Ring of Honor returned to action last night at the Murphy Recreation Center in Philadelphia.
Here are the results:
“Showcase” (aka Dark matches)
The regular show then began with some rebooking as Mikey Whipwreck and Tom (Reckless Youth) Carter are no-shows.
Collyer over Stryker with the Texas Cloverleaf. Mostly matwork in this one with Collyer being much more agressive slamming stryker’s leg into the apron and the ringpost.
Gary Michael Cappeta interviews Stryker and Collyer. Collyer says Stryker was easy to make tap. Stryker reminds Collyer that he made him submit in Pittsburgh. So we have a pinfalls only match between the two on July 19.
Beginning the next match, Tony Devito got on the house mike, and said “that since all of Special K was out, that they had someone who’s been pissed off for the last 2 years”, and then introduced Justin Credible to a HUGE pop.
Izzy hit a beautiful springboard corkscrew moonsault to the floor. Carnage Crew gots the win when Credible pins Dixie with That’s Incredible.
Danny Maff started off before the bell… stomping Samoa Joe into the corner and hitting him with an awesome tope. Joe hit two yakuza kicks on a seated Mafia outside the ring. The finish came when Maff went for his burning hammer, Joe ducked, then hit Maff with an enzugiri and got the pin with a dragon suplex.
Maff got a deserved standing ovation from the crowd, most of whom were aware that Maff worked the show despite his father having passed away on Friday.
Given how badly he hurt his ankle at Wednesday’s NWA-TNA PPV, Raven deserves tons of credit for working the show at all.
Punk bled all over the place. The usual sweatbox that is the Murphy Recreation Center had sweat and blood dripping off of him. Punk and Cabana worked over Daniels for most of the match until the hot tag. Raven cleaned house as best as he could considering.
Cabana accidentally hit the ref. Raven hit the Evenflow on Cabana, then tried to hit it on Punk but Lucy broke it up. Punk superkicks Allison Danger, followed by Daniels hitting the angel wings on Punk, Cabana hits the Colt 45 on Daniels and Raven hits another DDT on Colt. Punk hits Raven with a chain and gave him a neckbreaker with the chain before whipping him with the chain and getting the pin.
The ref was coming to while Raven was getting whipped, but Cabana shielded the ref. It’ll still look good on video. Punk then wrapped the chain around Raven’s neck and climbed the ropes, hanging him.
Styles retained his NWA title in a really good match. The finishing sequence was nice with Sabin reversing an initial Styles Clash with a frankensteiner, Styles rolling thru and lifting sabin back into a Styles Clash for the win. Too few seemed to know who Chris Sabin was, given his exposure on TNA and placement in Jim Kettner’s Super Eight this year.
In a nice touch, Styles did a brief talk about how the NWA Title was thrown into the trash years ago (1994 Shane Douglas ECW Arena/NWA Title Tournament angle), but it’s not trash. He then said to the crowd that he hopes they will respect the title as much as he respects them.
Homicide hit an Ace Crusher off the top to the floor thru a table in an awesome spot. The finish saw Homicide attempt a Copkiller, only to have Acid reverse it into a roll up for the win. After the match the lights went out and when they came back on the Backseats were on a table and Special K was in the ring with 2 members on the top rope, and were put through it with a leg drop/splash combo by Special K.
ROH returns to the northeast on July 19th in Elizabeth, NJ at the Rex Plex. Matches announced so far are:
Samoa Joe vs. Paul London
CM Punk vs. Raven
Carnage Crew, Masada and Justin Credible vs Rudy Boy Gonzalez, Fast Eddie, Hotstuff Hernandez and Don Juan
Tickets are front row $30/reserved $20/General Admission $15.
Other summer shows include: August 9th in Dayton, OH in a co-promote with Heartland Wrestling Association, August 16th in Fairfield, CT and September 6th in Cambridge, MA. ROH returns to Philadelphia on September 20th.
