ROH on HDNet Taping, 9/10....

...or, how I came about making the American Wolves hate me so much within a period of one match.

So yeah, if you couldn't tell already, I attended the tapings for ROH tonight, me, Tom Kingsmill and Sean McLaughlin. We got free tickets, but upgraded them for $5 apiece to the second row, which made it that much better.

I thought the action was a bit uneven, too many run ins and interference for my tastes. Again, ROH is supposed to be different. I don't care that they have TV now; I don't want to see a clone of WWE booking, even if it's just partial or a weak clone. I want clean finishes more often than not.

However, the good wrestling was great. Nigel McGuinness and Colt Cabana had a fun match in the main event of the second taping. The crowd was nuclear for Nigel, as was to be expected. There were a few boring chants that went up near the beginning of the match, when both men were really hitting the matwork really hard. I know it's hard for your average spotmonkey-loving indie fan to appreciate good mat wrestling, but it still doesn't make it any less infuriating when there's a good exchange between two gifted mat wrestlers and some emo jackass or annoying girl in the crowd starts chanting "Boring, boring." Really? That's boring? I'm sorry then.

I hate to sound like a wrestling snob, but then again, when I hear people saying that the TV tapings have killed ROH's Philly crowds, I tend to believe it. Case in point; Chikara King of Trios Night 1. Johnny Saint was arguably the most over guy of the night, and the only thing he did was mat wrestle. Skayde was similar. He threw in some cool lucha stuff, but people in that crowd appreciated the mat wrestling. That crowd, which was bigger than the ROH crowd tonight, ate that shit up. Even though I thought Saint was bordering on excessive with the mat stuff, it was still cool to see people have an appreciation for the fundamentals.

Okay, rant over.

The meat and potatoes of the night were found in the excellent array of tag team matches. We had one really good tag team affair between the Young Bucks, who are fast becoming one of my favorite tag teams, and the Briscoes. My feelings on the Briscoes are well-known, but I have to give respect where it's due. The Briscoes are fine wrestlers, and I can enjoy them in the ring if I don't have to hear them cut mush-mouthed promos where they say "Man up!" every other phrase. They can also be entertaining out of the ring if they have someone awesome like Delirious to play off. The match was good until the end when the Dark City Fight Club came in and ransacked both teams. Again, like the problem I had with the Cena/Jericho match on 4/20 and the MVP/Orton match the very next week, I want a clean or even pseudo-clean blowoff to a well-wrestled match. Fuck.

The other tag matches on the card both rate as excellent, among the best tag matches I've seen all year. The first one pitted the Super Smash Bros. against Kevin Steen and El Generico. Player Dos was unmasked, which is funny for me being used to seeing him in Chikara with the mask on. Anyway, fantastic tag match with the SSB bringing most of the good tag team synergy (coming from Chikara, this has to be expected) and Steenerico bringing the jaw-dropping singular spots. Very well-worked match, and I hope the SSB get more consideration in ROH. They deserve the spotlight on them. Steenerico win after a Package Piledriver and a brainbuster (grounded, not the BRAINBUSTAAAAAH~! onto the top turnbuckle) from Steen and Generico respectively. Sportsmanship abounded after the match.

The second one was part of the Final Countdown tour. Bryan Danielson teamed up with Roderick Strong to take on the American Wolves, Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards. Like Nigel, AmDrag was nuclear over. I mean, no one said a cross word to him at all. Same couldn't be said for the Wolves though. Edwards gave me a couple of deathglares when I told him his mother must have hated him to name him twice and then proceeded to chant "Edward Edwards". Meanwhile, Richards had Strong in a modified cloverleaf, and I yelled at him "You sir are no Dean Malenko". He responded "Yeah, I'm better", but for the rest of the night, the crowd where I was sitting taunted him and chanted "Dean Malenko" at him. I'm pretty sure they're going to hunt me down and kill me, to be honest.

Haha, no in all seriousness, the Wolves took the ribbing like good heels would and should, and I thought they were awesome interacting with the crowd. Good show, EE and DR. It made the show have an old-school feel. In fact, most of the heels interacted with the crowd and responded to catcalls and boos. That was one of my favorite parts of the show.

Back to the match, it was another really good tag affair. Both teams worked the tag synergy, and all parties involved were crisp on offense and good with selling. Finish came with Strong tapping to Edwards' single crab with DR and their manager (name escapes me right now) restraining AmDrag. After the match, the Wolves left and the crowd chanted "Thank you Dragon" at Danielson. AmDrag got on the mic, asked the crowd to thank Strong and then put him and their match for the tapings tomorrow night over. He then requested that they play the real version of "The Final Countdown" instead of the bastardized one they have to use for tapings. Show over.

Not their strongest show, but I still had a really good time. Being a wrestling fan is one of the joys of life, especially when the wrestlers give you the time of day, be it the faces slapping your hand or the heels selling your insults. Even now, as ROH is losing a lot of its critical acclaim, it's still a great show to go to, if just to experience seeing wrestlers in the intimate settings of The Arena and having them make you a part of the show.