The BWF Radio crew talk about the week that was in professional wrestling and give their predictions for WWE Extreme Rules. MavenFan returns to the BWFRadio.com chat box. In the news, we talk about the rise and fall of WWE stock. Dean Ambrose becomes the longest reigning WWE United States Champion in history. The Iron Shiek gets mad at Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. We debate whether or not Daniel Bryan can work both Madison Square Garden in New York and an event in Osaka, Japan in one night. We find out more about Knux’s new stable. The contract status for KENTA and Prince Devitt is discussed. GFW teams with AAA, ROH gets PPV, and Roddy Piper declines Nancy Grace. All this and more on BWF Radio, episode 124. Tune in!
This week, Jorge and Mark return from their honeymoon time off, and Cleveland Browns TE Gary Barnidge returns to the show to give his picks for tonight’s Elimination Chamber Pay Per View. We go over some talking points about the recent WWE Investors conference call, including a note on CM Punk’s whereabouts. We discuss the WWE Network’s impending launch and go in depth about Dish Network’s decision not to carry tonight’s WWE event and the effects it will have on the WWE going forward. TNA and ROH news pops up, including news on an upcoming “invasion” of ROH by New Japan Pro Wrestling. All this, and much, much more on BWF Radio Episode 114!
Here it is, the night before we crown a new Ring Of Honor World Champion, but on TV we’re still in the first round of the tournament so here are the results:
Here’s the results from this weeks Ring of Honor Episode featuring ROH vs. S.C.U.M.
We begin with a recap of last week’s S.C.U.M.’s challenge to ROH.
Kevin Steen comes out and is about to talk and is interrupted by Jay Briscoe who says that Steen is a bitch and he will beat him for the ROH World title. Steen is about to respond but is interrupted by Steve Corino who talks trash to Jay. Finally Steen is allowed to talk and when he does he says that he is proud to be ROH Champion and he will be even prouder when he beats both Briscoe Brothers for the title and tells Jay “we’ll see who the bitch is, Bitch” and the leaves the ring. Corino then trash talks Jay some more until Jay pulls out a weapon he has hidden in his sling and is about to attack Corino with it until S.C.U.M. and ROH members come out, start brawling which leads us to our first match of the night:
Match 1: Rhett Titus & Cliff Compton Def. Coleman & Alexander with help from S.C.U.M. members Jimmy Rave and Jimmy Jacobs.
Match 2: Jimmy Jacobs def Mikey Mondo- Jacobs used held onto the ropes to get the win.
This week we got no Inside ROH but Inside S.C.U.M. where Steve Corino briefly described all the new members of the group and explains how they were all screwed by ROH. We then got to Steen who is about to talk about his title match with Jay Briacoe but is cut off again by Corino who is yelling at production for playing the wrong interview ending the segment.
Match 3: Steve Corino, Matt Hardy & Rhino def. Michael Elgin, Jay Lethal and BJ Whitmer- Early on Corino offers Lethal a sopt in S.C.U.M. in which Lethal refuses and blows his nose on a S.C.U.M. shirt. The match ends here with the rest of S.C.U.M. coming out handcuffing Elgin & Lethal to the ropes allowing a 3 on 1 attack of Whitmer in which Matt Hardy pinning him after a Twist Of Fate.
Post match Jay Briscoe comes out and says S.C.U.M. dies at Supercard of Honor 7 as he, Elgin Lethal and Whitmer all stand in the ring.
Then we get a Supercard Of Honor rundown (it’s April 5 on ippv) and we fade to black.
Well since this week’s episode is gonna be all about Wrestlemaina 29 I’m gonna give you all the results of Main Event here and now so we no one misses out on it. So here’s what went on. (more…)
I’ve been watching AIW for over a year. They are without a doubt my favorite wrestling promotion outside of Texas. Matter of fact, I spend most of my time trying to get my wife to take me up there for a birthday or something. We’re still working on that. One thing I’ve told them since I’ve started watching is that they needed iPPV. There is nothing worse than hearing about this great show, waiting for it to come out on DVD, buying it and waiting for it to be shipped. (Ok, I guess the DVD never arriving is worse, but it can be pretty annoying.) Not only did they take the risk of doing an iPPV, but it was their Girls Night Out event.
There were plenty of risks. First and foremost what would the stream be like? Ring of Honor is a top caliber company and they can’t get a stream working. I’d never gotten a Smart Mark Video stream before so I was pretty nervous. We began with the first match.
