ROH: SECOND YEAR ANNIVERSARY 2004

National Guard Armory
Braintree, MA
February 14th, 2004

ROH World Champion: Samoa Joe (Since 3/22/2002 - 10 Defenses)
ROH Tag Team Champions: The Briscoes (Since 11/1/2003 - 5 Defenses)

In the ring before the show, Samoa Joe is in a suit and welcomes people to the second anniversary of ROH. Eleven months ago, he took this belt from an absolute zero, a disgrace who exemplified none of the qualities that embody Ring of Honor. After he took it, he walked it around the world and defended against all those who wished to challenge him. Tonight, they crown their first ROH Pure Wrestling Champion. This night is about that title, not one that's been defended against the best in the world, but the founding of a new belt. While he's in a four way, because ONE man can't do the job. He's all for the competition, so he'll leave it at this. The only reason there's a Pure Champion is because nobody can take the World Title from him. Because is Samoa Joe. And he is pro wrestling. Weird and random way to announce the World Title is now a four way.

Elsewhere, Maff and Whitmer are there with Allison Danger. Repeat a lot of the words they said last show and more issues between them not liking or trusting each other. Maff lets it drop that the fourth man in the World Title match tonight is Low Ki and for the first time since August he’s got a chance at revenge. Whitmer jokes Ki may knock Maff out again. Danger says one of them will be walking out World Champion tonight. So I guess they amended that ridiculous booking choice? Good.

Out in the arena, “Disposable Teens” hits and MY GOD IS THAT CHRISTOPHER DANIELS?!

“Were you expecting somebody else?!”

BAH GAWD ITS CM PUNK! Punk says that he left Daniels in a heap in Ohio after Pepsi Plunging his ass through a table, ending his time in Ring of Honor. A new era begins at the second anniversary show, the era of straight edge. They're taking the credo of the Prophecy, and that's the quest for every title ROH has to offer. He starts with the pure title tonight and in Chicago on April 24th, he moves on to the Tag Titles. He mentions that Bobby Heenan negotiated Punk’s entry into the tourney and the tag title shot they’re getting in April. (However — lol — something unfortunate happens soon that prevents Heenan and many others from ever returning or even stepping foot into ROH for a while.) ANYWHO, Punk says once he has all THOSE belts, HE'S COMING FOR SAMOA JOE AND THE WORLD TITLE. YEAH!

John Walters comes out to start the match, but Punk stays on the mic. He says he knows all the Boston losers (HOW BOUT IT?!) are riding high from that recent Super Bowl win, but he's from Chicago. They kicked their ass in '86, and he'll do it again tonight.

Match #1: CM Punk vs. John Walters [Pure Title Tournament - Quarter Finals]
Remember “Above Average” Mike Sanders? But he really sucked? It should be “Below Average” John Walters because he really, REALLY sucks. Nice. Anyway, yeah I mean, I hope this tournament is the end of a lot of these vanilla charisma vacuums like Walters but I don’t know for sure. Punk is fine here but he’s not some overly skilled technician here and he never ever truly becomes that so you can’t expect him to be able to guide someone like Walters to something otherworldly. I don’t care about this. It is what it is and there’s a lot of shit to cover on this show. Punk reverses an O’Connor Roll and gets the win.
**

Match #2: Doug Williams vs. Chris Sabin [Pure Title Tournament - Quarter Finals]
This was great! It was sub ten minutes and did its intended job to get Williams over in his first ROH appearance in a long while. And I’m glad to have him back. Sabin is great in this too and has sneakily become one of My Guys in this review which I did not expect. I’ve never disliked Sabin I’ve just never been a huge fan or anything. This review is changing that. Doug gets some good work going on Sabin’s neck and keeps it focused. Sabin’s selling is totally on point. Sabin has a fired up comeback and gets a lot of believable near falls before ultimately falling victim to a missed corner attack leading to a beautifully seamless transition into a Chaos Theory. Williams wins, advances and will do battle with Punk in the semi finals.
***1/2

Backstage, Doug Williams does a promo EXTREMELY close to the camera. He says he underestimated Sabin and had more trouble than he thought. But it’s no matter. Because he’s wrestled and BEAT both Jay Briscoe and Bryan Danielson in the same night before. He’s wrestled 60 minutes with three other men for the ROH Title before. So having to wrestle these two other matches tonight is nothing to him, and nothing will stop him from winning the Pure Title. Good promo, not a single BRUV, but there was a very uncomfortable close up on his teeth which just met every single stereotype under the sun sadly.

