I had about half of a review typed up the day after the show, but never posted it. For whatever reason, I felt silly about going through each thing and critiquing it, mainly because I had an awesome time and that's what counts, I guess. Most people already know all the details, but I'll quickly hit you up with the results, followed by the highlights of the show. LET'S DO THIS ISH:
ROH IN MISSISSAUGA - 11/13/10
RESULTS + HIGHLIGHTS
QUICK RESULTS
Bobby Dempsey & Grizzly Redwood def. The House of Truth (Michael Elgin & Zach Gowen) with Truth Martini
Mark Briscoe def. Andy "Right Leg" Ridge
Sara Del Rey def. Jamilia Craft
The All Night Express (Kenny King & Rhett Titus) def. Colt Cabana & El Generico to receive a future shot at the World Tag Team Championships
Kyle O'Reilly & Adam Cole def. The Bravado Brothers
Homicide def. Jay Briscoe
The Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli) def. Kevin Steen & Steve Corino to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championships
Roderick Strong def. Christopher Daniels to retain the ROH World Championship
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SHOW
- I got there late and missed the pre-show, but I was there in time to see Eddie Edwards kick off the show with his arm completely bandaged up from the previous night. He smashed his shoulder into obliteratitry in his match with Chris Hero, which he won, and then he still wrestled in the Survival of the Fittest match later in the night, which he also won. He came out in Mississauga to tell us that he wasn't medically cleared to wrestle, because wrestlers don't stop Eddie Edwards, only doctors do. Seriously though, Eddie Edwards' physical being seems to be completely comprised of PURE MAN. And when Eddie was announcing he was not allowed to wrestle, some drunken hipster beside me was yelling out "YOU PUUUSSSSSY!!!" and all I wanted was Eddie to hear him and beat this doucher's teeth inside out with one arm. Anyway, on with the highlights.
- All of the Zach Gowen one-legged jokes floating around in the crowd ("Figure Four!! durr!" which was soon followed by "Figure Two!!" which doesn't make sense, he's only missing one leg ya dope, followed by me wondering out loud if Zach Gowen and Andy "Right Leg" Ridge should form a tag team that would have two good legs (at least I thought that was funny)).
- Michael Elgin going for a samoan drop on the big slab of dude that is Bobby Dempsey... WHILE going for a fallaway slam on Grizzly Redwood! He, uh... just fell down though. But apparently Elgin nailed this same move on the Briscoes the night before, so one outta two ain't bad.
- Andy Ridge's long, deep, cat-like scratches down his back BEFORE his match started. Why, you ask? Because the night before, Homicide back raked him so hard that he FUCKING BLED. Mark Briscoe then balanced it out by drawing blood on the kid's chest from open hand chops on the outside. You could literally feel the thud in YOUR chest from across the room every time.
- The ovation Andy Ridge received for his match with Mark Briscoe. This was the surprise hit of the night, with Ridge doing more than holding his own against the younger Briscoe. I really like the idea of these "trial series" matches. It makes you go "hey let's see how he'll do against a guy he'll probably lose to" instead of looking at the lineup and going "PFF oh well OBVIOUSLY he's gonna lose boring DURR" which I'm sure a lot of people would do, had they not set up this series of matches.
- The Kings of Wrestling bowing to the Queen of Wrestling, Sara Del Rey, on her birthday.
- Jamilia Craft's ring attire, and how she appeared to be dressed in nothing but tassels.
- Colt Cabana snagging my hat (a lumberjack style winter toque) during his entrance.
- El Generico's new all black attire, complete with a new jacket that reminds me of some kind of stoic Japanese cartoon character that should be wielding an enormous sword. Even his mask is all black (maybe it's just an inside out Generico mask, I don't know), but he looks awesome. His demeanour for the whole match is another highlight of mine, denying Colt high fives and looking like he's filled with sorrow on the apron, until he gets tagged in and the ref has to pull him off Kenny King for beating on him so hard.
- The Steen/Generico story that was the focus for the entire night. Generico's dive onto an interfering Kevin Steen (who was being swallowed up by a hoard of local wrestlers trying to contain him) was awesome, as was Cabana's anger towards Generico for constantly losing focus. Later in the night, Generico came storming through the crowd to distract Kevin Steen long enough to allow the Kings of Wrestling to retain their titles. Then, in a moment of complete D'OH by me, I ran to go pee before the main event. Little did I know, Steen and Generico were having a scary brawl all over the place and I missed it ALL. Except for when Generico whiffed past me in a rage while I came out of the bathroom. Damnit.
- Kyle O'Reilly and Adam Cole. I'd never seen these guys live before and they delivered against a crowd that was vehemently against the Bravado Brothers (there's only room for one "B" brothers in ROH, you guys!). They threw suplexes and handed out submission holds like they were that dude on the sidewalk trying to get you to come to his club called "Li3uid" or something (the 3 is a q).
- Homicide's overness. He easily got the biggest pop of the night. And the only sign of the night... if you don't count the three guys in the front row who wore matching "We love Todd Sinclair" shirts.
- The awesome, tooth and nail brawling between Homicide and Briscoe. They can tear it up BIG TIME.
- Homicide's Eddie Guerrero tribute (and, I suppose, simultaneous ODB tribute as he was wearing a Wu-Tang shirt). Homicide hit the Three Amigos and pointing to the sky, did a ton of Eddie shoulder taunts, and even won the match with the old "loosen the boot" trick. Even if that didn't make sense (it was kinda strange... he just started loosening the boot out of nowhere, Jay grabbed it, it came off, and he finished him off), it was still cool to hear a room full of wrestling fans chanting for Eddie.
- Kevin Steen's pre-match promo. He is scary good on the mic. He can elicit boos, laughs and the kinds of "OHHHH's" that you only hear when wrestling fans think you've gone too far. Yeah. Wrestling fans.
- The entire tag title match. My personal favourite of the night. The Kings of Wrestling are just untouchable when it comes to tag team wrestling, and Steen and Corino are such fun heels to boo (Corino stuck his thumb up Hero's ass when he had him in an abdominal stretch... then SMELLED it. HOW CAN YOU NOT BOO THAT?!). Special mention to Claudio's UFO (which got it's own chant!) on Steve Corino, and Corino and Steen using the Sharpshooter/Crossface combo on Hero (drawing big heat from the crowd as they denounced their Canadian hertiage before the match, as Steen declared that him being from Quebec (always gets instant heat in Ontario) made him better than us).
- Roderick Strong slamming Christopher Daniels all over the apron. I'm pretty sure there were at least two apron bumps that made me cringe.
- Strong and Daniels' chemistry in the ring. These guys can really wrestle well together, even if a lot of the crowd didn't get fully invested in this match. I was definitely into it and thought that Daniels could take the belt in a shocker, but he ended up losing.
- Seeing Tatanka, Jimmy Korderas, Arda Ocal of Right After Wrestling all in attendance, and Mark Briscoe in the beer line.
It had been a while since I'd seen ROH live, and while they didn't have a bunch of key guys (Aries, Davey, Omega, Eddie), they still put on a hell of a show. They're back in Toronto on April 30th, which I'm almost positive I'll be in town for, so I'll be there drinking beers and shouting pure hate at Truth Martini's hair.
Also, this review ended up being way more long winded than I'd planned. The more I looked through photos, the more I remembered, and the more I remembered, the more I realized how much fun I had, and the more I realized how much fun I had, the more I wrote about how much fun I had, and the more I wrote about how much fun I had, the more I felt the need to explain why this was so long winded, and here we are.
That's enough.
