ROH: ROUND ROBIN CHALLENGE - 3/30/2002

ROH: ROUND ROBIN CHALLENGE

Murphy Rec Center
Philadelphia, PA
March 30th, 2002

A pre-tape from Christopher Daniels to start the show. He does a good job fleshing out his character here, saying he refuses to recognize the code of honor and what not. He promises to beat both Ki and Dragon tonight. 

A very ECW-esque opening video airs, highlighting the Code of Honor from last month and entrances of who’s on the show tonight, including some spoilers which is kind of dumb. 

Ugh. More DHS hyping the crowd up outside. I get it. Just murder dudes in the ring. Totally fine bit to actually do but zero need to put it on your DVDs. 

A scroll text screen dictating the rules of the Code of Honor appears. 

Backstage, Divine Storm are talking and practicing stretches on each other. Danielson walks back and shows them out to do it right, choking out Chris Divine. 

Match #1: Christopher Daniels vs. Bryan Danielson [Round Robin Challenge - Match 1]
Daniels again does not observe the code. Both men were trying to work quick as they each still have to face Low Ki later with Daniels getting him first. Very few spots where this lets up. On a normal show without the tournament format I could’ve watched this for another 7-8 minutes if not more. Daniels did some fantastic work on Danielson’s neck elevated by Danielson’s selling of the injury especially when he tried making his comeback. Finish saw Danielson attempt the cattle mutilation but not able to fully lock it in due to the neck injury, and soon thereafter Daniels got a cross face on the mat to secure the submission win and go up 1-0-0.
***1/4

Post-match, Daniels grabs the mic and says since ROH expects them to shake hands, since he beat Dragon, he should show the Fallen Angel respect and shake his hand. Danielson chooses to be the bigger man and he shakes Daniels’ hand. Good bit for both guys characters. 

Backstage, Towel Boy Eric Tuttle is now seemingly under Prince Nana’s tutelage. Nana makes him shine his wrestling boots. Dude, Nana was a tank back then. Holy hell. 

CW ANDERSON IS HERE. He cuts a pretape and puts over his opponents tonight, York & Matthews. He wanted to fight these pretty boys solo but ROH is making him get a partner. He grabs a member of I guess the production team or something and forces him to be his partner.

Nana & Tuttle come out for their match with Simply Lucious in their corner. Commentary notes she drove 26 hrs from San Antonio to be here and Corino says he conducted a special prematch interview with her backstage. Weren’t they dating or something? Trying to find any reason to make some of the stuff he says here less creepy.

Match #2: Da Hit Squad vs. Prince Nana & Towel Boy Eric Tuttle
Nana was cutting a promo with Tuttle shining his boots again but I couldn’t hear any of it between the shitty audio of the in house mic and commentary not shutting the fuck up. But it don’t matter. Took me longer to type all this then the match actually went. Absolute murder but hell yeah. Nana just bails on Tuttle by the way. 
*

Post-match, the Christopher Street boys are back for another segment I’m sure stands the test of time. They get the sound guy to play their music and they come down the aisle, crossing paths with Nana. As the three exchange words, DHS pick up Tuttle back in the ring…AND TOTTALLY WHIFF ON THROWING HIM OUT TO NANA & CSC, INSTEAD CAUSING TUTTLE TO GO DOWN *HARD* ON THE GYM FLOOR!
 

Nana & CSC are legitimately checking on Tuttle and helping him up, so to stall for time DHS toss Simply Lucious back and fourth, arguing about whether they should throw her or not. Once Tuttle seems okay, hey okay they toss Lucious out on to the four on the floor and thankfully make the spot work this time. Jesus. 

And then Nana’s drags an unconscious Simply Lucious to the back by her hair. And…yeah. What. 

Backstage, the Boogie Knights talk about taking a shit in Eric Gargullio’s bag and how they’re scared of NBS’s chainsaws. They go searching for the chainsaws so they can remove them from the building. They find the chainsaw container in an empty locker room. They open it up, AND…it’s the rubber chicken from last month. But it’s a trap! NBS pop out with chainsaws and BK’s run out. But they realize they dropped the chicken and the only way that NBS can beat them is with the chicken and apparently there is chicken lore in ROH. 

York & Matthews do a short pretape that reminds me of just how bleak late period ECW got.

