Just like after I completed reviewing ROH 2002 (Check it out here!), I am again doing the ROH END OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2003! Because I am wholly unoriginal. I used to do these on the old BQ board after my WCW and ECW reviews in a more condensed fashion, and of course, the style was copped entirely from the OG Simon (@elhijodelsimon / @handwerkreviews over on Twitter). Let’s see where 2003 has taken us!
SHOW OF THE YEAR
To note, in order to come up with these rankings, I simply took the total sum of the match ratings and divided it by the number of actual reviewed matches (e.g. – stuff like the Bunkhouse Riot which was great but unrateable or some of those mostly clipped pre-show matches that usually featured the very shitty Slyk Wagner Brown, things like that won’t count.)
#3: ROH: RETRIBUTION: ROUND ROBIN CHALLENGE II – 4/26/2003 (2.45 Star Avg.)
This show came smack dab in the middle of a really hot run for ROH in 2003. ROH felt like it had finally found itself in those first 5-6 months of 2003 as things were cooking mostly up and down the entire card. Even the bad stuff wasn’t always otherworldly bad. Joe had just won the belt, ending the dark times of Xavier’s reign, and AJ/Red were having exciting matches as the tag champs. On top of that, we were in the middle of the Prophecy/Group feud and in the early stages of Corino/Homicide. This show itself featured a sequel to the previous years round robin challenge, this team having Chris Daniels, Paul London and Amazing Red squaring off. While none of the three matches in this year’s tournament were as great as 2002’s, they were still very good and again had a collective story flow throughout them. Elsewhere, Punk and Homicide square off for the first time for the #1 contenders trophy in a great bout, and in the true surprise of the show, the Carnage Crew & Masada took on Hernandez, Fast Eddie and Don Juan in a Fight Without Honor that absolutely stole the show. It was brutal, it was violent, and it was bloody as hell. Lastly, while the main event of Joe defending the belt of Doug Williams wound up being underwhelming, it was still fucking Joe vs. Doug Williams in 2003. A fine show.
#2: ROH: MAIN EVENT SPECTACLES – 11/1/2003 (2.60 Star Avg.)
The first half of this show is very tame and a bit boring. The Field of Honor tournament continued, an anger inducing match of Xavier/Nigel vs. THE PURISTS~ took place, there was a Justin Credible singles match against Gabe’s latest overpushed pet project and the Briscoes won the tag belts in a fine enough match. The cringiest part was the FIGHTING SPIRIT~ match between Homicide and BJ. The rules were stupid, the match was presented even stupider, and worst of all – BJ Whitmer was the first person to kick out of the Cop Killa. You’d think we’d be on the road to an all time bad ROH show. But then the second half of this show kicks off with one of the craziest things you’ll ever see in the extremely infamous Scramble Cage Match featuring Teddy Hart and Jack Evans, among other teams. Not only was the match infamous, but it spurned a lot of controversy in its wake (which you can read about HERE!). And just as you come down from that, you get one of ROH’s better four corner survival matches to this point with Punk/Corino/Joe/Daniels! Of course, it has a disputed finish and there’s ZERO follow up with it, but that’s to be expected with Gabe at the helm at this point, I suppose. AND THEN THE MAIN EVENT, my god, the rematch of AJ Styles and Bryan Danielson and they blow the roof off the joint. This was also the match that includes the famous WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PRO WRESTLING? moment from Dragon. This show’s review also wound up being the most viewed entry on BustedQuad thanks to some help from SHIMMER legend Nicole Matthews!
#1: ROH: NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS – 3/22/2003 (2.63 Star Avg.)
While it’s one of the weaker shows of the year in terms of angles/storylines, it’s far and away the best wrestling show of the year for the company. Christopher Daniels and Doug Williams tore the house down for both the FWA World Championship and the ROH #1 Contenders Trophy, Homicide and Da Hit Squad faced off with The Group led by Samoa Joe, Low Ki got a GREAT match out of Jody Fleisch, and AJ/Red had one of the best tag team matches I’ve ever seen out of the Briscoes. And to top all things off, Samoa Joe ended the torturous reign of Xavier while also getting the best match of Xavier’s ROH run out of him! Outside of a few low level things, this show rocked from top to bottom and deserves this honor, without question.
MATCH OF THE YEAR
First off, let’s start off with some honorable mentions outside of the top ten and/or some “hell yeah brother” style recommendations.
