By Justin Parker, Torch Specialist

UPDATED Aug. 30, 2007 - 3:31 p.m.

“BEN-OIT, BEN-OIT”
“CROSS-FACE, CROSS-FACE”

- ROH fans during the Davey Richards-Pac match at the 8/25 NYC event.

These were the sickening chants were heard during my most recently attended ROH show on Saturday at the Manhattan Center in NYC coming from the so-called “respectful”, “true fans” that ROH fans claim they are. After hearing these chants and the absence of self-policing inside the arena, I have lost respect for ROH fans.

I know that some fans will say, “I wasn’t the one chanting this,” or “it was just a few idiots.” These “few idiots,” which in reality was a good chunk of fans, will have to live with the fact, that when this DVD gets released in a few months, that they were the “smart fans” who started to chant for a child murderer.

When the Benoit tragedy happened, I knew that it would inevitably happen that jokes would be made about the situation. Not that I condone that happening, but given the nature of the wrestling fans, it was bound to happen, but two months later is absurd.

This is not to single out the fans who were chanting this, but also the fans who laughed at the chants and did not tell these fans to stop their attempts at humor by making light of the events that took place at the Benoit household. This is actually the main culprits as they say it was a small group of people who were chanting. If it was so small, there should have been an overwhelming response telling this minority to stop those chants.

During this event, I also noticed something about the ROH fans which I have began to notice for a while now, but it really came to light this weekend. ROH fans are slowly becoming like what they desperately wanted to get away from, ECW fans. The qualities of the ECW fan that Mick Foley talked about in his famous “Cane Dewey” promo are becoming engrained into some of the ROH faithful. No longer is a suicide dive through the ropes to the outside, or a quebrada enough to garner a reaction as if the crowd has seen something spectacular, similar to how ECW crowds used to react when seeing the 32nd chair shot of the night back in their heyday.

This obviously has something to do with the wrestlers in the promotion doing too much in every match to try and gain approval from their small, nice audience (sound familiar?). This point goes back to something that I will be talking about in a column in the near future that the ROH audience needs to be reconditioned as to what a “good” wrestling match is. The crowd that supposedly likes wrestling in its truest form (drama, storytelling, eliciting emotion from the fans) sits on their hands as Davey Richards and Pac are working holds and having a wrestling match. The silence in the crowd and random “boring,” “take it home,” and other chants does not signal that a crowd is silent in respect to the action in the ring, but rather that they are bored by the action.

This all changed when Pac did one of his flip moves off the top rope to the outside which garnered a huge ovation and a “that was awesome” chant. The same ROH crowd who watched Mark Briscoe come inches away from permanent paralysis doing a dangerous move from the top to the outside are the same fans doing that ridiculous chant. If these fans, were the “real, true, hardcore” fans that they say they are, they would appreciate the work of the wrestlers and not sit on their hands when a wrestler performs a suicide dive through the ropes to the outside, that 15 years ago would be considered revolutionary. Today, that move is thought to be commonplace amongst the ROH community and they will only react when a dangerous highspot is performed by a wrestler who so desperately wants to garner a “that was awesome” chant.

In a matter of 15 seconds after that move was executed by PAC, people sitting by me who were saying “take it home” a few minutes earlier, were now saying that this was a hell of a match. Please do not encourage the wrestlers to think that this is the only way to get you all excited, as this will lead to more wrestlers getting injured and having to perform while injured in order to pay their bills.

I know that the ultimate decision is with the wrestlers on what they do in the ring, but fans, please do not encourage these crazy, dangerous spots or today’s young wrestlers may end up in the dangerous cycle this business often leads to. Who knows, maybe at this pace, one of these wrestlers today may end up in a similar situation as the wrestler whose name you were chanting on Saturday night.

Please e-mail any comments that you have about this article to parjustin@gmail.com.


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I just had a chance to watch the Guest Booker with Gabe Sapolsky DVD and I wanted to make my first entry in my ROH blog devoted to its review, since he is the current booker in ROH. While I didn’t get a chance to watch the first installment of this series with Kevin Sullivan, I will definitely seek it out based on the strength of this DVD. As a warning, I will be giving away certain topics discussed in this DVD in this review, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading now. This DVD allows Gabe to book the relaunch of ECW from its beginnings in June of 2006 all the way until the December to Dismember PPV in December.

The DVD starts with Gabe going over some general topics such as the theme of the show, GM presence, house how schedule, etc. Watching this DVD and some of Gabe’s ideas, while I don’t think it is 100% perfect, really makes you realize how much WWE squandered this opportunity to resurrect ECW. Gabe’s ideas seemed to echo a lot of what was thought to initially happen when the ECW project was announced with a subtle difference that I think could have reshaped the brand : a delayed house show schedule that wouldn’t expose the bran until they got some of the talent over on TV. Once they did begin running house shows, they would be held in a more typical ECW style arena which obviously would have gone a long way in making the product feel more authentic.

Throughout this DVD, Gabe allows you to see some of the his philosophies for how he books ROH such as having a conclusion to an angle and working backwards from there, with maybe a few changes a long the way. I think that this would have gone a long way in establishing a direction for the new ECW brand as it never really had an established identity from the beginning and suffered due to it.

I won’t give away any of the matches or storylines because that is the beauty in watching this DVD, but after watching this DVD and seeing how Gabe’s mind works, you can see why he is always receiving high praise for his ROH booking. If the PPV was booked like this DVD, we would have had one of the better cards of 2006 on our hands. Instead, we got one of the worst (and lowest bought) PPV’s ever.

As for the DVD itself, it is a great concept that is only made better by listening to one of the greatest minds in the business rebook one of the largest blown opportunities in recent memory. I would highly recommend this DVD if you want to know what goes into the thought process when angles and matches are being developed as well as getting a glimpse into some of Gabe’s personal booking philosophies. As I said before, at the end of this DVD you really get a feel for what could have been, and that is the only downside of this DVD.

If you want to purchase this DVD, please head over to www.kayfabecommentaries.com.

If you want to get in touch with Justin, please e-mail him at parjustin@gmail.com. Thanks.

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