First match: Addy Starr vs. Sassy Stephanie
Addy Starr has really improved over the past few years. She has an IT factor that I see. She has an infectious enthusiasm that comes out during her matches. AND I love the All-American Canadian gimmick. Stephanie is a very good soldier and has done a very good job to help create the lady wrestlers in AIW. I think she’s one of wrestling’s greatest villains, male or female. The match was pretty decent. The two gelled together and had pretty good chemistry. I was a little shocked by the match length and the outcome.
Winner: Starr
Second match: Athena vs. Kimber Lee
What I first thought of when these two locked up is that this could be billed as “The Battle Between the Girls Next Door.” Both just have that sweet “girl next door” feel. I was very impressed by the work here. No secret I’m a huge Athena fan, and I think she’s one of the best out there. We had a nice stiff match that was very entertaining. Really wish it would have been a little longer. No shock with the outcome.
Winner: Athena
Third match: Veda Scott w/Gregory Iron vs. Leva Bates
Veda and Greg began with cutting a lengthy promo, which I couldn’t hear because I can only not hear indy wrestling promos and my wife telling me to pick up milk on the way home from work. Leva showed up as Daredevil, which was a painful reminder that Ben Affleck had a career in between Good Will Hunting and Argo. The match itself was one of my favorites of the first 4. Veda is one of the best when it comes to matwork. I could watch her do her grappling/submission all day. And I love Leva’s bumping. It’s reminiscent of Shawn Michaels. I saw this one coming from a mile away. Veda with the win.
Winner: Scott
Fourth match: Annie Social w/The Social Network vs. Crazy Mary Dobson
I’ve seen Social look more impressive than she did tonight. She also looked like the puppies were about to break free, which normally I wouldn’t mind except for the fact I have Google with unlimited opportunities. It might be time to look for a safer, more flattering outfit. Dobson has been spending some time overseas, and a lot of that work is showing in her matches. The match was pretty good here. We had some brawling outside the ring. But other than that, this was a pretty clean match from Dobson. We all know she can do the Pondo Death Match style. But here she wrestled an actual match concentrating on in-ring work. Well-done by both.
Winner: Dobson
Don’t know why, but I didn’t see Dobson winning this one. So two of the first 4 matches were surprises for me. AIW tried something different that I usually don’t see. During the intermission, they gave us a bonus match from Girls Night Out 6 between Jenny Rose & Hailey Hatred, which was one of my favorite matches of 2012. There were some glitches here and there (and I mean everywhere) with the bonus match, but I thought they were genius for giving a bonus match during the intermission.
Fifth match: Jodi D’Milo vs. Angelus Layne
I was really anticipating this match, as I have never seen either wrestle and had only heard of Layne. I wasn’t that impressed by Layne’s look. The hair didn’t do it for me, looked out of a Mad Max movie (and judging by my Twitter feed, I WAS alone). When it came to the in-ring work, I was an immediate fan of D’Milo. She was stiff, strong, had some good kicks. I liked Layne’s in-ring style. In my opinion, the one who shone here was D’Milo, but Layne is the bigger name, so it makes sense that she get the win and continue at AIW. Easily better than any of the first 4 matches.
Winner: Layne
AIW has done pretty well about discovering Canadian wrestlers: Ethan Page, Josh Alexander. Add Jodi D’Milo to that list.
Sixth match: The Social Network (Nikki St. John and Heidi Lovelace) vs. Angeldust and K.C. Warfield
Sammy Geodollno is really growing on me as a manager. Lovelace is improving a lot and I’m liking her hair longer. Angeldust and Warfield worked well as a team. Warfield has also improved a lot in her in-ring work. She carried most of the load tonight. And St. John is this graceful, beautiful, athletic goddess (Sorry, Athena). I admire her in the same way I do Courtney Rush, just a stunning athlete. Nikki and Heidi spent most of the match brutalizing Warfield. This was a nice diversion from the rest of the night and gave us a storyline reason to come back.
Winner: Social Network
Seventh match: Allysin Kay (c) vs. Mickie Knuckles
This sure was “Don’t worry, it happens to lots of guys” booking. Mickie never lost the title. She relinquished the belt after finding out she was pregnant. How does this match not get more build-up? This is a huge freaking deal. I don’t think Mickie got enough of a chance to shine here. I love Allysin. She’s my favorite in-ring female wrestler. Watching her in the ring is a thing of beauty. I’m not sure how it looked to anyone else, but it was like a poetic masterpiece to me. Allysin looked like a star here.
Winner: Kay
Main event: Addy Starr vs. Athena vs. Veda Scott vs. Mary Dobson in a 4 Way Ladder Match for the #1 Contendership
What can you say about this match? You had 4 of the best in their craft going at it. They made this title seem important. I can’t decide where this match goes in my all time favorite female matches. Maybe top 3. Crazy Mary channeled Terry Funk. Addy really stood out in this match and really had a scene-stealing night. This is perhaps the best match I’ve seen from a Girls Night Out event and is probably my first choice for match of the year for 2013, male and female. This match alone was worth the price several times over.
