ROH: REVENGE ON THE PROPHECY
CCAC South Campus
West Mifflin, PA
January 11th, 2003
ROH Champion: Xavier (Since 9/21/2002 - 3 Defenses)
ROH Tag Team Champions: The Prophecy (Since 9/21/2002 - 2 Defenses)
Welcome to 2003!
The show begins by re-airing the last seg from the last show, where Corino revealed Simply Luscious had left the Prophecy to join him in his new Group.
On High Impact TV days later, Corino and Luscious introduced the newest member of The Group…the man the Prophecy brought in as their hired gun, SAMOA JOE! Corino does an awesome job putting Joe over and Joe looks extremely happy instead of the annoyed looks he’d give the Prophecy. He tells Daniels it looks like he’s not for sale anymore. He then puts on an “I KILLED CURRYMAN” baseball hat and says and now The Group is coming for all of the Prophecy’s titles.
A week later on High Impact TV, Corino, Joe & Luscious confronted The Prophecy backstage. Daniels is angry at Corino but angrier at Luscious. He no sells Joe. Daniels says since Corino’s wanted to make this personal, he wants to introduce him to the newest member of the Prophecy…CORINO’S SISTER, ALLISON DANGER! Allison says that ROH was ready to leave her in the wind when the CSC got hurt, but now she’s with the Prophecy and protecting their business. But unlike when Luscious was here, her job will be much more than business and she playfully grabs Daniels chin, and he then laughs. Corino is incensed and laughs off the anger and tries to get Daniels to throw the first punch to start this war. Both both stables pull Corino & Daniels apart.
All fantastic. I love it.
This is one of the worst venues I’ve ever seen. It’s literally half of a high school lookin’ ass gym with maybe less than 200 people here.
GMC opens the show but Special K interrupt. With this small dead crowd it’s nice because I can finally hear in ring promos! Deranged has the mic. He says all of them in Special K are excited to finally be here in CLEVELAND! They only came here to BUFFALO for one reason and one reason only, and that's to show all of them what ROH is really about. And that's TO PARTY! YEAH! And he says ROH STANDS FOR REALLY COOL HOUSE PARTIES! The debuting Hydro (Jay Lethal) asks if cool starts with a K, so he amends it to REALLY AWESOME HOUSE PARTIES! Fantastic. Now before they go to party with all your sisters, daughters, and nieces, they're going to get it started right now. They begin dancing around to their techno bullshit music but the SAT and Da Hit Squad run out to attack. Yawn. Special K bails but one of ‘em gets trapped. He's hit with the Spanish Fly by the SAT, and then Mafia's Burning Hammer. Deranged gets caught trying a move off the top and Monsta Mack powerbombs him over the top onto Special K, but Slugga catches him and they leave. As they leave, one of them yells WE HAVE NO DRUGS. NOTHING! Maff grabs the mic and calls this place Pittsburgh to a delayed reaction because they’re actually like 20 minutes outside Pittsburgh. They probably thought he was doing a bit too. Anyway, Maff does a good job of hyping them up and they get hot and chant ROH.
EARLIER TODAY: There was pre show fanfest and Allison Danger picked a fight with Simply Luscious. They get pulled apart and Gabe really loudly yells “AH GEEZE LOUISE!”
Backstage, Paul London cuts a really bad promo hyping up his match against Homicide, Colt Cabana and BJ Whitmer and he’s hoping a win will help him crack the Top 5 Ranking System. What’s this now? He says the fans that chant “please don’t die” at him gets him stronger and harder and people need to get ready. So we’re just done with phrasing then?
Match #1: Chad Collyer vs. Matt Stryker
This was like watching a 1996 WCWSN Dean Malenko showcase only with somehow less charisma. Collyer is above average he’s just bland. For the uninformed, this is NOT the Matt Striker that later works at WWE and Impact and whatnot. But this Matt Stryker has maybe the worst, nastiest unibrow I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t sure if this match would work as the opener in a brand new market for ROH but it did its job. Crowd was into it. But there’s really nothing spectacular to write about. Reversals and holds aplenty. Stryker has some really good, stiff chops. Collyer does some knee work but Stryker chooses to simply not sell any of it. Gets messy at the end til Collyer reverses Striker and flips him slowly into the Texas Cloverleaf for the win.
