3/21 ROH in New York: An injured Nigel McGuinness defends the ROH Title against KENTA on ROH's Seventh Anniversary show, former WWE wrestler and a former TNA wrestler make surprise returns to ROH, D-Lo Brown vs. Jay Briscoe

ROH in New York, N.Y.
By Dot Net reader Darren Paltrowitz

1. Roderick Strong and Erick Stevens defeated Kenny King & Rhett Titus. This was a fairly-even match. Strong & Stevens prevailed, but lots of great heel heat on King & Titus. Too many Flair-style chops. Match overstayed its welcome.

2. Brent Albright defeated Claudio Castagnoli by DQ. Just as many fans seemed to be supporting Albright as Castagnoli. Castagnoli was doing anything possible to get booed -- e.g. sieg-hailing, referring to Americans as "cowards" -- but every one of his ay's got a call-back from the audience. Match went to its time-limit, so they called for another 5 minutes in dramatic fashion and Albright looked the winner.

3. Bobby Dempsey beat Adam Pearce. Squash match with Dempsey coming out on top. The split-second black-out of the ring lighting seemed to tell Dempsey, "Uh, pin him NOW." Perhaps it had something to do with the last match going overtime?

4. Jerry Lynn defeated Mike Quackenbush. A very even match throughout. Another case of the crowd being divided between the two. Quackenbash showed himself incredibly agile and quick, while Lynn -- who received a lot of "Randy The Ram" call-outs from Section C -- appeared the veteran wrestler. Lynn came out victorious, but the two also shook hands after the match.

5. Tyler Black, Necro Butcher, and Delirious defeated Jimmy Jacobs, Austin Aries, and Brodie Lee. Six-man elimination match where each fall had to end differently from the last. Unfortunately, this one went on for too long. Necro seemingly got the best reaction of the bunch, doing his usual charismatic tumbles. However, Necro was part of a suspect double count-out that led some of the crowd to chant "TNA." Ultimately, Black came out on top.

6. Bryan Danielson and Colt Cabana defeated Bison Smith & Jimmy Rave. To say that Colt Cabana got a hero's welcome would be quite the understatement. In fact, I can't think of other wrestlers who could get a wrestling crowd to sing along to Barry Manilow's "Copa Cabana." Cabana largely carried the match with his enthusiasm, while Bison Smith generated the heel heat with his power moves. Danielson and Cabana came out on top, which led to an over-extended ring celebration in which the two climbed the corners to Europe's "The Final Countdown." And I do say "over-extended." With the amount of time they took, you'd have thought this was a title match...but the crowd was glad to see Cabana, nonetheless. Total aside, Prince Nana's pre-match promo -- on behalf of Smith and Rave -- got an incredible reaction. His speech about times changing because of "Barack Allah Obama" brought the house down.

7. D-Lo Brown beat Jay Briscoe. D-Lo came out to a hero's welcome, giving a speech that discussed his departure from WWE without naming names. As the match dragged on, he faced plenty of heckling and call-outs referencing past WWE/WWF triumphs. As the match moved along, it also looked like D-Lo was taking a heel turn since he was less about smiles than in the past. Overall, an even match with D-Lo scoring the victory via his signature move.

8. Kevin Steen and El Generico over The American Wolves to retain the ROH Tag Titles. Match of the night. So many twists and turns. It looked like a title change was going to take place, but Steen and Generico held onto the belts. Afterwards, the Wolves attacked and taped "Mr. Wrestling" Steen to the ropes. Steen bled a whole bunch and the locker room cleared out to "rescue" and untape him.

9. Nigel McGuinness defeated KENTA to retain the ROH Title. KENTA was well-received and McGuinness was as booed as could be. McGuinness came out taped up with a legitimate injury, which would perhaps explain why the match's first 10 minutes were incredibly slow and based on chops and kicks. I opted to leave at this point, since the show was into its 4th hour, I was hungry, and I didn't anticipate a title change. Apparently I was correct.

Notes: The intermission went on way too long. A lot of gaps of silence/inactivity between matches. There was massive ROH self-promotion about the June return to Hammerstein Ballroom with Ric Flair, which they were selling "autographed tickets" for. Super-over-promotion on the "Buy 3 Get 1 Free" ROH DVD special.