That Was Then 6.08.07: Ring Of Honor In 2006 - Part 2

Posted by Stuart Carapola on 06.08.2007

The ROH-CZW war comes to a conclusion on ROH turf, but was decided in CZW's Cage Of Death. Who would emerge victorious, and who would be the man to lead his side to victory?

After three months of skirmishes with the CZW invaders, ROH finally officially faced CZW in a sanctioned match in the main event of The 100th Show. Instead of the victorious ending they envisioned, ROH was defeated by CZW thanks to Claudio Castagnoli, who turned on his fellow ROH wrestlers and rejoined his old friends from CZW. As important as this interpromotional conflict was, the entire focus of the promotion was not on the CZW war, as ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson and Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness had both managed to keep from getting involved, instead concentrating on defending their titles against top competition. After over six months each of doing just that, they were finally on a collision course with one another to prove which title was really the top title in ROH. Not to be outdone, ROH World Tag Team Champions Austin Aries and Roderick Strong continued their title reign, but were now faced with their stiffest challenge yet in Jay & Mark Briscoe.

Part I: ROH vs CZW, Part 2

The war with CZW had not gone quite as well as ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette had envisioned. On the contrary, they had been beaten up and embarrassed by CZW at nearly every turn, and CZW had even defeated ROH in the main event of ROH's 100th Show. ROH had no doubt expected to easily defeat their hardcore counterparts, but CZW had proven to be far more troublesome than anyone had expected and now the pressure was on ROH to turn the tables.

The second part of the war didn't get off to a much better start, as an ROH team consisting of Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer, Colt Cabana, and Ace Steel was defeated by CZW's Claudio Castagnoli, Necro Butcher, Nate Webb, and Super Dragon at Weekend Of Champions Night One, but BJ Whitmer scored a major victory by defeating Super Dragon the following night, avenging the Psycho Driver through the table he took at The 100th Show and knocking him out of the feud in the process.

Perhaps sensing that things were finally beginning to swing in their direction, Pearce (who had by this point been promoted to Lt Commissioner) decided to try and recruit a potentially valuable ally in Homicide. Pearce asked Homicide to join the ROH team at How We Roll, but Homicide was noncommittal, and a weak DQ finish in his match against the Embassy later that night didn't do much to help convince him to fight for the company. He felt that he had been with ROH since day one, but had continually been held down and passed over for main events and title shots. To put in his words, "Fuck this company." Without Homicide to watch their back, Pearce and Whitmer were defeated by Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli in an impromptu match later that evening. Pearce again approached Homicide the following night, and again Homicide walked off on him. However, Homicide had a change of heart later on that night during the Samoa Joe vs Necro Butcher main event. The CZW wrestlers ran in and attacked Joe before the match got a chance to get underway, injuring him and necessitating that he be carried to the back, leaving the outnumbered Adam Pearce and BJ Whitmer to fight CZW by themselves. Just when things seemed bleakest, Homicide's music hit and he finally decided to come to the rescue of the promotion that he had made his home. After Pearce and Whitmer cleared out Necro's running buddies, Homicide took Joe's place as Necro's official opponent. They had a brutal match that saw a lot of sick bumps and also Necro getting buried under a slew of chairs that were thrown into the ring by the majority of the audience. Somehow, the match continued for several minutes after that before Homicide put Necro away with a lariat for the win.

In return for standing up for ROH and defeating Necro Butcher, Jim Cornette rewarded him with a shot at the ROH World Title at Destiny. Homicide and Danielson had met many times in the past, including in January when Danielson defeated him for the FIP Title, so Homicide wanted to avenge that loss by beating Danielson for the ROH World Title. Instead, Danielson rendered Homicide helpless and began raining elbows on his head as he had done with several previous opponents. The referee, knowing how this had gone previously, almost immediately stopped the match, but Homicide had not yet been knocked unconscious and protested that he could have continued the match. The referee firmly announced that his decision was final and Adam Pearce, after getting a decision from Cornette via phone, upheld that decision, prompting Homicide to walk out in anger again.

Following Destiny, Homicide had two weeks to think the situation over, and as a way of making up for what had happened, Cornette offered Homicide a match with anyone he wanted at In Your Face. After Chris Hero attacked Ricky Reyes early in the evening, Homicide cashed in his match to get a shot at Hero. Homicide defeated Hero, who was the CZW Champion at the time, and then got on the house mic and told the crowd that he had been with ROH since day one but had never been a champion, then proclaimed that he would win the ROH World Title by the end of the year or he would quit ROH.