Match #3: Matt Stryker vs. Josh Daniels [Pure Title Tournament - Quarter Finals]
You know what? No. Fuck you. Stryker won.
N/A

Match #4: AJ Styles vs. Jimmy Rave [Pure Title Tournament - Quarter Finals]
This only got around 7-8 minutes but it rocked. Styles outmatches Rave in every facet imaginable. And then even when Rave seems to have an idea of his next step, Styles just begins pulling from his TNA moveset to throw Rave off which was a nice touch. AJ seems to have this wrapped and sets up the Phenomenal DDT, but tweaks his knee on the landing. Rave hesitates to do anything, but taking AJ’s advice from previous matches, RAVE TARGETS THE KNEE! LOVE that. Rave starts getting ahead of himself and is overworking in a sense that he’s going too much instead of just focusing, and it bites him in the ass as AJ takes his head off with VERY NASTY rolling lariat to get the win! This was great. Rave’s story continues in defeat without lessening his growth, and AJ moves on and rightfully so as he is the superior talent.
***

So it’ll be Styles/Stryker in the semis.

Backstage, Jimmy Rave looks for and checks in on AJ Styles. Rave is apologetic but Styles tells him it’s okay and to not be sorry. He would’ve done the same thing and he is very proud of him.

There’s an RCX/Outcast Killaz in ring bit but I’m not gonna hold you: I don’t give a shit.

There’s a Cornette pretape. I’ve got a couple of issues with it but we’ll get to that after the breakdown. So he addresses Joe’s promo from the end of last months show and says on behalf of his client Jay Briscoe, the challenge for 3/13 is accepted in a Steel Cage Match for the World Title. However, he was able to manipulate the contract a bit, and in that match, the winner can be decided pinfall, submission OR ESCAPE, because his client isn’t above diving off the cage into the 14th row to become World Champion. And if it comes to that? Well he just may.

So first and foremost, if you’re reading these reviews, you’ve either followed ROH back in this time period or at least have a good idea of wrestling history, I am assuming. Therefore, we all know the major blow ROH is about to take in the next 30-45 days. And because of what’s coming, this is Cornette’s last appearance for over a year. So alright, that’s all in retrospect and can’t really be helped.

But there’s still a World Title match tonight that’s been built, albeit adjacently, for some time. And they’ve really teased that Joe could lose the belt. So why air this promo now? No, it doesn’t exactly give the result of tonight’s match away. BUT, it kiiiinda does give the result of tonight’s match away. Maybe just a nitpick but something that annoyed me nonetheless.

Match #5: Carnage Crew/Justin Credible vs. Special K (Izzy/Dixie/Hydro) [Country Whipping Match]
This was absolutely my shit. First and foremost, it’s an old school Memphis style brawl that goes all around ringside. The face team absolutely demolishes the heel team. Heel team gets great color. It’s just a blast. Crowd is pretty lively for it as well. The Crew start to wrap things up when Izzy gets a THATS INCREDIBLE and they set him up for a Carnage Driver. But before they can hit it, ANGEL DUST SHOWS UP IN THE AISLEWAY WITH DEVITO’S DAUGHTER! HOLY SHIT. DeVito and Credible bolt out and give chase to the back and the rest of Special K gangs up on Loc. They beat him down and then HIT THE CARNAGE DRIVER ON HIM OFF THE APRON IN REVENGE FOR WHAT LOC DID TO BECKY! They roll Loc back in and cover him to win! This RULED. Great brawl and awesome booking all around. Special K have been little weasely shit heels before this, now they’re legit big time hateable heels. That rules.
***

Backstage, Special K celebrate while still covered in blood. Izzy says the Crew ain’t got nothing on Special K. He asks where Angel Dust went and Dixie says with a laugh that he’s off taking care of another DeVito family member. Jesus.

Out in the ring, GMC is there and welcomes out Julius Smokes. GMC tells Smokes he’s here to get the scoop and he wants to know where Homicide is at. J-Train does a little singing and then says that Homicide is a ghost. He says Homicide won’t return any of his calls. But he knows what’s up. He knows that Homicide destroys people. BJ Whitmer, Samoa Joe and CM Punk, just to name a few. But Smokes is begging Homicide to stop fronting, because he knows what’s coming and so does ROH. THE ROTTWEILERS ARE COMING. YEAH YEAH YEAH. BBBBBBBDAT BBBBBBBDAT. THE ROTTWEILERS ARE COMING TO OPEN THE GATES OF HELL ON THEIR ASSES. BBBBBBBBBBBDAT. YEAH YEAH YEAH.