**1/4
Post-match, they actually get a standing ovation. So good for them. Inoffensive match.
Backstage, CM Punk cuts a promo about tonight. He says this isn’t about revenge and it’s not about him crying. The fact is, Michael Shane beat him in his debut no matter which way you spin it. He won’t cry about losing, but he will get pissed off at the way he lost, when Shane grabbed the ropes to pin him because he knew he couldn’t beat him. But he doesn’t have to live with all of this hatred inside, it gets released when he beats Michael Shane tonight. Because if he doesn’t he won’t be able to live with himself.
Match #2: CM Punk vs. Michael Shane
I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. Punk was working as the underdog, coming from behind, which is sort of a weak spot for him at this point. He’s still figuring things out overall, as well. But it’s still good. Shane impressed me though. Again, I’m not saying he’s some hidden gem lost to time, but given what he could do and who he was related to and who they were hiring at the time, it is shocking to me he didn’t have a WWE main roster midcard run in the mid 00’s. Shane has an overly long control segment that kind of killed the crowd. So when Punk fights out of it he’s working extra fast and hard to try and win them back over, and he gets kind of sloppy because of it. But they recover nicely in the finish. Story is, Punk can’t put Shane down for 3 no matter he throws at him. He tries numerous times, and it’s always a kick out at 2. Punk tries a sunset flip but Shane sits on his shoulders and grabs the ropes like he did in November. But this time the ref sees and kicks Shane’s arms loose. They roll to their feet, Punk ducks a shot from Shane and he gets him with a backslide to get the pin. I liked that.
**1/2
VERY tense code of honor observed post match.
This show is airing out of the order it was filmed? Every card I saw does not have these next two matches here they happen later? I dunno.
Match #3: Homicide vs. Colt Cabana vs. Paul London vs. BJ Whitmer [Four Corner Survival Match]
This was great! If my vote was able to be counted I would’ve called for this to open the show. Cabana and Whitmer are still developing, so while good, they do hold this back from being something otherworldly special. But they’ll get there. Homicide and Paul London are the stars of this. Homicide is as brutal and stiff as ever. London is selling his ass off. All four men feel the crowd out and that maybe goes on a bit too long before they figure out how they want to work this and start going fast pace, full boar. Homicide is calling the charge. London attempts an SSP but Cide gets up so London lands on his feet and walks right into a BRUTAL Cop Killa:
Gif glitched out at the perfect moment there hell yeah. Cabana hits Homicide with the Colt 45 and then gets into a decent striking battle with BJ hits two dragon suplexes on a row on Cabana, sets up a third but Cabana fights it so BJ clubs him with a forearm shot before hitting the third with a bridge for the pin, BUT THEN FROM OFF SCREEN AND SEEMINGLY FROM THE HEAVENS COMES PAUL LONDON WITH THE LONDON STAR PRESS ONTO BJ!
GOD yes. London covers to win. Gabe says a star making performance for all four and he’s not entirely wrong for once.
***1/4
Match #4: Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe
I fucking LOVED this. Danielson’s been pumped to face Joe since before the last show and he comes out hot. Danielson isn’t afraid to bully someone twice the size of him such as Joe and it adds so much. Joe really hasn’t been fully tested in ROH in a technical wrestling bout, it’s mostly been squashes, tags, or big fights. Danielson takes him to the mat and does some stellar leg work. If you didn’t know any better I think it would be easy to convince someone that Danielson has been wrestling for something like a decade by 2003 instead of only like 36 months or whatever. Joe fights out of the leg work and SELLS like a million bucks and it cuts down his normal “run ‘em down” offense. Joe gets a huge break when he decides to just casually suplex Danielson out of the fucking ring and onto the floor.
And he stays on him with some strikes before sitting him in the corner of the guard rail and…
That guard rail dies every show. And I love it. Danielson has a tremendous comeback once they get back into the ring and he’s got Joe reeling for the first time in his ROH career. He hits Joe with a few rolling elbows but on his final one, Joe ducks and then DESTROYS Danielson with a leaping right knee directly to the temple. Danielson goes down like a bag of meat. Joe hits him with the Island Driver and wins. This is fantastic because not only does it tease a rematch down the line (“Joe was only 3 seconds better” or something), but Gabe puts over how it usually takes multiple finishers to put away Danielson (I hate the way he words it though.) but what he DOESN’T bring up is how Danielson has also kicked out of a bunch of finishers in ROH and all it took was one shot here for him to stay down. Regardless, this rocked.