Having announced his goal for the year, Homicide had also gotten himself sucked into the war with CZW after defeating Necro Butcher and Hero, and had now committed himself to helping resolve the conflict. After Claudio Castagnoli ran in during the Pearce-Necro match at Throwdown, Homicide made the save and defeated Claudio in an impromptu match. However, he lost his match with Nigel McGuinness for the Pure Title the following night at Chi-Town Struggle and walked out yet again. Without Homicide, the ROH defenders once again fell victim to CZW, who attacked Samoa Joe after his match and then defeated Pearce, Whitmer, and Ace Steel in an impromptu match.

When it was announced that the ROH vs CZW feud would reach its end in CZW's Cage Of Death at Death Before Dishonor IV, Cornette realized that he needed Homicide on his team since he was the only ROH wrestler who was regularly able to beat the CZW guys. Homicide said that he would join the team on the condition that Cornette grant him three wishes. Cornette refused, and instead got an offer to help from Bryan Danielson, who said the no CZW wrestler had managed to beat him, either. He had a title defense later that evening against CZW's Sonjay Dutt and offered to enter Cage Of Death after he beat Dutt. Cornette accepted, and his team of Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson, Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer, and Ace Steel was set to face CZW's team of Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, Necro Butcher, Nate Webb, and a mystery fifth man. Danielson beat Dutt as expected, and sure enough, came in as ROH's fifth man and helped take out their rivals. However, while Joe had Claudio up for a Muscle Buster, Danielson clipped him from behind and then began viciously attacking his knee before walking out on the match and his team. The truth was revealed: Danielson cared nothing about the war with CZW and used this match as an opportunity to attack Joe ahead of their title match later in the summer. Joe was injured and again carried out of the match, and once Chris Hero announced his own hated rival Eddie Kingston as the mystery fifth CZW wrestler, CZW now had a 5-on-3 advantage against Pearce, Whitmer, and Steel, and it appeared that ROH's final hope had been squashed.

But once more, Homicide came to the rescue. Hero, sensing the possibility of making a valuable ally and hoping the frustration he had suffered would motivate him to change sides, offered up the helpless ROH team to Homicide, but Homicide instead attacked the entire CZW team in a flurry. Homicide's entrance gave the rest of the team the rest and inspiration they needed to get back in the game, and team ROH rallied to turn the tables on CZW. After several more minutes of vicious brawling, Homicide finally put Webb away with a Cop Killa on a barbed wire board to win the war for ROH. As the CZW team was hauled out of the building by the ROH crew, Cornette came to the ring and dismissed everyone except Adam Pearce, Homicide, and JJ Dillon, who had been working the coin flip and the door for the match. Since Homicide had won the war for ROH, Cornette relented and allowed Homicide his three wishes. First, Homicide said he wanted a match with Steve Corino, and Cornette told him that however he managed it, he would get Homicide his match with Corino. Second, Homicide requested a guaranteed shot at the ROH World Title, and again Cornette agreed. For his third and final wish, Homicide asked that his friend Low Ki be reinstated. Cornette had a problem with this, as Low Ki had been responsible for knocking Cornete's tooth out in a backstage skirmish earlier in the year, and said that Low Ki would never be seen in ROH again. Cornette continued, saying that the wishes were for Homicide and not for Low Ki, and then accused them of having a gay relationship. Homicide went off on Cornette, calling him a liar and spitting in his face. Cornette responded by macing Homicide in the face and, in a scene eerily reminiscent of an 80's Horsemen beatdown, Dillon locked the cage door as Pearce and Cornette handcuff Homicide to the ropes and, as Pearce and Dillon hold off rescue attempts from the ROH students, Cornette whipped Homicide repeatedly with his belt, until finally they stopped the attack and left the cage, leaving the savior of ROH laying in the ring.

Part II: A Tale Of Two Champions

There had always been a rivalry between the ROH World Title and the Pure Title going back to the night the Pure Title was created. Though that unspoken rivalry had always existed and the titleholders had been on the opposite sides of tag matches before, the two champions had never had a direct singles match against one another, but that all changed at the Weekend Of Champions. If both ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson and Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness successfully defended their titles on Night One, then we would get the first ever World Champion vs Pure Champion, title for title match on Night Two.

