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Unfortunately, this followed the pattern of a lot of the early ROH events in that it was more or less a one match show. No knock on the action, but nothing else on here mattered in the long run, so let’s go ahead and blow through the undercard like usual and get on to the main event.
The Undercard
-Tony Mamaluke defeated Jeremy Lopez
-Christian York & Joey Matthews defeated Prince Nana & Jacob’s Ladder
-Michael Shane & Biohazard defeated Paul London & Don Juan (Shane and Biohazard earned ROH contracts with this win)
-Da Hit Squad defeated Divine Storm
-James Maritato defeated Jay Briscoe (Mark Briscoe walked out on his brother during the match, leading to another backstage argument afterward. Jay finally challenged Mark to face him in the ring at the next show since they would be in Massachusetts, where Mark was legally old enough to wrestle)
-TNA X-Division Title Three Way Dance: AJ Styles defeated Adam Jacobs and David Young to retain
-Mike Tobin & The Ring Crew Express defeated Black Gordman Jr, Brian XL & Dixie (XL & Dixie walked out on Gordman, leading to the formation of Special K)
-Scoot Andrews defeated Xavier
-The Natural Born Sinners defeated The Carnage Crew in a Bunkhouse Match (Typically brutal hardcore match between these two teams, and it got so vicious that Da Hit Squad had to come out and separate them since they kept fighting even after the match was over)
The Important Stuff
-Low Ki defeated Christopher Daniels, Doug Williams & Spanky in a 60 minute Ironman match to become the first ROH World Champion
The way this match worked was that each win was worth two points, while suffering a loss would cost the man being defeated one point. This was a dramatic and super athletic match where the long-running Daniels-Low Ki feud came to something of a head, though it would continue afterward. It was also a good moment for Spanky to shine, because even though he was undefeated in ROH and had beaten both Ki and Daniels in singles matches elsewhere, he was considered the longshot to come out on top. Also important was the performance of Doug Williams, who had burst onto the scene in a big way by steamrolling over Jay Briscoe and Bryan Danielson on his way to the finals, and had shown himself to be someone with the goods to come out on top here as well.
Daniels took the early lead after pinning Ki to go up 2 points and put Ki at 1 below just shy of halfway through the match. Ki was undeterred, and fought back to 1 point by escaping Williams’ Chaos Theory finish and catching Spanky in the Dragon Clutch to force him to tap out, handing Spanky his first ROH loss in the process. Williams was looking like a monster as he repeatedly kicked out of a ton of punishment, but finally went down after taking Sliced Bread #2 from Spanky and then a phoenix splash from Ki to send Ki up to 3 points to Daniels’ 2 with just about ten minutes left. Daniels gives it everything he has as he tries to put Ki away with his own Dragon Clutch as the clock counts down, but Low Ki hangs on to the time limit and is awarded the win, which he dedicated to the late Russ Haas.
The Bottom Line
This was all about the Ironman match, but that match was well worth the price of the DVD alone. Not only did it tell a great story in and of itself, but it set the stage for a further continuation of the Daniels-Ki feud since Ki won the match even though Daniels pinned him and was never defeated himself. The Bunkhouse match was really good too, so you’ve got great wrestling and great brawling, so what else could a real wrestling fan want out of a show?
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