There was once a time when Gabe Sapolsky was viewed as more than a low-budget carny. When he was actually held in quite the high regard, even when in hindsight his performance was starting to dip tremendously. It’s officially been a decade since his perceived peak ended, with a final Booker of the Year award from the readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
But 2007 has not been kind to Sapolsky, and he admits that in hindsight. It was a year that saw one horrendous idea after another, including faction warfare (with such mesmerizing stables as the Resilience, Hangmen Three, and Vulture Squad), the split of the Kings of Wrestling (instead of Larry Sweeney recruiting both of them to channel the glory days of Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express), Takeshi Morishima losing his debut against Samoa Joe, and giving Nigel McGuinness humdrum-at-best creative direction throughout most of the year prior to winning the ROH Title (instead of just pulling the trigger at that year’s guaranteed Liverpool events 7 months earlier.)
So what exactly convinced the most astute followers of the professional wrestling business to crown Sapolsky one last time as he was clearly in burnout mode? Part of it was due to the excellent workrate still being provided by the loaded roster. But the biggest reason would be the two Quebecers that had to scratch and claw to earn their spots on the roster: Kevin Steen & El Generico.
Having put forth disappointing performances in 2005, the tandem found themselves having to further pay their dues in the rest of the underground. Generico would have to put in a sensational performance against the legendary CIMA in PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament in September 2006 to get invited back a couple months later. After getting over incredibly well in the opener at Final Battle 2006, Generico was given a do-or-die opportunity with the returning Steen, and while the pressure was on, they certainly had a more-than-fair shot to earn their spots: they were pitted against the Briscoes at Fifth Year Festival: Philly.
The match would be a show-stealer that accomplished its mission; despite being defeated, Steen & Generico fit right in with hottest tag team in wrestling at the time, earning “Please come back!” chants and in hindsight, outshining Samoa Joe’s ROH home base farewell and Morishima’s dethroning of Homicide for the ROH Title on that card.
Whether it was Sapolsky’s idea or not, he made the right final decision upon Steen & Generico returning a couple months later at This Means War II: the Briscoes would actually have a feud with the newcomers. It was a perfect matchup, because the Briscoes are irrational redneck sons of bitches that are more than willing to go above and beyond in the heat of battle (great examples being At Our Best and Motor City Madness 2006), Steen is an elite heel and promo that’s willing to do the same, and Generico is the perfect babyface also willing to do the same.
The saga would continue for the next 5 months, completely carrying the creative end of the company now that Jimmy Jacobs had just wrapped up his feud against BJ Whitmer. It started with Steen being a complete scumbag towards the Briscoes, as Mark was out due to injuries suffered at All Star Extravaganza III that forced Jay to single-handedly win the Tag Titles back from Shingo & Naruki Doi. As a result, Jay agreed to team with Erick Stevens at Fighting Spirit to battle Steen & Generico.
The No Remorse Corps would take Stevens out of the equation, only for Mark to arrive in street clothes to help his brother. The entire piece of business was yet another show-stealer, but unlike their first battle, this was now a ruthless war. Steen & Generico focused on Mark’s head injury, dropping him on it countless times. Whatever Generico would have to be so ruthless would be outweighed by Steen’s sociopathic insistence, and the healthier team would seal the victory, earning a match for the Tag Titles in the future.
The feud would be kicked up another notch in the company’s PPV debut at Respect is Earned. The Briscoes would have yet another show-stealer against Matt Sydal & Claudio Castagnoli, but the bigger news was in the post-match. As the commentators went over ROH business, Steen & Generico crashed the segment, with Steen asking when they’d get their match for the Tag Titles. This led to a WILD brawl, easily the best thing on the PPV (which included a couple other great matches such as Rocky Romero vs. Naomichi Marufuji and Morishima & Bryan Danielson vs. KENTA & McGuinness). Students couldn’t keep the action at a standstill as Generico dove to the outside, and it eventually went to the back. Once again, Steen & Generico (specifically the former) left with the last laugh, having not just gone through a grueling title defense like the champions had.
The next event would in a Boston suburb called A Fight at the Roxbury. Generico would face Sydal in a show-stealer that would be the ideal 205 Live encounter today, while Steen would face Mark in singles action. Steen kept up his shit-talking and ruthlessness, eventually winning yet another quality match by digging into his sociopathy. His post-match attempt to further maim Mark would be thwarted by Jay. On the card’s main event, Jay would unsuccessfully challenge Morishima for the ROH Title, but whatever disappointment he had would be short-lived as Steen arrived, resulting in yet another brawl between the tandems, setting up the main event for the company’s Boston return a couple months later.
However, the best piece of business for this feud from A Fight at the Roxbury wouldn’t take place at ringside, but backstage. Steen cut an incredibly promo about what he did to Mark, stating that when the event became available on DVD, he’d make sure he had a copy so he could revisit their match over and over again and use it like pornography. For ROH viewers, this was the first sign of Steen’s elite excellence on the microphone, filling a void left behind by CM Punk.
The company’s return on PPV saw Steen & Generico get their Tag Titles match at last. It would be another quality encounter, although not the show-stealer for the PPV broadcast thanks to Danielson vs. McGuinness V airing from the Domination event, nor would it be for the live Driven 2007 event thanks to KENTA vs. Danielson III. But it would still serve its purpose with Steen being driven further insane in defeat, bringing ladders to the equation in the post-match attack. This telegraphed that the next PPV would be headlined by the feud ending in the company’s first-ever ladder match.
This feud would see more than its fair share of absolutely dangerous stunts, so for that reason, it must be pointed out that on the weekend of United We Stand and Driven 2007, the wrestling world suffered its 9/11 when Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy (stage name Woman), their 7-year-old son Daniel, and then himself over a period of roughly 36 hours. In the wake of the tragedy, numerous points of speculation would be debated as to why such a tragedy unfolded, but one thing certain is that Benoit took too many bumps and chair shots to his head. More on this later.
In the wake of an unspeakable tragedy, the Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico saga would deliver an all-time classic in the main event of Death Before Dishonor V Night 1 in Boston. This was an absolutely brutal war. This went all over ringside with so many dangerous chair shots. In a move used years later at Royal Rumble 2016, Steen was pushed off the turnbuckle onto an outside table. The finish was also perfect, with Steen kicking Jay in the nuts to dump with a Package Piledriver on a ladder, further telegraphing the upcoming PPV main event. With this being a nontitle affair, Steen & Generico earned another shot, with Steen he wanted it the next time the company would visit New England 2 weeks at Caged Rage in Hartford, this time in a cage match.
Death Before Dishonor V Night 2 the following day in Philly would have a couple singles encounters to continue the feud. Mark vs. Generico was a damn good Falls Count Anywhere opener with Generico getting the victory as expected. There’d be yet another post-match brawl between the tandems. Later on the card, Jay vs. Steen would battle in a Last Man Standing match with Steen winning as expected, but this time thanks to Generico’s assistance, making them the new Punk & Cabana in the company to a degree, the self-absorbed loudmouth convincing his more jovial best friend to play dirty.
The cage match would be a bit disappointing as it lacked the heat of prior encounters, and Steen’s table bump couldn’t compare to their hardcore match in Boston. It certainly made sense for Generico to be double-teamed in the cage for the defeat, but this feud never needed a cage match; singles encounters of Jay vs. Generico and Steen vs. Mark II would’ve made far greater sense, or perhaps this card could’ve had much fresher matchups for them involving other opponents if the company’s overall creative direction wasn’t so limp.
They’d face off again the following night at Manhattan Mayhem II. For whatever reason, this closed out the show over the highly-anticipated Morishima vs. Danielson encounter. Despite Morishima vs. Danielson stealing the show and going on to win Match of the Year in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards, this chapter in the Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico saga was another excellent one, elevated by it being a 2/3 falls match. That’s because not only was the feud excelling so tremendously, but Sapolsky had come up with a rare good idea in 2007: the Briscoes had swept Sydal & Castagnoli, the Kings of Wrestling, and Austin Aries & Roderick Strong each 2-0 in 2/3 falls matches earlier in the year, so the second fall would be dramatic in future matches under this stipulation.
But Sapolsky was still burned out, and it showed with the Briscoes sweeping Steen & Generico. Some would say this is when the titles should’ve changed hands, and then the Briscoes couldn’t won them back in the feud-ending PPV ladder match. At the very least, Steen & Generico was the ONLY appropriate team to break the clean sweep streak, and had it done so, perhaps this double main event with Morishima vs. Danielson would be as highly regarded as Unified and Glory By Honor V Night 2. To say that Steen & Generico forcing the Briscoes to a third fall in the Manhattan Center would’ve been an unforgettable moment and that the match would’ve closed out in a crowd frenzy is a gross understatement. Perhaps it would’ve even turned out to be voted as the Match of the Year.
But the post-match would be the go-home segment for this saga, with one last post-match brawl involving ladders. This would be it. The next weekend of action for ROH just 3 weeks away would be the Man Up PPV, as the main event would see this saga end in the company’s first-ever ladder match. It would be the 4th opportunity at the Tag Titles for the challengers. There would be no more excuses.
Leading medical experts associated with the Sports Legacy Institute appeared Sept. 5 with Michael Benoit, father of professional wrestler Chris Benoit, to release the results of neuropathological tests that demonstrate his son suffered from a type of brain damage called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which was found in all regions of his brain.
Despite this news being fresh in everyone’s minds, as well as the mild backlash PWG got when the Benoit family tragedy was exploited to kick off a Chris Hero vs. Human Tornado feud at the 2007 Battle of Los Angeles weekend tournament, nobody seemed to bother paying attention.
For all of its excellence, the company’s first-ever ladder match was a display of stupidity in its opening portion, just one unprotected chair shot after another while all four men brawled in the crowd. For many viewers it was quite unsettling; Dave Meltzer would refuse to rate the match (and never has a decade alter) as he felt doing so would encourage such dangerous stunts in the wake of the tragedy that had taken a tremendous emotional toll on him. He did credit the match as being excellent, accurately saying it belonged in the conversation with the legendary series of ladder matches several years earlier involving the Dudleyz, Hardyz, and Edge & Christian.
In the years that have followed the Benoit family tragedy, the business has seen the in-ring death of Mitsuharu Misawa, plus the early retirements of Edge, Christian, Danielson, and Corey Graves, the first name mentioned due to neck injuries, the latter 3 due to excessive concussions. So while this ladder match was a fitting conclusion to the feud that lived up to the hype, it’s one to also learn from as all four men continue their careers. In addition, Sapolsky has publicly expressed some regret for airing the match at all, viewing it as poor taste now that all of us are far more enlightened on the subject.
Dangerous stunts would not be the only ”downside” stemming from this all-time classic ladder match. In what is arguably a nitpick, the only thing keeping the match from being a flawless masterpiece was the lack of verbal trash talk from Steen, but that can be explained away by saying that the match’s environment was not safe and conducive to allow that. It was never a boring match, but the most impressive part was Steen saving the match at the end while Jay struggled to remove the belts, selling a pitiful last hope of delaying the inevitable, which was that Steen started a fight, and he’d now be losing it alongside his best friend.
The real downside would be in the post-match. Steen teased a split from Generico by pie-facing and then immediately leaving in disgust. In hindsight, no matter that it may have been too early, the Steen vs. Generico feud should’ve kicked off right here, resulting in Steen finally completing the betrayal at Rising Above 2007 or Final Battle 2007 in the company’s last weekend of the year. Both Steen and Generico had earned main event pushes in the company, and this feud would’ve carried Sapolsky’s sagging performance. It would be a year and a half before Steen & Generico would do anything creatively interesting, instead being involved in programs that had very little redeeming value at best (most notably alongside Delirious against the Hangmen Three), and doing nothing special at all to build up to their inevitable Tag Titles victory that came way too late for Sapolsky, and then doing nothing for 4 months until feuding with the newly formed American Wolves in January 2009. (Steen & Generico could’ve eventually still ascended to the top of the tag division upon reuniting in 2010-11.)
As for the Briscoes, they would be attacked in the post-match by the newly formed Age of the Fall faction, paying off a viral marketing campaign called Project 161. The faction would turn out to be Lacey, Jimmy Jacobs, the debuting Tyler Black, and returning Necro Butcher. The segment doesn’t hold up at all and also an admitted embarrassment for Sapolsky in hindsight, as Jacobs rambled on about revolutions to justify targeting the Briscoes and the Tag Titles while hanging the bloody Jay upside down and being covered with his crimson. This turned away from fans that were live in attendance at Man Up, and when the feud finally ended a year later at Glory By Honor VII with Austin Aries involved, it was a convoluted mess that saw the saga creatively peter out. Doesn’t sound as epic as a Steen vs. Generico main event would’ve been, now does it?
To state the obvious and risk sounding redundant, the Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico not only carried Sapolsky, but turned out to be the last great feud of his career to date. Nothing in the past decade that he’s done has come close to this. Not Jacobs against Aries and Jon Moxley (better known today as Dean Ambrose.) Not anything in Evolve. Not anything in FIP. Sapolsky’s best days are clearly behind him, and he’ll never be able to generate this kind of buzz again.
It’s fitting that the final great feud of Sapolsky’s career would be one half ROH darlings, the other half not quite darlings that had to take the long route to this point. In a year that Sapolsky thought he could tap into something special from the likes of Brent Albright, Matt Cross, Ruckus, and Erick Stevens, it would be the mainstream-driven personalities, the yin and yang tandem, that would be the year’s defining breakout stars.
It was the feud that earned Steen & Generico’s spots. It was the feud that put Steen & Generico on the map. It was the feud that critically carried Sapolsky’s fallen performance as the company moved to PPV. It was the feud that saw Steen break out as one of the best mic workers in the history of the business, a skill that has been leaned on to carry significant time on mainstream cable TV every week in the past 2 years. It was the feud that saw wild brawls, numerous show-stealers, unforgettable matches, and a historic ladder match so outstanding, that the company would have to wait 9 years for another one that could even be comparable.
It was ROH in 2007. It was the year that the Briscoes, Kevin Steen, and El Generico came together and manned up to carry the company and provide a beacon of hope as everything else fell apart.
For all of the rich workrate history in the Ring of Honor vault, specifically in the 2000s decade, here’s a fact: only 3 times (in consecutive years) has the company hosted the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Match of the Year, as voted for by the newsletter’s readers.
Stop and think about that for a moment: this is the company that was home to many of the greatest in-ring performers of the early 21st Century, including Low Ki, Paul London, AJ Styles, CM Punk, Tyler Black, Claudio Castagnoli, Nigel McGuinness, and Christopher Daniels. This is also the same company that would be home to elite tag teams such as the Briscoes, Motor City Machine Guns, Kings of Wrestling, Austin Aries & Roderick Strong, and Kevin Steen & El Generico. It was the home to factions such as the Embassy and Generation Next, notorious for hot brawls and multiple-man matches.
No chapter in the Joe vs. Punk trilogy won the Match of the Year Award. Neither did the London vs. Bryan Danielson 2/3 falls match, the Cage of Death that concluded the ROH vs. CZW saga, or Punk’s epic dethroning of Aries for the ROH Title. No chapters in Danielson’s rivalries against KENTA, Joe, Styles, Aries, Strong, or McGuinness got such recognition either.
In 2005, history would be made when the iconic Kenta Kobashi came to America to face Samoa Joe, resulting in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Match of the Year. Then that would be followed up in 2006 with Do Fixer vs. Blood Generation at Supercard of Honor. However, those weren’t true ROH storyline matches. Could ROH have a match that stood on its own merit?
Of course ROH could, because the company had motherfucking future Hall of Famer Bryan Danielson on its roster. The man whose on-screen persona boasted as being the best in the world… and the fans would actually agree with him. Why wouldn’t they? He had just recently returned from injury and ended 2006 by closing the book on the greatest title reign in underground wrestling history. This was the man that was in the middle of winning 5 consecutive Most Outstanding Wrestling Awards, as well as 9 consecutive Best Technical Wrestler awards, the latter which would eventually be named after him.
But as mentioned, so many classic Danielson rivalries would never get the Match of the Year accolade from arguably the most astute viewers of the business. So it would require a formula that would sadly never be seen in WWE had Danielson gotten to face Brock Lesnar: David vs. Goliath.
Takeshi Morishima was to be the next heir to the top of puroresu hierarchy, following in the footsteps of Hall of Famers such as Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada, and Mitsuharu Misawa. Pro Wrestling NOAH was struggling to find the next #1 guy, but the expectation was that long-term, Morishima was it. So he would be sent to ROH in 2007 for an excursion, having a monstrous title reign to get over and be shown on Japanese TV as a huge star, and then return home for the throne.
Instead, this excursion would turn out to be Morishima’s peak, never panning out as the primary draw and consistent high-quality performer that had been expected. But it started off rocky when his in-ring ROH debut ended up being a shocking defeat to Joe to kick off the ROH icon’s farewell tour. That was a far from ideal booking decision (done with the hopes Joe would later return to do the honors), but it explained why Morishima was immediately ruthless going forward, dispatching of Homicide the next day to become the ROH Champion.
But Morishima took longer than expected to get over at the level of his push. While the majority of his matches delivered in the **** range against the likes of Shingo, Aries, Strong, and McGuinness, he was missing the magic of Joe, Punk, and Danielson, without the “protection” of being a clear 1A at best like Aries had been under Joe in the first half of 2005. Morishima simply was not over as a main event character, instead feeling like just another quality name on the card.
That changed in August 2007 thanks to his 4 title defenses that month. Death Before Dishonor V weekend saw his best matches in the company, first against Claudio Castagnoli, then against Brent Albright, 2 different types of powerhouses that had Morishima well scouted to a much better degree than Joe did, as well as Shingo a few months earlier. The defense against Albright was a shocking classic, serving as not just Morishima’s best singles match of his career up to that point, but Albright’s first truly quality match in the company after more than 9 generally tedious months on the roster. Both matches had electrifying atmospheres that enhanced both the champion and challenger’s stock, perfect timing with the money match of Morishima vs. Danielson just a couple weeks away.
Morishima and Danielson had some history going into Manhattan Mayhem II on August 25. Just 3 months earlier at the Manhattan Center, ROH held its first-ever PPV taping called Respect is Earned, with the main event being a dream partner tag of Morishima & Danielson vs. KENTA & McGuinness. The match was great as expected with Danielson once again making KENTA submit to the Cattle Mutilation, but the real takeaway would be in the post-match as Morishima attacked both his partner and McGuinness for daring to put their hands on the ROH Title, even with the latter being polite. Danielson & McGuinness would then team up the next month to face Morishima & Naomichi Marufufuji in another outstanding match at United We Stand; the chemistry between Morishima and Danielson certainly looked promising, but that match’s takeaway was McGuinness getting the win on Morishima to set up their rematch at Live in Tokyo.
With Morishima finally having some audience momentum, there was another perfect dynamic to when this match finally took place against Danielson. The American Dragon had stated that during his own ROH Title reign, the toll really began for him at around the 6-month mark, so he selected Manhattan Mayhem II to exploit what he viewed to be a fatigued, vulnerable champion.
Toss in that this mega match was being held at the Manhattan Center, and this had all the promise of a match for the ages. But the big question would be if Danielson would pull off the upset (McGuinness still clearly looked to be the obvious favorite to eventually dethrone Morishima), and what strategy did he have in mind for an opponent even bigger than Joe?
As for Morishima’s perspective too: how would he fare against undoubtedly the greatest challenger of his title reign 6 months deep, and having just come off the most grueling challenges to date?
With that in mind, it is now time for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter 2007 Match of the Year.
ROH Title Match
Takeshi Morishima vs. Bryan Danielson
Danielson’s strategy in this one, right from the get-go, wasn’t just refreshing, but also effective, and perhaps there was a long-term story for nobody else to do this beforehand so that’d be so special and impactful on this night, and in this match: relentlessly target the champ’s left leg.
The challenger’s early dominance was really brilliant here, throwing Morishima off and keeping him off balance, even driving him into a corner to get some forearm shots in. Never before had Morishima been challenged in this manner, and it proved Danielson’s brilliance. Nice touch also in Danielson displaying athletic swagger just like he did against Samoa Joe at Midnight Express Reunion.
After that cornering, Morishima finally picked up on Danielson’s strategy, blocking a kick and just driving the champion into a corner to deliver plenty of receipts. Unfortunately, Danielson suffered a left eye injury at this point, which would turn out to be a retina injury that as of April 2009 in Houston, had not fully healed and very likely never will. While the match quality was in no way downgraded due to the injury, it’s quite obvious that the match should’ve been stopped immediately, customer satisfaction and DVD business be damned.
Here was Danielson just 364 days after suffering his right shoulder injury against Colt Cabana, and this time putting on an equally admirable performance. Had this event not already been titled beforehand, this likely would’ve become officially known as Gut Check II. Even as Morishima dominated him on the outside, Danielson found the necessary aggression to cut him off, driving the champion into the front row, AND WITH HIS LEFT RETINA FRESHLY INJURED, taking a springboard dive into the audience, just like he had foolishly done 364 days earlier with a freshly injured right shoulder.
Danielson’s injury explains his failure to have scouted Morishima’s perfectly timed standing lariat while running the ropes, and the crowd reaction to that lariat was awesome. But Danielson still managed to avoid more of the champion’s trademark blows, kicking Morishima’s left leg again when he attempted a hip attack. He went for some great submission work, which slowed the champion when he’d make a comeback. This allowed Danielson to block Morishima’s Shotgun Missile Dropkick attempt; even as he got thrown off, he sidestepped the second attempt as the champ had delayed it due to his left leg pain.
The follow-up Stepover Toehold from Danielson was also awesome, allowing him to just moments later counter a cut off a strike exchange with a sudden Half Crab. In what had to be improvised storytelling, Morishima broke out of it by just kicking Danielson’s left side of the face. But once again, Morishima was slow to move around, allowing the challenge to block a backdrop driver attempt and go for an EXCELLENT near-fall via the Small Package! What a sensational reaction for that false finish.