Both men did successfully defend their titles on Night One, Danielson defeating Jimmy Yang while Nigel scored a countout victory over Christopher Daniels, and the match was on. While the World Champion would usually be considered the favorite in most situations, the fact was that Nigel had defeated many of the same challengers that Danielson had and, in many cases, had an easier time doing it. The match was contested under Pure Title rules, which also favored Nigel, who had been wrestling regularly under those rules for nine months. Shockingly, Nigel won the match via countout (which is only provided for under Pure Title rules in ROH) and the fans came to their feet thinking they had just seen a new ROH Champion crowned. However, even though the Pure Title can change hands by countout, the ROH Title cannot, so both men walked out with their titles still around their waists, and fans were left with a frustratingly inconclusive finish.

Following his win over the ROH World Champion, Nigel felt he had something to prove and went on a hot streak, defeating Jay Lethal, Conrad Kennedy III, Homicide, and Roderick Strong over the next two months. The Homicide and Strong wins were both by countout and might have seemed like cheap wins, but on the contrary it just showed that Nigel was learning to use the Pure Title rules to his advantage beyond just forcing opponents to use up their rope breaks, and it started to seem that nobody would ever be able to defeat him under those rules.

Bryan Danielson, meanwhile, also wanted to redeem himself after the loss to Nigel, scoring wins over Delirious, Homicide, a three way elimination match against BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs, Colt Cabana, and finally CZW's Sonjay Dutt. For all these wins, however, Danielson did suffer another glaring loss when he was again cleanly pinned by KENTA, this time in a three way match that also included Samoa Joe. Speaking of Joe, he also wanted another shot at the ROH Title, and Danielson did everything he could to tip the odds in his favor. It was known that Samoa Joe was working on a bad knee, so Danielson attacked the knee after his match at Destiny, then agreed to participate in Cage Of Death against CZW just so he could get another opportunity to get the jump on Joe, once again attacking the knee and leaving ROH high and dry afterward.

Both men had showed that they would do whatever it took to retain their respective titles, but both also wanted to prove themselves the best wrestler in the world by winning the other's title. Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness were on a collision course, and it wouldn't be long before they met again to settle the score.

Part III: Generation Gap

Austin Aries and Roderick Strong had established themselves as dominant ROH Tag Team Champions, but were now faced with their toughest challenge yet in the returning Jay & Mark Briscoe. The Briscoes had returned at the 4th Anniversary Show and immediately inserted themselves into the title picture via a combination of big wins and sneak attacks on Aries and Strong. The champions, for their part, were also on a roll after Weekend Of Champions, a weekend which saw them defeat Samoa Joe and Matt Sydal on Night One and then the Embassy team of Jimmy Rave and Alex Shelley on Night Two.

However, Aries and Strong would eventually have to face the Briscoes, and the first official matches between the two sides took place at How We Roll. In a pair of singles matches, Mark Briscoe defeated Roderick Strong while Jay defeated Austin Aries. Both were clean wins and uncontestably put the Briscoes forward as the top challengers, and it appeareded like the Briscoes were just going to cakewalk through Aries and Strong the next night and take back the title they once held with relatively little difficulty. Instead, Aries and Strong scored a fluky win over the Briscoes with a questionable rollup, but any dispute over the finish of that first match was settled shortly after that when the champions again defeated the Briscoes at Destiny, this time soundly. The second win over the Briscoes already made it an important night for the champions, but another major and totally unexpected event occured after the match: Aries and Strong announced that they were dissolving Generation Next. Their purpose in forming Generation Next in the first place back in 2004 was to take all the top spots in Ring Of Honor and win all the titles, and they had now done this. Though they would remain friends and may team again in the future, the Generation Next name was going to be retired.

They may have broken the group up too soon though, because even though they defeated Nigel McGuinness & Colt Cabana at In Your Face, they were faced with someone new who had come to ROH, beaten everyone he'd been in the ring with, and was well on his way to taking a top spot himself in much the same way Generation Next had two years earlier: KENTA. KENTA had already scored two clean wins over ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson, and now just one week after the second win over Danielson, he would face the ROH World Tag Team Champions in separate singles matches, first facing Strong at Throwdown, then Aries the following night at Chi-Town Struggle. KENTA won both matches, but the aftermath of each match saw the Briscoes run out for a sneak attack. Their targets were Aries & Strong, but KENTA interjected himself in the attack against Strong and came to the rescue of the man he had just defeated. The following night, the Briscoes came in and attacked both KENTA and Aries before Strong made the save.