Match #6: CM Punk vs. Doug Williams [Pure Title Tournament - Semi Finals]
Another fantastic match! We’re cooking here baby. Williams is absolutely superior to Punk in strength and on the mat and he’s not afraid to show it. Punk manages to get Williams to the floor early and tries a tope suicida, BUT WILLIAMS UPPERCUTS HIM IN MID AIR. Williams stays on top of Punk with a bunch of quick pin attempts to throw him in a loop, and then he starts coming up with neat reversals out of everything with a laugh and it really fucks with Punk’s head. Punk finally resorts to cheap shots to get something, ANYTHING, over on Doug. Doug wants to end this quick and he’s able to hit a flash Chaos Theory. He goes up top for insurance and tries a diving knee drop, BUT PUNK MOVES AND DOUG HURTS HIS KNEE! Punk immediately goes to work on Doug’s knee and it’s really, really good. Doug’s selling, too, is exceptional. Doug works out of desperation and manages to hit a second Chaos Theory that bridges into a pin, BUT THE BAD KNEE GIVES UP DURING THE COUNT AND PUNK LIFTS HIS SHOULDER UP JUST IN TIME AND HE GETS THE PIN AND THE WIN!
***3/4

In a pretape, Steve Corino reminisces on the first two years of ROH, from his time commentating the original shows in a studio, to the wars with Homicide, and it’s all very tongue in cheek because he hates ROH and everyone in it. He doesn’t care about a “pure title” because they might as well have a sports entertainment title too. Makes him sick. He says 2004 holds nothing for him and ROH and he only cares about CM Punk, a man he idolizes and respects, even though he’s a better wrestler, in better shape, better looking, etc than Punk is. But he tells ROH to be grateful for and thank CM Punk for the house.

Match #7: AJ Styles vs. Matt Stryker [Pure Title Tournament - Semi Finals]
This is the penance I have to pay to get the run of mostly good matches I’ve gotten on this show. This isn’t terrible since AJ is leading the way, but it’s still a 20 minute Stryker match. Its flaws are in its design basically. You’ve got AJ working defense and selling, not exactly his strong suits in 2004. And then you’ve got Stryker on the offensive and, well, he just stinks. He still hasn’t figured out how to focus on a body part. He gets multiple ideas in his head he tries to execute all at once and it creates a jumbled mess in a boring package. It’s a pointless exercise at this point to go any further in dissecting it. He’s not a good wrestler and if you look at how his career panned out, this clearly isn’t just me being hard on the guy. He’s not good. Stryker eventually settles on AJ’s bad knee from his earlier match and AJ sells it a teensy bit but then hilariously stops selling it completely to do a springboard 450 splash to win. Hilarious.
**

So look, as a fan of someone who likes good wrestling, I am quite fine with this tournament leading to Punk vs. AJ. Two of my all time favorites with a limited catalogue against one another. However, I find it quite amusing that Gabe spent the last 15 months pulling his pud to this pure wrestling bullshit, overpushing guys like Stryker, Collyer, Woods and others (but mostly Stryker) only to finally get to the culmination of this whole thing, this big one night tournament, and the finals are two guys who — when I think of what Gabe’s idea of pure wrestling is — are the absolute last two people I’d think of in this company competing for the inaugural Pure Title. And it’s none of the guys he wasted so much time pushing! Good on him for course correcting, but it’s also kind of the cowards way out. But whatever. None of this will matter in a couple of shows anyway.

CM Punk does a pretape to brag about his two wins so far and vows to beat AJ in the finals to earn his first crown since he’s the uncrowned king of ROH. Then he’s coming for the tag titles and World Title. Because straight edge means he’s better than you.

GMC is in the back for intermission and HC Loc storms on flipping out about what happened in the Special K match. Loc says Devito brought his daughter to the show tonight just to keep an eye on her because his wife is in rehab. They go to the ring like they do every god damned night here to take care of Special K, because this has gone on so long. It was just about over, and then Angel Dust comes out with DeVito's daughter. They take off, and he gets beat down again. Now, Devito and Justin are gone after Special K. He doesn't want to pin them anymore, and now, they're going to kill them.

Match #8: The Briscoe Brothers (c) vs. Backseat Boyz [ROH Tag Team Championships]
This was fine. This wasn’t bad at all. Just a complete waste of one of the top acts in the company on your big anniversary show. I understand that Gabe didn’t book early ROH with WM style shows but like, maybe he should have? Because an anniversary show should have big things on it. Joe/Jay in a cage should’ve been on this show. But whatever. Mark hits a tornado DDT on Trent Acid through a table on the floor and then the Briscoes hit Kashmere with a spike Jay Driller to win and retain.
**1/2

In a pretape, SPANKY says hello. He congratulates ROH on 2 years and talks about his time in ROH fondly before saying they usually say you can’t go home, but maybe you can? HELL YEAH PLEASE COME BACK.

GMC is backstage outside of the trainers room where he says AJ is getting his knee worked on after hurting it in the tourney. He goes in to get a word but Jimmy Rave opens the door and stops him and says AJ is fine and he’ll be ready for the main event and he closes the door.