These two also channeled something that’d seem likelier in a Joe vs. AJ Styles match, as Danielson ducked a lariat and hit a gorgeous German Suplex with a bridge pin for a near-fall! Had Danielson ever gotten to face Brock Lesnar, I wonder if this spot would’ve been approved as an homage and storytelling strategy. Danielson wasted no time going for the elbows to the head, but Morishima resiliently got up.
However, Morishima couldn’t actually make a comeback, collapsing on his left leg to a sensational reaction. This right here is my pick for the highlight of the match. Why is that? Because it was brilliantly safe way to tell a simple story that displayed Morishima’s vulnerability, Danielson’s technical excellence, and got over just tremendously, once against showing Danielson being one of the most psychologically cream-of-the-crop performers in the history of the business.
Danielson then followed that up with stomps to the face, but made the mistake of not just doing them until referee Paul Turner would throw the match out in his favor. Perhaps the eye injury explains that as well as some fatigue as this was more than 15 minutes into this work of art. Instead, Danielson went for the Cattle Mutilation, and once Morishima reached the ropes there dueling chants again.
Danielson made an even bigger mistake going for a Super Backdrop Suplex, which was countered with a crossbody by Morishima. Danielson didn’t have enough left, his fighting spirit immediately cut off by the champion and getting beat to the punch with a monstrous lariat, followed by the backdrop driver for the finish. And what an incredibly crazy idea: Morishima has to hit his finisher just once to get the victory.
In the post-match, Danielson disagrees with crowd telling him that he’s the best in the world, saying the ROH Champion is the best in the world, and gets thanked for his outstanding effort.
The one blemish: Morishima doing nothing when they were on the outside as Danielson set his leg up on a barricade. There should’ve been some kind of struggle and that’d have made this a perfect match, one to truly measure up to the Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer feud-ending cage match and the Briscoes vs. Motor City Machine Guns for the company’s match of the year. It’s a shame those 2 matches weren’t pimped as hard as this one was to Dave Meltzer.
With that said, this was an otherwise phenomenal match with layered storytelling, living up to everyone’s hype that had been building ever since Morishima had dethroned Homicide 6 months earlier. Once again, Danielson gets credited with the best match of a colleague’s career, while further cementing his own legacy in more ways than one. While not my pick, this was a VERY worthy choice by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter readers as the 2007 Match of the Year, and one has to wonder a decade later if ROH will ever come close to contending for that award ever again.
Rating: ****3/4
Days later on the Video Wire, footage would be shown of Danielson’s left eye clearly out of alignment, requiring emergency surgery. He would go on to miss his second consecutive Battle of Los Angeles tournament in PWG, having missed it the prior year due to his shoulder injury.
This would turn out to be the defining match of Morishima’s career, yet another feather in the cap for Danielson. With perhaps Morishima’s ROH swan song and feud-ending hardcore match against Danielson at Final Battle 2008 as the only challenger to their first-time encounter, this can comfortably be bestowed as Morishima’s greatest match in ROH. For his career, this is additionally challenged only by the work of art that actually got Morishima on ROH’s radar, that being his tag with Takeshi Rikio against KENTA & Marufuji in July 2006.
Ten years later, ROH is nowhere close to hosting the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Match of the Year, not with its current roster and booking formulas. But the company will always be able to hang its hat on the fact that it got the job done twice, at a time when it was truly the little engine that could, no TV deals, no major corporate owners, and a relationship with NOAH that when compared to modern-day NJPW, does not compare from the perspective of political power.
Who knows whether or not Bryan Danielson will come out of retirement. If he decides not to, then there will always be the poetry that he and Morishima saw the ends of their in-ring careers just 5 days apart in April 2015. There’s also always gonna be the bittersweet dichotomy looking on this match a decade later; for Morishima, so much would be expected in the big leagues, but he would never come close to such; for Danielson, so little would be expected in the big leagues, but he ended up becoming a slam-dunk Hall of Famer and a huge pioneer for underground’s overall glass ceiling.
Hyperbole, a noun, is defined as “extravagant exaggeration.”
Throughout the 21st Century, the “This is awesome!” chant along with praises such as “greatest ____ match ever!” have become overused clichés. In 2017, there is such a congestion of high-octane action and technical wizardry in professional wrestling that for all of the greatness, it becomes overwhelming and loses it meaning because there’s just too much.
Even throughout the 2000s as WWE struggled to catch up with the correct top talent pool, the underground capitalized with cream-of-the-crop stars, matches, and storylines. That was no different in the genre of tag team wrestling. While the best WWE could offer ranged from Kane & Big Show to MNM to Paul London & Brian Kendrick, all admittedly with their own positive contributions, they each in their own ways didn’t measure up to what should’ve been the absolute best tag team division on the planet considering the monopoly that the business had become.
Even in TNA, the best that could be offered were LAX and America’s Most Wanted. Once again, not bad at all, but not the fucking measuring stick, showing that TNA was failing to truly capitalize where WWE was failing.
That’s where ROH came into the picture for American wrestling fans that wanted tag team matches that could measure up to the very best of the past, something that could be compared to the Midnight Express, Rock ‘N Roll Express, Holy Demon Army, and even Paul Heyman’s collection that would light up SmackDown almost every week in late 2002.
Admittedly, ROH as well as TNA have not been immune to sloppiness in tag team wrestling. Away from the big leagues of the world, it’s a type of match that often allows itself to fall prey to just focusing on hot finishing stretches at the expense of the psychological foundations. Case in point, more often than not, tag team matches on the underground are plagued with failures to uphold established tag legalities, and usually do so without any kind of truly justifiable logic.
There are those who have a rather rigid philosophy on what tag team wrestling should be. The heels cut the ring in half, beat the shit out of a babyface-in-peril, tags to the fresher babyface get teased, and finally after at least several minutes, the weakened babyface outsmarts the heels to put himself in position for a hot tag. The fresh babyface legally entering the match is then a house of fire, with the rest of the match being a hot finishing stretch.
Such a philosophy is no doubt a tried and proven formula in tag team wrestling. In 2017, there’s nobody who adheres to such traditional foundations more than the Revival, and it’s cemented them as one of the absolute best tag teams on the planet. With that said, is it possible that the plotting of a tag team wrestling match can have some variety? After all, not every movie follows the same storytelling formula, and if they did, would it still prove to be effective?
There are times when a different formula has been utilized, and the results have been tremendous. A decade ago, there was no tag team in the world better at displaying this than the Motor City Machine Guns of Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley. Formed in 2006, the 2 individuals had found their grooves in each other, with Sabin particularly finding a persona with some pizazz for once. Anyone who appreciates the Shield and the Revival owes themselves to revisit the original run of MCMG.
No better example would be provided than when for one night only, the MCMG got booked against the Briscoes in Ring of Honor. The match was first teased when the reigning Zero-1 Max International Lightweight Tag Champions made a surprise appearance in their hometown on WrestleMania 23 weekend, catching the newly crowned Jay Briscoe off-guard.
April 28 in Chicago thus became a must-see event before it was even announced that it would be Colt Cabana’s independent wrestling farewell. Anyone who had seen MCMG’s work against Apollo 55 or even in PWG against Cape Fear, Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs, and Chris Bosh & Scott Lost knew that this match was gonna be something special.
Prior to the event that would be named Good Times, Great Memories, many ROHbots would claim that the Briscoes’ third matchup against ROH Tag Champs Austin Aries & Roderick Strong at Unified was the greatest tag match in company history. To be honest, that’s arguably hyperbole. While the match excelled in a non-traditional formula, instead being a back-and-forth spectacle, it had a slight failure in tag legality adherence. With that said, the match was so sensational thanks in large part to the Liverpool crowd that such a flaw was barely a blemish, a rarity for a tag match to overcome such a plot hole to the most analytical of viewers.
It could be argued that Aries & Strong’s collision 3 months later against KENTA & Davey Richards at Honor Reclaims Boston deserved the claim of ROH’s greatest tag team match. The last MOTYC for ROH in 2006, it was performed at an insane level, sustaining the action as well as tag legality adherence in a collective performance right on par with the 2003-05 body of work involving KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji in NOAH. To say the match had a flaw would seem the slightest nitpick, but even so, the nod of the greatest tag match in ROH history belonged to a gem from 2005.
Simply put, the nod had to go to Low Ki & Samoa Joe vs. Homicide & Kenta Kobashi in the main event at Unforgettable in October 2005. With the ONLY flaw being a not-quite-hot reaction to the finish, the match was a blistering masterpiece. From Joe and Kobashi picking up from their phenomenal singles match the night before, to Joe and Homicide reigniting their on-again, off-again feud, to Ki trying to use his quickness to overcome the stronger, more successful Kobashi, to Ki and Homicide finally colliding in an ROH ring, the match was truly breathtaking. From the tag legality adherence to the amazing pacing to the Ki vs. Homicide dream portion living up to the hype to even Joe and Kobashi having a distant stare down on the outside, the match felt belonging on a stadium stage, not a Philadelphia armory. The match was also elevated by the fact that Joe and the Rottweilers were able to put aside their on-screen ROH politics for one night. They knew what an honor it was to be involved in such historic matches on Kobashi’s resume.
It would be over a year and a half before Ki & Joe vs. Homicide & Kobashi would finally be topped for the distinction as the greatest tag team match in Ring of Honor history. It would take something perfect. It would take the two best tag teams in the entire world. It would need what was missing from Unforgettable and Honor Reclaims Boston – the ROH Tag Titles on the line.
The stars were aligned. It was a historic night, considered by many in the company as the end of an era due to a game-changing business decision about to become public. It had been a very good event so far in the Frontier Fieldhouse in Chicago Ridge, including a terrific inter-promotional puroresu dream match for the ROH World Title between Takeshi Morishima and Shingo. But the Briscoes and the Motor City Machine Guns were set out with one mission: to be the dominating topic of discussion coming out of an epic night in the Windy City.
And now, the match along with the review.
Tag Titles – Dream Match
Briscoe Bros. vs. Motor City Machine Guns
Note: the above video has none of the traditional but effective post-match.
Before the match starts, Chris Sabin mocks Mark’s recent injury, so the two of them begin the match. One of the major takeaways from this match is that teaming with Alex Shelley brought swagger to Sabin that had taken several years. Sabin truly felt like a legitimate star in this match, at a level he could never reach on his own, and moving on with the same kind of confidence sometimes as the man that had inspired Shelley, that being Chris Jericho.
While this was far from a traditional type of tag team match seen during the heyday of Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat, this belongs in that conversation. Perhaps an MCMG staple considering prior work in PWG, tag legalities were never an issue, which was refreshing. This truly felt like a major league match from every angle, belonging in WWE or NOAH a decade ago as a result of the work, storytelling, timing, and tag legality adherence.
In a surprise, the totally babyface Briscoes would be the first to gain a lengthy advantage, cutting the ring in half on the cocky Shelley. Despite the roles not being typical, this was totally engaging, even though Shelley was far from sympathetic like Ricky Morton was in popularizing the FIP role in a tag match. Perhaps this was engaging not just because Shelley is capable of selling at length even though he’s more natural as a cutthroat douche-bag heel, but it was a bit of karma for most of the time Shelley had spent in ROH from 2004 to 2006.
Shelley wasn’t sympathetic at all in this match, in fact tricking Jay by playing the faux mercy card like Ric Flair before spitting water in his face. MCMG were also terrific in consoling each other, adding to their default heel roles for the match. This is probably why when Sabin got tagged in, it wasn’t treated as a hot tag but he was definitely on point with his offense on Mark. This would lead to MCMG cutting the ring in half on Mark, which was also a splendidly effective segment, complete with Shelley blowing his snot on the younger Briscoe.
Shelley mixed in a Jericho homage with a Quebrada and “King of the World” pose before tagging in Sabin. Their crisp double-team offense was so smooth and capped off with the two marking out over their work, coming across as total stars. Why exactly were they paying dues still on the underground instead of killing it against the Hardy Boys and Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin a decade ago?
Mark’s hot tag to Jay didn’t get a memorable reaction but that was fine since MCMG didn’t work their control segments quite like the Revival. Instead at this point, the rest of the match was amazing stretch of action. Shelley prevented the Briscoes from playing the numbers advantage on Sabin, yanking Jay out. Instead MCMG would have the advantage on Mark, taking turns on him as he was in the Tree of Woe, then tossing Jay out to deliver stereo suicide dives on the champions.
MCMG’s advantage on Jay was short-lived thanks to Mark, who failed to break a Texas Clover Leaf with karate chops, instead being placed in the Border City Stretch, but then breaking it and saving his brother. Shelley would be taken out, allowing the Briscoes to take advantage on Sabin but he still broke up a near-fall attempt. He then saved Sabin again, this time with fingers to Jay’s eyes, just pissing off the older Briscoe. With Shelley taken out again, that made Sabin prone to more Briscoes double-teaming.
Sabin would make a comeback by evading a spear from Jay, taking him down with a Tornado DDT and kicking Mark while in the air. That allowed a hot tag to Shelley, who almost saw his momentum backfire when Jay reversed his crossbody. This only fueled Shelley to be a house of fire on the champions, but would then get crotched on the top rope. Whatever Jay had in mind to take advantage was for naught, as Shelley gave him a Super Manhattan Drop. Shelley then had Sabin jump off him to dropkick Mark off the apron, only further making a program against the Hardyz at the time all the more appetizing.
MCMG once again brought their crisp double-teaming back into the match on Jay. Their chemistry was truly state-of-the-art here, completely polished above every tag team in the business a decade ago. Jay would finally get a hot tag after avoiding corner moves and ramming Sabin’s head into Shelley’s crotch via a drop toe hold. Mark was an awesome hour of fire himself, but Shelley still had plenty of gas left in the tank to tag in Sabin, who immediately ate an Overhead Uranage Suplex. With Shelley knocked off the apron by Jay, the champs double-teamed sabin for another terrific near-fall after an assisted neckbreaker.
Shelley delayed Mark on a Springboard Doomsday Device attempt, allowing Sabin to clothesline Mark in midair, then giving Jay a Reverse Hurricanrana. Mark continued taking punishment, including an assisted Standing Shiranui for an awesome near-fall. Sabin assisted Shelley with a top rope splash but Jay made the save. Chicago then erupted and with good reason because this is fucking fantastic shit.
Mark blocked Shelley’s Air Raid Crash attempt and the Briscoes took turns with dives to the outside on the challengers to another brief round of applause. “This is awesome!” breaks out for obvious reasons as Shelley blocks Jay’s double underhook piledriver, not once, but twice (the second time with a back heel to Jay’s face); likewise Jay blocked a superkick and delivered a Military Press Death Valley Driver, which was then followed up by Mark with an outstanding timed Shooting Star Press. That’s masterfully broken up by Sabin and Chicago is on its feet as ROH chants break out.
The action continues between Jay and Sabin, hot and heavy as has been the trend in this match. Jay gets taken out so Sabin looks to go for a moonsault on Mark, but that proves near-fatal. Mark goes for a Super Cutthroat Driver, only for Shelley to strike him from behind, forcing the younger Briscoe to eat a Doomsday Missile Dropkick, superkick, and Air Raid Crash for a fucking phenomenal Holy-fucking-shit-why-didn’t-I-fly-to-Chicago-to-experience-this? near-fall.
Shelley cannot believe that was a near-fall, but wastes very little, instead hitting the Shell Shocked (Sister Abigail) on Mark, but Jay comes to the rescue just in time. Sabin yanks Jay out as Shelley goes for a Shiranui on Mark, but he gets driven into the turnbuckle, and a cutthroat driver is yet another excellent near-fall. Shelley showed tremendous grit here, having to kick out as Jay kept Sabin from the save. As the crowd continued erupting, Jay took Sabin out with an Irish Whip to a barricade, allowing the champions to retain when Shelley ate a simultaneous combination of guillotine leg drop and Cutthroat Driver. Holy shit this was exhausting for all the right reasons.
All four men obviously get a post-match standing ovation, and why not? This is in the conversation for the absolutely greatest match in Frontier Fieldhouse history, right up there with Joe vs. Punk II, Danielson vs. Strong II, and Do Fixer vs. Blood Generation. The respect has been earned, with the fallen challengers taking a moment in front of the crowd as there are “Please come back!” chants. Damn right we need more of this, Chicago. The MCMG shake hands and then grab the belts away, opting to snap them on the champions for such a well-deserved victory, then all four pose together, knowing they put on a masterpiece for the ages.
There is no debate: with this match having no flaws, building to its finishing stretch, top-notch tag legality adherence, engaging control segments, and tremendous character work as well, move over Low Ki & Samoa Joe vs. Homicide & Kenta Kobashi; this is the greatest tag match in ROH history.
That the greatest tag match in ROH history wasn’t just a special attraction, but for the Tag Titles, only further enhanced the prestige of the championship. The MCMG gave absolutely everything to win the big one and earn full-time returns, and Shelley had to be extra motivated considering how much tenure he had in the past without ever winning gold.
There have been quality tag matches aplenty in ROH up to this point. As mentioned, there was the previous greatest tag match in ROH’s history, that being the main event of Unforgettable. There was the third chapter in the Briscoes against Aries & Strong when the company makes its UK debut at Unified. There was the company’s Beantown return when Aries & Strong collided against KENTA & Davey Richards in a match belonging on a much grander NOAH stage.
To say that this chef d’ouevre belonged on a major league stage is an understatement. Fuck that.
This match should’ve taken place 4 weeks earlier in front of what would’ve been an incredibly partisan crowd in favor of MCMG. This belonged in front of approximately 80,000 spectators inside Detroit’s Ford Field at WrestleMania 23. That is the biggest compliment given to any ROH match up to this point. Think of all the works of art that covers.
Perhaps since then this match has been topped as the greatest tag team contest in ROH history. It certainly wasn’t anything the Wolves would do, for even their best match had obvious flaws. It wasn’t the dream match that would come later for MCMG, for that would have a shitty finish. Maybe it was the Manhattan Center contest for these same titles when ROH got brought back into the inter-promotional game in May 2014. However, although yours truly has yet to see that match, it’s difficult to imagine it as surpassing the first-ever meeting between the Briscoes and Motor City Machine Guns, for while it has been universally praised as a terrific match, it has not been so in terms of an all-time classic that deserved consideration for the Wrestler Observer Match of the Year. This definitely deserved that.
Is this ROH’s match of the year over Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer, the greatest cage match in ROH history? To say with confidence would be a lie, but leaning towards yes. We shall see if this is topped by anything else, including what ending up winning the Wrestling Observer Match of the Year.
Rating: *****
There will always be the debate on what is the greatest tag team match in Ring of Honor history. But for this viewer’s money, for all the analysis that this viewer puts into tag team wrestling, nothing else in the ROH catalog measures up to the first encounter between the Briscoes and Motor City Machine Guns as they went to war for the prestigious ROH World Tag Team Championships.
With ROH’s priorities having drastically changed since 2011, don’t expect this to ever be topped for what it truly is:
Not just the greatest tag team wrestling match in Ring of Honor history, but also the greatest underground tag team wrestling match of the 21st Century to date, and neck-and-neck with the 2/3 falls match between the Revival and DIY at NXT Takeover: Toronto as the greatest North American tag team wrestling match of the 21st Century to date.
For any aspiring wrestlers, this is required viewing, as not only will it further inspire you, but more importantly, you will learn from it. You will learn that you don’t have to always follow the traditional, tried-and-true formula of tag team wrestling to truly earn “This is awesome!” chants and put on a theatrical masterpiece for the ages.
And that, my friends, is far from extravagant exaggeration.
Briscoes vs. MCMG @ Good Times, Great Memories also available on the following compilations:
Briscoe Brothers: Baddest Tag Team on the Planet
Alex Shelley: Made in Detroit
The biggest annual spectacle in all of professional wrestling came to the Motor City a decade ago, honoring the 20th anniversary of WrestleMania III, the show that catapulted the brand into the end-all, be-all that it has been for the past 3 decades, and will continue being for the foreseeable future.
There’s a bit of an irony for the most ardent fans of professional wrestling over the past 3 decades. On that magical night 30 years ago at the Pontiac Silverdome, Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant would get the marquee. Once the VHS release was available, it was those 2 icons face-to-face all over the front cover and other various merchandise.
But on that same event, it would be Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat that stole the show, putting on one of the company’s greatest matches of the 1980s, and undoubtedly the first all-time classic contender in the history of the IC Championship.
Now fast forward 20 years. WrestleMania 23 would have more quality matches than the show it was paying homage to. But there are some slight similarities to that weekend. The key attraction would be a Battle of the Billionaires pitting Donald Trump’s Bobby Lashley against Vince McMahon’s Umaga, with the losing billionaire getting his head shaved bald. Steve Austin would be thrown in as the guest referee, adding yet another marquee layer to a match that would go on to draw historic business, just like Hogan vs. Andre 2 decades earlier.
But as mentioned, Savage vs. Steamboat that would be the talk for purists coming out of the Pontiac Silverdome in 1987. It was the match that cracked the first door open for workrate in WWE and inspired many future pro wresters to enter the business, most particularly Chris Jericho.
Now with that said, the Savage vs. Steamboat of WrestleMania 23 weekend didn’t take place at Ford Field. That’s not to say that particular event was missing excellent matches. In fact, it had 3 genuine classics on it, with the 3rd annual Money in the Bank ladder match serving as a contender for the annual event’s best opener ever, Batista and Undertaker colliding in a true battle of heavyweights, and John Cena having his best match of a stellar 2007 to close out the show against Mr. WrestleMania himself, none other than Shawn Michaels.
Yet though, none of those 3 instant classic could truly claim to be the greatest match of the magical weekend in Detroit a decade ago. No, that honor belonged to something far more graphic, far more malicious, far more emotional, in front of an audience only a fraction of the size that would be at Ford Field 24 hours later.
