Ring of Honor house show report
April 23, 2004
St. Paul, Minn. at the Armory
Report by Wade Keller, Torch editor

Ring of Honor premiered in St. Paul, Minn. at the Armory, just a block from the State Capitol building and just five blocks from Xcel Energy Center where WWE booked a show head-to-head ROH. WWE drew an estimated 6,000 and ROH drew an estimated 450. ROH officials and wrestlers were mildly disappointed in the crowd size, but considering WWE was running just blocks away and it was the first trip to Minnesota, they considered it a situation where they couldn't fairly gauge how they could have drawn otherwise. With Hunter vs. Chris Benoit as the competing main event, it could draw from their core potential audience.

I shot photos at ringside during the event, so I was unable to take any notes on the matches. I'm actually pretty shaky on the finishes as it was pretty easy to get wrapped up in the post-match chaos while trying to avoid getting landed on. I will do a detailed review of the event when it comes out on videotape in a month or so. If anyone who attended has a good memory of match finishes and any added details, please send them along.

Overall, an excellent show. Fans were chanting "Please Come Back! Please Come Back!" afterward and gave the show a standing ovation. There were a lot of "ROH, ROH" chants. It was the best crowd reaction for an event I've seen since my first visit to see a show at ECW Arena in the mid-'90s. The Armory didn't have the atmosphere of ECW Arena and the crowd was smaller, but they reacted to everything like I have never seen on any indy show in Minnesota previously. It's a totally different kind of heat than Hulk Hogan got at his peak in the AWA or Steve Austin or the NWA got during their peaks during the Monday Night Wars. Overall, just a great experience to be part of.

NOTES ON MAIN MATCHES

They ended the main event ROH Title match between Samoa Joe and Homicide with a non-finish. Homicide thought he had won when the time keeper rang the bell after just a two count. He got upset at the ref. Then the lights went out for a few seconds. Then he threw a fireball at Joe, apparently prompting the DQ. That led to virtually everyone from the back coming out and taking turns diving onto everyone at ringside.

Chaos after main event

One dive after another popped the crowd huge. Homicide's heel facial expressions are the best in wrestling. He is totally believable when in the ring. Joe carried himself totally like a main event champion. The crowd was totally into him, including singing before he charged into Homicide at ringside. The referee in this match, Paul Turner, bled hardway (the only blood of the night, I believe) when he took an inadvertent shot to the face from Homicide. He bled from the nose during the whole match. At one point, Samoa Joe stopped punching Homicide for a second and told the ref dryly, "You know you're bleeding." That cracked up the fans at ringside. They brawled through the crowd during the match.

Samoa Joe vs. Homicide

In the semi-final, "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson beat C.M. Punk with Ricky Steamboat as special referee.

Ricky Steamboat

Earlier in the night during the Colt Cabana vs. B.J. Whitmer match, Punk and Steamboat got into it big time, with Punk ramming Steamboat into the ringpost early in the match. Steamboat thus came out to referee this semi-main event as a way to get back at Punk for attacking him earlier. Punk was great working the crowd on the mic and just verbally during his match. Steamboat really seemed to be enjoying himself during the match, and he confirmed to me afterward that he had a great time in the ROH atmosphere. He and Punk got into a number of verbal spats during the match. A typical Daneilson match with a lot of methodical, intense, realistic matwork. Punk adapted well to Danielson's style and had great heel crowd heat.

Bryan Danielson vs. C.M. Punk

Punk worked the crowd as a heel really well, as well as anyone I've seen on a show of this scale before, including ECW events. (It's hard to compare with large arena shows because the wrestlers have a totally different task when playing to thousands of fans further away in the stands.) Colt Cabana joined Punk in attacking Steamboat after the match and the Briscoes made the save, setting up Saturday night's tag match in Chicago.

Jay & Mark Briscoe defeated The Havana Pitbulls in a really good non-title tag team match. Everyone backstage was really pleased with how this turned out, deservedly so. Everything clicked in this. Apparently Sapolsky is high on the Pitbulls' potential. Another match where the fans were totally into everything.