Match #3: York & Matthews vs. CW Anderson & Elax
So the stage hand CW grabbed earlier is named Elax? Alright. This is whatever. Feels like they’re trying to work a Mikey Whipwreck gimmick with this Elax but he doesn’t have an 1/8th of the talent Mikey did. This is mostly CW ruling and York/Matthews being bland but inoffensive. Finish sees CW thrown into Elax and Y&M hit the SNAPSHOT! to win. Remember when Paul E briefly tried calling them The BadStreet Boys? Awful.
*1/4

Post-match, CW lays out Elax with the spinebuster. 

Xavier’s here with a pretape. His original opponent Scoot Andrews is injured with a broken leg. Xavier continues seemingly reading his promo off of cue cards and says his new opponent is The Sicilian Shooter. 

Now we see Little Guido doing squats. He laments the end of ECW but talks of his pre-ECW days in UWFi as James Maritato and he wants to bring that guy back. Yeah okay fine but where’s THE BIG DON TOMMY RICH?

Match #4: James Maritato vs. Xavier
Man, early ROH really is a slog to get through. On commentary, Eric Gargullio tries to force the “ECW FBI COMEDY SCHTICK won’t cut it in the ROH, brother” stuff meanwhile the crowd is chanting “WHERES MY PIZZA?” So. Fuck you, Eric, ya fuck. I like Guido, I’ve always liked Guido. But two shows in and I do not give a shit about Xavier. Painfully bland. And lame! They work a lot of fine GRAPPLIN~ spots but I mean, whatever, man. This means nothing. Xavier wins with a bridging O’Connor Roll and I really hope this guy isn’t around longer than I know he’s around. What a weird project by Gabe.
*3/4

Eric Gargullio really sounds like a congested Josh Matthews and it’s pissing me off. 

EARLIER TODAY: The PA State Athletic Commission rep gives a speech to The Boys. Spanky is watching with a toothbrush and sarcastically claps when it’s done. What. 

Natural Born Sinners with a pretape now and not much is said other than Boogaloo saying they’ll never get his chainsaw.

Match #5: Natural Born Sinners vs. Boogie Knights
I honestly have no idea who the Boogie Knights are. I don’t even know their names and I’m too lazy to look them up. But the point is…

They’ll never be THEM. This was a squash though and NBS win. Free Homicide.
1/2*

In a pretape, Low Ki says Christopher Daniels WILL respect him by the end of the night. Hearing Ki’s voice again after not hearing it for a very long time is always so jarring. 

Match #6: Christopher Daniels vs. Low Ki [Round Robin Challenge - Match 2]
REMINDER: Daniels is up 1-0 and if he wins this, he wins the tourney. Ki is so good at just beating the absolute shit out of people and we see that on full effect here early. But Daniels control segment is really fucking crisp and on point. Daniels slows this down (a bit) to his own pace, given that he really has to do nothing but wait Ki out, and it adds to the frantic nature of Ki’s offense in this. Daniels whiffs on the Angel’s Wings so he tries for the Last Rites, but Ki reverses it into the Dragon Clutch and Daniels taps!
***1/2

Hell yeah. I tend to overrate 2000’s Daniels as is because he’s probably my original indie “guy” from back in the mid to late aughts in the post message board era. But it helps justify my bias when he has fantastic dance partners like Bryan and Ki.

Post-match, and this is where my issue with this show has always been - it begins here, Daniels refuses to shake Ki’s hand regardless of what he said earlier because this was a fluke win and it proves nothing. He still knows he can beat both of them in one night and he doesn’t want to wrestle again until the ROH Title is on the line. 

Okay, fine. This is being treated sort of like Daniels has LOST the Round Robin and now it’s between Ki/Bryan. Which makes no sense because Bryan is 0-1. Daniels DID lose on what his word was from the last show. I’m fine with that. But the booking of this tournament begins to become suspect here. More on this at the end of the show. 

The camera follows Daniels backstage. We see Ryan Shamrock hanging out and Corino points out she must be with her “brother” which is very funny. Anyway, Daniels goes into the locker room and DHS confront him for not observing the code of honor and warn him to play ball or else. An intimidated Daniels seemingly leaves the building. As the camera was following him, it stays instead on Spanky who starts singing a song that I cannot make out because Gargullio does not shut the fuck up enough to let stuff breathe.

The TWA guys play basketball earlier in the day. Ok. 

