ROH Braintree, Massachusetts Report - 11.04.06
Posted by Sam Caplan on 11.04.2006
LIVE Ring of Honor action!
I just got back from Braintree, Massachusetts for tonight ROH show. It was their return to the Boston area, having stopped running shows there after the 9/24/05 Survival Of The Fittest show in Dorchester. It was a loaded card and a great show, which was probably to be expected since ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky is from the Boston area and has always seemed to kick things up a notch when running there. Here is a rundown of tonight's show:
-Nigel McGuinness defeated John Walters. Nigel was listed as "having an open challenge" on the card, and brought out Boston native and former ROH Pure Champion John Walters. They've wrestled in ROH before, and this was Walters' first match back after leaving ROH in March of 2005. Although Walters lost, he had a great showing, kicking out of several of Nigel's finishing moves before Nigel got the win with a second Tower Of London. (Walters having kicked out of the first) After the match, Nigel praised Walters and said that he hopes to see more of him in ROH.
-Mercedes Martinez defeated Daizee Haze, who appears to have shifted back to the babyface side after the breakup of the Embassy.
-Christopher Daniels defeated ROH Tag Team Champion Chris Hero. The match came down to a series of pinfall reversals, but Daniels reversed a sunset flip into a Peterson roll for the win. After the match, Matt Sydal
(Daniels' partner) and Claudio Castagnoli (Hero's partner) got in the ring and a short brawl broke out, leading to...
-Matt Sydal defeated ROH Tag Team Champion Claudio Castagnoli. It would appear that, with the likelihood of Claudio going to work for WWE in the very near future, the title reign of the Kings Of Wrestling will not be a
long one. Sydal looked outstanding here, he really gets better with every match. Sydal put him away with a shooting star press.
-Steve Corino and the Briscoe Brothers defeated Homicide, BJ Whitmer, and Samoa Joe after the Briscoes hit a spike Jay Driller on Homicide for the win.
-Intermission Time
-Colt Cabana defeated Jimmy Rave in a bonus match. Cabana made Rave tap to his inverted Boston Crab, which really is a sick looking move. Rave appears to be on a losing streak now in the wake of Nana leaving ROH.
-ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson defeated Delirious to retain. Danielson's obviously working light these days to protect his shoulder as, although this was a good match, it was nowhere near the level of their first two last spring. Match went about 20 minutes, and Danielson won by reversing Delirious's cobra stretch into a pinning combination.
-Austin Aries and Roderick Strong defeated KENTA and Davey Richards when Aries hit a 450 splash on Richards for the win. This was a very stiff match, and included a couple of scary spots where Strong appeared to be trying to hotshot KENTA on the top rope, but overshot and dumped KENTA facefirst on the apron, then crumpled to the floor. Another one happened when Aries took a tumble off the top rope on a mistimed moved and landed headfirst on the mat. With this win, Aries and Strong said that tomorrow night, they're coming back to win their ROH Tag Team Title back from the Kings Of Wrestling.
I'm terrible at estimating crowd size, but this appeared to be somewhere in the 600-700 range. ROH heads to Philadelphia tomorrow night for another big show that will be headlined by Homicide vs Steve Corino in a Fight Without Honor that is being billed as the final, conclusive match to end their feud in ROH. I'll be making the trip down to Philly as well and will have a live report when I get home.
