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AFTERNOON THOUGHTS: THE POSITIVES OF ROH'S HAMMERSTEIN DEBUT, THE RANGE OF OPINIONS STEMMING FROM THE EVENT AND MORE

Ring of Honor shattered their all-time attendance record last night for their debut in New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom, a concert venue most famous for holding the final and resurrection PPVs for Extreme Championship Wrestling.  One source within the company pegged the attendance at 2,100 fans, although I would suspect the paid was a bit lower.  

The floor of the venue was completely full, but areas that ECW used for seating on the stage of the venue were curtained off to use as backstage and production areas.  The first balcony of the venue was completely full, while the second tier balcony was 75% full as well.  The side balconies (most famous for housing WWE heels during the 2005 One Night Stand PPV) featured one or two rows of fans per balcony.  

With the large audience, ROH's merchandise table was swamped.  I usually swing by the tables during intermission and without exaggeration, the tables were completely mobbed with fans ten rows deep in all directions waiting to pay, like you would see at a WWE event or major concert.  It was quite the view to take in.  ROH is a long way from the Murphy Rec Center.

It was a good show, although not a blow away, orgasmic level event.  I have a distinct feeling that how much one liked the show depended greatly on how deeply they love the ROH product.  The makeup of the crowd seemed to be split into three demographics - the usual ROH audience that "knew" what the wrestlers were doing as they built the matches, the "ECW Vampire" type fans that heckled the Japanese performers for being Japanese, screamed boring during matwork, etc. and fans that were sampling the product because it was wrestling in a real venue.  While previous NYC shows featured an intense "fight club" atmosphere, last night was a different feel - it was more like you had some of those fans who lived and died by the personalities and others who were your frat boy types who came to drink and bring attention to themselves.  It didn't always make for a good mix, such as when the ROH World title bout featured some good early matwork that were met with some "boring" chants out of the balcony.

The biggest news coming out of the show was the announcement that the Tag Team belts had been vacated by Jay Briscoe following a successful defense where he and substitute partner Austin Aries defeated The Age of the Fall.  The vacancy will be filled when the company returns to action the first weekend in June with a tournament.

Complete results of the show saw (and given this is Mother's Day, I will keep this short and possibly go into longer thoughts tomorrow):

*FIP champ Roderick Strong won a three-way, pinning Erick Stevens in a bout that also featured NOAH's Go Shiozaki.  They chopped the hell out of each other, to the point some balcony fans were chanting "No more chopping."  Seriously, it was like Flair vs. Garvin in there as they beat the hell out of each other.  Strong rolled up Stevens for the pin as Stevens and Shizoaki were going at it, so it was the story of the heel champ sneaking one out because he was so smart.  Solid opener.

*Kevin Steen & El Generico defeat Rocky Romero & Davey Richards after their Piledriver/Brainbuster combination.  Generico pins Davey Richards.  I missed a good portion of this talking to someone but was told this was really good.

*In a Scramble math, Delirious & Pelle Primeau defeated Chris Hero & Brent Albright and The Vulture Squad's Jack Evans & Jigsaw.  1001 highspots.  Even Brent did a senton dive off the ropes onto everyone on the floor.  Jonny Fairplay was with Sweet and Sour, about as useless as ever.  Sweet and Sour had about 80 people in their corner, most of which had joined the group since the last NYC show and everyone around me was completely confused, which I thought was telling - I don't know if that meant everyone around me just came to the shows and didn't buy DVDs or weren't caught up on the storylines because they were behind on the DVDs.  Delirious pinned Hero, so of course Sweeney blamed Albright, who he tore apart.  My friend commented it looked like Bobby Heenan ripping on Hercules Hernandez, which is a good thing in my eyes.  Albright was instructed to destroy whipping boy Bobby Dempsey to make up for it, but attacked all the other heels instead, I guess making him a babyface, as Sweeney ran off..

*Bryan Danielson defeated Naomichi Marufuji via submission.  Danielson had the hugest smile on his face when he hit the ring and saw that crowd.  Seriously a great moment since he's been here since day one.  This was my pick for best match of the night with some excellent back and forth wrestling, matwork and striking.  I was surprised as well, expecting Marufuji, who has improved so much since first coming to ROH, to get the win.  Danielson led the crowd in "Final Countdown" after the show, which was awesome.