Match #9: Samoa Joe (c) vs. Dan Maff vs. BJ Whitmer vs. Low Ki [ROH World Championship]
There’s a lot going here but this definitely over delivered. Joe/Ki is obviously teased throughout the whole thing and the crowd is super into it. Maff and Whitmer really start to gel as a team here, too, so it adds another layer to the match where it sort of becomes 2v1v1. Additionally, you’ve got Joe’s beef with the Prophecy and Maff wanting to get revenge on Ki from August. So yeah, again, a lot going on. There’s a ton of good strikes and violence throughout this. Good floor sequence with Joe doing his ole kicks until Ki cuts him off. Joe takes a spill into the guard rail and gets a GNARLY cut on his hand that gushes blood. They tape it up and he keeps going but you can tell this motherfucker is hurt. From there, the match really comes down to the Prophecy guys singling out either Joe or Ki, or breaking off into pairs, with Joe and Ki fighting through them to keep trying to get at each other but falling short. It starts to get a little too theatrical, like when Joe & Ki get Maff & Whitmer in stereo dragon clutch holds and slowly look up to lock eyes. I sort of rolled my eyes there but whatever. Joe and Ki finally get their big stand off, and in a terrific call back to their 2002 match, they strip down the tape and braces and what not and get ready for a FIGHT, but just as they’re about to hit, Maff tackles Ki through the ropes and Whitmer dives at Joe. But Joe catches Whitmer and nails him with an awesome Uranage before locking on The Choke to win and retain.
***1/2

Post match, there’s another staredown between Ki and Joe before a tense handshake. And it really sucks knowing we never got their big blowoff in ROH. But I’m also kind of glad I know that instead of getting my hopes up.

Jerry Lynn sends in a pretape and brother I could not give less of a fuck. Moving on.

Match #10: AJ Styles vs. CM Punk [Pure Title Tournament - Finals]
So first and foremost, this is weird because none of the other tournament matches had the rope break rule, but this did. Makes no sense. Also, this is still revolving around having to depend on AJ selling his knee incredibly well and that’s just not something that’s going to happen. Punk is great though and AJ, other than the selling, is really good too. They both run through their rope breaks pretty early and they do well at getting over the idea of how important the rope breaks are in this style of match, which is a good touch, but again, I dunno why the whole tournament didn’t have them. This gets high paced and goes to the floor. AJ does his usual leap over the guard rail spot but Punk is on top of it and IMMEDIATELY hits a dive over the rail to hit AJ with a clothesline. Punk stays on top of AJ back inside and keeps the knee work up mostly. Styles is able to surprise Punk with a Styles Clash counter and gets a super close fall. Punk goes up top but AJ catches him and Punk falls back and hangs upside down, allowing Styles to hit a perfectly set up super styles clash. He covers for the pin, Punk has his foot on the rope, but he’s out of rope breaks, and AJ wins the belt. This got clunky at points but its highs were still good enough. Good match for the project but probably not something I’m recommending as must see.
***1/4

Post match, Styles celebrates with the belt. The roster comes out to celebrate the new champion being crowned and the second year anniversary. Samoa Joe comes out too and he gets the mic. He congratulates him and says he's spent the last year making this belt the WORLD Championship, and compared to his, that new belt means nothing. AJ gets in his face and Joe says to do his best, but remember that the reason AJ has THAT belt is because he couldn't beat him for this one. Joe leaves and AJ says this belt might not mean anything right now, but it means everything to him. AJ says Joe did beat him, but this ain't the last belt he's holding.

Colt Cabana has a pretape with another Good Times Great Memories. He goes through his schtick but I just do not care man. He sells the shoulder injury from last month. Dusty Rhodes shows up and he’s gonna team with the Carnage Crew against Special K coming up soon.

In the back, GMC again tries to ask Smokes about Homicide, and he says he really has no idea. Cloudy from Special K comes up and he says he hears Smokes has his hook up and makes the symbol for pot. Smokes asks if he wants that strawberry haze AND THEN GRABS CLOUDY IN A HEADLOCK AND SAYS NOT TO INSULT HIS INTELLIGENCE! GMC says Carnage Crew are looking for Special K members AND SMOKES YELLS TO GET HIS CRAZY ASS, WHITE BOYS! GMC runs off and Smokes yells at Cloudy that they've been robbed of their names and cultures and not to ever disrespect him. The Crew rushes in and Smokes hands him over and leaves. Devito yells to tell him where his daughter is and Cloudy says Angel Dust has her. DEVITO THEN GETS A BLOWTORCH AND A COATHANGER AND THE CAMERA MAN RUNS AWAY. JESUS. GOD YES.

NEXT MONTH: PUNK/AJ II WITH STEAMBOAT AS THE REF! JOE/JAY IN A CAGE! SAINTS/PROPHECY! DUSTY RHODES!