Aries & Strong had hit the six month mark as ROH World Tag Team Champions and had beaten some impressive teams, but despite their two victories over the Briscoes, the brothers from southern Delaware weren't ready to give up just yet and continued to hound the champions. But besides them, they had a new contender on their hands in KENTA, who had beaten both of them in singles matches and would now surely want a shot at the ROH World Tag Team Title. How much longer would Aries & Strong be able to hang on to the the gold?

Part IV: A Few Other Things

In addition to all this, the second quarter of 2007 also saw...

Davey Richards: The winner of the 2006 Super 8 Tournament was scheduled to make his ROH debut in March, but his debut was pushed back to June because of a leg injury. Still, he made it to ROH before June was out and, in his first two matches, scored wins over veteran Jimmy Rave at Destiny and In Your Face.

Christopher Daniels vs Matt Sydal: Daniels and Sydal had met several times over the course of late 2005 and early 2006, both in singles matches and multi-way matches, and Daniels had defeated Sydal every time out. He added two more wins over Sydal in the second quarter at Weekend Of Champions Night Two and Ring Of Homicide. Sydal left for a tour of Japan following the second match, but said that when he got back, he wanted one more match against the Fallen Angel.

The BJ Whitmer-Jimmy Jacobs Feud Continues: BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs had their second ever singles meeting at In Your Face, this time with the winner to get an ROH World Title shot, and the ending somehow topped that of their match back at Dragon Gate Challenge. Whitmer and Jacobs again went to the top rope, and after that there was some good news and some bad news. The good news was that when Whitmer went to powerbomb Jacobs off the top, he didn't drop him. The bad news was that instead of powerbombing him into the ring, he powerbombed him into the crowd. The match was immediately stopped, but after taking that insane bump, both men were rewarded for their toughness by being booked against Bryan Danielson in a three way elimination match for the ROH World Title at Throwdown. Jacobs hit a Super Contra Code to eliminate Whitmer, but ultimately was defeated by Danielson.

Christian Cage: As a way of making up to the Long Island fans for the problems surrounding Unscripted II, ROH brought in NWA World Champion Christian Cage for a one night appearance in ROH at How We Roll and he was announced as being in a tag team match against ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson with each man picking their partner the night of the show. Christian picked Colt Cabana while Danielson picked a man he had both teamed with and wrestled against many times, Christopher Daniels. Though Christian and Danielson did briefly interact, Danielson ended up walking out on his partner, allowing Christian to give Daniels the Unprettier for the win.

Conclusion

The CZW war had reached its conclusion, and ROH had emerged victorious thanks to Homicide. However, Homicide had now run afoul of the ROH Commissioner due to his conduct following Cage Of Death, and though he had a guaranteed title shot and a match with longtime rival Steve Corino, Cornette was a powerful man who would make the coming months hell for Homicide, who had put his career on the line in his quest to finally become ROH World Champion.

Speaking of the ROH World Champion, Danielson had already defeated Homicide twice in 2006 and would certainly go into another match with Homicide brimming with confidence. However, his confidence was tempered by his losses to KENTA, who had now scored two clean victories over the ROH World Champion and demanded a shot at the ROH World Title as a result. Would Danielson finally be able to defeat KENTA when the inevitable one-on-one match happened? Another thing to consider is that Danielson wasn't the only champion in ROH that KENTA had defeated, as he had also scored clean singles wins over both Roderick Strong and Austin Aries, the ROH World Tag Team Champions. If Danielson was unable to beat KENTA, could Aries & Strong? And even if they could, would they be able to defeat the Briscoes in yet a third match?

And what of Nigel McGuinness? He had proven himself to be the most dominant Pure Champion in company history, having strung together an 11 month reign as of July. In addition to all his successful Pure Title defenses, Nigel had also scored a win over ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson. Having won their only singles meeting, Nigel was surely due another shot at the ROH World Title. Would he be able to follow up the first match with a second win, this time for the ROH World Title?

What kind of impact would Davey Richards make in late 2006? He had already defeated a main eventer in Jimmy Rave twice, so who would be next on his hit list? What would BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs do to each other next and, more to the point, what could they possibly do to top what they had already done? Finally, even though they had been defeated by ROH, had we really seen the last of the CZW wrestlers, or would Chris Hero and company continue to make a nuisance of themselves?

These questions and more will be answered next week as we look back at ROH In 2006...PART THREE!!