For the second consecutive year, Ring of Honor would lay claim to the greatest match in the home of the year’s greatest weekend. But it would not be a technical wrestling classic such as Roderick Strong putting the FIP Title on the line against former Generation Next teammate Austin Aries, or even a long-awaited singles match in the company against other former GeNext teammate Jack Evans. Those were tremendous matches too, but they weren’t the best.
Nor would the greatest match of the weekend be delivered by Dragon Gate. The Team Dragon Gate vs. Team ROH at All Star Extravaganza III would fail to come anywhere close to Generation Next vs. Blood Generation a year earlier to the date at Dragon Gate Challenge. Not even Typhoon and Muscle Outlaw’z at Supercard of Honor II could come close to the timeless masterpiece that won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter 2006 Match of the Year, that being Do Fixer vs. Blood Generation at Supercard of Honor.
That honor would belong to what is a decade later, the greatest cage match in ROH’s 15-year history. That would belong to the conclusion of a saga that had spanned 2 years between former Tag Champions Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer. It was a match that when considering the 2-year preface prior to the team’s formation, was actually 4 years in the making.
This is the story of ROH’s greatest cage match ever. This is the story of the greatest match in the rich history of classic gimmick matches between Jacobs and Whitmer. This is the story of how the strangest, most unforeseen circumstances blossom into true beauty. This is the story of how one man saved his ROH tenure when booker Gabe Sapolsky failed both him and the Tag Titles in a glaring black eye to an otherwise tremendous 2005 for the company. This is the story of how a relentless creep won the heart of the sociopathic valet that had exploited him. This is the story that paid off with the greatest match in the careers of both Jacobs and Whitmer. This is the story of the Savage vs. Steamboat of WrestleMania 23 weekend.
This is the complete saga of what ROH dubbed as A Decade in the Making: The Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer Story when it released a compilation of the feud in recent years.
The Preface
No story truly begins with a Chapter 1. Like most members of the animal kingdom, this saga was first a figurative fetus.
This journey all started at The Epic Encounter on April 12, 2003, just 3 months after Whitmer had the year’s most impressive debut in a classic four-way against Paul London, Homicide, and Colt Cabana at Revenge on the Prophecy. While this particular show is most remembered for this writer’s pick as the greatest match to ever take place in an ROH ring, that being the flawless piece of art of London colliding against Bryan Danielson in a 2/3 falls match, something else important took place.
On that night, Whitmer would face CM Punk, while Homicide would battle Christopher Daniels. In the former, Punk would suplex Whitmer off an apron through a table. In the latter, Dan Maff would disband Da Hit Squad (winners of the “first ever match” in ROH history) and join the Daniels-led Prophecy, doing the T-shirt gimmick used by Dusty Rhodes when the American Dream joined the nWo at Souled Out 1998.
In the months to follow, Punk was completely unapologetic about what he did to Whitmer. He didn’t intend to hurt Whitmer that way, but it wasn’t anything he was losing sleep over. Meanwhile, Punk and Daniels would collide in a four-way involving Jimmy Rave and Frankie Kazarian at Do or Die. This was the first time that Punk and Daniels went at it in ROH, and teased a possible future collision between the Prophecy and Punk’s Second City Saints. On the next event, Punk’s attitude about Whitmer would lead to Punk & Cabana against Raven & Whitmer, then Raven would team with Daniels after that.
Important to mention is that everything so far through Punk & Cabana vs. Raven & Whitmer took place before Jacobs even stepped foot in ROH. His debut would finally come the same night as Punk & Cabana vs. Raven & Daniels at Wrestlerave. The debut of Jacobs would be quite poetic, as it’d be against Whitmer, the debuting Alex Shelley (a fellow Michigan native and common partner/opponent of Jacobs), and Tony Mamaluke. Jacobs would spend the rest of his 2003 tenure in the company being a pure curtain-jerker.
Meanwhile throughout the rest of 2003, seeds were being planted for a major Whitmer push, which certainly didn’t seem warranted at the time and don’t all these years later reflecting on that period. Punk’s girlfriend Lucy (aka Daffney) would be attacked by an unknown party at Wrath of the Racket. This would cause Punk to go crazy as he engaged in the Feud of the Year against Raven.
It paid off at Final Battle 2003. Whitmer lost a dreadful Field of Honor final against Matt Stryker, further making what would come later in the evening even more questionable. After Samoa Joe finished off Mark Briscoe and then proved his alpha dominance over Punk, the future Hall of Famer went insane, no longer patient for Lucy’s attack to finally be revealed.
It would be Whitmer and Daniels revealing themselves as the culprits. Maff was surprisingly left out of the attack and was upset that Daniels had done this without his knowledge, for he had spent the prior 4 months swearing the Prophecy had no involvement. Like would come 13 years later for the Wyatt Family, Maff saw himself playing the Luke Harper role to Whitmer’s Randy Orton role. On the next event, the Prophecy trio of Maff, Whitmer, & Daniels would collide against the Second City Saints of Punk, Cabana, and their trainer Ace Steel. The Saints would win the battle, and Punk sent a message loud and clear when Daniels ate a Pepsi Plunge through a table; thou shall not fuck with Punk’s heart.
(Note: instrumental version used by Maff & Whitmer not currently available online.)
Maff & Whitmer along with Allison Danger had to keep the Prophecy fort down as Daniels nursed his injuries. But unforeseen circumstances entered the picture when ROH owner Rob Feinstein would infamously be caught in an Ephebophilia sting; TNA drew the line for a number of talents to choose which company to stick with, and Daniels chose TNA.
Maff, Whitmer, & Danger would continue feuding with the Second City Saints, even winning the Tag Titles from the Briscoes but losing them that same night to Punk & Cabana at Round Robin Challenge III; meanwhile, Jacobs was betrayed by Shelley in a scramble tag a month before Generation Next’s formation. Then right after that faction’s formation, the Prophecy agreed to retire their faction name but stick together; however, Maff & Whitmer were done with Danger, who wouldn’t let go of the Prophecy era.
Maff & Whitmer would lose a classic hardcore match against Punk & Steel at Death Before Dishonor II Pt. 2. In the meantime, Jacobs continued battling against Generation Next, going against Shelley in singles or having show-stealing trios matches. Jacobs displayed true grit and determination despite amusingly doing the “Huss” routine as an homage to Bruiser Brody. In particular, Jacobs would have a tremendous, vastly under-appreciated I Quit encounter against Shelley. (Why is it forgotten? Because it fell on the event known as Joe vs. Punk II.)
Maff & Whitmer would eventually win a feud against the Carnage Crew in another plunder match at Final Battle 2004. Things then got interesting on the Third Anniversary Celebration week for what was about to come. Maff & Whitmer captured the Tag Titles from the Havana Pitbulls on Pt. 1, then retained them on Pt. 2 of that anniversary week against Delirious & Jacobs. Once again, Jacobs showed some quality grit in defeat.
Maff & Whitmer would have one other title match against Cabana & Nigel McGuinness at Back to Basics. That would be the final ROH match ever in Maff’s career. A dozen years later, the only thing gathered is that Homicide had Maff black-balled from the company; everything beyond that has just been rumor. Thankfully that would be put behind them years later as Maff was welcomed back into the business; as for ROH, the storyline explanation was that Maff was in a severe automobile accident. On that same card in the main event, Punk & Brian Kendrick, thanks to Stevie Richards interference that would never pay off likely due to WWE stonewalling, lost a Tag Titles shot match against Pure Champion Jay Lethal & Samoa Joe.
This created an opportunity as the Tag Titles became vacant.
The Team
ROH wasted no time in crowning new Tag Champions, and looking back a dozen years ago, that was a good thing for a couple reasons. The division was very thin, as the Briscoes had been gone since August 2004 due to Mark being in a legitimate automobile accident. In addition, Trios Tournament had just taken place, so another tournament would’ve been overkill, especially because New Japan wanted ROH to host one of their tournaments.
Of note is that everything that’s about to follow all the way to Supercard of Honor II came incredibly close to never happening. Jacobs badly needed a ride from Michigan to New Jersey, and it’s thanks to Jake Ziegler that he made it in time for Best of American Super Juniors Tournament (eluded to Ziegler’s review of the show a dozen years ago.)
New champs would be crowned at the event known as Best of American Super Juniors Tournament. Lethal & Joe were automatically in the match; Whitmer was told he could pick anyone to be his partner, so he chose Jacobs based on his effort a couple months earlier. Lethal & Joe vs. Jacobs & Whitmer was a totally forgettable match with all kinds of glaring errors, but what mattered was the result: Whitmer was once against Tag Champs, that time with Jacobs.
This title reign couldn’t have started any better. ROH made its historic Manhattan debut at the critically-acclaimed Manhattan Mayhem, an event featuring one show-stealing match after another. Jacobs & Whitmer were not immune to that, having an incredibly well-received title defense against Jack Evans & Roderick Strong. It was a nice battle of little guy and bigger/stronger vs. little guy and bigger/stronger; the only thing that would’ve made it even better was if GeNext had played true heel, forcing Jacobs to play the babyface in peril just like in their battles the year before.
From that point, the Jacobs & Whitmer tandem was honestly a disaster. Neither one of them should be blamed for that. As mentioned, the division was fucking thin. Evans & Strong already got their shot. The Havana Pitbulls were never that strong to begin with thanks to the weaker link known as Ricky Reyes, but they couldn’t be used since the stronger link of Rocky Romero was now under the Black Tiger persona in NJPW. Besides Carnage Crew and Dunn & Marcos (for modern-day fans, think of the Ascension and Shining Stars as the best comparison, albeit with a bit more charm), there was little to grab on to. Special K had just blown up, with Dixie & Azrieal then being forced to split by losing to the Lacey’s Angels tandem of Izzy & Deranged. Even then, those teams were total scrubs.
To be honest though, the first few years of ROH’s history was always thin on tag teams. The lineage was overall quite lousy until the end of 2005. Whether it was the teams chosen to be champions just not bringing enough to the table, not the greatest challengers being available, or just outright poor directions, tag team wrestling could never be seriously looked at as a strength in ROH. That would be no different for Jacobs & Whitmer.
It didn’t help at all that Carnage Crew got a coffee cup run with the titles in July 2005. Their lone defense at Fate of an Angel was one of the worst matches held by ROH that year. It was a fucking disaster, and did nothing to strengthen Jacobs & Whitmer. Looking back, one wonders if that dreadful title defense by Carnage Crew led to their departure the next month.
Even with a second run with the belts, Jacobs & Whitmer couldn’t catch a break. They got quality challengers when the white-hot, newly-crowned James Gibson teamed up with Brian Kendrick at Punk: The Final Chapter… only for Kendrick to throw the match away when he superkicked Gibson as the match was still ongoing. While that spoke volumes to elevate the ROH Title’s prestige, what exactly did that say about the Tag Titles?
Jacobs & Whitmer continued to flounder as Tag Champs. There was no interesting direction whatsoever with them. There probably isn’t even one that could’ve been taken in 2005. So it was decided to move the belts over to the illustrious tandem known as Tony Mamaluke & Sal Rinauro. And this happened on the historic event known as Joe vs. Kobashi. But before you the reader start laughing, groaning, etc., it gets even better.
In September 2005, Lacey had been shown at ringside for various matches, scouting varies wrestlers to be recruited into Lacey’s Angels. One of those matches happened to be an otherwise totally meaningless four-way pitting Whitmer against Joe, Reyes, and the debuting Adam Pearce. (Well, if one is a total Pearce mark, then that match has extra significance. How many of those people actually exist?)
If Jacobs & Whitmer vs. Mamaluke & Rinauro was yet another disaster on the night saw company icon Samoa Joe collide against first-ballot HOFer Kenta Kobashi, there are no words to explain what happened the next night. It would be Gibson’s farewell, as well as Joe teaming with Low Ki to battle Homicide & Kobashi. So this was certainly yet another night in which was EXTRA important to make a good impression.
Instead, live reports of Jacobs & Whitmer vs. Izzy & Deranged from Unforgettable were absolutely scathing. So scathing, such a shit show in fact, that the match and its very important angle got completely removed from the DVD release. Instead, the angle was filmed as a backstage segment for the DVD. Lacey fired Izzy & Deranged and introduced the new Lacey’s Angels of Jacobs & Whitmer, who mugged the jabronis.
The new Lacey’s Angels of Jacobs & Whitmer were a slight improvement to the pre-Lacey team, but still lacked anything special. It was interesting to see her berate the two when they didn’t live up to her standards, while both incredibly arrogant and ignorant on her part considering that Maff & Whitmer the year before gotten Allison Danger planted by Homicide with a Kudo Driver. However, that was before months before Lacey came into the fold, so that explains her ignorance, while obviously not excusing it, as she should’ve done her homework before taking on these two as her clients.
The Feud
This arrogance by Lacey would prove crucial. In a backstage segment at Buffalo Stampede for the DVD release, she buried Jacobs & Whitmer as being dipshits (although not in words that arrogant, but arrogant enough.) By January 2006, this segment would come into play as the DVD release was now available.
Before that segment would come into play, Jimmy Jacobs would save his ROH tenure. Now look back at everything chronicled about this team of Jacobs & Whitmer so far. Look at how weak the Tag Titles had been booked during the first 3 years of their existence since their inception at Unscripted. Look at how pathetically booked Jacobs & Whitmer were as Tag Champs. Now add in how tremendous Jacobs had been beforehand playing the FIP against Alex Shelley and the rest of Generation Next.
For whatever reason, booker Gabe Sapolsky felt it was “do or die” time for Jacobs. (This wouldn’t be the last time Sapolsky so foolishly put incredible talents like Jacobs in this position, as something similar would happen the next year for the returning Kevin Steen & El Generico.)
Even though Jacobs didn’t deserve to be in such a position by Sapolsky, it led to his defining role, storyline, and match of his career.
In a segment released on the ROH Videos web site and then on the Hell Freezes Over DVD release, Jacobs sent in a video declaring his love for Lacey. It was amusing albeit slightly alarming, for his valet had shown no signs of attraction whatsoever, only proving herself to be a sociopath that saw him as nothing more than a commodity.
This situation would come to blows at Tag Wars 2006 and Dissension. On the former, Jacobs, Whitmer, & Pearce would lose an incredibly fion trios opener against Jack Evans, Jimmy Yang, & Matt Sydal. There were deep communication breakdowns thanks to Jacobs focusing way too much on Lacey, and Whitmer lit into them at the end of that show, citing her Buffalo Stampede promo. On the latter show, Jacobs would cost the team the Tag Titles against Austin Aries & Roderick Strong due to once again focusing too much on Lacey. Whitmer dropped him afterwards with an Exploder suplex, then warned Lacey at the end of the show about what happened to Danger in the past when she confronted him.
Looking back, it’s s shame this split happened a month before the Briscoes returned. It turns out that a Briscoes vs. Jacobs & Whitmer match never happened without any other teams involved. But perhaps the schedules simply didn’t permit this dream match to happen, as Jacobs vs. Whitmer had to happen in late March, while all four men wouldn’t appear on the same card until 3 weeks after that. It just wasn’t meant to be.
Jacobs was off ROH for the next couple months until WrestleMania 22 weekend, so Whitmer was inserted into the ROH vs. CZW feud. Looking back, it’s amazing that for a wrestler with as little charisma, character, and personality as Whitmer, would be involved in the 2 greatest storylines of 2006. But he played his roles perfectly; with that said, there’s an argument that despite the end result, this was a miscasting when looking at the foundation of the performers involved and their history in ROH.
What if instead of Jacobs become a total creep that lusted for Lacey, he had an innocent crush on her and she completely rejected him, sticking Whitmer on him? While Jacobs was an unproven promo in ROH prior to 2006, Whitmer was proven to be a bad one. Meanwhile, Jacobs was proven to be a tremendous underdog against Generation Next, and thrived with an I Quit MOTYC against Shelley. Imagine Jimmy Jacobs not only as the underdog against the bully Whitmer and sociopathic Lacey, but as ROH’s “sacrificial lamb” in the war against CZW. How badly would Jacobs have been rag-dolled by the likes of Super Dragon in such a role?
Nonetheless, what was delivered in reality paid off tremendously. Jacobs would top his online promo, this time putting together a music video that would become his theme music throughout the rest of the year and be included on the Best in the World 2006 DVD release.
This was a hot piece of viral storytelling, getting quite the attention 11 years ago on Myspace and various message boards. Jacobs had been gone for 2 months, but thanks to this music video, springboard himself up the roster just days before ROH came to his home state of Michigan to kick off the company’s first-ever triple-shot with a night of action in Detroit on WrestleMania 22 weekend.
What unfolded at Dragon Gate Challenge would be an excellent match between Jacobs and Whitmer. While the terrifying powerbomb botch would be most remembered and also serve as a key storytelling component for the rest of the feud over the next year, this was a tremendous battle, with Whitmer finding an opponent that perfectly complimented him. But Jacobs shouldn’t get all the credit, as Whitmer did a tremendous job selling the offense of Jacobs. In turn, Jacobs was tremendous in his over-infatuation with Lacey at ringside, often not going for the kill that she wanted from him on his former partner.
Jacobs would have Whitmer finished with a Shiranui, but Lacey wanted more than that; she wanted Whitmer to be finished for good. This cost Jacobs as he tried pandering too much to Lacey’s demands, being defeated by the favorite Whitmer. However, Whitmer would offer respect in the post-match, only for Jacobs to spit in his face and fuck off with Lacey. This was far from finished.
As ROH moved to Chicago afterwards for the rest of the magical WrestleMania 22 weekend, Jacobs and Whitmer were kept away from each other. Jacobs would continue to fail pulling out victories for Lacey, while Whitmer was busy with the CZW invaders. The same happened a few weeks later at The 100th Show in Philly; Whitmer would eat an Argentine PIledriver from Super Dragon in the near-masterpiece ROH vs. CZW main event war, while underneath Jacobs opted NOT to win even though Lacey offered to go topless online if he did. Jacobs would then explain that he wouldn’t allow Lacey to degrade herself to the marks like that. Just masterful storytelling.
Up next would be the Weekend of Champions in Ohio. Once again, both men were preoccupied; Jacobs continued failing to pick up victories, including an entertaining opener on Night 1 in Dayton against Colt Cabana (a delicious preview of what was to come). Meanwhile, Whitmer was delieverd more punishment by SD, but what would get the last laugh on the PWG founder on Night 2 in Cleveland, sending the chaotic CZW invader packing for good from ROH.
Whitmer would continue contributing to the ROH vs. CZW saga until the return to the New Yorker Hotel at In Your Face. Jacobs vs. Whitmer II was scheduled, this time with the winner earning an ROH Title shot against Bryan Danielson 6 days later at Throwdown in Detroit. Jacobs cut a masterful backstage promo, explaining his motivation to win the ROH Title was to make more money for the “future children” that he would have with Lacey.
(NOTE; the above video has shitty generic music playing over the entire video during the entrances and pre-match brawl due to Whitmer’s usage of Stone Temple Pilot’s “Down,” and also over “The Ballad of Lacey” for unknown reasons.)
The match would end with an intentional homage to the Dragon Gate Challenge botch, with Whitmer delivering a Super Powerbomb to Jacobs into the audience chairs. The match would be ruled a double count out, and they’d face Danielson in an elimination match for the ROH Title.
Danielson vs. Jacobs vs. Whitmer would be yet another classic in Danielson’s epic title reign. Whitmer would have his weak moments, but the three-way portion had some tremendous spots and storytelling, including a German and Exploder suplex stereo combo. The former Tag Champs even double-teamed the champion at one point, delivering a Doomsday Hurricanrana on him. In a brilliant moment since the ROH vs. CZW was still ongoing, Whitmer took a lot to be eliminated; a Super Shiranui by Jacobs, along with momentum from Danielson, would be required to put the Cincinnati native down.
Coming down to Danielson vs. Jacobs, Detroit got served a classic. Jaocbs was just amazing in once again playing the underdog, this time in his home state and for the company’s grandest prize, against the best wrestler on the planet. Jaocbs had much of Danielson’s offense tremendously scouted, blocking multiple maneuvers, showing just how serious he was about winning the big one for Lacey. But he made the deadly mistake of going for the Cattle Mutilation, totally idiotic against Danielson, and costing himself the company’s top prize and Lacey’s heart. Instead, Jacobs had to take the “moral victory” of a standing ovation from his fellow Michigan natives after being berated by his valet and object of his infatuation.
Jacobs and Whitmer would be preoccupied once again for a couple months, as Whitmer had unfinished business in the ROH vs. CZW saga, culminating for him personally in that feud’s epilogue, a victory in a very good No Rope Barbed Wire match against Necro Butcher at War of the Wire II. Another party would meanwhile be inserted into this whole saga involving Lacey, Jacobs, and Whitmer, but before getting into that, there’s another classic to be spotlighted.
Strong vs. Jacobs at Chi-Town Struggle is a must-see match on a night of many of them (including Nigel McGuinness vs. Homicide; Austin Aries vs. KENTA, and Danielson vs. Colt Cabana). Although no longer a heel, Strong’s jock persona was the perfect foil to the smaller creep Jacobs. The scouting, teases, and counters were top-notch, but no matter what, Jacobs couldn’t pull out a major victory for Lacey; this should be no surprise that Strong would be determined to win after just losing to KENTA the night before. Strong vs. Jacobs is simply another under-appreciated classic and like the previously mentioned I Quit match between Jacobs and Alex Shelley, is mysteriously not on any compilations yet, though definitely deserving of being so.
Lacey treating Jacobs as a complete commodity wasn’t enough to make this angle so magical. The utter contempt she had for his pathetic infatuation towards her needed an extra layer. Enter a sexual relationship with Colt Cabana. Absolutely torn, Jacobs used this as extra fuel in this third encounter against Whitmer at Gut Check, taking out his former partner by fucking up his ankle with a chair.
