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Ring of Honor debuted in Brooklyn, NY on Friday 8/15 with "Field of Honor" at MCU Park in Brooklyn, NY, the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league New York Mets affiliate.
The Cyclones organization came to ROH about running the event and were responsible for the the local promotion. In past years, when the organization had TNA events and promoted them hard to their fan base (and at Mets games), the shows drew pretty well. When they didn't promote them hard, the crowds dropped.
There was hardly any real promotion for ROH until the last few weeks (you actually had to go searching on the Cyclones website in order to purchase tickets) and considering the best way for a show like this to draw is to bring in the local Brooklyn community, that kept the crowd from being larger. They had all summer to promote it but the reality is the Cyclones weren't really pushing the show until the last few weeks when they had some ROH personalities at the games signing autographs.
The breakdown of fans that were there seemed to be 70% ROH/hardcore wrestling fans and 30% locals.
The outdoor stadium show was one of the biggest venues ever run by the promotion in it's 12 year history, the largest if you throw out the Cow Palace in San Francisco (which was curtained down and something the company ran as part of a wrestling convention they were booked to appear at).
The show appeared to draw around 1,500 (I have heard there was an advance of around 850), which was considered a good crowd for a Friday in a new venue in an area they've never run and didn't handle the promotion themselves on. Inside the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom, it would have been a standing room only house. In a 6000 plus seat stadium, the crowd was spread out across the stadium and there were entire sections that were never sold that were completely empty. But, it was a hot crowd that was into most of the show.
Before the show, the roster was thrilled about working the venue and most of the crew actually played several innings of baseball together in the afternoon. The roster was genuinely excited about performing in such a unique, outdoor venue.
Before the show, former ECW and ROH champion Jerry Lynn, AJ Styles, Maria Kanellis, Christopher Daniels, ROH champion Michael Elgin, Kazarian and ROH TV champion Jay Lethal all signed for fans.
At the same time, Cyclones mascot Sandy The Seagull, Larry Legend and Mandy Leone warmed up the fans in the stands.
Scarlett Bordeaux sang the national anthem to open the show.
They announced the announcers, Joe Dombrowski (filling in for Kevin Kelly, who had a conflict and could not make it) and Steve Corino. Corino came out dressed in a full baseball player's uniform with a ROH logo jersey. Ring announcer Bobby Cruise gave him a baseball-esque introduction. Later on during intermission, Corino and Cruise played catch.
*ROH TV champion Jay Lethal pinned Matt Tavenin a steel cage match. The cage was assembled so the company could hold that first and not spend time putting up and taking down the cage while fans were waiting. Taven nailed a dive through the cage as Lethal was preparing to enter, which started things off super hot. They brawled around ringside and tossed each other into barriers for a long time. The crowd was loving it. Taven beat Lethal down and chased Truth Martini into the cage but was attacked by Lethal. They went back and forth and had a great match. Selezia took a great bump off the cage into Martini's arms at one point. The highlight was Taven recreating the Superfly Splash off the top of the cage perfectly on Lethal, but Martini interfered and broke up the pin. Lethal finally pinned Taven. This may have been the best Taven bout in ROH. Really top notch and intense stuff here.
They held a short intermission to get the cage down.
*Mark Briscoe pinned Takaaki Watanabe. Good solid match. Briscoe whipped out the Cactus elbow off the apron and won with a flying elbow drop off the top. The Redneck Kung Fu was super over. The Briscoes are opening a school shortly in Delaware.
*Moose and RD Evans defeated Bob Evans and Cheeseburger. Good promo from Veda Scott before the match. She really is a hell of a promo. Moose is super green but incredibly powerful and when he nails a spear it's awesome. Cheeseburger and Evans are a great underneath cult deal. It was interesting watching the crowd as the ROH regulars were into the deal but the locals were sort of confused by all the characters.
*Michael Bennett pinned Rocky Romero with the spear. Good back and forth match. Maria Kanellis and Bennett are a top notch act together and Bennett continues to improve. Lots of spot on wrestling here.
*The Decade defeated three ROH Academy students. This was supposed to be War Machine vs. The Decade but Raymond Rowe was hurt in a motorcycle wreck earlier in the week. I didn't catch the names of the students due to the sound system but they all worked hard and looked good. I'll update once I confirm the names. Jimmy Jacobs did mic work knocking Daniels and Kazarian before the match, which would come back into play later. The story of the bout was the bully villain veterans beating down the young upstarts who came back with some hot offense at the end before being taken out. The Decade continued working over them until Hanson, the other member of War Machine, hit the ring with an axehandle and ran them off.
*Silas Young defeated Tomasso Ciampa. Lots of good mat work here and some great, great, great back and forth counter-wrestling and near falls. There may have been something of a heel turn here as Ciampa slapped referee Paul Turner over the loss and tried to powerbomb him but was stopped by the other officials. He later slugged another.
*Cedric Alexander pinned ACH. Good match marred early by the crowd chanting back and forth at each other while pretty much ignoring the match. What basically happened is fans in the cheap seats and the more expensive seats started catcalling each other and it turned into a chant-fest. It was really annoying, especially when ACH and Alexander were pulling off some great wrestling in the ring. There was some really great, stiff back and forth wrestling especially in the last few minutes. ACH was going for a dive but was cut off with a brutal forearm and drilled down with a twisting powerbomb.
They took another intermission at 9:30 so fans could enjoy the weekly traditional Friday night fireworks. The stadium began playing music over their sound system to go with the fireworks and when they began playing Europe's "Final Countdown", which was Bryan Danielson's theme, the stadium popped and began singing along.
*ROH Tag Team chains ReDragon defeated Chris Daniels & Frankie Kazarian after The Decade interfered. This was set up by the aforemented promo from Jimmy Jacobs earlier in the night. Daniels hit the BME but Jacobs distracted the referee by getting on the apron. Daniels went after him but was attacked by BJ Whitmer and Roderick Strong, Kazarian joined the fray but was nailed from behind by Bobby Fish. ReDragon double teamed Daniels and scored the pin before Kazarian was able to break up the pin. Good stuff which felt like it may have been a TV angle.
*ROH champion Michael Elgin defeated IWGP Heavyweight champion AJ Styles, Adam Cole, and Jay Briscoe in a great Four way. Lots of good brawling, spectacular spots and really good athletic wrestling with every combination you could think of in the ring including a Tower of Doom spot. Styles and Cole were awesome in the ring together. Elgin looked like a beast and scored the pin with the Elgin Bomb on Cole. Really great main.
Notes: All of ROH management were in attendance and the hope is that this can lead to additional similar shows next year....Former ECW star Joel Gertner and Brian XL were visiting at the show...Tiger Hatori from New Japan was in attendance.....The show was shot with a four camera shoot, including two handhelds at ringside and two hard cams shooting from opposite ends....ROH created and sold special baseballs signed by the roster emblazoned with the ROH logo as special limited edition items created specifically for the event....There were at least two instances of fans throwing things at the ring or at wrestlers when they came out from the dugout. Security was on them immediately with warnings....ROH returns on Sunday 12/7 to NYC at Terminal 5, a club in the city that used to known as the Mirage and hosted the very first WWF Shotgun Saturday Night taping. Since it's a Sunday, I'm going to predict that will be the company's return to PPV, although no one has said that to me.
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