****
Ugh.
Match #5: The SAT & Ghost Shadow vs. Konnan & Divine Storm
So the story is, Konnan wrestled at Final Battle last month. But it was so bad that the crowd was eviscerating it live, completely hostile, which is rare for an ROH crowd. It was so bad it wasn’t on the original Final Battle release (it later came out on a comp tape I think). They did a tag match this time around to try and hide some of his deficiencies. It’s just incredibly dumb they tried to hide him among four of the worst wrestlers in ROH and a random luchador who’s worse than Konnan. The crowd turns on this as well, and there’s not too great of a chance they even know about the Final Battle incident at this point. To make matters worse, this goes just about 17 minutes and is the second longest match on the show. Gabe is absolutely so dumb sometimes. Fuck this. Konnan wins when he makes Shadow tap to the Tequilia Sunrise.
1/4*
And with that, Konnan’s short ROH run comes to an end.
Match #6: Da Hit Squad vs. Carnage Crew [No Disqualifications]
A pretty sloppy brawl with a few fun spots but it wouldn’t have stood a chance in front of a new crowd who just saw one of the worst matches ever. Definitely not on the level of their summer 2002 match. One thing to note is that a ladder was used and Mack climbs it halfway up to do a dive annnnd..
Owned. Brawl goes on. DHS wins with a super bomb on Loc hrough DeVito on a table.
**
In footage from High Impact TV, Special K have a New Year’s party in the locker room. They race around and do hits of helium. Comic sans text appears on the screen saying to check out Slugga and the K Girls. Why? They pass some drugs around. Next scene they’re all passed out and Slugga carries one of them out of the locker room. Alright.
Match #7: Special K (Deranged, Hydro, Angel Dust, Yeyo & Slugga) vs. Dunn & Marcos/The Outcast Killaz [Handicap Tag Scramble]
This is a mess but a fun mess. There’s no semblance or order to anything and it honestly looks like some twinks and club kids brawling at a house party. Slugga kills the jobber team and stands on Marcos to pin him and win.
*1/2
Backstage, Low Ki and AJ Styles are standing by. Ki says when him and AJ met previously, it was about honor and about the love and respect they both have for this business. Tonight against the Prophecy is about none of that. He reminds us of his three goals in 2003 and the first one happens tonight because he’s going to hurt Xavier.
Match #8: The Prophecy (Daniels/Xavier) vs. Low Ki & AJ Styles [Non-Title No Holds Barred Match]
There’s FINALLY ROH Tag Belts. This was a really good brawl that did a fantastic job of getting across the point that these are two guys who have had their lives made hell by the Prophecy and it was time for retribution. Hence the title of the show! LAUGH! Anywho, my main qualm with this is that it went on for far too long, clocking in just shy of 30 minutes. But, on the good side, Ki & Styles did a tremendous job of beating the shit out of Xavier and cutting off Daniels for long stretches until it finally broke down. The end comes with three fantastic spots. First, Ki downs Xavier in the aisleway and brings back the chunk of cement attached to a post thing that Xavier had used on him. Ki reenacts the same spot for some payback. Back at ringside, Styles hits the Styles Clash on Daniels off the apron through a table. Back at ringside, Ki locks Xavier in the Dragon Clutch THROUGH the ropes — totally legal in this match — and Xavier taps out for a Ki/Styles win. A hoot.
***1/4
Post-match, Daniels appears to be legit hurt or at least shook up as it takes a ton of people to get him up and then carry him in a very awkward manner to the back.
Backstage, Daniels is slouched against a wall on the floor. Allison runs up and says that Xavier was rushed to the hospital they think he’s got some broken ribs. Danger hands him the belts and it wakes Daniels up. He thanks her and says she earned her spot in the Prophecy tonight. He then yells at the camera “YOU HEAR THAT CORINO?! I’VE GOT YOUR SISTER. SO IF YOU WANT A WAR, CAST THE FIRST STONE.”
Not a terrible start to the year and definitely the best show since All Star Extravaganza. But these next few shows coming up are shit kickers so buckle up.
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