With Whitmer out for a while, Jacobs arguably did himself a disservice. Having Whitmer around may have preoccupied him, keeping him focused on a single mission, a mental diversion from the fuck buddies that Lacey and Cabana had become. Instead, Jacobs continued his downward spiral with yet another wonderful music video.
This saga’s excellence only endured, with Jacobs and Cabana now in singles multi-man matches on the historic Glory By Honor V weekend. On night 1 in Connecticut, they would face Jack Evans and Ricky Reyes, while on Night 2 in the company’s Manhattan Center debut, they’d face Christopher Daniels. In both matches, Cabana made a completely mockery of Jacobs. Lacey of course continued to berate Jacobs, and in the match against Daniels, ordered him to let Cabana win the match instead! Jacobs chose to kick Cabana in the groin and take the victory, only for it to not matter at all to Lacey.
Cabana would continue rubbing in his fuck buddy relationship with Lacey in the face of Jacobs, and this was honestly both foolish and arrogant of the Chicago native. He had just wrapped up a lengthy, both physically and emotionally taxing blood feud against Homicide that had started due to a comic line delivered in poor taste. Jacobs had proven himself in his wars against Alex Shelley and the rest of Generation Next, as well as the first encounter against Whitmer. And now Jacobs was in losing his mind over Lacey. Fucking unbelievable that Cabana would get smug and cocky against Jacobs when taking all of this into consideration.
It would only get even better. Time stamp 1:30.
Before continuing: Glory By Honor V Night 2 would mark the end of ROH’s golden age, although nobody quite realized it at the time. The remaining quarter of 2006 was a vast display of burnout through Gabe Sapolsky’s performance. But if there was one true shining glimmer of hope, one reason to keep tuning in, it was THIS saga, with Jacobs closing out the year as an MVP candidate in an already loaded 2006.
Jacobs & Cabana would fail to win the Tag Titles from the Kings of Wrestling, and would team up the rest of October 2006. They would unintentionally bring the “official” end to the Embassy’s peak period, defeating Jimmy Rave & Sal Rinauro in Cabana’s hometown of Chicago at Irresistible Forces. The latest edition of “Lacey’s Angels” as Lacey wanted to call them showed quite the chemistry, but the real news would be in the post-match.
With Whitmer back in the fold, the feud continued. Sapolsky booked a completely meaningless gauntlet match, one devoid of any stipulations, at Black Friday Fallout. Whitmer’s defeat over Brent Albright in the match was as over as a wet fart for the Long Island crowd. Jacobs was then next and made quick cheating work of Whitmer. The match then completed with a very good portion between Jacobs and Nigel McGuinness. Looking back, it’s a shame there was never a Jacobs vs. McGuinness program, as either in the face/heel role against one another would’ve been perfect, especially with Lacey in the mix.
Jacobs vs. Whitmer IV was scheduled the next night at Dethroned, but would never become an official match. Instead, it was just an awesome brawl that got over both of them as bad motherfuckers that despised each other with a burning passion. What a crazy concept. In the meantime, Daizee Haze became involved in the feud as a foil to Lacey. Haze may as well have not existed, as she added nothing and at one specific point, substantially downgraded this saga.
Then came The Chicago Spectacular weekend, a very disappointing double-shot in the Windy City (that’s the stupidity of booking those dates when in the past 8 months, Chicago had hosted an end-all, be-all weekend double-shot, an event in June, an event in August, and an event in October.) Jacobs vs. Cabana on Night 1 would serve as pure angle advancement, as the newfound mercenary Brent Albright helped Jacobs split Cabana’s legs to get his groin stomped by Lacey’s high heel. This saga would be added into the multi-man match scheduled on Night 2.
The multi-man match on Night 2 would be tremendous angle advancement. The main event pitted Danielson, Shingo, Rave, & Jacobs against Delirious, Whitmer, Cabana, & McGuinness. Jacobs tried using a spike on Whitmer but got thwarted by Cabana; this allowed Whitmer to pick up the weapon and try using it, unintentionally spiking Lacey’s face! After carrying her to the back, Jacobs returned and targeted Whitmer’s previously injured right ankle with a chair, drawing the intentional disqualification for himself, and allowing Rave to finish Whitmer off with the heel hook submission.
On the year’s closing weekend, Jacobs became even more unhinged after what had happened to Lacey, now teaming up with Albright, but making it clear that he viewed the former OVW Champion as nothing more than an ally. The company made its Hartford debut for an event that would be named International Challenge on the eve of the highly-anticipated Final Battle 2006. While this show did nothing to enhance the Jacobs vs. Whitmer saga and everyone involved, the intended contribution from this Hartford event deserves to be pointed out, as it served as hands down, the storyline’s lowest point, and very deserving of a spot in the WrestleCrap Hall of Fame. Rather than paraphrase the dreadful segment, here’s a copy and paste review.
Daizee Haze & BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Jacobs & Mercedes Martinez
Based off of the Jacobs promo earlier, I decided to watch this for the storyline advancement. This is easily ROH’s worst match of 2006 that I watched. This makes the Briscoes vs. KENTA & Davey Richards look like an arguably flawless work of art on par with Low Ki & Samoa Joe vs. Homicide & Kenta Kobashi.
Perhaps society has simply evolved too in terms of misogyny and violence towards women. Perhaps the tragic events that were 6 months away from this final ROH weekend of 2006 made presenting such directions in the world of professional wrestling too taboo, too sensitive, too painful to be accepted as a digestible piece of theater. I don’t fully buy into that rationale, because Prince Nana’s antics towards Jade Chung throughout 2005 still hold up a decade later. It can be argued that it’s because the malice on her was more emotionally based, that the violence was more implied. Maybe it’s because unlike most of the participants in this segment, Nana has the charisma and mic skills to make a segment like that so effective for building heat.
Simply put, I was taken aback when Whitmer viciously clotheslined Martinez. It was within the rules of the match, yet I felt that it truly served no purpose, and ditto for when Jacobs attacked Haze. Stephanie McMahon getting speared at AT&T Stadium was accidental, as was Whitmer spiking Lacey a couple weeks before this. They were simply victims of self-interested attempts to insert themselves into or distract from violent battles between men.
When Brent Albright also appeared after the match and put his hands on Haze, there was no charm to it. Instead of seeing a villain that needed to be conquered, I saw something that likely resembled the tragic events to come 6 months from the very date of this event involving his former on-screen WWE mentor Chris Benoit. I didn’t wanna see Albright get his ass kicked for implying that he was going to assault Haze; I wanted him to be fucking arrested and served with charges. I felt just as uncomfortable with this segment as PWG’s tolerance of exploiting the Benoit family massacre while the wounds were still fresh with the entire wrestling community. The presentation of the violence from men towards women in this segment ultimately didn’t seem to serve any kind of substantial purpose; none of those moments enhanced the Jacobs vs. Whitmer saga whatsoever.
Now when Jacobs and Whitmer went at it, they were fine as always. They could sleepwalk their way an acceptable brawl if assigned such a task.
The performances of Haze and Martinez are a much different story. This match isn’t just a piece of shit for ethical reasons. Both women were absolutely abysmal in this. Whoever’s fault it is, I don’t care, but very early, Haze stood in the corner for way too long while Martinez was about to launch at Whitmer to the outside, and it made Haze look like a dipshit for not taking advantage to cut Martinez off. The strikes that the women threw on each other made them look like they must’ve been trained by the same person as Shane McMahon too. These ladies were simply business-exposing on this night, and Martinez’s total lack of malicious presence did no favors for her performance. This match would’ve been a perfect addition to booker Gabe Sapolsky’s burnout showcase known as The Bitter End.
Final Battle 2006 would be drastically better and more conducive to the storyline. Jacobs cut an interesting backstage promo, showing that on a night that was destined to be a party for Brooklyn native Homicide and the rest of NYC, Jacobs was in no partying mood. The Albright & Jacobs vs. Whitmer & Cabana match was a serviceable match, with Albright planting Whitmer through a table. Albright was proving to be quite the mercenary so far.
But for Jacobs, there was no moral victory in Albright’s paid assistance, for he now had a new theme song for the remainder of this sage. Time stamp 7:09.
Jacobs would become a complete piece of shit, attacking Haze unprovoked to pander to Lacey. Jacobs vs. Whitmer V would take place at Battle of the Icons, delivering another quality bout, this time their first gimmick match in their rivalry, that being a Last Man Standing match. The violence was intensified, but Whitmer would cost himself the victory, too thirsty to deliver all-time punishment on Jacobs. Albright would intervene and force Whitmer through another table, allowing Jacobs to win the match. There had yet to be a decisive finish in this feud since Dragon Gate Challenge, and there damn sure didn’t need to be one quite yet. But the end was obviously drawing nearer, as the biggest weekend of the year would soon return Michigan, the home state of Jacobs.
The Fifth Year Festival would see plenty of history unfold. It was Samoa Joe’s farewell tour. It was Steen & Generico finally earning their ROH spots. It also saw the first signs of possible attraction from Lacey towards Jacobs, albeit still quite unsettling to the untwisted viewer. The Chicago portion as expected would be the end of the Jacobs vs. Cabana portion of the feud, with the Windy City native coming out on top. This made perfect sense; Jacobs didn’t need a major victory yet, but rather, he needed to be taken to the limit and come so close to it, only to choke once again before he finally brought this whole saga to an end against Whitmer. Jacobs vs. Cabana was nonetheless a classic hardcore match, one that is most definitely must-see. Whitmer would finally finish off Albright in a Tables Are Legal match in NYC; the easily-pleased indulged in the spectacle at the time, but a decade later everyone’s forgotten about it since it has no substance and only rips off superior matches.
The return to Liverpool would see Jacobs vs. Whitmer VI, this time in a Falls Count Anywhere match. It was once again a spectacle, brawling into the upper balcony before coming to a conclusion in the ring. It was brutal, there were great counters, the hatred was still running deep, but Jacobs still couldn’t pull off the victory, as Whitmer got it done. Perhaps Lacey’s absence was the explanation; rather than her now being a distraction, Jacobs needed her to be present as motivation.
And with that, the end was here. It was obvious many months earlier, but it was now official. Jacobs vs. Whitmer VII would finally bring this feud to an end. It had officially started 14 months earlier; the saga officially started 2 years earlier; and the sequence of events had started 4 years earlier.
It would all come to a head in Detroit. Supecard of Honor II. WrestleMania 23 weekend. A cage match.
“Prom Night”
The opening night, called All Star Extravaganza III, was a perfectly serviceable intergender brawl in this saga, pitting Lacey & Jacobs against Haze & Whitmer. Jacobs finished off Haze with a spear, allowing Lacey to get the pin fall and hug him afterwards, promising that if he finished off Whitmer the next night, there’d be more rewards.
The true takeaway from this first night in Detroit would be at the end of the DVD release, as Jacobs cut a final promo. Here’s a copy and paste since the reviews are done a decade after the actual events:
The DVD closes with a “Prom Night” promo from Jimmy Jacobs, one of the best of his career. He reflects on the whole saga with Whitmer, who had said “I love you little brother” after their matches when they teamed up. He can’t believe Whitmer ditched him when he fell in love with Lacey, reflecting also on all the bloodbaths, the attacks on Lacey, and Dragon Gate Challenge. Jacobs says his innocence has been lost, suffering through sleepless nights while visualizing how to end this and hurt Whitmer. Jacobs puts the blame on Whitmer for bringing this down to a cage match. A pin fall won’t end this, only finishing one another will. There will be no hug or handshake, no respect earned.
“BJ, it’s prom night. It always ends the same. The villain gets what’s coming to him, and the hero gets the girl. I love you big brother.”
As for Supercard of Honor II, the DVD began with one more promo from Jacobs.
The DVD begins with a final Jimmy Jacobs promo. Jacobs says that Whitmer fights for the fans’ acceptance, aiming for a prideful, self-absorbed desire. But tonight, Jacobs fights for the cause that great minds such as Socrates and William Shakespeare contemplated. Jacobs compares this war to the Biblical battles between God and Lucifer. “At the end of the day, love conquered all.” Jacobs believes the two of them will both be six feet under in a few years. Thank goodness that didn’t turn out to be true. Jacobs says that his love for Lacey overrides whatever Whitmer’s legacy will be. Jacobs wants to reclaim his purity and innocence, and with Lacey in his corner, he also is accompanied by love, invincibility, and eternity. “You’ve already lost, big brother.” Lacey says this could be the night for Jacobs to reclaim her.
And the match itself:
Cage Match Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer
Lacey and Daizee Haze accompany their appropriate men respectively. The Michigan crowd pretty much instantly makes it known they’re behind Jacobs, chanting “Please don’t die!” at him during his entrance and before he did anything remotely dangerous.
Jacobs does a suicide dive to Whitmer on the outside before the opening bell, kicking this off with an outside brawl. Absolutely love it – no pussyfooting around in this feud-ender. They also waste no time getting into the caged ring.
Whitmer gets the upper hand early, repeatedly tossing Jacobs face-first into the fencing. In a unique formatting, weapons get introduced when the participants request it. Once Whitmer has a chair, Jacobs futilely tries cutting off Whitmer, only to get it dropkicked in his face. However, he scouts Whitmer coming again, delivering a big boot for the successful cutoff.
Whitmer scouts an elbow drop, allowing his former partner to fall on the chair and then give him a spinebuster on it for good measure. Jacobs eats a chair shot to the head, although he had a hand up which hopefully was legit protection. The Michigan native sells his mouth so Whitmer works on it, but gets fed face-first into the chair via a drop toe hold.
Lacey demands more weapons for Jacobs, and his spike gets introduced, but Whitmer has one too in his boot. They then bring back memories of the all-time classic between Tully Blanchard and Magnum TA from Starrcade 1985, stabbing each other and now bleeding as the crowd chants for more! They then repeatedly stab each other as Detroit erupts! So beautiful, so unforgettable, and yet so disgusting a decade later.
Jacobs then stabs his own forehead a few times for an adrenaline rush! Whitmer gets the upper hand on a strike exchange, powerbombing Jacobs in the corner and hitting a follow-up big boot. The selling of blood loss is impressive by both men, not being able to instantly keep the punishment coming. But we’re not close to down, as a barbed-wire baseball bat comes into the fold. Jacobs avoids it but Whitmer is still in control.
Whitmer mistakenly calls for another forearm smash in the elbow, and he pays for it dearly as Jacobs strikes his face with the baseball bat! Jacobs keeps the punishment coming with it, then sticks the barbed wire in his own mouth and in his hair, the top half of his face a crimson mask as Detroit rallies behind him. He then digs into Whitmer’s flesh on his left bicep, triggering “You sick fuck!” chants. He then tops it by licking Whitmer’s crimson mask and spitting the blood back in his face, then uses both spikes to fuck him on the face and left bicep even more! This is fucking amazing.
Whitmer’s face gets shoved in the barbed-wire bat, then driven into it when Jacobs smashes the chair to the back of his head! Jacobs keeps up the carving on the same body parts, but collapses to sell his blood loss, unable to sustain extended digging. In a piece of great storytelling, as Whitmer struggles and crawls around, Jacobs talks shit and headbutts his former tag partner. The blood loss is just disgusting.
As they get back up, they have another strike exchange with Whitmer evading a spear. This causes Jacobs to hit the chair in the corner and then eat an Exploder suplex. Once again though, Whitmer’s blood loss is taking its toll, as he’s unable to go for the cover. This allows for another strike exchange with Jacobs getting the upper hand temporarily; his jumping head-scissors would be countered by Whitmer, getting driven head-first into the fencing.
Whitmer delivers a receipt, striking the torso of Jacobs with the barbed-wire baseball bat and triggering “This is awesome!” chants. As Jacobs is seated on the chair, he gets his forehead carved up with the bat, but then eats a brainbuster on the chair after a brief struggle! Detroit is just going apeshit, but Jacobs kicks out!
Whitmer opts to win via exit, but Lacey slams the door in his face and that’s followed up by Jacobs charging at his face with the bat again. A senton splash gets a near-fall, and the crowd energy is just off the charts in this classic. Whitmer’s forehead takes even more damage, a spike being driven into it. Jacobs wastes time blowing kisses, so Whitmer blocks a Super Hurricanrana. In an obvious nod to Dragon Gate Challenge, they tease the botch, but Whitmer gets underneath and just drives Jacobs face-first into the top turnbuckle, then follows up with a German Suplex, Dragon Suplex, and Powerbomb with a jackknife pin near-fall. Whitmer can’t get proper form, allowing this to be a near-fall.
A table gets brought into the ring at Lacey’s request, and this pretty much signals we’re in the third and final act of this masterpiece. They tease the infamous botch again, but a Top Rope Powerbomb is countered with a Hurricanrana; they unintentionally just a paid somewhat of an homage to Rey Mysterio’s WCW PPV classics against Psychosis and Eddie Guerrero. Seconds later, Jacobs goes for the Shiranui, only to eat a Jumping Owen Driver for a near-fall.
Lacey inserts himself, only to eat a Jumping Owen Driver for her trouble. Whitmer doesn’t waste much time celebrating as the crowd chants for him, instead going to the top of the cage. He misses the Super Frog Splash, but kicks out of a successful Shiranui. Jacobs is really feeling the pain in his sore left knee that’s been plaguing him in recent months, but Detroit breaks out some more “This is awesome!” chants. As Jacobs checks on Lacey, he orders the table be placed in the ring.
Jacobs has given his all, limping very visibly. Whitmer gets placed on the table, but has had enough recovery time to thwart whatever Jacobs has in mind on the cage. Jacobs causes Whitmer to be crotched, and once again as he limps, places Whitmer back on the table. The creep climbs to the top of the cage and delivers a Super Senton through the table, bringing this work of art and epic saga spanning for multiple years to its proper conclusion.
Jacobs is thanked by Detroit, as is Whitmer. The former is in VERY bad pain in his left knee, reminding me of Shawn Michaels at Taboo Tuesday 2004, but checks on his crush while Haze checks on Whitmer, who has yet to move. Jacobs is so badly hurt that the referee takes a look; Lacey selling Whitmer’s punishment is amazing storytelling; at long last, she sacrificed herself for the man that had sacrificed so much for her, not out of her own self-interest, but because she was finally falling for him.
She has to be carried away as Jacobs gingerly shifts out of the ring to a standing ovation. He refuses assistance once he’s on his feet, but doesn’t return the love as he limps away. Whitmer receives a standing ovation as he finally gets up.
This is simply the greatest cage match in ROH’s 15-year history. There’s no other in the company’s rich history that comes remotely close to this. The storytelling was perfect to bring this fantastic storyline to its conclusion, they sold their characters perfectly, they sold their blood loss perfectly, and absolutely thrived as the plunder got gradually brought into this unforgettable battle.
Major kudos for the right move, which was for Jacobs to go over. It didn’t matter that he would get surgery after this and that Whitmer would still be active; Jacobs had to get the elusive major victory to win Lacey’s heart. Why this didn’t close out the event is still a mystery; perhaps there was hesitation due to the legit knee injury Jacobs had coming into this, as compared to the Dragon Gate match being so highly anticipated after the show-stealer provided by that company a year ago. Nonetheless, this was the real main event, and it delivered in spades, bringing a story with multiple years behind to its emotionally satisfying conclusion.
This isn’t just the greatest cage match in ROH history. It’s the greatest match in the careers of Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer. Good lock to the rest of ROH 2007 in topping this.
Rating: *****
…
The DVD closes with Jacobs and Lacey consoling each other backstage, not saying a word as Becky Bayless tries to get a comment from them. They are too physically and emotionally traumatized, but they have each other as Lacey embraces the arms of Jacobs. Brilliant finish to the DVD to follow up the night before, and the message is clear: Jimmy Jacobs was THE star of this weekend for ROH, not anyone else.
The Aftermath
Jacobs would finally get the knee surgery he’d needed for more than half a year, and on-screen finally take Lacey out on dates that started awkward, then became disappointing sex for him. But he still kept her around, now wielding the emotional power away from her. The Age of the Fall faction that would debut months later with Necro Butcher and future WWE Champion Tyler Black at Man Up would fail to measure up to the Jacobs vs. Whitmer saga, but there plenty of terrific matches left for Jacobs in ROH, while Black would rise up the roster to prominence and eventually catch WWE’s attention.
Whitmer would continue to be booked for another year, which was a huge mistake as there was nothing more interesting to do with him unless he took substantial time away from the company. The Hangmen Three faction he would form with Albright and Adam Pearce was a fucking disaster, providing no special moments whatsoever and undoubtedly being bad for business. It certainly played a key part in Gabe Sapolsky’s eventual dismissal in October 2008.
Jacobs and Whitmer would both eventually leave ROH, only to return again a bit more rejuvenated. In a poetic tie-in to this A Decade Ago series of retrospectives, they’d eventually form a faction with Roderick Strong called the Decade, a faction bitter about other talents in the company moving on to WWE, TNA, and other companies.
Jimmy Jacobs, real name Chris Scobille, would finally achieve his dream and get hired onto the WWE creative writing team. This would lead to his apparent retirement, and the Jacobs vs. Whitmer rivalry would return to the year’s biggest weekend at Supercard of Honor IX in the Bay Area. This time, because it was right for business, Whitmer would win the final chapter in the rivalry, and final match in the career of Jacobs to date, saying “I love you, little brother.” And because it was the end of an era, Lacey returned 6.5 years after his one night only swan song at Rising Above 2008, putting the abusive past behind them in a very emotional start-to-finish segment for old-school ROH fans in attendance that night. It was the end of a rivalry that had delivered so many tremendous matches in different environments and promotions, including a No Rope Barbed Wire, I Quit, Falls Count Anywhere, standard wrestling, non-sanctioned brawl, and the greatest cage match in ROH history.
