- ROH has a new World Champion. Tyler Black defeated Austin Aries at the 8th Anniversary Show in New York on Saturday, much to the delight of the crowd and to the chagrin of haters like me. Yes, Pearce probably pulled the trigger way too late on him, but according to people in attendance, the title change was done really, really well. In fact, the notoriously hard-on-ROH posters at Chikarafans had a favorable opinion of how the match went down. While I may not like it, hell, he's over, so congrats to ROH and Tyler Black. Also on the card, Davey Richards and El Generico apparently tore the house down, the Briscoes retained the Tag Titles over the Dark City Fight Club and it was announced that the Motor City Machine Guns would be returning to ROH for a few dates (thanks to TNA lifting the ban on their talent appearing in ROH). A good start to the year for Ring of Honor. - Against All Odds was last night, and the 8-Card Stud tournament got a mini-surprise winner as Pope D'Angelo Dinero took the one-night card. Everyone was expecting Kurt Angle from the sounds of it, but since AJ Styles is being pushed as the new Ric Flair, it makes sense that Pope won, seeing as how he won a non-title match two weeks ago on Impact. This was a strategy that was used in JCP back in the '80s to hype up Flair title defenses against local heroes. It was stupid then and it's stupid now, but given TNA booking, they probably won't remember the win Pope had and will think of something else to build heat for the match.
- Speaking of TNA, the move to Monday nights is official, and it'll start on March 8. Hmm, sound familiar? Oh yeah, Meltzer reported a move was coming and reader CJC passed the news from the paid newssite to me. Again, while some might see it as a bad move, I don't think that's entirely the case. I don't think they'll really beat RAW, but they'll get better numbers than on Thursday and will get people to flick back and forth between the two.
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography
