only slightly and overall they held up their end of the match very well. Exciting contest in which it often seemed as though anybody could be pinned at any time. Samoa Joe did the 'ole' spot on Jay where he put him in the chair and kicked his head off, nearly shattering the metal barrier (again). Then AJ hit the exact same spot, burying his leg in the pitiful remains of the barrier so deeply that he had to do a semi flip to regain his balance. Really impressive looking stuff. Styles and Joe cooperated well as a team for most of the match until a couple of heat-producing miscues late in the match. After the loss they got into a brief staredown before being separated.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that, out of the two Briscoes, Mark is the slightly more talented? Maybe it just seems that way to me because Mark does more highspots such as the shooting star. Both of them are awesome talents though, especially considering their age level and experience. When these guys are in their 20s they are going to be truly scary. They're pretty amazing right now.

Next there was another break while the ring crew, and pretty much everyone else they could find, put up the steel cage. This didn't take too long, maybe 15 minutes.

[Okay, it's now 2 days after I started typing this report and I have been stuck at home sick as a dog in the meantime, so I'll make this fast.] CM Punk defeated Raven in the steel cage match when Punk dropped off the top of the cage door and landed on the outside while Raven was still in the cage. This was a very enjoyable old-school type steel cage match, with no weapons used outside of a steel chair and the cage itself. At first Punk wouldn't even let Raven in the cage and kept kicking him out to the floor every time he tried to enter. Finally Raven rushed the door and got hold of Punk to gain an early advantage. Punk went into the side of the cage and bled very early in the match. They exchanged signature moves including the drop toehold into a chair, which both men hit a couple of times. Punk got the upper hand and went up to the top of the cage in the Superfly Snuka spot of the night. Punk missed the Randy Savage elbow drop off the top of the cage and wiped out spectacularly on the mat. I thought he killed himself for real. Eventually the match wound up with Punk escaping over the top of the cage and getting caught by Raven, who was still inside, as he [Punk] straddled the cage door on his way down. Looked from my angle like Raven smashed Punk's leg in the door in an attempt to stop him. It had the opposite effect, as both men fell backwards with Raven landing inside the cage and Punk crash landing on the floor for the clear win. Afterward Punk, who appeared to be pretty badly banged up, was helped to stand by refs. He said yet something else about Lucy and left. Raven remained in the cage for a minute or two, signaled for the microphone, and said something to the effect of "the student has become the teacher". Then he rolled out of the cage and painfully made his way to the back, looking much the worse for wear. End of show.

No return date announced (yet). Hopefully ROH won't be discouraged from coming back to this area again. They will be in NJ in January (for a joint show with JAP) and March and back in Philly on the 27th.

Adam Dolan