Wrestling fans may never get a storyline like the one involving Lacey, Jimmy Jacobs, and BJ Whitmer again. The business has changed so much; modern technology has arguably triggered a mentality of quick satisfaction that wouldn’t be conducive to this. But maybe there is hope; after all, Chris Jericho credits Jimmy Jacobs for The List gimmick, which has been a key dynamic in the saga that’s paying off this weekend as Jericho collides against Kevin Owens on the grandest stage of them all.
It’s unknown if Jacobs will ever wrestle again. There are certainly plenty of interesting dream opponents for him, including Jericho, Bray Wyatt, Hideo Itami, Akira Tozawa, the Revival, American Alpha, and even John Cena. The possibilities are endless, such as a major stage match against AJ Styles, even reuniting with the former Tyler Black against Dean Ambrose & Roman Reigns would be quite the juicy storyline.
As for Whitmer, he’s stayed put, but his work has paid off as he’s finally on WWE’s radar. Time will tell if he ever decides to join so many of his contemporaries.
While Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer serves as the greatest cage match in ROH’s storied history, and remains an easy Top 5 storyline as well, there’s something to be learned as displayed in this retrospective. Always keep an open mind on the journey of life; one never knows how one event will lead to a sequence of career and life-changing events. An unfair position in one’s job or life can push him into tapping into an optimal part of himself that he never knew existed.
When Dan Maff joined the Prophecy, CM Punk callously violated BJ Whitmer, Lucy was mysteriously attacked, and then Maff was exiled from ROH, nobody could’ve seen the opportunities that was to come on a magical weekend in Detroit. It couldn’t have even been a year and a half earlier when Jacobs & Whitmer were paired with Lacey. But that’s what life does so often – it pays off with the unexpected.
Thank you Jimmy Jacobs. Thank you BJ Whitmer. Thank you Lacey. Thank you Colt Cabana. Thank you Gabe Sapolsky. And thank you to many of the other involved parties as both allies and opponents for Jacobs and Whitmer during this entire saga, including Brent Albright, Bryan Danielson, Jay Briscoe, Roderick Strong, Jack Evans, and the ROH students that gladly played their small roles in this saga.
Thank you for delivering the Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat of WrestleMania 23 weekend a decade ago. Thank you for delivering the greatest cage match in ROH history. It’ll never be topped. Ever.
To see a significant chunk of this feud legally:
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer: The Complete 2005-07 In-Ring Good Shit
Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer vs. Jack Evans & Roderick Strong – Manhattan Mayhem ***1/2
Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer vs. James Gibson & Brian Kendrick – Punk: The Final Chapter ***1/4
Jimmy Jacobs, BJ Whitmer, & Adam Pearce vs. Jack Evans, Jimmy Yang, & Matt Sydal – Tag Wars 2006 ***3/4
Closing moments of Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong – Dissension
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – Dragon Gate Challenge ****
Jimmy Jacobs vs. Colt Cabana – Weekend of Champions Night 1
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – In Your Face ***
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer vs. Bryan Danielson – Throwdown ****
Closing moments of Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – Gut Check
Jimmy Jacobs vs. Colt Cabana vs. Jack Evans vs. Ricky Reyes – Glory By Honor V Night 1
Jimmy Jacobs vs. Colt Cabana vs. Christopher Daniels – Glory By Honor V Night 2
Jimmy Jacobs & Colt Cabana vs. Jimmy Rave & Sal Rinauro – Irresistible Forces ***
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – Dethroned ***3/4
Closing moments of Jimmy Jacobs vs. Colt Cabana – The Chicago Spectacular Night 1
Key moments in Team Danielson vs. Team Delirious – The Chicago Spectacular Night 2
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – Battle of the Icons ***3/4
Jimmy Jacobs vs. Colt Cabana – Fifth Year Festival: Chicago ****1/4
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – Fifth Year Festival: Finale ***3/4
Jimmy Jacobs & Lacey vs. BJ Whitmer & Daizee Haze – All Star Extravaganza III
Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer – Supercard of Honor II *****
Where Are They Now?
Jimmy Jacobs – apparently retired and a member of the WWE’s creative writing team
BJ Whitmer – back in ROH on his 2nd tenure since 2012, having declined WWE’s offer for an off-screen role
Lacey – retired from the business and a resident of China to pursue other interests, including education
Colt Cabana – the ultimate freelance wrestler, back in ROH on his 3rd tenure since 2016
Brent Albright – retired
Gabe Sapolsky – Booker for Evolve and much of the WWN family
Donald Trump – President of the United States of America
This weekend, Hell will freeze over once again. What should’ve happened many, many, many years ago will at long last come to fruition for one of the greatest stars in the history of underground wrestling history: Samoa Joe will make his WWE PPV debut.
That’s quite poetic, for this weekend also marks the 10th anniversary of another major milestone in his career. Although it would turn out not to be the very end of his ROH tenure, he bid farewell to the company that put him on the map, that he had called home, and where he cemented his legacy to a far greater degree than he had and went on to do in TNA.
As with most things in life, the greatness that would be Samoa Joe’s contributions to Ring of Honor were not the original plans. When he made his debut at the first ever Glory By Honor against Low Ki (the face of the company in its initial year), it was supposed to be one night only. In what was advertised as the company’s first ever “Fight Without Honor,” the Pro Wrestling Zero-One stars had some expectations to live up to.
For Low Ki, he had been more than just the face of the company in its first year. He wasn’t just the first ever ROH Champion. On every single show until he was finally dethroned in cheap fashion by Xavier and his new friends in the Prophecy stable at Unscripted, Ki was the fucking man, providing a show-stealing match on every card. From the first ever main event in company history with Bryan Danielson and Christopher Daniels at The Era of Honor Begins, to his tremendous, lone successful ROH Title defense against AJ Styles at Honor Invades Boston, Ki had proven to be the company’s most reliable in-ring contributor and tape/DVD mover.
So after seeing his reign cut short and with the fire still burning just two weeks after Unscripted, Low Ki was surely out for blood against Xavier, Christopher Daniels, and whoever else compiled the Prophecy. To protect their asses, Daniels brought in the debuting Samoa Joe as his mercenary. Throw in that it was the initial “Fight Without Honor” and this made for quite the interesting matchup.
While the match wasn’t the hardcore spectacle that a “Fight Without Honor” would become known as, the gimmick kicked off with a bang. Once again, Low Ki was in the show-stealing match on what was otherwise a horrendous inaugural Glory By Honor. It was a pure slugfest, bringing a stiff, physical flavor of violence not seen throughout North American pro wrestling at the time. Joe gave absolutely everything possible, leaving it all in the ring before finally succumbing to exhaustion.
Because of its excellence, ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky made a huge roster decision. Brian Kendrick, sometimes known by his other stage name Spanky, was planned to become ROH Champion sometime in late 2002 or 2003. But he had just signed with WWE. So Sapolsky not only booked Samoa Joe full-time, but made the decision that he would go on to dethrone Xavier.
Joe’s journey to the ROH Title planted seeds for what was to come later. He was happy to continue being the Prophecy’s mercenary, but he was by no means their friend and had no time for them outside of strictly business matters. This tension culminated at Night of Champions as Joe dethroned the paper champion Xavier to Philadelphia’s delight.
Also on Joe’s path to the ROH Title though, were the beginning of 2 rivalries that defined his career: Homicide and Bryan Danielson. The first match against Homicide at Scramble Madness would prove to be forgettable, while the 2 singles matches against Danielson in early 2003 at Revenge on the Prophecy and the One Year Anniversary Show would be show-stealers, a taste of what was to come in the future between them.
After becoming ROH Champion, Joe’s path wasn’t getting any easier. Throughout the rest of 2003, he went through a who’s who on the roster, with show-stealers including against Homicide at Do or Die, a feud-ender between him and the Prophecy against Christopher Daniels at Glory By Honor II, a bullying performance against Jay Briscoe at Tradition Continues, and an excellent dream match against AJ Styles at War of the Wire. In addition, he would also defend the title against Dan Maff shortly after his father’s death, and against Paul London in what was his emotional initial indies farewell at the inaugural Death Before Dishonor. There was also a non-title clash against CM Punk at Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies, serving as another nice appetizer of what was to come.
It would not be until 2004 that Joe would finally reach the in-ring level of his excellent tenure-earning debut in October 2002. Rather than getting the long-awaited rematch against Low Ki, they were placed in a four-way involving Maff and BJ Whitmer at the Second Anniversary Show. It was good stuff, but nowhere near Joe’s very best.
That would finally change on the eve of WrestleMania XX. After being a bullying cunt to the Briscoes, and them having the last laugh in the tag team realm by successfully defending the Tag Titles against him despite partners such as Styles, Danielson, and Jerry Lynn, the singles portion would culminate in a cage match at At Our Best.
This event was handicapped from being the pomp-and-circumstances that it should’ve been. Instead of completely releveling in the first ever WrestleMania weekend piggybacking event, the company was dealing with its owner Rob Feinstein being caught in an ephebophilia sting on camera. Some talents had cancelled their bookings on the historic event and others as well, including Low Ki, Abyss, and Bobby Heenan.
With all of this chaos in mind, the At Our Best event, which in hindsight is a generally poor show to revisit, was saved from being a cesspool by two elements: the beginning of the CM Punk and Ricky Steamboat feud, as well as the Samoa Joe vs. Jay Briscoe cage match.
Joe and Jay not only saved At Our Best in a manner similar to what Joe had done with Ki at Glory By Honor, they put on a cage match that elevated each other. Even with Joe the victor, Jay was the real star coming out of the match, having worn a disgusting crimson mask that would never be approved today by any promoters that give the slightest shit about performer welfare. Jay wasn’t just wearing a crimson mask; the blood wasn’t just dripping off his face in pure liquid form; there looked to be hardened drips of blood falling off his face, like he was in a war zone or slaughterhouse instead of a cage match.
The cage match 13 years ago between Samoa Joe and Jay Briscoe also did more than elevate the prestige of the ROH Title. It was more than the end of Joe’s beef with the Briscoes. It was more than the two sharing respect in the post-match. It resulted in a olive branch for both parties, showing that perhaps they could join forces in the future after proving each other’s grit, desire, and toughness.
The Feinsten scandal was just beginning though. In the wake of it, TNA pulled a significant chunk of its talent. CM Punk told TNA to fuck off, while the reigning Pure Champion AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels made the best decision for their families to stand with TNA, but without any hard feelings. Jerry Lynn was also pulled, highly disappointing as ROH was just about to make its debut in his home state of Minnesota, where he first broke out on the independents in his rivalry against Sean Waltman.
ROH was cornered, but had plenty of pieces in their corner to navigate this adversity. ROH Champion Samoa Joe, the Tag Champions Briscoes, Homicide, CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Bryan Danielson, and Ricky Steamboat would be the established star power to overcome Feinstein’s foolishly unethical choice. With Cary Silkin now the owner and Feinstein’s improved production of early 2004 now off the table, Gabe Sapolsky decided it was time for ROH to be “reborn.”
The Minnesota debut would be known as Reborn Stage 1, with Steamboat officiating the dream match of Punk vs. Danielson, and Joe putting the ROH Title on the line against Homicide. While Punk vs. Danielson was an exceptional piece of technical storytelling while also serving as a fantastic chapter in the Punk vs. Steamboat saga, the big news would come in the main event.
Like the year before at Do or Die, Joe once again proved to be too much for Homicide. While the Notorious 187 had gotten a victory in a hardcore match 6 months earlier at Empire State Showdown (in what turned out to be in hindsight, somewhat similar, albeit a much weaker version, of what would come 5 years later between Danielson and Takeshi Morishima at Final Battle 2008), that was a non-title match. Now that that the title was on the line again, Joe was proving to be clutch yet again. Incredibly frustrated, Homicide snapped, punching the referee, and igniting a fireball in Joe’s face! The locker room cleared out, closing out the live event in an insane brawl.
It would turn out that the newcomer Havana Pitbulls had turned the lights off in Minnesota, forming a faction with Homicide and Julius Smokes and calling themselves the Rottweilers. This led to another title defense in the Joe vs. Homicide rivalry at Generation Next. The event had its adversity as well, being moved to a legitimate tent environment, but ended up being one of the defining events in ROH history. The newly formed Generation Next faction of leader Alex Shelley, Jack Evans, Austin Aries, and Roderick Strong would get most of the thunder after having an all-time 8-man tag classic, and the Punk vs. Steamboat feud would also deliver an excellent segment, but Joe and Homicide brought the goods too.
The moment Homicide ambushed Joe during his in-ring introduction, steamers all over the ring, it was bound to be a violent classic, completely different than their prior 2 title clashes. It brought something completely different to the card. While the Generation Next faction had engaged in a jaw-dropping, state of the art display in multi-man tag team wrestling with the Briscoes, John Walters, and Jimmy Rave, this main event was a fucking fight.
This match had scary head drops, crazy bumps on the ground, Julius Smokes going crazy, and Homicide also bringing his fork, carving up Joe’s face. It was a bloody spectacle, transitioning what was once just a heated rivalry into an all-out war, all for the top prize in underground wrestling. But once again, no matter how malicious Homicide became, he did not have an answer for Joe in the clutch. For a third time in his ROH Title reign, Joe proved his superiority over the Notorious 187.
Joe’s peak as ROH Champion wasn’t gonna be pigeonholed as just brawling and plunder though. After 2 classic wars against Jay Briscoe and Homicide, it was time to bring the title back to its roots of pure wrestling. It was Tag Champion CM Punk’s turn, although he really hadn’t proven himself in singles to have been placed in such a spot.
When Joe and Punk stepped in the ring at the event that would be named World Title Classic, they could not have foreseen how rowdy the Dayton crowd would get. Having the first ever 60-minute draw in ROH was a huge risk to take, especially after conditioning ROH audiences with ROH Title matches that hadn’t gone more than 20 minutes since Joe dethroned Xavier. But it was the perfect location. The chance had to be taken in the Midwest, a region that had seen numerous 60-minute Broadways between Punk, Colt Cabana, and Chris Hero.
The match has some obvious flaws in it. As would be revealed in their ROH shoot interview, Joe and Punk mostly ad libbed the entire contest, and it showed in many of the antics clearly designed to fill up time. But it also got Punk over as an iron man in the company, bringing a game plan that Joe didn’t have an answer for. When it was all over, both got a well-deserved standing ovation, Punk’s stock had risen, a money rematch was now on the itinerary, and most of all the ROH Title’s stock was risen yet again.
Homicide would steal the moment, as well as a “new” title belt that Les Thatcher had presented to Joe before the classic started. Unlike the East Coast, the crowd despised Homicide for showing such contempt, making this segment perfectly chosen for its location. This would lead back to New Jersey, in the venue that had hosted At Our Best.
The rebirth would be finalized at Reborn: Completion, with a trios main event. Joe would team up with the Briscoes against the Rottweilers. The match was good, although not a huge takeaway at all. Instead, it was the post-match that would be the biggest takeaway on a night of buzzworthy takeaways usually unseen at such a high quality on any wrestling card.
There was a new Pure Champion crowned. Jimmy Rave was revealed as the new Crown Jewel of Prince Nana’s Embassy. CM Punk and Ricky Steamboat finally put their bad blood behind them after one last brawl, with Punk turning face when Generation Next tried picking Steamboat’s bones. There were 2 other takeaways though, both of them huge, both of them involving Joe. One’s impact was felt instantly, while the other would be long-term, still felt to this very day.
Mark Briscoe would sacrifice himself for his brother Jay, taking a fireball to his face to draw a DQ victory. But that paled in comparison to what would come moments later. As the Rottweilers beat down the babyface alliance, Homicide declared there was nobody in ROH that could stop him. Low Ki then made his shocking return, face to face with the man that had trained him, looking like ROH would finally get to deliver the match that had been teased in 2003.
But instead, Low Ki decked Joe and joined the Rottweilers! They laid waste to Joe and the Briscoes, with the perverted poetry coming full circle. Like the Prophecy had done to Ki at Unscripted, he along with his new stablemates did to Joe, disrespectfully holding up the title and laying an ROH banner on him.
The other huge but less thunderous takeaway involving Joe from Reborn: Completion? He took on a protégé, that being Special K’s Hydro. He advised the young boy, who had recently lost in good efforts against Punk and Alex Shelley, to stop playing games, to fuck off from Special K, and drop the Hydro stage name. And on that night, in his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, Hydro was no more; he would now be known as Jay Lethal.
The Joe vs. Homicide title matches would conclude just 6 days later for 2004 at Death Before Dishonor II Pt. 1, the company’s Milwaukee debut. Once again, despite a tremendous effort, Homicide didn’t have enough ammunition and lacked the proper game plan to beat Joe in a straight-up match for the top prize in all of underground wrestling. It was another excellent battle, bombs aplenty thrown, further cementing Joe’s place and making him just as worthy of purist recognition at the time as other world champions like Chris Benoit and Kenta Kobashi. Unfortunately for Joe, he couldn’t bask in this fact, as the Rottweilers gave him a post-match beat down, no help coming as the Briscoes were preparing to challenge Punk & Cabana for the Tag Titles in the main event.
Speaking of Cabana, he had gotten a shocking pin on Joe the month before in the first ever Survival of the Fittest elimination match, the first fall in a nearly-perfect, off-the-charts instant and timeless classic, tainted only by the fact that this very pin was not legal. This allowed for Cabana to get an ROH Title match in his hometown of Chicago at Death Before Dishonor II Pt. 2, giving him home field advantage not afforded to his teammate Punk the month before. Cabana gave a good effort, but Joe had him scouted, leaving the historic weekend still champion.
The Joe vs. Homicide feud would end for good at Scramble Cage Melee in Boston. The main event was supposed to be a dream partner tag of Joe & Punk vs. Ki & Homicide, but Ki cancelled due to a NOAH booking. So it became a three-way among the three men that led the charge in ROH’s 2004 rebirth. Homicide would get the victorious pin fall on Joe, but it had been because of Punk hitting the Pepsi Plunge on the champion. Now Punk KNEW that he could beat Joe.
Joe would have a good title rematch against Doug Williams, but then the money stretch came for his ROH Title reign. First, the long-awaited championship showdown finally happened in the Joe vs. Danielson rivalry at Midnight Express Reunion. It was an epic match that shattered all expectations. Those who find this only to be a great match, rather than the ***** all-time classic that it is, overlook that the Philly crowd was BLISTERING hot, on the edge of their seats, being so convinced that Danielson would end the epic title reign that had spanned more than 18 months. But once again, it was not to be, with Joe getting the victory after a grueling epic that had spanned well over half an hour.
The post-match was just as epic, as Punk arrived to ask when he’d get his rematch. The Rottweilers and Generation Next would arrive to raise Hell, with the scene becoming an all-out chaotic work of art, the two heel factions colliding for the first time since forming in the spring of that year. It would end with Joe and Ki going at it in the ring, and when Danielson tried to pull Joe off, he got struck, so he naturally retaliated and caused Joe to retreat. It ended with Ki and Danielson in the ring, with the Hall of Famer making the challenge: Samoa Joe & Jushin Liger vs. Low Ki & Bryan Danielson.
Before that epic dream partner tag could take place though, Joe had more work to do as ROH Champion. Rocky Romero would put a good effort, but was ultimately no match for Joe at Gold, the company’s 50th event in its history. The next night in Chicago was also supposed to be Joe putting the title on the line against former Group stablemate Steve Corino. But that was not to be, as Corino cancelled due to a Zero-One commitment.
Gabe Sapolsky found himself in a huge corner, as Corino’s cancellation had come on incredibly short notice. Joe vs. Corino was being marketed as a marquee match for the title, coming hot off the heels of Corino’s return the month before at Glory By Honor III. But like Joe’s debut 2 years earlier, the unexpected would turn out to be for the very best.
Since Joe vs. Corino was taking place in Chicago, Sapolsky chose to overlook that the Joe vs. Punk rematch would replace it. Even though it was disappointing that the rematch’s journey had not taken all of its steps, Sapolsky deemed it necessary as a makegood for the Windy City. Not only was it a money match, but now Punk had the same dynamic his teammate Cabana had 3 months earlier: home field advantage.
If World Title Classic is to be compared to Batman Begins, then the main event of what would come to be known as Joe vs. Punk II is more than deserving of a comparison to The Dark Knight. Coming just 2 weeks after the all-time classic against Danielson, Joe’s reign produced another match for the ages. The Dayton MOTYC got totally smoked, as the Joe vs. Punk rematch brought stronger psychology, storytelling, submission work, body part targeting, and crowd atmosphere. The timing for the bombs being dropped was also superior, and the finish was just phenomenal, both legends having a back-and-forth struggle in a defining moment for ROH, battling in who would deliver their musclebuster and Pepsi Plunge first, with the time running out right before Punk could get the pin after winning that critical battle.
Not only did this guarantee a third match that would very obviously end the Joe vs. Punk rivalry in this particular title reign, but now ROH had 2 guaranteed DVDs from October 2004 to make available during the upcoming holiday season. That business model got quite the boost too when for the first time for a North American match in 7 years, Dave Meltzer rated it *****, citing it as a match that all aspiring wrestlers could learn from in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It was the first match in the Western Hemisphere to receive such a rating from Meltzer since the first ever Hell in a Cell match between Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker at Bad Blood 1997. It was a rating that had eluded many classics since, including Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio at Halloween Havoc 1997, the Owen Hart tribute match between Bret Hart and Chris Benoit, Triple H vs. Cactus Jack at Royal Rumble 2000, Kurt Angle vs. Benoit at Royal Rumble 2003, HHH vs. Benoit vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XX, and the mentioned Joe vs. Danielson epic as well.
