ROH in Boston, Mass.
By Dot Net reader Mike Rubba

According to the Twitter Feed there was something that happened with Grisly Redwood at the beginning, but I didn't see it. I started at Delirious vs. Ricky Reyes.

1. Delirious beat Ricky Reyes. The crowd was sort of into Delirious, but not much, although not everyone had shown up yet. Ricky did lots of heel type stuff, saying things like "this asshole is done" only to get beat up a bit. Eventually Delirious won.

2. Kenny King and Rhett Titus beat Super Smash Bros. This was one of the matches that had changed due to injury. The Dark City Fight Club was supposed to face Titus and King but couldn't, so Super Smash Bros. came in. I had never heard of them. They were a team of one smaller guy, and a bigger guy in a mask. Typical high spots and stiff shots, nothing special, but the crowd still chanted, "Please come back" to the Super Smash Bros. after they lost the match.

3. Necro Butcher fought Jay Briscoe to a no-contest. This matched bored the hell out of me. They just kept trading punches. Very few moves going. I like Briscoe. Necro is over as hell. Mutual respect between the two wrestlers and nothing seemed to happen, so no surprise when the Embasy came out to interfere in the match. The match was thrown out.

Next up a fan got some mic time, and everyone knew what was coming. He was getting booed heavily, and then he called his girlfriend into the ring. Before he could even ask anything everyone was chanting "please say no, please say no." He finally asked after taking the ring out and everyone booed and kept chanting. She said yes, which caused the crowed to boo even more. What was he thinking?

4. Kevin Steen beat Davey Richards. Going into this match I was pumped because there's a lot of hatred in this feud and they are both great wrestlers. It was an anything goes match, and when announced as such the crowd popped big time. Before it got started Steen came out and asked Richards if he would marry him... big laugh from the crowd. Steen said, "Oh wait, I just remembered, you're a bitch and I hate you!" And then it was ON.

A ladder came out and was setup but not used, lots of beating all around the arena. I don't think they missed a section. They even did spots up in general admission and right by me in the third row. They did a lot of chair shots too, and Steen was bleeding badly at one point. Towards the end they were both on the ladder with double stacked doubles and Steen fell backwards through them. Usual "holy shit" chants. Steen got up, and eventually got Richards in his piledriver finisher through another table to get the win. The crowd went nuts, and then it was intermission.

During intermission was the meet and greet which I thought was a bad idea. It should have been after the show, but maybe it's because they had to be in New Jersey tomorrow that they didn't want to keep them late. The problem is that it just made the merch. booth "wicked crowded" as we say here. I wanted to get some DVDs with the sale going on, but it was just way too packed for people trying to meet up. It's cool that they did it, but that (in my opinion) shouldn't be to make up for a changed card, it should be a more common thing. I'm sure nowhere near as many people that wanted to meet got to since intermission is only so long.

5. Bryan Danielson over Sonjay Dutt and Eddie Edwards in a three-way. This was my first time hearing Danielson's new music, and as mentioned before by other people, no break in the song for people to sing along. Kind of a shame since that was all so much a part of the crowd getting behind him. I understand why they changed the song for legal reasons, but they should get a stop.

Anyway, typical three-way where one guy would get knocked down for the other two to have one on one. Dutt was not 'the guru" thank goodness, and was playing a face role. Surprisingly little double teaming, but definitely more work with two faces teaming against the heel in Edwards. Usual "best in the world" chants. At one point Dutt went to pin Edwards, and Danielson broke it up. Dutt didn't like that and big stare down to the crowd starting the "you're going to get your f---ing head kicked in" chant. They beat each other around.

Eventually Danielson made Edwards tap out (it was an instant tap as soon as he got the hold on. Couldn't quite see what it was though, sorry). Great match, crowd really into it. When they started the "best in the world" chant again for Danielson he made the crowd quiet down and pointed towards Dutt to give him some love. The crowd did. Then Danielson got a mic and said for the crowd to join him in saying, "Please come back." The chant started as everyone left.

6. Jimmy Rave, Claudio Castagnoli, and Joey Ryan (w/Prince Nana) defeated Brent Albright, Erick Stevens, and Colt Cabana. Claudio didn't get much in, which was surprising since normally he gets very involved, but it was a lot of Joey Ryan (Who I believe made his debut tonight... I recognized him as from WSX) taking on the face team getting their tags in to keep everyone wrestling. Usual toilet paper for Jimmy Rave.

The crowd was into it, lots of good spots, they loved having Cabana back. Claudio low blowed Stevens to victory for Embassy. Was a good match, but nothing stood out to me that I can think of at the moment. I was actually spending a lot of the match talking to the woman next to me with her young son. She had just found out about Ring of Honor so she didn't know who anyway was and had a lot of questions, so I basically filled her in. Could be why I missed so much, but glad I could help new fans :)

7. Jerry Lynn defeated Chris Hero to retain the ROH Title. Not as much love for Lynn as I thought there would be. Some chants of "Jerry-atric," which is a shame because the man can still work with the best of them IMO. This match started off VERY slow though, with lots of headlocks and rest holds. Crowd had lots of sarcastic "this is awesome" and "headlocks rule" chants. The only way to describe the rest of the match was lots of reversals, hard shots, and what seemed like 1,000 near falls. Jerry Lynn would get hit with so many of Hero's elbows just to kick out again at the last second.

The fight went outside a lot, fully using the 20 count that ROH uses. Again, I was explaining to woman next to me how it goes to 20 and not 10 like TNA and WWE. THere was a SICK spot with Jerry Lynn doing a hurracanrana from the top rope to the OUTSIDE on Hero. He dragged hero in for another near fall. Lynn hit the craddle piledriver, still only a two count. More elbows, more two counts.

Hero tried to use his green loaded elbow pad, Lynn reversed for another near fall. Bare elbow, near fall. Lynn finally hit the piledriver a second time and Hero did not kick out, Lynn retains the title. He held the title up and walked out while Hero was carried to back. End of show.

Notes: Overall a decent show, but as usual the crowd is what made it with all the different things yelled and chants. For what ROH had to work with since Tyler Black was out, it was good. I missed seeing others like Roderick Strong and Austin Aries though. I would have to say probably the worst ROH show I went to, but I still really enjoyed it. Can you say that about WWE or TNA?

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