Winner: Scott
All in all… The stream worked! I think that is the biggest victory.
The main event made up for an okay show. For what I’ve come to expect from AIW, this was not the strongest complete Girls Night Out event. If you have never seen AIW, if you are a fan of any of these wrestlers, and if you’ve only ever watched WWE Divas matches, this is a must own. The main event was great. I liked the Kay-Mickie match and D’Milo-Layne.
Allysin Kay and Veda Scott should be a really good match. There is some really nice buildup on the way.
I’m going to have a hard time convincing people I’m not a smark if I use a derivative of the first ever Ring of Honor show. While a far cry from being perfect, I think this is perhaps one of the best shows I’ve seen from MPX. It’s like they’ve been waiting a long time for tonight and everything clicked. This whole night was about Kyle Valo taking over and what the effects would be.
First match: Frankie Fisher & Steven Kirby vs. Joe Angelo Garcia & JD Kros
I was quite pleased with Frankie’s work as a face. To me, Frankie is one of the most natural heels I’ve ever seen. But he does the babyface quite nicely. Steven has so much enthusiasm and natural charisma. Between him and Frankie, they both are great pros at listening to the crowd and reacting. It was Garcia’s first match so he gets immunity on his in-ring work. He looked professional and had a nice look. The crowd decided he looked like Mark Wahlberg, but I thought he looked more like Adam from HBO’s hit show “Girls.” The major thing is if you are a heel, tell your family to boo you. This is pretty much Heel 101. The match itself was fun and the crowd was into it. I didn’t see any botches or anything.
Winner: Kirby & Fisher
Kirby & Fisher have good chemistry together. Garcia walked back like nothing had happened. Sell, sell, sell.
Second match: Danny Saint w/Claudia vs. Kenny Steele
It took the crowd a little bit to warm up with this match. Saint is a good person to pair Steele with. I think he will be good for building up Steele and giving him legit experience. The crowd was weird during this match. They seemed to not care about the chain wrestling/catch-as-catch-can stuff. I liked Claudia in her role with the dynamic she added. At one point Saint had him in a Boston Crab and the crowd was riveted.
Winner: Steele
Since this was the first time these two had wrestled, it’s hard to build up a chemistry naturally. Andy Dalton came out without music. Dalton was ON FIRE with his promo. He called Kate Carroll (the heart and soul of the company) every name one could call a lady in a PG world. Out came Kate’s boyfriend, Gregory James, to defend her honor. They play Macho-Elizabeth so well. Greg and Dalton traded some pretty intense promos. Dalton’s dad was brought up. I wanted more of the dueling promos, not from the dueling promos, which I think is pretty nice praise.
Third match: Kristopher Haiden vs. Barrett Brown
Well, according to Kyle Valo’s rules, Barrett could not go off the top rope or do anything outside the ring. Barrett might have well been tied with both hands behind his back. I was really impressed by what I saw by both of these guys. The momentum was good. I was able to see Barrett have another type of match. Based on in-ring work alone, (aka, no car hood) this is one of the best matches I’ve ever seen Haiden have. The ref was knocked out and when he came to, Barrett was outside the ring at Haiden’s hands. (I think. The night was difficult for me to take notes). Haiden convinced him that Barrett was cheating and the ref disqualified him.
Winner: Haiden
I hated this finish. I hate it any time in wrestling somebody decides to do this. I hated it when Kevin Nash did this on Sid at Starrcade. In football, if you tell a ref there was pass interference, he doesn’t just throw the flag like an idiot. It was insultingly bad.
Fourth match: Andy Dalton vs. “Headbanger” Gregory James in best of 3 falls
Wow. These two guys really brought it. Both guys were firing on all cylinders. There was really nice back-and-forth. I gotta admit I didn’t take too many notes as my chair ripped during the last match and I was standing and it was hard to take notes. Dalton won the first fall. The back-and-forth continued. There was a DDT onto the ring apron that was insane to take by Dalton. Greg went back into the ring and there was a countout. The referee was going to do another 10-count. Dalton crawled back in at 9 and a half. He was also showing off a bloody forehead. And then the match got more stiff and more brutal. There were near-falls galore. But Greg came away with the win.
