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RING OF HONOR IN MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO LIVE REPORT

By Dustin Dinoff on 2010-03-21 10:25:03
Ring of Honor returned to the International Centre in Mississauga, Ontario last night. It was a good show, but not without its issues. Roderick Strong and Marc Briscoe didn’t clear the border, so the main event had to be revised. This was a pretty big disappointment right off the bat, because many of us were anticipating a really intense 2 out of 3 fall tag main event as voted on for weeks by the fans. This whole concept was entirely scrapped for an 8-man tag team main event between Tyler Black, Jay Briscoe, Tyson Dux and Rasche Brown vs. Austin Aries, Kenny King, Rhett Titus and a mystery partner. It didn’t seem like much consolation, but hopes were high for a cool mystery partner, and theories ran wild.  

Anyway, the night started with pre-show wins by The Bravado Brothers, Pee Wee, and Bobby Dempsey, who hosted the first ever “Bobby Dempsey Invitational Gauntlet Match”. It was pretty fun. The crowd was full of energy and excited for good things when the lights went down.  

And then we got the announcement about Strong and Marc Briscoe. Still the mystery partner thing could be this whole thing’s saving grace… right? Maybe there was a big return they’ve been saving, or a big, recently-signed new talent they’ve been keep quiet about. Maybe its Homicide or Samoa Joe – no one’s seen them for weeks! Oh, the possibilities. Anyway, a brawl ensued between all the wrestlers involved in the match, save the mystery man, of course.  

The first match of the show was between The House of Truth and local guys The Flatliners, who opened the last International Centre show against The Young Bucks. This was actually a better match, with both teams doing some really good double team spots. In the end, House of Truth cheated and got the win. 

Next was the surprisingly compelling and hard fought match between Super Smash Brother Player Dos and Kevin Steen. Dos really impressed, but Steen got the win after two package pile drivers, then a third one after the match just to be a dick.  

Petey Williams made his first Toronto-area appearance for ROH by taking on TV champ Eddie Edwards. After hearing Eddie run down Canada and the local fans, Williams challenged Edwards to put the title on the line. Eddie agreed. I have to admit, I was surprised by how quiet the crowd was at times during this one, especially with Petey in the match, but the place certainly popped when he teased the Destroyer. It got louder when he actually nailed it on Edwards, and louder still when he teased doing it to Shane Hagadorn. But that only proved to distract Petey, who seconds later tapped to Eddie’s single leg crab.  

Surprisingly to most, next up was the main event – the eight-man tag. The mystery man was none other than…. Adam Pierce. I, for one, was happy to see him there, with his NWA title around his waist, because Toronto had never seen Pierce wrestle in ROH before he took over booking. I’m not sure if it was that no one knew who he was, or if everyone was just really, really disappointed about his being the big mystery partner, but the crowd was almost completely non-responsive when he appeared. It seemed almost stunned. It wasn’t a bad match at all, but I was really surprised by what a mixed reception Tyler Black got. There seemed to be a lot of fans that resent his title win, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s true of other markets too. Anyway, all eight guys worked really hard, and Tyson Dux – who wrestled Black for an injured Nigel McGuiness last July in Toronto - was really over. But it was not the caliber of main event we paid to see. Tyler won for his team.  

So with our main event in the books, the show restarted with a sort of pedestrian grudge match between Colt Cabana and Steve Corino. There was a lot of support for both wrestlers. It was certainly great to see Corino in his first Toronto ROH show, and it is always great to see Cabana, but it was a pretty slow start to the second half after a disappointing pre-intermission main event. The fact that it ended with a DQ when Steen interfered on behalf of Corino didn’t really improve things either. All that said, it was still a better match than anything on WWE this week.

El Generico coming out to help Cabana segued into Generico’s match versus Chris Hero. It took the crowd a bit to get into it after the Cabana/Corino thing, but these two worked well together, and Hero was really trying hard to draw some heat. He was in really fine form tonight, and, to be fair, so was Generico. Hero seemed pretty dominant, and despite a late but short lived comeback for Generico, and his refusal to stay down after several big roaring elbows, the ref stopped the match after Hero applied a nasty looking, sitting arm bar.  

After the match, Steen came out and did a long promo about why he turned on Generico a few months back. The gist was that it was because Generico was a pest, and always made moments that should have been about Steen about himself by being an overly-supportive attention whore. Then he offered Generico the chance to hit him. Generico wouldn’t take it.  

The final match of the evening was Davey Richards vs. Kenny Omega. It was easily the best match of the night. It moved at a crazy-fast pace, featured a ton of hard hitting action, wild out-of-the-ring brawling, and fine technical work from both, but especially Richards. Really good stuff. Richards picked up the win after about a half-hour, using an arm submission. Lots of “ROH” and “This is Awesome” chants during this one.  

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