There’s a Paul London/Chris Marvel TWA showcase match but it ends after like a minute because Marvel breaks his ankle. Moving on. 

In a pretape, Jay Briscoe starts to put over Spanky as one of Shawn Michaels’ top students but Mark interrupts to ask if he’s going to win so Jay shoves him.

Match #8: Jay Briscoe vs. Spanky
Oh I liked this a ton. Spanky continues playing his aloof, “I don’t give a shit” gimmick early on and Corino even notes that since he won the ROH contract last show, he flew up this time instead of driving, and maybe it’s gone to his head with his behavior all night. Jay fucking brings it. There’s a lot of fun spots speckled throughout that lead to Spanky getting cut hard way and having this incredible gusher he sells like a million bucks. And being that this was in no way planned, it adds to Spanky’s story because now he’s taking this very seriously and working more frantically to keep up with Jay and one up him. After some near falls, Spanky finally catches Jay with Sliced Bread #2 for the win.
***1/4

Post-match, Spanky starts dancing again. The announcers really hammer the home the fact that Jay is 0-2 in his first two ROH appearances. Mark gives him a hard time on the way to the back. 

In a pretape, we see Gabe and some of his goons voting in an online poll to see who the best TWA student is (Dragon is winning overwhelmingly). But…why are they promoting an online poll on a taped for DVD show that people didn’t see presumably for weeks after it happened?

Match #9: Amazing Red & Brian XL vs. The SAT vs. Divine Storm
A “lucha libre” chant breaks out very early in this and my eye starts to twitch. This was boring. I wish it wasn’t. I quite like 1/2 of this match. But when I see matches laid out like this, it makes me finally start to REALLY consider the harm the RVD/Jerry Lynn series did for the industry heading into a (admittedly unknown at the time) completely different wrestling landscape than ever seen before. SAT win and yeah. Whatever.
1/2*

Backstage, Ki says some words about facing Bryan up next. 

Before Ki/Bryan gets started, Ken Shamrock and his glorious muttonchops come out to shake both men’s hands and he grabs a mic. 

Had no idea Shamrock ever appeared in ROH. Shamrock wants to be the ref so he gets handed a shirt and we’re on. Ok. 

By the way, Gargullio and Corino sell this as the tournaments “finals”, which…again…no. Fuck. More at the end. On with the match itself. 

Match #10: Bryan Danielson vs. Low Ki [Round Robin Challenge - Match 3]

Gargullio sucks man. He keeps going on at points about shit like how this is the type of wrestling from Ancient Greece where friends and enemies had something to prove. Like dude shut the fuck up. Get hit by a car. The match is fucking awesome. Goes around 30 minutes. It was Ki going toe to toe with someone who was not afraid to match him strike for strike. Bryan gets a cut above his eye early and it becomes a target for Ki throughout. Bryan tries keeping Ki off his feet and Ki’s persistence to avoid taking this to the mat so he could legitimately win this thing 2-0 is great. Right around the 15-16 minute mark, you start to feel like this is going on a bit long with no real ending sequence in sight sort of an outta nowhere type finish. The crowd is fully in to it, and that helps, but I found myself checking the time more than I’m happy to admit. They start to really sell the exhaustion of each of their earlier matches plus this long one towards the end. And Ki’s just a wee bit more tired since he wrestled more recently than Danielson and it leads to him passing out in the Cattle Mutilation.

***1/4

Post-match, Danielson and Ki respect the code of honor. Danielson then thanks the fans on the mic. 

Alright, time for me to bitch. This wasn’t a real round robin. I *get* what they were trying to accomplish here, showing that their three top guys were on equal footing heading into the birth of their World Title scene. But that doesn’t make this a true round robin. I don’t like that Bryan/Ki was sold as the final, and I don’t like that Daniels was treated like he was eliminated after his single loss. This tournament should’ve had at least two more matches. And I get at that point you’re risking overkill, but that is an inherent risk booking a single night round robin where you also want to make all three appear to be on equal footing. In modern times, I think the booking of this would get shat upon far more. But ultimately this is just me annoyed and nitpicking at something that does less harm than help. And it also provided three great matches. You’ll come to find out I’m just a good tournament booking pervert. 

Fuck you.

NEXT MONTH: Christopher Daniels vs. Donovan Morgan! Low Ki vs. AJ Styles! The WWF’s Eddie Guerrero returns!