B.J. Whitmer vs. Colt Cabana, as I mentioned earlier, was supposed to include Steamboat as special guest referee, but Punk KO'd him early. Cabana was really entertaining doing his comedy, but also worked a good match with some stiff whips into the railings at ringside. He brought a baby doll to the ring and I missed the prematch explanation for why. It's a "very Colt Cabana" thing to do.

UNDERCARD

Matt Stryker beat Nigel McGuinnes. Good opener. Immediately it was clear the St. Paul fans knew the ROH product well and were going to be into the show.

The Carnage Crew (Loc & Devito) beat The Ring Crew Express (Dunn & Marcos) after a two-on-one top rope piledriver. Good tag match which again the crowd ate up.

John Walters beat Justin Credible. ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky opened the show with a solid singles match, a solid tag match, and then a match with a nationally known name in Credible. It was another solid match. Credible fought through being winded early.

Jack Evans vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Alex Shelley vs. Jimmy Jacobs vs. Danny Daniels vs. Masada. This was a spotfest and I do not recall who won. The crowd ate this up, too, as it was the first highspot-oriented match of the night. Lots of dives and highspots, but with good intensity and hard bumps.

After intermission, they put on Matt Sydal vs. Delirious billed as a "Do or Die" match, which basically means it was a tryout match. Sapolsky was so impressed with the match - again deservedly so - that he immediately asked both wrestlers if they were available to work the Chicago show the next night. They had not been previously scheduled. Both excitedly said they were available. They're both cruiserweights and even though the match was right after intermission, they worked a tight, exciting match that fit well with within ROH's discipline and so the crowd instantly got into. Delirious worked under a mask. Sydal looks a bit like a thinner, younger Matt Stryker.

OVERVIEW

The show overall was paced really well. At three-and-a-half-hours, they never lost the crowd, even for 30 seconds, in any of the matches, even though there was no blood, no match that would quality as just a highspot fest, some definite slow matwork, and very little in the way of gimmicks or weapons being used. They did a non-finish in the main event, and nobody seemed to mind. The series of dives to end the show certainly made the non-finish easy to forget.

Pile of wrestlers after post-match dives

Sapolsky plans to announce on Monday a Homicide vs. Joe rematch at their next Philadelphia show.

I really look forward to seeing this on videotape to see how it translates compared to being there live. I also would like to be able to appreciate the matches as a pure spectator, since shooting photos at ringside isn't an ideal situation when trying get fully engaged in the ebb and flow of matches, much less take notes to file a comprehensive report.

In short, though, there is something special going on with ROH. It's a different feel than ECW during it's blossoming period, as ECW felt like a locker room full of misfits whose strengths were finally being realized while Heyman hid their weaknesses. This ROH crew has a more professional quality to them and presents more of a sports atmosphere than the rock concert atmosphere Heyman created with ECW. The ROH fans, though, are very similar in their passion as ECW fans, but they were there to enhance the show, not take it over. In fact, when there were any obnoxious chants by fans, they were drowned out by defenders of ROH who'd shout then down for being rude or inappropriate. ROH drew a different breed of fan than most indy shows I've been to over the years. The crowd was mostly twentysomething or teenage males who knew fully they were watching athletic theater and were there to get sucked into the show. It didn't draw families or old-style marks.

ROH had planned to return to St. Paul and Chicago in July, but instead are running Milwaukee and Chicago in July. Because of the crowd size despite the competition from a strong Raw house show line-up almost literally just across the street at the same time and because of how intensely into the product and educated to it the fans were, ROH officials said they will probably return to the market in six months.

If you attended the St. Paul show, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the overall experience (plus if you remember, fill in some details on match finishes that didn't stick in my memory).

Also, if you attend Chicago's Saturday night event, please send along at least results and ideally a detailed report. You can address emails to: "wadekeller" (@pwtorch.com).

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