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MORNING THOUGHTS: THE MIKE ADAMLE LETDOWN, RING OF HONOR'S HAMMERSTEIN BALLROOM DEBUT & MORE

ADAMLE, OH, ADAMLE!

Mike Adamle, you have let us down.  

Last night's ECW wasn't so much a trainwreck as much as a bore-fest.  With the exception of Adamle intently grabbing onto his Kofi Kingston call of "Jamaican me crazy!", there wasn't anything really funny in that, "I can't believe this is happening on a WWE broadcast" sort of way.  

Adamle seemed to be trying harder this week, but was terribly bogged down by his obvious lack of knowledge about professional wrestling and the WWE mythos in general.  I can only imagine the look on his face as he sat there trying to absorb Edge's comments towards Kane. Imagine Adamle, who couldn't get The Miz's name right a week ago mentally running down Edge's overview of Kane's WWE storylines and character evolution. Had Katie Vick been tossed into the mix, Adamle may have spontaneously combusted!

If there was one shining moment of true comedy, it was The Miz and The Tazz (as they called each other last night) ribbing Adamle with their back and forth comments.  The sad part is, Adamle likely doesn't even realize he was being ribbed...or what a rib is.

As much as ECW is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to World Wrestling Entertainment storylines - When WAS the last time anything of note actually HAPPENED on ECW, I ask. When was the LAST TIME Raw showed clips of an ECW angle?  I rest my case! - the departure of Joey Styles really takes the show down another notch because at least Styles brought some form of enthusiasm, however forced, to the job.  Adamle brought trainwreck comedy last week.  This week, he brought nothing.

You let me down Mike!

ROH IN THE HAMMERSTEIN

On Saturday 5/10, Ring of Honor may very well draw the largest live crowd in company history to the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.  While a sellout of the 2,500 seat venue is in most likelihood an impossibility, ROH officials maintain they are excited and thrilled with the level of advance sales for the event.

The aspect of the show that interests me the most going in is that with the exception of three Pro Wrestling NOAH talents who are in on a semi-regular basis anyway, the live crowd will live or die by the regular talents Ring of Honor utilizes on their live events and DVDs.  Well, there's Jonny Fairplay, but he's not going to add one ticket sale to the gate.  

ROH isn't going for the quick fix here.  They aren't loading up the show with the return of Samoa Joe or Homicide or another TNA stalwart that originally cut their teeth in ROH.  They aren't loading up on major gimmick bouts - the Scramble Cage is still in mothballs.  There's no return of names from the past, like Low Ki.  There's no cameo appearances advertised with the likes of Paul Heyman.

Instead, the show is about Ring of Honor.  Thus, we're going to get an opportunity to find out how strong the ROH brand truly is, in a major venue, in the most important city in the western hemisphere.   Names like Nigel McGuinness, Jay Briscoe, Austin Aries and Claudio Castagnoli, the Age of the Fall, hell, even Necro Butcher are in the most important positions of their careers to date.   The show, the company will live or die by this new generation of talent. 

For someone who sat at the first ROH show among 400 fans (and probably fewer paid) in the little rectangular gym of Philadelphia's Murphy Rec Center, it's amazing in a lot of ways how far the company has come from 2002.  It's been an interesting growth period for ROH.  Every year, there's some small advancement, whether its production, talent, matches, markets, or brand awareness.  ROH hasn't always been perfect, but they've always seemed to have worked the hardest with the least and inspired the most loyal fans of any wrestling company to come along in the last decade.

It all comes to a head on 5/10.  As much as the Hammerstein show is designed to be the company's big move downstairs from the Manhattan Center's Grand Ballroom, It's as much a celebration of the company lasting this long without a corporate backer.  Indeed, even moreso than Cary Silkin or Gabe Sapolsky, ROH's lifeblood comes from the word of mouth support of their fans and those fans' wallets.  

It's going to be an interesting night because it will be the biggest stage ROH has ever plied it's trade on and the story doesn't end there, either.  I'm even more curious to see what directions 5/10 springboards Ring of Honor, as a product and as a company, towards in the future.

Plus, NECRO BUTCHER VS. TAKESHI MORISHIMA.  Say that five times fast, think of the back and forth brutality.  The chairs.  The Backdrop drivers.  The carnage.  It's enough to make Abdullah the Butcher smile, isn't it?

JESSE VENTURA'S BOOK

I'm in the process of reading Governor Jesse Ventura's lastest opus "Don't Let The Revolution Start Without Me" and I'm not sure whether he's the craziest politician of the modern era or the just the most honest...and I'm not sure which is more worrisome.  Possibly a subject I may look at in the future here during my Morning Thoughts.

Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com.

 

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