After a white-hot October 2004 for Joe, he got a much lighter load the next month, teaming up with Lethal and Liger on separate nights of the Weekend of Thunder. Now throughout 2004, Joe had taken exception to the Pure Title’s existence, irrationally burying it as meaningless and unnecessary. It really made no sense for him to snub the Pure Title, as it provided opportunities to strengthen the roster. But this would finally come to the ring when Joe teamed with his protégé Lethal on night 1 against Pure Champion John Walters and Nigel McGuinness (a month removed from a shocking clean victory over Homicide at Midnight Express Reunion.) It was a good contest that above anything else, showed a good chemistry as partners for Joe & Lethal.
Joe had an even easier task on night 2, as Liger played the face-in-peril role against the dastardly dream team of Ki & Danielson. Once the hot tag was made, with the inevitable result of Liger defeating Danielson once again, all the babyface tandem posed with Danielson in a sign of respect before Ki ambushed him to kick off a Danielson vs. Rottweilers feud.
Joe was being put back to work in December 2004 though. ROH came right back to New Jersey for Joe vs. Punk III, which would main event a historic All Star Extravaganza II. The prior 2 matches drew comparisons to the respective entries of The Dark Knight Trilogy; in this case though, Joe vs. Punk III deserves better than being compared to The Dark Knight Rises. Unlike that film, this wasn’t a flawed although arguably great epic. This was another piece of perfection, bringing something different than the prior 2 classics.
Instead of carefully strategized approaches, Joe and Punk sought to end this match earlier despite the lack of a time limit for this rivalry-ending contest. It was a brutal, highly dramatic war with plenty of unforgettable moments. Ricky Steamboat being booked in the timekeeper role was sheer genius, pointing out to the ref that Punk’s hand had actually NOT dropped 3 times during a submission. But even better, and at Steamboat’s suggestion when laying out the match, Joe found himself pushed to something not seen in his first 20 months as ROH Champion: he cheated.
When Joe put his feet on the ropes, it was a masterpiece of crowd psychology. The New Jersey audience, who had hated Punk so badly dating back to his dog-collar match against Raven at the company’s debut there for Death Before Dishonor, had found respect for him since Reborn: Completion. He had won over the region that had hated him most, and now Joe crossed the line. It showed that Punk had pushed the champ to his most vulnerable, while also showing the title reign was taking its toll.
Although Joe would go on to win the match clean, he had shown a weakness. Mick Foley had recently been brought into the company and was very critical of Joe on-screen, which pissed the champ off. So Joe showed respect to Punk, but took a shot at Foley too in the post-match, boasting that he’s still the measuring stick, and that the champion was leaving the building.
Since ROH’s rebirth had started in spring 2004, Generation Next had cemented itself as a key act among many in not just saving the company, but elevating it to aesthetic heights previously unseen. The four men of Jack Evans, Alex Shelley, Austin Aries, and Roderick Strong had collectively and individually made names for themselves with ruthless antics mirroring the Rottweilers, and with quality matches aplenty both in singles and tags.
In particular, Aries had broken out as a top star to look out for. From his breathtaking breakout performance against Danielson as they were the last 2 in the Survival of the Fittest elimination match, to getting the victory over Danielson in their 2/3 falls match at Testing the Limit, to pulling the shocking upset over CM Punk at Weekend of Thunder Night 1, and then showing no hesitation in competing against Low Ki until there was a winner after they reached a time limit draw at All Star Extravaganza II, his stock had risen, but to some degree, it seemed to have been done so quietly.
When factoring in that Joe was finally starting to sell the toll of his lengthy title reign, including a cheating tactic for the first time, while Aries had gotten clean victories over Punk and Danielson along with a victory over Ki by forfeit, the pieces of the puzzle were always there. So at Final Battle 2004, there should’ve never been any doubt that Aries had the tools to bring Joe’s time on top to its conclusion.
That on the same night Joe fucked around with Foley, while Aries & Strong excommunicated Shelley from GeNext, with the self-proclaimed “Personal Jesus” taking his spot as the faction’s leader, only further telegraphed what the closing moment of the evening and year would be.
Joe vs. Aries was a show-saving match, just like Joe vs. Ki and Joe vs. Jay before, bringing the year to its appropriate conclusion. Aries was relentless, brilliantly going for Joe with one strike and bomb after another, a complete contrast to Punk’s strategy. It threw Joe off and only further added to the physical toll the title reign had taken, resulting in history being made as the 21-month reign concluded.
Losing the ROH Title would not be the end of the world for Joe. Instead, it opened up new opportunities for him. In reality, he and Aries played somewhat parallel to John Cena and Punk in 2012; Aries was the world champion, but Joe was still unquestionably the face of the company. While Aries would be a fighting champion, his reign simply wasn’t as gripping as Joe’s beef with Foley, or Joe teaming up with Lethal again to face CM Punk & Steve Corino Brian Kendrick.
In reality, Foley loved Joe and Punk’s work so much that as revealed in their shoot interview, he wanted to bring both of them in cold to WWE’s main roster in early 2005, in the thick of WrestleMania season. What could have been…
The Joe vs. McGuinness singles catalog would come to ROH at It All Begins, serving as a good match to keep Joe warm and elevate McGuinness. In the main event of the evening, Foley and Joe had an amazing confrontation, with Foley using tremendous trash-talking thinly masked as Vince McMahon’s criticism of him, before turning into a fantastic brawl that would sadly never lead to an actual singles match between the two great brawlers.
The Joe vs. Aries rivalry still had some juice in it, with the rematch being obvious money. During the Third Anniversary Celebration week, the two opposed each other in a tremendous, hilarious tag match involving Jack Evans and Bryan Danielson. Aries would then retain in another great match to close out the week.
Jay Lethal would win the Pure Title at Trios Tournament, and on that same night, get punked out by a mysterious assailant in the back. He would team with Joe when Tag Champ Dan Maff was excommunicated, resulting in a vacant titles match against Jimmy Jacobs and Maff’s partner BJ Whitmer at Best of American Super Juniors Tournament. The match had flaws all over the place, being a disappointment, but very important not just for Jacobs & Whitmer, but perhaps Lethal & Joe as well.
Joe would earn a Pure Title shot in a four-way at Stalemate, passing on earning another ROH Title shot. This would lead to the first ever Lethal vs. Joe match at Manhattan Mayhem, the company’s debut in that particular part of NYC. The show was off the charts, the match was fantastic with all kinds of terrific mentor vs. protégé storytelling, submission work, and a historic finish, Joe winning the belt that he had previously disapproved.
Joe’s celebration and sentimental moment with Lethal would be short-lived however, as the Rottweilers interrupted. Low Ki revealed himself as Lethal’s mystery assailant a couple months earlier, and the faction left the two badly beaten. This paid off in an insane impromptu match immediately after the historic ROH Title match between Aries and Shelley. In fact, insane may be an understatement: Joe & Lethal vs. Ki & Homicide is the very reason that the event would be named Manhattan Mayhem. It had been so chaotic that not only was Lethal badly damaged from eating a double foot stomp and Kudo Driver combo, but Joe came out injured too, having to take the following weekend easy.
Just because Joe had an easy workload for The Final Showdown and Nowhere to Run doesn’t mean that his contributions that weekend were forgettable. In fact, he participated in the greatest comedy match of the entire 2000s decade against Jack Evans, Delirious, and Ebetaroh, which Dayton totally ate up to the point of breaking out in ”Match of the Year” chants after it concluded. In Chicago, Joe had the night off from in-ring action, but punked out Aries after his successful ROH Title defense against Danielson. Aries was displeased by this, understandably crotching Joe for such a bush-league move, only for Joe to leave the company’s top champion laying with a musclebuster. This would pay off the following month as Aries battled Brian Kendrick, Low Ki, and CM Punk, resulting in him getting dethroned.
June 2005 would be a defining month in Samoa Joe’s career. Unlike CM Punk, he chose to sign with TNA instead of WWE. Throughout the rest of the calendar year, Joe was TNA’s breakout star, being presented as a menacing monster heel that would also have incredible matches, particularly against Chris Sabin, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels. But he was still the Pure Champion at the time of his TNA debut, and was far from having one foot out the door yet.
His first defense of the Pure Title would turn out to be the greatest of his reign, and one of the very best matches of that title’s history. Simply put, the company’s Buffalo debut at New Frontiers was defined by the work of art between Samoa Joe and James Gibson. This was a showcase of terrific storytelling, the Pure Title reaching heights that hadn’t been seen before, and the Buffalo audience was rabid, engaging in dueling chants. This really stood out because earlier on the card, Roderick Strong had his very first major singles victory of his career in ROH over Alex Shelley, only to get no reaction for it.
The rest of Joe’s run with the Pure Title would be fine. His next 3 defenses against McGuinness, Cabana, and Aries would be good but not even close to blow away. His match against Jimmy Rave was highly disappointing at Fate of an Angel, although not nearly as much as that night’s marquee match between Daniels and the white-hot Matt Hardy.
As this was going on, Aries had been dethroned by Punk at Death Before Dishonor III, an emotional all-time classic compared to The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania X8 for sheer atmosphere. Even more shocking than Punk winning the belt with his foot out the door to WWE, his expected farewell speech would be a heel turn, telling the New Jersey audience that his babyface run since Reborn: Completion had been a ruse to play with their emotions. He vowed to take the title hostage and bring it along to WWE.
The Summer of Punk would become the greatest farewell tour in the history of ALL professional wrestling, as both the fans and locker room were vociferous about Punk’s antics. Joe was among them. He would finally get his crack at Punk and the ROH Title on the champion’s farewell weekend in a four-way elimination also involving Gibson and Daniels at Redemption. The match would be a roller-coaster ride with Punk getting the last laugh in his final battle over against Joe, before getting dethroned in a career-defining moment by Gibson.
While Punk would be the obvious big news as he bid farewell in Chicago against Cabana, and Matt Hardy would get some thunder as well wrapping up his ROH bookings against Roderick Strong, neither of those matches provided the best performances at Punk: The Final Chapter. It would be a rematch of the impromptu tag from Manhattan Mayhem that would steal the show. Joe & Lethal vs. Ki & Homicide would be a very good match, elevated by one of the greatest brawls in company history taken place in the post-match. It was pure insanity, in fact an inadvertent sign of things to come in 2006. Once it was all over, Chicago was creaming themselves in chants for Low Ki.
Joe would then have a horrible defense against Daniels a week later at Night of the Grudges II, one of the worst events in company history. That’s probably due to a very physically, emotionally taxing week for him. But Gabe Sapolsky made the right choice taking the belt off him immediately afterwards, just 7 days later at Dragon Gate Invasion. The title loss to Nigel McGuinness wouldn’t be special as far as match quality is concerned, but it was tremendous character work for McGuinness, who finally made a full-blown heel turn coming off his feud-ending defeat against Cabana. It would turn out to be the final Pure Title change in its history until it was finally retired at Unified just 2 weeks short of a whole year later.
At this point, Joe had cemented himself as the Babe Ruth of ROH. He was truly a legend that no longer needed any titles to have engaging arcs. He needed new challenges, perhaps something special to take him to legendary status to a previously unimaginable level. Gabe Sapolsky had just the idea in mind.
In March 2003, Joe’s dethroning of Xavier would not be the only historic title change in professional wrestling. Just 3 weeks beforehand at the beginning of the month, a far more marquee one took place when Kenta Kobashi toppled Mitsuharu Misawa for the GHC Heavyweight Title, the top prize at the time not just in Pro Wrestling NOAH, but ALL of puroresu. Although there would be one more singles match between them, March 1, 2003 was for all intents and purposes the end of the Kobashi vs. Misawa rivalry, getting a ***** rating from Meltzer and winning Match of the Year in his newsletter’s awards.
For the next 2 years, Joe wasn’t the only epic world champion on the planet. Kobashi had a career-defining reign, in marquee classics one after another against the likes of Jun Akiyama, Yoshihiro Takayama, Yuji Nagata, Tamon Honda, and Akitoshi Saito. In fact, Kobashi vs. Akiyama at the historic Departure 2004 would win MOTY in Meltzer’s newsletter over the Joe vs. Punk rematch.
For the most die-hard purists, Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi was a pipedream, simply just too good to be true. This would be one of those rare times in the business when such a delicious fantasy becomes reality. ROH prided itself on largely modeling itself in a fashion that focused on pro wrestling and delivering incredible matches, a stark contrast in America at the time to TNA and WWE. That seemed to get NOAH’s attention, in particular Kobashi’s, who wanted great matches in America to be on his resume.
The stars lined up. The dream match would take place in where else but Manhattan, of course.
Once again, Joe found himself in an ROH main event that was so fantastic, emotional, and historically significant that the event didn’t need a unique name. Joe vs. Kobashi was all the DVD needed to move units for the holiday season. Meltzer raved about it, those in attendance raved about it like a religious experience, and there was even someone in attendance on the original ROH message board that said it made Joe’s debut against Ki 3 years earlier look like air punches.
The content of the Joe vs. Kobashi dream match isn’t quite on par with matches the two had against the likes of Punk, Danielson, Akiyama, and Takayama. But no matter which angle someone tries to look at the match from, it truly is a ***** match due to its storytelling and atmosphere on par with Rock vs. Hogan and the Aries vs. Punk title change. It not only got the obvious ***** rating from Meltzer, but also won his newsletter’s MOTY, which speaks volumes considering it didn’t become available for mass viewing until November, the last month of the awards’ calendar, and beating out other acclaimed dream matches that year such as Kobashi vs. Kensuke Sasaki and Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels. Joe now had the Wrestling Observer Newsletter MOTY on his resume, while also getting the ***** rating 3 times within a 365-day period (Joe vs. Punk II, Unbreakable, and Joe vs. Kobashi.)
The dream match is so beloved that some claim it’s the greatest in ROH history more than a decade later. Some view it highly enough, factoring in its cultural and business importance as well, to say it’s the most important match to ever take place in ROH. Some say that this one match alone is enough to place Kobashi into a list of the 50 most important ROH in-ring contributors ever.
Joe vs. Kobashi brought something different to the table for Joe. He had spent his entire first 3 years in ROH (and also first 4 months in TNA) being the alpha male. He was the domineering force of the ROH brand. Perhaps the best comparison to be made: Samoa Joe’s first 3 years in ROH were comparable to that of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 3-Peat World Title dynasty to kick off the 21st Century. But then on October 1, 2005, Joe finally got a taste of his own medicine against Kobashi. He ran into someone stronger, more seasoned, more clutch, more hard-hitting, more determined. In the process, Joe gave everything and it wasn’t enough, while Kobashi didn’t have to pull out the Burning Hammer. But Kobashi gave a lot to Joe, who kicked off the match by slapping the first-ballot HOFer, a callback to the Kobashi vs. Takayama work of art, and saying in one move “you’re not getting an easy paycheck in my yard, bitch.”
The Joe vs. Kobashi singles match is so loved though that their other encounter just 24 hours gets grossly overlooked and underplayed. Simply put, the dream partner tag pitting Low Ki & Samoa Joe against Homicide & Kenta Kobashi at Unforgettable is the greatest standard 2-on-2 tag match in ROH’s first 5 years of existence. It’s superior to Austin Aries & Roderick Strong vs. the Briscoes at Unified; it’s superior to Aries & Strong vs. KENTA & Davey Richards at Honor Reclaims Boston. It may very well be superior to other all-time acclaimed matches in ROH history such as the Briscoes vs. Motor City Machine Guns at Good Times, Great Memories, Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico at Driven 2008, Wolves vs. Black & Danielson at Tag Title Classic, and Young Bucks vs. reDRagon at War of the Worlds 2014. It is a match very much deserving of being in the conversation of the Takeover matches between the Revival and DIY in 2016; in fact, one could turn that around and say that those 2 matches belong in the same conversation as Joe & Ki vs. Homicide & Kobashi.
The main event of Unforgettable might be the most underappreciated all-time classic in ROH history, providing a major-league presentation in tag team wrestling that’s often lacking among the independents, including TNA. Every matchup was fantastic, with Joe and Kobashi having the professionally driven tension still running fresh, while Ki and Homicide finally collided and put on an absolute doozy in an ROH ring. It was a breathtaking match belonging on a much grander NOAH stage, and a perfect MOTYC compliment to James Gibson’s tremendous farewell earlier on the card against Roderick Strong, presenting a 1-2 punch in the ring on par with WrestleMania X’s Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart/Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon, Final Resolution 2005’s Team Canada vs. AMW/Ultimate XVI, WrestleMania 21’s Money in the Bank ladder match/Angle vs. Michaels, Extreme Rules 2012’s Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan/John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar, SummerSlam 2013’s Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk/John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan, and Extreme Rules 2016’s The Miz vs. Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens/Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles.
After a draining, taxing weekend against Kobashi, Joe still had more stories to complete in ROH. In the historic main event at Redemption, Punk had gotten the pin fall on him thanks to the future HOFer eliminating Christopher Daniels in an unethical manner. The Fallen Angel would look to retaliate, and his decision to do so inadvertently hurt Joe, allowing Punk to pin him. Joe and Daniels would brawl to the back before Gibson would return to dethrone Danielson.
So the Joe vs. Daniels program was reheated, perfect timing based on their interactions in TNA at the time too. They would have an awesome match at Vendetta (completely overshadowed by the ***** Bryan Danielson vs. Roderick Strong rematch, arguably the best match of either man’s career), with Joe once again gaining the victory. Meanwhile in TNA, Styles had dethroned Daniels for the X-Division Title in their acclaimed 3-way at Unbreakable. Joe would then dethrone Styles in an all-out war at Turning Point 2005, an instant classic that may be the greatest match in TNA history. Then at Final Resolution 2006, Joe retained over Daniels in yet another classic, once again showcasing his mean streak driven superiority.
At the same time, Joe continued teaming with Lethal in ROH. They had a very good match in victory over the Embassy’s Jimmy Rave & Alex Shelley at Enter the Dragon, but went on to lose a Tag Titles Shot match against Aries & Strong at Eddie Guerrero’s Night of Tribute. What was noticeable was that going into that match, Joe said he was now aiming to win the Tag Titles so he could “single-handedly” become the first ever Triple Crown winner in ROH history. This didn’t exactly impress Lethal, and when Aries pinned him with a fantastic frog splash tribute to Guerrero, Joe looked very disappointed in his protégé.
The Lethal vs. Joe rematch would take place in Manhattan at Steel Cage Warfare, right where it had taken place before, although a different venue this time. Lethal wanted to prove himself against Joe, but after about 15 minutes of a very good match, chose to attack his mentor with a chair! Lethal was relentless and for whatever reason not disqualified, getting the cheap victory over the Babe Ruth of ROH!
The Lethal vs. Joe program would end up being a disappointment, petering out in a disappointing match a couple months later. That is not Lethal’s fault. It’s doubtful that Joe is to blame. But someone decided that instead of turning Joe heel, which would’ve been very interesting and tied in with his TNA direction at the time, Lethal should. This made no sense; Joe was a fucking self-absorbed prick and full of his own shit, directly saying that Lethal was just along for the ride and a means to a goal. Joe didn’t give a shit about achieving something special with Lethal; he only cared about padding his individual legacy.
Lethal had just finally won the feud against Low Ki a few months earlier at Glory By Honor IV. He had won the Pure Title earlier in the year. He was not an afterthought pushover. With that in mind, he had every right to be pissed and knock Joe down a peg. But the direction instead became that Lethal saw Joe’s paychecks and thus would use Joe as a big name stepping stone to reach that same pay grade status. This was ass-backwards and showed a lack of faith in Joe being positioned as a heel in ROH. Perhaps the fear was that he was now too respected to ever be vilified by the ROH audience. It was a risk worth taking, and if the audience cheered him anyway, eventually turn him back babyface when the time came for it. And little did anyone know when the Lethal vs. Joe program started, that time could actually come very soon!
The Lethal vs. Joe feud never picked up steam, ending in a completely forgettable match at the Fourth Anniversary Show with Joe going over. Considering that it was in Lethal’s home state of New Jersey, as was their four-way involving Daniels and BJ Whitmer at Final Battle 2005, that had to be incredibly disappointing for him that it didn’t at least end on a high note. It would be the end of Lethal’s initial full-time run with ROH, only appearing 2 more times in 2006 when ROH would run the same building.
As for Joe, he moved on to bigger and better things that night. Chris Hero and other CZW stars crashed the party as a Whitmer vs. Daniels match turned into a brawl, singing “Happy Birthday” while ending it with the simple but effective “Fuck you!” Joe at last had enough, inserting himself in the greatest feud of the 21st Century to date, the ROH crowd in an absolute frenzy as Hero and Joe brawled!
The segment was all-out chaos, perhaps the biggest takeaway for the event that kicked off The Milestone Series. After a month of CZW troll invasions, they now had to also answer to the company’s alpha male. CZW had also made itself a new enemy in Whitmer, who was none too pleased by the disrespect shown when CZW stole the spotlight while he had been brawling with Daniels.
The ROH vs. CZW saga would continue on the next event as ROH came to the former ECW Arena for the first time in company history. Arena Warfare would be another fantastic edition of The Milestone Series. In addition to an incredible ROH Title match and heel promo battle between Bryan Danielson and Alex Shelley, the historic event ended with CZW finally gaining the upper hand on ECW. Samoa Joe and the rest of the roster were outgunned as a CZW crony brought a weedwhacker to the scene, a first in ROH history. By no means did this make Joe look like a bitch; nobody could stand up to that, not even Brock Lesnar (which when compared to Joe’s booking in this segment, makes Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania 32 all that much more disappointing.)
CZW’s army would turn Whitmer into a sacrificial lamb, stapling his body repeatedly. It was a scene far more heinous, far more barbaric, than had been done to Low Ki at Unscripted and Joe at Reborn: Completion. There had been matches and moments that reached a fever pitch. There had even been the rewarding storylines such as Raven vs. CM Punk, Punk vs. Steamboat, Punk vs. Jimmy Rave, and The Embassy vs. Generation Next. But there had never been something this visceral and chaotic in ROH.