After intermission, Daizee Haze came out and announced the crowd record, although you could hardly hear her on the mic so I think it was lost on a lot of fans.  Delirious, wearing a shirt and tie, came out with a rose behind his back trying to ask her out.  Rhett Titus, a jacked ROH student, came out carrying the ghosts of Michael Hayes and Rick Rude combined, cutting a great promo to Haze about all his body parts and that she should want to be with him.  Haze walked out disgusted.  Titus was dead on perfect in the role.  Delirious was left holding the rose, which Haze never saw.  Once the crowd saw it, they gave an "Awww", which was funny.  ROH purists probably hated this, but as a segment, it was fine sports-entertainment story.

*Takeshi Morishima defeated Necro Butcher.  Big disappointment here in my opinion.  They didn't seem to gel well and Morishima didn't bring the fire he usually brings.  One could only surmise if he was intimidated working with Necro or didn't want to take the punishment.  I don't know.  Necro's theme music was "I Won't Back Down" by Tom petty which is so perfectly brilliant for his look and character.  Necro took a back suplex off the top onto a chair but only grazed it while taking it out, looking awful painful.  I suspect it will look far better with some slight editing.  The upside was that in losing and taking a little bit of punishment, Necro walked out super, super over with the crowd chanting his name.  Still, this was to me (and others have argued this with me, so my opinion could be wrong), the least impressive Morishima showing to date in ROH.  I hope they get a chance to rectify that.

*ROH Tag Team champion Jay Briscoe and sub partner Austin Aries defeated The Age of the Fall in a No DQ match.  The finish saw Necro return to interfere, so Mark Briscoe ran out, hand wrapped (and boy I feel for him because I had the exact same hand wrap and casting when I shattered my hand in a car wreck and that thing hurt while I recovered) and hitting a Doomsday Device clothesline.  The early part of this didn't click, possibly because the crowd momentum was down after the previous match.  They had the same problem ECW used to have with tables that didn't want to cooperate as well.  Jacobs yanked out the spike he used on Mark and Lacey, then went to town on Jay.  Jay bled about as much as 12 Abdullah the Butcher victims.  It was ridiculously sick and awesome at once, like those classic old wrestling magazine photos.  Jacobs was covered in it, wiping it on himself to prove what a sicko heel he was.  Once Jay was busted open, the crowd really got into the match and by the time it ended, it was a really good match.  The AOTF menaced Aries after as Jacobs cut a promo, which went over a portion of the crowd live, saying that he could take him out anytime he wanted but wanted to scar him emotionally the same way Aries did to him by taking Lacey.  I think the promo might have worked better in a backstage setting.

*ROH World champ Nigel McGuinness defeats Claudio Castagnoli via submission with the London Dungeon..  The entrances had this old time, Starrcade level feel to them.  Castagnoli has cut his hair and came out with this great looking robe that made him look like a star.  Nigel has really perfected his heel persona.  They did a lot of good mat wrestling back and forth, but portions of the crowd catcalled it and others left early.  Nigel was great smirking at the hecklers, almost as if to say, "Tough sh**."  Claudio did the greatest big swing in history.  They had to have done 25-30 rotations.  The crowd got more and more into the bout as they did near falls (a lot of those), which I saw as a victory for the performers.  I think by the time they got to the end of the bout, some fans were waiting for a title change, but it didn't happen.  Again, another victory.  Both guys took a step forward with their work.

Notes: For the first time in their history, ROH brought in a full lighting truss to hang over the ring.  The production end of the show was greatly upgraded, to the point that the company was also lighting the crowd, feeling that they needed to take advantage of the look of the venue....ROH announced a 8/2 return with TNA stars the Motor City Machineguns....Bushwhacker Luke Williams, who is friends with ROH owner Cary Silkin, was in attendance...FIP owner Sal Hamoui, who handles the ROH DVD editing and duplication, was also in attendance, the first time I believe he's come to a ROH show outside of the Sunshine State.

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

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