Winner: Gregory James
If you do not know the name Gregory James, learn it. This is my choice for “Match of the Year” so far. The crowd was into it, there were lots of near-falls and blood happened. I would have just liked to see this match have maybe a month or two more build-up. Zero the Antihero came out, and talked about how he’d never won a match. He was ready to finally win a match. It was easy to see his influence when he sat down legs crossed in the ring. He did a great job of listening to the crowd and cutting a promo in his character. The crowd loves Zero. I think one of the reasons why is that he’s a video game geek and has that connection with the crowd. Zero and Kyle Valo had a dueling promos segment. The crowd loved it. Valo made a match with Zero and James Hawke.
Fourth match: Zero the Antihero vs. James Hawke
I think I’m about to call Hawke “The Crowd-Killer.” I keep on trying to rack my brain on what it is that cools a hot crowd quite like he does. I guess it’s that they just don’t buy him. What I would have him do is take a few months off and then come back fresh. We are at a point where they are shoving him down our throats and with every shove, it makes him harder to come back and the audience care about him. The actual match itself was fine. The two meshed well together. The crowd even popped for the Mortal Kombat spot. Zero looked unable to compete and Frankie came out to his rescue. Kyle Valo ruled him unable to compete.
Winner: Hawke
Fifth match: Kanoa vs. Scott Murdoch w/ Steven Kirby
I’m really liking what I see from Kanoa. You can also tell Murdoch has been working on his physique. Kanoa did a lot of bumping and sold like crazy. Murdoch has a lot of commitment behind his moves. I really like this new chapter of Murdoch’s work here. He is very focused and really brings it. He and Kanoa clicked really well.
Winner: Murdoch
Sixth match: Asian Nation (c) w/Nigel Rabid vs. Tad Wylde
Both teams have connected with the crowd. Tad Wylde is great for the crowd, and the Asian Nation is equally good at keeping them engaged. One thing that I love about Li Fang of the Asian Nation is that his face is so expressive that he doesn’t have to say much. And when he does, it’s in Chinese (or a foreign language I don’t recognize) so it keeps the crowd hating him (because Heel 101 says to speak in a foreign language). One of my favorite spots of the year was Ben Wylde giving “Just” James Johnson what looked like an Atomic Wedgie. It was so entertaining. There was another really awesome looking spot with Wylde doing a double suplex with both members of the Asian Nation. The finish came with Johnson doing his finish on Li by mistake.
Winner: Tad Wylde
I’ve watched Ben Wylde from the beginning of his career, so it’s nice to see how far he’s come. He’s worked really hard to make it to this place. After the match, the Asian Nation were in the ring and Kyle Valo verbally berated them on the mic. Johnson began to fire back on his mic. I dare call Johnson one of the best on the mic in MPX. He kept on going on the mic that he didn’t notice that Li & Nigel had both left the ring. When Johnson turned around to call on their support, Li was standing right at the curtain. He bowed and left. It reminded me of what St. Francis of Assisi once said- “Cut your promo. And if necessary-use words.” (Maybe St. Francis said “Preach the gospel” instead of “Cut your promo” but you get the gist.)
Main event: Matt Palmer (c) vs. The Following in a Gauntlet Match
Palmer was total bumping machine in this match. First up was Matt Andrews. While their match was short, the actual wrestling part of it was very nice. Choice suffered victim to Palmer’s signature maneuver. Then in next was Regrub. Palmer bumped and sold more. Regrub stopped during his match and pointed me out. So in response, Hi, back to you, Regrub. And then Palmer made pretty short work of Regrub. Then it was between Palmer and Carrion Arcane. Palmer still had no quit in him. Arcane is such a professional and carries so much intensity in and out of the ring. Palmer had Arcane in a submission hold and they just worked the drama. I loved what they did there with the hold.
Winner: Palmer (or so we thought)
After witnessing the carnage and retaining, Kristopher Haiden came out and did a clothesline that best I can figure out, decapitated Palmer. Kyle Valo counted to 3 for Haiden to get the win and win the title from Palmer.
All in all… As a matter of full disclosure, my sister- and brother-in-law are very close to Haiden and his girlfriend. Haiden was usher at her wedding. He’s also the person telling me about this new place he had just started wrestling at 2 years ago, which was MPX. I also thought it was rather odd that he’s been wrestling forever and this was the first time I’d ever seen his parents there. So forgive me for a moment when I say to Haiden congratulations. You have worked your tail off for the past few years. You not only have worked on your game, but you’ve helped make those around you better. You truly deserve this moment.
The reason for my personal disclosure is that I am excited with the direction they can go with Haiden on top. There’s a lot of really credible challengers waiting for him: Greg, Barrett, Frankie, Kirby, Johnson. A lot of feuds were blown off tonight, and some new directions were introduced. Oh, and Jerry Lynn on November 10th.
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