The following day at TNA’s Destination X 2012, Daniels regained the X-Division Title in an Ultimate X match against Joe and Styles. The match proved to not be conducive to Joe, which had been a pushed narrative going into it. While Joe had a claim to a title rematch in TNA, ROH needed both to move on from the saga that had started from the very moment of Joe’s debut.
Before the Joe vs. Daniels feud would end on ROH’s first ever triple-shot weekend, the company had a dream tag match in mind. At Best in the World 2006, Joe teamed with ROH Champion Bryan Danielson against the acclaimed tandem of KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji. The match was slightly disappointing; some will point to it not being structured in the most optimal way, but that’s inaccurate. The Manhattan crowd simply wanted figurative candy; they went totally ape shit for an awful, incoherent spot fest between the Briscoes and Jack Evans & Roderick Strong right before this main event. Now they just wanted to see Joe and KENTA go at it. They hardly gave a single shit about Danielson and Marufuji, a complete disrespect to them. The content of the match was outstanding, with Joe and KENTA admittedly being the highlights since their segments were so heated, but the audience brought it down a notch. The post-match was great with Joe being a complete dick to KENTA. In hindsight, this card should’ve hosted a Danielson vs. Aries title match, Daniels vs. Marufuji dream match, and KENTA vs. Joe dream match main event.
Next came the mentioned triple-shot for ROH on WrestleMania 22 weekend. It started with a night in Detroit. The event was named Dragon Gate Challenge due to CIMA and 5 other Dragon Gate stars coming in to provide some crossover matches, but the main event would be ROH’s last ever singles encounter between Joe and Daniels. It turned out to be another awesome match, with a nice piece of storytelling added when Daniels came out to “The Champ is Here” by Jadakiss and wearing the X-Division Title, rubbing his victory from a weeks earlier in Joe’s face. It took an effort greater than had been shown at Glory By Honor II, Vendetta, and Final Resolution 2006, but the Fallen Angel had finally gotten his elusive singles victory over the Samoan Submission Machine after multiple Best Moonsaults Ever.
CZW stars Chris Hero and Necro Butcher would come spoil the moment, but Daniels would be advised by his valet Allison Danger to stay out of this battle. It instead became Joe fighting them off alone until Claudio Castagnoli arrived to help chase them off, a repeat of what his assistance to Adam Pearce the week before at Best in the World 2006. Joe simply told the CZW invaders that the war had just begun.
Joe and Daniels still competed the rest of the weekend as it shifted to Chicago, but the second night at the first ever Supercard of Honor would be a three-way involving Jimmy Jacobs. Joe would win the match by going over Jacobs; it was good but nothing blow away. The bigger takeaway was the post-match becoming another ROH vs. CZW brawl, with neither side having the distinct advantage coming out of it.
Then on the eve of WrestleMania 22, came Better Than Our Best, the greatest event in ROH history. Joe would win another good but not blow away four-way against Styles, Daniels, and Jimmy Yang, but once again the post-match was the much bigger takeaway. After 18 months, Joe was tired of waiting. He declared that he wanted his shot at Danielson for the ROH Title. Danielson arrived to cut a fantastic heel promo, shitting on Joe’s size and being a cocky motherfucker. After 18 months, ROH finally planted the seeds for the rematch that the fans had been waiting for since Midnight Express Reunion.
As Danielson left, Chris Hero & Necro Butcher arrived to double-team Joe. On the final night of such a historic weekend, in front of what was a record-breaking attendance, CZW finally left with the last laugh, outsmarting Joe, Castagnoli, and ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette. And that was in the Midwest, not in Philly, where the audience wouldn’t be so partisan.
The Milestone Series would conclude with The 100th Show. It would finally be an actual match between ROH and CZW in Philly, the city that birthed both federations. Fans were divided to create a fantastic neutral, bipartisan atmosphere. It would be Joe, Pearce, & Whitmer against Hero, Necro, & Super Dragon. The contest wasn’t a wrestling match; it was an all-out fight, one for the ages. Joe and Hero surprisingly contributed the least though; instead, the other 4 participants got to shine. Nonetheless, it was a jaw-dropping affair with the level of heat very rarely untapped in professional wrestling. It would come down to the obvious; Claudio Castagnoli, after being the first to ever shake hands with Christopher Daniels in ROH earlier on the show, would arrive and betray ROH, siding with his trainer and fellow King of Wrestling Chris Hero and the rest of CZW. The ultraviolent army would seal the victory and end the historic series of events with the last laugh, leaving Joe incensed but saying it wasn’t over.
At this point, Joe’s position in ROH became equivalent to the Rock’s in 2002 and John Cena’s in 2016 for WWE. He clearly had one foot out the door at this point, although it wouldn’t become apparent until a couple weeks later. Now while Cena and Dwayne Johnson would be preoccupied with interests in the entertainment industry, Joe’s priorities were shifting towards TNA. That’s completely understandable if they were stronger contributors to him taking care of his responsibilities.
Before that became apparent, Joe would team with Matt Sydal to have a great match against Sydal’s Generation Next stablemates Austin Aries & Roderick Strong for the Tag Titles at Weekend of Champions Night 1. Joe’s singles match against Castagnoli would be a disappointment the next night. He then had a squash match over someone named Apocalypse in May, and then his marquee match against Necro Butcher in New Jersey would instead be transitioned into another chaotic brawl between their respective federations before becoming an impromptu main event between Necro and Homicide, causing the event to become known as Ring of Homicide in light of it being one of the greatest closing segments in ROH history, one that no company can come close to touching a decade later. It’s been said Joe didn’t deliver the individual performance as expected to keep him good to go for TNA’s Sacrifice 2006 the next day.
Joe very obviously was torn between his ROH and TNA commitments, but like the parallel of Rock’s 2002 and Cena’s 2016, his star power was still substantial. His issue with KENTA continued in a three-way involving Danielson at In Your Face; this was quite the disappointing match as Danielson got concussed, while Joe and KENTA would legitimately hurt each other. Because of this, yet another marquee match for Joe in ROH would be shelved; first it was the one-on-one rematch against Low Ki, who had been kicked out for good 5 months earlier and hasn’t been booked in ROH since 11 years later; and now it was the one-on-one match against KENTA.
The ROH vs. CZW war would conclude at Death Before Dishonor IV in where else but Philly of course, this time inside the Cage of Death. While ROH would win in a company-defining work of chaotic art thanks to Homicide bailing them out, he was put in position to make that decision because of what Danielson did to Joe early in the match. After Joe and Danielson had gotten the upper hand on the Kings of Wrestling, Danielson decided to clip one of Joe’s knees, eliminating his partner from the match while choosing to fuck off himself. This was absolutely brilliant booking, as Joe’s greatest contributions to the ROH vs. CZW feud had really been just his star power, not any of his performances as a brawler or talker, while Danielson had never cared about the issue until the night of the Cage of Death. Their ROH teammates were more deserving of shining in this all-time masterpiece.
This would build to the anticipated Danielson vs. Joe showdown at the event titled Fight of the Century. But the night before that, an era would come to an end for ROH, as Joe would face AJ Styles in the Phenomenal One’s swan song at Time to Man Up. It would be another good chapter in their rivalry, but it didn’t come close to being blow away. Perhaps there were circumstances preventing them from having Styles go out on a phenomenal high note, which would be understandable. But looking at the card, there was a major missed opportunity in Gabe Sapolsky not booking KENTA vs. Styles. It could plausibly happen now that both are under WWE contract, but what’s the actual likelihood?
Danielson vs. Joe wouldn’t live up to its event name. It turned out to be a somewhat polarizing match. Many hated that it was booked to be a 60-minute draw. Some would say that the match told a tremendous story with great body part work by Danielson. If one were to judge the content and analyze the story it told, perhaps the match’s greatness is easily acknowledgeable. As proven at Best in the World 2006 in their tag match against KENTA & Marufuji, the East Coast simply had a different breed of ROH fans than the Midwest. Therefore, while this was a great match, New Jersey was the wrong audience to book a 60-minute Broadway in front of, just like Punk vs. Daniels the year before in Philly at The Homecoming.
The post-match had some huge takeaways in it. KENTA arrived to confront Danielson and tease their scheduled match coming up at Glory By Honor V Night 2. KENTA would be ambushed by the Briscoes, who had started shit with him back in June when he faced Aries & Strong in singles matches. Homicide then came after the Briscoes, who had gone against him in support of newly heel turned Commissioner Jim Cornette. Joe helped out Homicide, then offered to be his partner against the Briscoes on the night of Danielson vs. KENTA. Now why would Joe make this offer? Was it a lazy patch-up like Shawn Michaels & Triple H that same year against the McMahons and the Spirit Squad, or Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns against Kevin Owens & Chris Jericho in late 2016?
Of course not. Joe appreciated Homicide’s assistance in the war against CZW, and being the final nail in the coffin for them to boot. THAT is what it took for Joe to forgive Homicide for all his past heinous transgressions. THAT is what it took for Joe to forgive Homicide igniting a fireball in his face. THAT is how deadly and menacing of a threat that CZW was for ROH. So now the dream team was created, making their first ever union at one of the most important events in company history.
Before then, Joe faced off against Aries for the last time ever in ROH, as he teamed with BJ Whitmer in another Tag Titles shot against Aries & Strong as a reward for winning the war against CZW. It was good but absolutely nothing special, but the takeaway was that Strong got the victory over Joe. This led to their lone ROH singles match at Glory By Honor V Night 1 in Connecticut. Once again, ROH was forced to host the event in a tent at the last minute, but that didn’t matter. Strong vs. Joe was an excellent match, with all the hard-hitting and great psychology one would expect from the two heaviest hitters going at the time in ROH. Unfortunately though, Joe took a bad bump and developed sciatica, which would plague him for quite some time, and possibly still does to this day.
That was seen immediately the night next when the company debuted at the Manhattan Center for Glory By Honor V Night 2. Joe couldn’t give his best effort in his dream team with Homicide against the Briscoes. Instead the other 3 participants had to carry it in what turned out to be still be a good, very hot match. They would rematch a few weeks later at Motor City Madness 2006. Joe would be taken out early, surely due to his sciatica, leaving Homicide to put up an admirable effort in defeat to the Briscoes, who nobody would ever single-handedly overcome in ROH. This chapter would come to a close at Dethroned as the dream team simultaneously pinned the Briscoes in another good match.
Also at Glory By Honor V Night 2: HOFer Bruno Sammartino made an appearance, putting the company over in front of the roster which included some NOAH stars. As the locker room left ringside, Joe bumped into Takeshi Morishima, sparking a pull-apart brawl that had the Manhattan Center rocking.
The Danielson vs. Joe program continued but no longer had the bite of 2 months earlier. While their remaining 3 matches were all good, with the peak being a very good hardcore contest at Irresistible Forces, the epic crowd heat seen at Midnight Express Reunion and Better Than Our Best was long gone. Their feud-ending cage match seemed like nothing more than a formality at The Chicago Spectacular Night 1, and was a key indicator that booker Gabe Sapolsky was finally reaching burnout. That’s a shame considering that the cage match turned out to be the final chapter ever for the Joe vs. Danielson rivalry, one that had spanned for 4 years.
Speaking of burnout, there was The Bitter End. While Joe was in a very buzzworthy, albeit much creatively criticized program in TNA against their newest acquisition Kurt Angle, he still had one last interesting direction in ROH. Since the KENTA vs. Joe direction was dropped, it still smoothly transitioned to Joe wanting to fight NOAH talent. After KENTA had won a very good match against Matt Sydal, Joe picked a fight and said to send anyone from NOAH to face him.
Joe’s issue against NOAH would continue, getting the attention of Nigel McGuinness, who worked for both ROH and NOAH at the time. They would go on to have a very good match at Dedicated in January 2007. But it became obvious that it was time for Joe’s ROH tenure to wind down. That became crystal-clear when his match against Homicide bombed at Battle of the Icons.
Before the Fifth Year Festival would begin, Joe had a special announcement (time stamp 4:11):
Samoa Joe’s farewell tour would have its upsides and downsides. An individual look at each night.
Fifth Year Festival: NYC – Joe had a fantastic pull-apart with McGuinness to build up to their final singles match. Later that night, the dream match against the debuting Morishima would be an underappreciated classic. That’s probably due to Joe going over inexplicably. But the content and atmosphere was fantastic, serving as the obvious real main event over Homicide vs. Jimmy Rave. In fact, if this show is to be compared to WrestleMania X8, then Joe vs. Morishima is clearly Rock vs. Hogan, while Homicide vs. Rave is Chris Jericho vs. Triple H. Joe had a touching farewell speech for Manhattan as expected.
Fifth Year Festival: Philly – a match against Jimmy Rave looked like a sore thumb for Joe’s farewell tour, and looks much the same a decade later. In hindsight, this was an opportunity to present another once-in-a-lifetime dream match, that being Shingo vs. Samoa Joe. It’d have been a tremendous learning experience for Shingo on his excursion, a marquee opportunity to prove himself too. At least Joe’s post-match promo for Philly was touching though.
Fifth Year Festival: Dayton – the long-awaited match in an ROH ring against Davey Richards turned out to be a very good one, smoking their encounter at PWG’s Astonishing X-Mas. Why the match has fallen under the radar is a mystery, as this very much deserved to be included on one of Joe’s many ROH compilations. Once again, Joe had a great promo for Dayton.
Fifth Year Festival: Chicago – a disappointing dream partner tag, with much of the match lacking a cohesive story. McGuinness going over Joe here seemed really strange too, but the only good argument for it was the former Pure Champion could declare his desire for the ROH Title to his partner Morishima’s face. With that said, Joe’s ROH farewell on American soil turned out to be a must-see novelty, with Chicago giving him an ovation that looked to have him coming close to tears. The post-match was also incredibly moving, the locker room filling up the ring as he poured his heart out on the microphone.
Fifth Year Festival: Liverpool – a fantastic conclusion to the Joe vs. McGuinness rivalry, with incredible heat, storytelling, and although a flawed booking in having Joe go over, managed to still indicate that McGuinness had a very bright future at the top of the card.
Fifth Year Festival: Finale – the final chapter in ROH for the Joe vs. Homicide rivalry proved to be a memorable novelty, although couldn’t come close in terms of content to their classics at Generation Next and Death Before Dishonor II Pt. 1. Instead, this was a greatest hits version of their rivalry, with Julius Smokes included. It didn’t touch Gibson vs. Strong, put surpassed other farewell matches such as Joe vs. London and Punk vs. Cabana. The post-match was very moving as Joe bid farewell, and the DVD’s closing video package put the entire package over the top, putting his significance in the history books on clear display.
Now why did Joe go over Morishima and McGuinness in their singles matches on his farewell tour? That’s because Gabe Sapolsky “gambled” that Joe could be brought back later in the year to put them both over in money matches. AWFUL decision. Sapolsky had clearly lost his “gambling” touch that earned him the Best Booker nod for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards in the prior 3 years, and it’s shocking he won it again in 2007 when looking at this.
In hindsight, the best booking for Joe’s farewell tour would’ve been putting Morishima over in NYC, going over Shingo in Philly, going over Richards in Dayton, putting over McGuinness in their last ever singles encounter in Chicago, going over Naruki Doi in another dream match on the first night in Liverpool, and then going over Homicide in his farewell. As for McGuinness in Liverpool? Once again, since there was no guarantee of a UK return later in 2007, McGuinness dethrones Homicide instead of Morishima doing so in Philly, and then ends his feud against Rave on a high note by successfully defending it against him in their classic hardcore match. Meanwhile, Morishima gets slowly built up in an undefeated streak, including sweeping all past ROH Champions that are available (Joe, Homicide, Xavier, Aries, and Danielson), before dethroning McGuinness at Live in Tokyo.
In hindsight, the best booking for Joe’s farewell tour would’ve been putting Morishima over in NYC, going over Shingo in Philly, going over Richards in Dayton, putting over McGuinness in their last ever singles encounter in Chicago, going over Strong in Liverpool, and then going over Homicide in his farewell. As for McGuinness in Liverpool? Once again, since there was no guarantee of a UK return later in 2007, McGuinness dethrones Homicide instead of Morishima doing so in Philly, and then ends his feud against Rave on a high note by successfully defending it against him in their classic hardcore match. Meanwhile, Morishima gets slowly built up in an undefeated streak, including sweeping all past ROH Champions that are available (Joe, Homicide, Xavier, Aries, and Danielson), before dethroning McGuinness at Live in Tokyo.
Now as mentioned, the Fifth Year Festival would turn out to be not be the end of Samoa Joe’s time in ROH. He would go on to return for one night only in ROH at Rising Above 2008, having a dream match against Tyler Black. It would be incredibly shocking if by SummerSlam 2017, that still stands as the only singles match to ever take place between Joe and the artist now known as Seth Rollins when considering what Joe’s WWE main roster debut segment was. But that match turned out not to be the end either.
In the years that followed, Joe saw himself eventually rise to the top of TNA, defeating Kurt Angle for the TNA Title in an acclaimed cage match at Lockdown 2008. Poetically for what would come later in his career, that moment would occur in the Boston suburb of Lowell. But after that, he fell off. He’d have some good matches here-and-there, including another fantastic three-way chapter against Styles and Daniels at Turning Point 2009, but he simply wasn’t the same level of performer for the next 6 years. Perhaps it was injuries, lack of motivation, or even a combo of other issues, all of it sounds plausible, but the bottom line is that he became just another name on the roster, rather than the marquee one that had dominated ROH, TNA, and the rest of the underground from 2002 to 2007.
For a long time, it looked like Samoa Joe would languish in TNA for the rest of his career. In what may have been a sign that he knew or at least suspected his days in TNA were outnumbered, he tweeted concerns in December 2013 that he had heard he was no longer welcome in ROH. That was quickly and publicly negated by ROH. Looking back at TNA since 2013, it would make sense that such a tweet by Joe was an indication that he would be leaving the company once his contract expired in 2015. That was the year that contracts started to not get renewed, including Matt Morgan, and even AJ Styles leaving the promotion for ROH the very same month of Joe’s concerning tweets.
It should’ve been a dead giveaway when Joe and Triple H very briefly followed each other on Twitter in 2014. Coming just months after Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels followed Styles to ROH, it’s very obvious that the two exchanged “pleasantries” to put it in a way that won’t suggest anything illegal. So it should’ve been a surprise to nobody that Joe departed TNA in early 2015, making his return to ROH and publicly admitting to negotiations with WWE.
Joe would have 5 more matches in ROH, with dream encounters against ACH, Kyle O’Reilly, and Michael Elgin, plus an ROH Title match against Jay Briscoe at Supercard of Honor IX in the Bay Area. For those in attendance, it was a very touching night for the die-hard ROH fans of yesteryear, because not only did Joe challenge for the ROH Title and get “The Champ is Here” playing in the post-match despite Jay defeating him, but Jimmy Jacobs bid farewell (although not pushed as such when it actually should’ve been) against BJ Whitmer and convinced Lacey to return to say goodbye to him, sparking “The Ballad of Lacey” to play for their final chapter.
Joe would go on to sign with WWE, making his debut at NXT Takeover: Unstoppable (a name that should’ve been another dead giveaway since it’s the name of Joe’s TNA compilation), and doing so poetically, HILARIOUSLY on the same night that Dave Meltzer reported Destination America would be cancelling their TV contract with TNA. It was a very rewarding night for Joe and his fans as he went face-to-face with Kevin Owens. He would go on to be a 2-time NXT Champion before finally graduating to the main roster the night after Royal Rumble 2017, a milestone long overdue for one of the best performers of the 2000s decade.
But before his legacy began to carve itself on the NXT brand, Joe had one last final farewell, and it’s looking like it will end up being the true end of him in ROH. In a match taped exclusive for his Don’t Call it a Comeback compilation, he teamed up with AJ Styles to face Kazarian & Daniels at the Best in the World 2015 TV Taping. It was the end of an era for them, one that had went back more than a decade and a half. At long last, one of them would finally move on to WWE. Of course, Joe’s partner would not be too far behind.
While June 2015 would be the end of an era, the truth is that Joe’s returns in 2008 and 2015 were mere prologues to his ROH legacy.
The end of an era was a decade ago in Liverpool. It wrapped up a run that was never originally meant to be.
It wrapped up a run that elevated the ROH Title to a level strong enough to get Dave Meltzer’s attention, with a match earning a ***** rating.
It was a run that started off with one of the biggest bangs in ROH history, a debut that earned him a full-time roster spot and run with the ROH Title.
It was a run that saw all-time classic matches against CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Kenta Kobashi.
It was a run that saw incredible chapters in rivalries against Low Ki, Homicide, the Briscoes, AJ Styles, Nigel McGuiness, and Christopher Daniels.
It was a run that allowed Joe to start off with a push in TNA comparable to what Styles would receive with WWE in 2016. In fact, Joe’s first 6 months in TNA were even better than Styles in WWE.
It was a run that earned Joe the nod to compete against Kobashi in the first-ballot HOFer’s only singles match to ever take place on American soil, and to also go against him the following night in an all-time classic tag.
It was a run that earned Joe so much goodwill, the fans were more than willing to overlook and understand that his priorities starting shifting towards TNA in 2006.
It was a run so revered and respected, that even the flawed booking of his farewell tour could still be overlooked and tremendously appreciated as a historic milestone, with heartfelt post-match promos delivered on each night.
It was a run so iconic, impressive, and historic, that some argue Samoa Joe is the most important on-screen contributor in the ongoing 15-year history of Ring of Honor, more than the Briscoes, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Kevin Steen, and Nigel McGuinness.
It was a run that should he go on to become a top star in WWE (which is very plausible), will be combined to justifiably recognize a Hall of Fame career.
