ROH Philadelphia PA Report - 11.05.06
Posted by Sam Caplan on 11.05.2006
My second night of live ROH action!
Last night I was in attendance at Ring Of Honor's return to Philadelphia at the Philadelphia National Guard Armory. Amazing show with a main event that had as much of a big time feel as nearly anything the company's done. Here's what went down:
-Christopher Daniels pinned "M-Dogg 20" Matt Cross with the Angel's Wings in a short but decent opener. Crowd really got into Cross.
-Jim Cornette came out with Shane Hagadorn to announce that tonight's main event would be heavily slanted in Steve Corino's favor. He announced that Hagadorn would be the special referee, Homicide would need to score a ten count on Corino to get the win, and that the Fight Without Honor would be anything goes, but only for Corino. Homicide would have to stick to the rules or be disqualified. He then went into a heavily racist diatribe against Homicide and latinos in general, which brought out the Rottweilers and Konnan. Konnan further shocked the crowd by going into a profanity-laced tirade against Cornette, and indicated that he felt Ricky Reyes has been held back. Cornette responded by saying that maybe Reyes hasn't accomplished anything because he's just not good enough, which got an "OOHHHHHH" from the crowd. Cornette set up Reyes vs Hagadorn, which Reyes won in short order with the Dragon sleeper, and would not let go right away.
-In the feel good moment of the night, Pelle Primeau won a Four Corner Survival match over Colt Cabana, BJ Whitmer, and Tank Tolland when he pinned Tolland with a victory roll. Crowd really ripped into Tolland with the steroid and Dick jokes. This match was mostly played for comedy, with Cabana, Whitmer, and Tolland taking turns beating up Primeau, but Primeau pinned Tolland, then went crowd surfing to celebrate. It was a really nice moment. He came back to the ring and shook hands, but Tolland, after heavy deliberation, walked away without shaking. This pissed off Cabana and Whitmer pretty bad, buyt it was still Pelle's moment. I've met him and he's really nice, it was nice to see him get his moment.
-Samoa Joe and Nigel McGuinness defeated ROH Champion Bryan Danielson and Jimmy Rave when Nigel pinned Rave. Rave's losing streak continues after the end of the Embassy, and he did most of the work in this match as expected, taking into account Danielson's still tender shoulder injury that they're evidently saving for Final Battle against Homicide.
-Jim Cornette returned with the Briscoes and said that after the Reyes match, Hagadorn would not be able to referee the main event, so it was cancelled and Homicide was fired. Konnan and the Rottweilers came back out and Konnan had spoken with ROH management and said that whoever should be fired should be left up to the fans, and asked the crowd what they thought. They overwhelmingly picked Cornette, who was grabbed by security and hauled out of the ring to the back.
-The Briscoes defeated Davey Richards and Delirious when they pinned Delirious with a spike Jay Driller. This was great stuff, with Delirious beinhg his usual insane self and Richards seemingly unsure what to make of
his partner. Great match as you'd expect out of these four.
-Intermission Time
-The Kings Of Wrestling successfully defended the ROH Tag Team Title against Austin Aries and Roderick Strong with a DQ victory after Aries went nuts, using the briefcase to attack both Hero and Castagnoli, then all four men brawled through the crowd and out of the building.
-In KENTA's final ROH appearance (At least for the time being), he pinned Matt Sydal after Go To Sleep. Sydal looked great here, as far as I'm concerned this kid can do no wrong. Nobody seriously thought he was going to beat KENTA, although he did come close a couple of times, and even kicked out of several of KENTA's signature moves. After the match, Joe came out and said that he had never thought much of KENTA through all the time he's known of him, but was man enough to admit he was wrong. Then he said he wanted KENTA to take a message back to NOAH, and that was that he wanted Kobashi to come back and give him his rematch. He said he was going to send a very clear message back with KENTA, and smacked him in the face, then took him down and started beating on him until the locker room cleared and broke it up. Not sure what to make of this, as the cancer is supposed to prevent Kobashi from ever returning to the US again.
-In the main event, Steve Corino (w/ Ricky Landell, Mike Kehner, and an awesome new entrance) faced Homicide in a Fight Without Honor. Brutal, brutal brawl as expected, with spots including Homicide gouging into Corino's ear with a fork, a barbed wire baseball bat, and several stiff chairshots to both men's head. End came when Homicide hit Corino with a superplex through a table, which got a two count, but then Homicide hit the lariat to finally, finally get a decisive win over Corino. After the match, Homicide said that he was going to shave Corino's head like the long standing tradition in Mexico, and Corino got on the mic and said he was man
enough to start, and began shaving his own head. Then he sat down and Homicide, Julius, and Reyes took turns until Corino was bald. Afterward, Homicide said that they'll never see eye to eye, but this is it, this is the end of the Homicide-Corino feud. After this, they're never going to get in each other's way again, and shook hands to finally end this long, brutal eud. For as much heat as these two are said to have with each other, for Corino to not only lose to Homicide but also get his head shaved was a huge move, and Corino really put him over big time.
-Again, I'm no great shakes with crowd size estimations, but it was a pretty good house, if not totally packed the way they were at the ROH vs CZW shows. Crowd also was surprisingly lethargic through much of the show, only really popping for the big spots and being almost completely silent at points, very uncharacteristic of Philadelphia. I got a chance to shake Konnan's hand on his way to the back after the main event, and I have to be honest, he really wasn't moving around too well, and even seemed to have trouble getting in and out of the ring. I guess it's a good thing he stopped wrestling full time when he did. He was very nice, shaking all the fans' hands on the way up the aisle instead of just ignoring everybody like I've seen happen with other names who have come to ROH. Really good show, and as excellent a blowoff to the long Homicide-Corino feud as could have been hoped for. This is very much a "tying up loose ends" year for Homicide, and now with Corino (and apparently Cornette) out of the way, he just needs to go through the Briscoes, and then the last thing for him is facing Bryan Danielson for the ROH Title at Final Battle 2006 in New York City.