Honorable Mentions/Hell Yeah Brother Watches:
- Backseat Boyz vs. Carnage Crew vs. The SAT vs. Special K vs. Teddy Hart/Jack Evans, Scramble Cage – ROH Main Event Spectacles, 11/1/2003
- CM Punk vs. Raven, Dog Collar Match – ROH Death Before Dishonor, 7/19/2003
- AJ Styles vs. Low Ki vs. Paul London, #1 Contender’s Trophy – ROH One Year Anniversary, 2/8/2003
- Samoa Joe © vs. Homicide, ROH Title – ROH Do or Die, 5/31/2003
- Homicide/Dusty Rhodes/Julius Smokes/Iceberg/Louie Ramos/Becky Bayless vs. Jack Victory/CW Anderson/David Young/Bar Room Brawler/Guillotine LeGrande/Simply Luscious, Unsanctioned I Quit Bunkhouse Riot Match – ROH Epic Encounter, 4/12/2003
And now for the Top Ten…
10. AJ Styles vs. Paul London, #1 Contender’s Trophy – ROH Night of the Grudges, 6/14/2003
9. Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe – ROH One Year Anniversary, 2/8/2003
8. Christopher Daniels © vs. Doug Williams, FWA World Title / #1 Contender’s Trophy – ROH Night of Champions, 3/22/2003
7. Bryan Danielson vs. Paul London, 2 Out Of 3 Falls – ROH Epic Encounter, 4/12/2003
6. Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe – ROH Revenge on the Prophecy, 1/11/2003
4. AJ Styles/Amazing Red © vs. The Briscoes, ROH Tag Titles – ROH Night of Champions, 3/22/2003
3. Steve Corino vs. Homicide, No Ropes Barbed Wire – ROH War of the Wire, 11/29/2003
2. Samoa Joe © vs. AJ Styles, ROH World Championship – ROH War of the Wire, 11/29/2003
1. Steve Corino vs. Homicide, No Holds Barred – ROH Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies, 8/16/2003
TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR
Hey, you know the drill, man.
#5: The SAT [17.50 pts.]
#4: Special K (Izzy/Dixie) [20.25 pts.]
#3: Backseat Boyz [22.50 pts.]
#2: Carnage Crew [24.25 pts.]
#1: The Briscoes [25.00 pts.]
ODDS & ENDS
Some loose superlatives before we wrap up with Wrestler of the Year:
Least Favorite Match: Da Hit Squad, Divine Storm, The SAT & Mikey Whipwreck vs. Special K, Scramble Match – ROH One Year Anniversary, 2/8/2003
Worst Cameo: TIE – Jeff Hardy and Konnan
Interview/Promo of the Year: CM Punk @ WrestleRave ’03, and it’s not even close. A generational moment.
Cringiest Worked Shoot/Reality Based Moment: Gullitone LeGrande calling “Brandon” for tips on Corino/Homicide
Stable of the Year: It COULD be The Group, based on star power. It SHOULD be the Prophecy, based on longevity. But fuck that…it’s Special K, yet again!
WRESTLER OF THE YEAR
Again, this is self explanatory, so yeah.
#10: Mark Briscoe – [37.00 pts.]
#9: Jay Briscoe – [38.00 pts.]
#8: TIE – Tony DeVito / HC Loc – [41.00 pts.]
#7: Dan Maff – [44.25 pts.]
#6: TIE – Colt Cabana / BJ Whitmer – [46.00 pts.]
#5: Christopher Daniels – [48.75 pts.]
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#4: CM Punk – [53.75 pts.]
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#3: AJ Styles – [55.75 pts.]
#2: Homicide – [61.75 pts.]
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#1: Samoa Joe – [69.50 pts.]
END OF THE YEAR ANALYSIS
This was a strange year for Ring of Honor. I am totally understanding of the growing pains any company is going to face in its second year, and I am also aware that you need what happens in 2003 to set up for the incredible ride I’m apparently about to go on from 2004-2007. But this isn’t a blog post about those years, or even about company growth. This is about 2003, and that’s that. And what’s what? 2003 wasn’t really as great as I had hoped. There *are* moments of unbelievable highs like the Corino/Homicide feud, Punk’s growth, Joe’s run, the Briscoes getting it together, Bryan’s occasional appearance and AJ Styles as maybe the unquestioned best in the world.
But 2003 is also showcase to a lot of the faults and cracks in Gabe’s booking that I was afraid of going into this project. He didn’t learn all of Paul E’s bad qualities, but he also didn’t inherit all of his good qualities either. Gabe’s obsession with trying to get a Pure Wrestling division over would be admirable if he had done it with literally almost any other group of technical wrestlers around at the time. But when you center a good portion of your programming on guys like Matt Stryker, Chad Collyer, BJ Whitmer, Xavier, John Walters, etc, you can’t be shocked when the crowd rejects it as harshly as they did.
Much like it’s pseudo-predecessor, ECW, ROH has an ability to make new stars unlike any other promotion of its size (or maybe even bigger) during this timeframe. So when you’ve got guys organically getting over like Punk, Homicide, London, Cabana, you should be able to look at things logically as a booker and realize the aforementioned “Pure Wrestling” group you’re getting behind clearly do not have what these other guys have.
Thankfully, it does seem like Gabe reboots the idea of the Pure Division and lets off SOME of his obsession with “technical wrestling” as we head in to 2004, which I know sounds ironic since I’m about 2 months away from the Pure Title tournament. But that tournament features a final of AJ Styles vs. CM Punk, which is such a far cry from the Field of Honor tournament final of BJ Whitmer vs. Matt Stryker, it’s not even fucking funny. Like it actually gets me mad to see Gabe clearly knew the right way of doing things, but constantly wanted to book his obsession over what worked in these early years.
But I can’t be too mad, because like I said earlier, I’m about to go one hell of a ride in 2004-2007, and I can’t wait.
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