A decade ago, the Fifth Year Festival would be Joe’s farewell from ROH, while also being the breakout of a couple Quebecers named Kevin Steen & El Generico, finally earning their spots. It’s almost poetic looking back on it, as Joe at the time said ROH was always about new talent, and none proved it more than those two, who were the polar opposites of Joe’s debut against Low Ki when they first got booked in 2005: they fell on their faces and had to overcome the odds, being placed in a do or die position after paying even more dues throughout the rest of the indies for over a year.
Even more poetic, a decade after Joe bid farewell to the company that hosted his underground rise, he appears to be in a loose affiliation with Kevin Owens, and finally makes his WWE PPV debut against the artist formerly known as El Generico.
Thank you, Joe. A decade ago, the ROH Legend reached a milestone as he concluded a run that very few of his contemporaries could ever measure up to. And now a decade later, he reaches another milestone for his career. He fucking earned it, and now it’s time to show the WWE fans what fans of underground wrestling have already known over the past decade and a half.
For fans of both mainstream and underground wrestling in the past decade, the thought of the men whose stage names are now Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens being subpar disappointments is almost unfathomable. But at one time, that was actually the case for both of them in top federation of the underground throughout the 2000s, that being Ring of Honor.
The two of them had built up quite the resumes for themselves throughout the independents both against and with each other. In a decade that had many rivalries inexplicably not taking place Monday nights on cable television, there was perhaps none more emotionally impressive than Kevin Steen vs. El Generico. From their early starts at their home base in Montreal, to their double debut match against each other in PWG at Free Admission (Just Kidding), to other federations such as CZW and iWA-MS, to even across the Pacific Ocean in Dragon Gate, both were building up their brands pretty significantly just a few years into the business.
For whatever reason though, when both were introduced to ROH audiences in 2005, their performances simply did not measure up to par in the company and for themselves elsewhere. From visible botches to quiet audiences, neither brought their A-game to the most demanding, stacked federation going throughout the independents, at a time when being a top guy in ROH required the type of skills that would eventually headline the major leagues once those barriers were broken.
How disappointing were both Steen and Generico for ROH in 2005? In that same calendar year, Steen had a feud of the year contender against Super Dragon in PWG, culminating in a brutal classic hardcore match at Astonishing X-Mas. After that feud, Steen continued tearing it up throughout the indies, quietly filling the promo void left behind by CM Punk as the calendar turned to 2006. Generico meanwhile kept tearing it up with exciting matches, particularly thriving as a tag team specialist, be it alongside Quicksilver to form Cape Fear, or Human Tornado to form 2 Skinny Black Guys, or even with Steen.
And yet with Steen and Generico putting in that kind of work, ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky still didn’t bring them in for over an entire year. The two of them weren’t even brought in to be a part of the ROH vs. CZW feud. How the Hell is that even fathomable when considering Steen’s mentioned bad blood history with Super Dragon? Even with their poor performances the year before, why would Sapolsky shun Steen & Generico but bring in the green as goose shit Irish Airborne instead?
It’s been documented that Steen and Generico would rub some people the wrong way, traits that may actually continue to this day according to Dave Meltzer. Both were apparently very clear that their end game was eventually get signed by WWE. How the Hell could that just not be interpreted as being smart business goals to aim for? Why would their determination have been viewed a decade ago as such a detriment? Perhaps it was yet another sign that Gabe Sapolsky was losing his touch and succumbing to inevitable burnout.
Generico would need to have a killer performance at night 3 of PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament in September 2006 before being invited back to ROH. He certainly earned it that night, having a very good opener against Chris Sabin and then a show-stealing semifinal match against CIMA, which many say is one of the best matches in that federation’s history. Finally almost 3 months later, he would return to ROH to face Brent Albright at Dethroned, putting in a good showcase effort in defeat.
Generico would then return again a month later at Final Battle 2006 in a four-way opener against Christopher Daniels, Jimmy Rave, and Davey Richards. His performance was even better, as he was the highlight in a hot match and popped the Manhattan Center numerous times throughout the contest. This certainly should’ve earned him a full-time spot going into 2007, but for whatever reason it wasn’t quite enough yet.
Instead, Generico would have to put in one more good performance to earn that spot, this time tagging with Steen, who was in total “do or die” mode. This would be it for Steen, his final shot in ROH but they had more than a fair chance to impress, being slotted against the Briscoes, undoubtedly the hottest team in the company.
In hindsight though, Sapolsky had put himself in a bad corner with ROH’s tag team division. It’s incredibly frustrating to reflect back and realize that Steen wasn’t brought back to team with Generico until two of the most important teams in the company had split. The Kings of Wrestling split at Final Battle 2006 (and yes, everyone reading, you can bet your fucking asses I want Cesaro & Kassius Ohno vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens to finally happen next year when WrestleMania 34 comes to the Superdome). Then just 24 hours before Steen & Generico faced the Briscoes, Austin Aries & Roderick Strong also split. Both of these splits were AWFUL decisions at the time, and age even worse with each passing year, playing key parts in Sapolsky’s eventual termination by owner Cary Silkin.
In addition, at the time the Briscoes would face Steen & Generico at Fifth Year Festival: Philly, the Tag Champions were Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels. While a team that was capable of having good matches, they were a cold tandem overall that had done nothing to be in such a spot when they won the belts from the Kings of Wrestling at Dethroned. Their disappointing reign cannot just be blamed on injuries and Sydal splitting time with Dragon Gate; their performances weren’t coming close to their show-stealing match against Aries & Strong at Gut Check, doing a poor job of connecting with the crowd as the Briscoes, KOW, and Aries & Strong had done throughout 2006.
So Sapolsky really didn’t give himself any choice but to put Steen & Generico in such a position. He needed them to have a breakout performance as badly as they needed it for themselves. Once the Briscoes would inevitably get the belts off of Sydal & Daniels, which looked to be VERY soon, the tag division was fucking paper-thin.
So the time came for ROH to celebrate its 5th birthday in February 2007. The year before, ROH had brilliantly packaged 7 events as The Milestone Series, resulting in a smash critical success that moved plenty of DVDs, deservedly so as they included some of the best matches and angles to ever take place on any level of professional wrestling, including ROH’s best show ever. So Sapolsky opted for a diet version a year later with the Fifth Year Festival. Unlike the prior year, which was spread out over 2 months, this would just be 3 consecutive double-shot weekends.
Ten years ago, the Fifth Year Festival saw many buzzworthy events take place. The entire series of shows was literally Samoa Joe’s farewell tour. Aries & Strong were split, with Strong aligning himself with Davey Richards to lead the fledgling No Remorse Corps, and Aries responding by forming the Resilience with newcomer Matt Cross. The Briscoes finally captured the Tag Titles, 364 days after their historic return and declaration for those championships at the Fourth Anniversary Show. The Briscoes were then shocked a week later in Liverpool, losing their first defense against Shingo & Naruki Doi. Homicide also saw his time as ROH Champion, which he had spent nearly 5 years chasing, come to a screeching halt against the monstrous NOAH import Takeshi Morishima. Two violent feuds came to an end in classic wars as Colt Cabana had the hometown advantage in Chicago against Jimmy Jacobs, and then Nigel McGuinness had the home country advantage in Liverpool against Jimmy Rave.
Today though, one moment from the Fifth Year Festival stands above them all. There was no moment that had the long-term POSITIVE impact as when Steen & Generico got thrown into the high-pressure situation on February 17, 2007 in Philadelphia.
The Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico match really isn’t a classic. To call it great, fantastic, excellent, tremendous, outstanding, etc. would be going a bit overboard in its praise. Mechanically, bell-to-bell, it was a good match, but nothing special. To only look at this match from that perspective though doesn’t do the match’s significance its proper justice.
On a cold night in Philly 10 years ago, Kevin Steen finally showed the ROH audiences what all other underground wrestling companies’ fans had already known, which is that he was one of the most interesting personalities on the scene. From the start, his hostile handshake displayed his frustration of failing in ROH before and then being shunned for such a long time. His trash-talk to get in the heads of the Briscoes was a sight to behold, making himself the villainous yin to Generico’s white meat yang. Such a tandem hadn’t been seen in ROH before either, so this was both unique and refreshing.
The action itself lived up to the standards of ROHbots’ expecations, providing an action-packed show-stealer that resulted in the 3 words that Steen & Generico needed to hear as they were left alone in the ring: “Please come back!” This was emotionally on par with the “Please sign Cedric!” chants for Cedric Alexander in his classic match against Kota Ibushi last year. It was vindication for Steen & Generico, a moment long overdue for the duo. Through talent and determination, two of the hottest acts on the underground had now earned their spots in the scene’s top company. They were now one step closer to their ultimate dream of being signed by WWE.
The short-term impact of this match was fantastic, with it leading to ROH’s feud of the year between the Briscoes and Steen & Generico. It was violent, it was funny, it was jaw-dropping, and the matches brought the excellence that fans demanded, whether they were standard tags, cage matches, 2/3 falls matches, or for the first time ever in ROH history, the feud-ending ladder match. In a year that looked to be designed for newcomers Matt Cross and Erick Stevens to break through, it would be the two previously rejected Quebecers that would grab the brass ring and never let go, having tasted the bitterness of failure.
For talents as special as Kevin Steen and El Generico, perhaps had they failed to earn their ROH roster spots a decade ago in Philly, they still would’ve found another route to WWE. But that’s no guarantee at all. Perhaps one of them would’ve already left the business by now. Perhaps they’d still be toiling on the underground. Perhaps they’d be wasting away in TNA, with the uncertainty of steady pay.
What we know is this: because Steen & Generico finally earned their spots a decade ago, they went on to have the feud of the year in 2007 for ROH. They went on to have more classic matches throughout 2008, culminating in an emotional Tag Titles victory against Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs. Several weeks later, ROH would make its Montreal debut as well.
They would then have the 2009 feud of the year for ROH against the newly formed American Wolves. Like the feud against the Briscoes in 2007, this resulted in numerous show-stealing matches, with various match types, and culminating in a feud-ending ladder match. But ALL of that would pale in comparison to how 2009 ended for Steen & Generico, when Steen made a huge announcement at Final Battle 2009…
The end result: the long-awaited ROH feud between Steen and Generico, resulting in, you guessed it, the feud of the year yet again for their resumes. It not only was the catalyst for Steen to be the 2010 MVP of ROH, it not only won the Feud of the Year in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards (the ONLY ROH feud to ever do that actually), but it also stands as the last consensus great feud in ROH to date. It’s a feud that has never failed on any level, spilling over into WWE both on its developmental program AND the main roster.
If it wasn’t for Steen & Generico stealing the show a decade ago in Philly, what can be pretty much guaranteed is not only would they not have gone on to have 3 Feud of the Years on their ROH resumes, but Steen would’ve never become the ROH Champion. He wouldn’t have been the one single interesting act going for ROH during its difficult transition period while Jim Cornette had the book.
A decade later, both men continue to live their dreams, with Kevin Owens standing as one of WWE’s 2 primary singles champions, currently in 2 programs against Goldberg and Chris Jericho. Sami Zayn has become a staple of WWE’s mid-card, and looks to have the long journey to the top of the card like many workhorse legends before him such as Bret Hart, Eddie Guerrero, and Daniel Bryan.
They took the first major step to where they are today 10 years ago on a cold night in Philadelphia. Here’s to the next decade of their careers.
A decade ago, an iconic championship reign finally came to its conclusion after 15 months. It spanned throughout all of 2006, and for its titleholder, is recognized by purists as an all-time classic year of individual performers in the history of the business.
As we enter 2017 and ROH’s 15th anniversary approaches soon, there continues to be debate as to what the greatest ROH Title reign is in its rich history. Many will argue for Samoa Joe; others for Nigel McGuinness; and then there’s Bryan Danielson’s run spanning from his victory at Glory By Honor IV to his defeat at Final Battle 2006.
The arguments for Joe and McGuinness are sound; like Danielson, they had reigns that spanned well beyond a full year, allowing for an impressive resume with numerous opponents and matches to gush over. Today, the argument is made once and for all that Joe and McGuinness, although absolutely tremendous holders of the ROH Title, do not measure up to what Bryan Danielson accomplished with it.
The biggest case against Joe is that for his entire time as ROH Champion in 2003, which spanned for 9 months, he never came close to providing a consensus MOTYC. It would be 8 months until he reached even a consensus great match, which is underneath a MOTYC, and that would be at War of the Wire against AJ Styles, who is now deservingly recognized along with Danielson, Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio, and Hiroshi Tananashi as one of the elite performers of the early 21st Century.
Joe’s first few months of 2004 are honestly nothing super blow-away either. While there’s the tremendous cage match against Jay Briscoe at At Our Best, it still doesn’t reach the all-time classic consensus. It would be over a year until Joe had a match that provided substantial buzz, that being the first 60 minute Broadway against CM Punk at World Title Classic. From that point, his title reign had many MOTYCs; it took 15 months, the entire length of Danielson’s reign itself, to reach this point.
What Joe has in his favor is that his lengthy run generated great buzz for him individually and got the attention of purists, as his lengthy reign and monstrous persona were a stark contrast to the numerous primary title changes and disappointing reigns in WWE. Undoubtedly, the trilogy against Punk is a major feather in his cap (both sequels getting ***** from me), as is the gets-better-over-time ***** masterpiece against Danielson. The title loss to Austin Aries at Final Battle 2004 is also a better, crisper, more cohesive match than Danielson’s loss 2 years later to Homicide, and by a substantial margin.
Even more favorable for Joe is that as champion, and with help from Punk and Homicide with carrying the major portions of the wagon, his contributions in 2004 helped keep ROH from dying off, instead thriving in the aftermath of ROH founder Rob Feinstein’s ephebophilia scandal. This was a very trying time for ROH that resulted in talent losses including Low Ki, Raven, Jerry Lynn, Christopher Daniels, and Pure Champion Styles. There was tremendous pressure on Joe to help ROH weather the storm, and in the process his in-ring contributions reached their peak levels, hitting his prime that would span to 2006.
As for McGuinness, while his ROH Title reign has the workrate to match up with Danielson, his run unfortunately came at a time when ROH was creatively going downhill, as was its business. Through no fault of his own, booker Gabe Sapolsky’s burnout delayed and negatively impacted his run at the top. DVD sales dipped significantly enough in 2008, an entire year that saw McGuinness as the ROH Champion, that Sapolsky would be fired with 2 months remaining in the calendar year. Adam Pearce wasn’t an upgrade with the book whatsoever, as instead of having McGuinness drop the title to the red-hot Tyler Black, the reign was extended a few more months and then ended by Jerry Lynn due to his resemblance to Randy the Ram in The Wrestler, a move that only looks shitter and more off-the-pulse as time passes on.
These weaknesses in the reigns of Joe and McGuinness cannot be found in Danielson’s ROH Title reign. Unlike Joe’s title change win over Xavier at Night of Champions and McGuinness’s win over Takeshi Morishima at Undeniable, Danielson’s reign kicked off in tremendous fashion when he defeated James Gibson at Glory By Honor IV. It was a technical masterpiece that also got accurately marketed by ROH as “a game of human chess.” It is the consensus great match that foreshadowed what would come for Danielson as the ROH Champion.
Is Danielson’s reign without flaw? Of course not. The feud against Joe would turn out to be disappointing, with their final match ever against each other being nothing special even though it was in a cage. The real right shoulder injury he suffered at Gut Check, while it enhanced the storytelling excellence in his work of art against KENTA at Glory By Honor IV Night 2, marginalized ROH’s opportunity to depend on him to continue having outstanding matches on a frequent basis while booker Gabe Sapolsky entered his burnout phase.
While Danielson’s first weekend of defenses kicked off in forgettable fashion, they were still good title defenses. He then quickly kicked his shit in MOTYC gear right after that against Roderick Strong. It was the matches against Strong that enhanced Danielson’s heel work and made him an interesting character, not just an elite technician. In particular, the match against Strong at Vendetta, now 11 years later, is STILL the greatest match I’ve ever seen in person, even above the only other live match I’ve ever given *****, that being Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura at NXT Takeover: Dallas. It is also my pick for the greatest match of Danielson’s iconic reign.
This particular match went over 45 minutes and honestly felt like it only went about 30. In reality, Strong had not even hit a backbreaker until more than a half hour into the match, and despite how long it had gone on far, the two of them had us going insane! It is arguably the best match of both men’s careers; it also provided the best facial expressions of Danielson’s career. While Danielson came out clearly looking like the superior competitor, Strong’s stock was elevated due to how vulnerable and irritated Danielson had become. This was also the match that saw Danielson debut elbow shots to the head as his finisher.
The content discussed so far in Danielson’s reign… is only from his 2005 portion, which was 3 months. In his first 3 months, he did something that Joe failed to do, and that was provide unforgettable MOTYCs, one of them an all-time classic that SHOULD be just as vividly remembered in ROH lore as Joe vs. Punk II. But as 2005 closed and 2006 came to fruition, two newcomers arrived and debuted against Danielson to challenge him based on his “open contract” challenge: NOAH’s Naomichi Marufuji and CZW’s Chris Hero. While neither turned out to be great matches, and in the latter’s case disappointed to be the preferred structure that it arguably should’ve been, both turned out to be very, very good, and in Hero’s case made him look like he belonged in ROH all along.
As 2006 continued, Danielson’s greatness seemed to have no end in sight, drawing comparisons to Ric Flair’s performances in 1989. His final match ever in the rivalry against AJ Styles at Dissension? A fantastic match between two of the best in-ring performers EVER and that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. The technical masterpiece against Alex Shelley at Arena Warfare? A tremendous game of who would play dirtier, enhanced by magnificent pre-match promos from both competitors, a huge breakout performance on the microphone for Danielson.
Then came WrestleMania 22 weekend in Chicago for his next ROH Title defenses. The rivalry was renewed against Strong. While much of the crowd left since the match was almost an hour and started around midnight, it holds up bloody damn well on video a decade later, being a near-flawless masterpiece of vicious striking, body part targeting, and top-notch antagonism from the champion. Less than 24 hours later, Danielson would face Lance Storm, who came in with his working boots rather than sitting on his WWE and WCW laurels. The two had a great contest dripping with submission expertise, and with the sizzle of Danielson’s heel work and the crowd’s support to see Storm pull off the upset.
So after all of that gushing, guess what? We’re just NOW getting to the greatest rivalry in ROH history, that being Danielson vs. McGuinness. Many well-versed ROH fans will point to Unified, Driven 2007, the Eighth Anniversary Show, and Rising Above 2008 as their very best matches. Those are incredibly deserving of that conversation. On the other hand, it fails to recognize their first ever singles match, a near piece of perfection at Weekend of Champions Night 2. This match quelled any doubts that the two would lack in chemistry and had Cleveland rocking like a playoff game involving the Browns, Indians, or Cavaliers. It was the match that undoubtedly left the audiences wanting more battles between the two, and not just because of its count out victory for McGuinness that while contested under his Pure Title rules, didn’t specify that the ROH Title could change that way.
At this time, Delirious has broken through on the undercard, having sealed his first singles victory over Ricky Reyes at Better Than Our Best. After Danielson made quick work of Colt Cabana at The 100th Show, he made an open challenge that night and it was answered by Delirious. It was a brutal breakout affair that had the ROH crowd telling the CZW crowd in attendance “He’s our hero!”
This led to a rematch at Ring of Homicide, and it ended up being the greatest match in the career of Delirious. There are no solid arguments to dispute that fact. In an East Coast location that once again had split fan bases between ROH and CZW, the two of them got the fans cracking and believing that Delirious, who had never won a singles match in the company until 6 weeks earlier despite being around for 2 years, could pull off the upset. In addition, Danielson was yet again on fire as a troll towards the CZW audience that disapproved of his elite in-ring game plan.
Around this time, Danielson was just on his groove. Up next would be a match against the white-hot Homicide to renew their past feud at Destiny. Like clockwork, Danielson provided another classic, this time one between two of the hottest characters on the roster, with the Connecticut audience BEGGING for and being pissed about not getting a title change. This was an amazingly emotional contest that had Homicide sold his back a bit more convincingly after taking a dangerous bump on it, would’ve been yet another all-time classic on Danielson’s reign and resume, and maybe would’ve been Homicide’s best match ever; think of what that would’ve entailed when considering Homicide’s encounters against Samoa Joe and Steve Corino, as well as my pick for the greatest tag match in ROH’s first 5 years (Homicide & Kobashi vs. Ki & Joe at Unforgettable.)
ROH’s 2006 is often cited as the stuff of legend by those who followed it as it happened; the fantastic title reigns across the board, led by Danielson of course, weren’t the only reasons for that. The year didn’t just introduce the audience to the greatest rivalry in company history; it also featured a feud that in a “normal” year (ie, one that does NOT include ROH vs. CZW), would’ve easily been the Feud of the Year, that being Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer.
So now insert Danielson for one night with Jacobs and Whitmer in an elimination match in Detroit, with Jacobs having his home state Michigan crowd to rally behind him against the prickly red-ass champion once Whitmer was eliminated. You guessed it, this was another night in which Danielson had the crowd believing that the home territory underdog would actually pull off the upset. The frequency of this achievement is why many consider Ric Flair to be the greatest professional wrestler of all-time, so why wouldn’t it also apply for Danielson’s case as the greatest ROH Champion ever?
The next night in Chicago, yet another hometown challenger in Cabana this time. That Cabana had been dispatched of so quickly by Danielson 2 months earlier didn’t matter. Instead, it was another awesome title defense for Danielson. As the first half of 2006 came to a close, the Windy City fans found themselves believing in and aching for their native Cabana to pull off the company’s first title change of the year. But Danielson would simply shit on their hopes like a true champion, bringing the match to a sudden conclusion with a small package pin.
Exactly 3 months to the date after their first match, the Danielson vs. McGuinness rematch took place, also in Cleveland. This time it was just for the ROH Title and under standard rules. While not in the elite tier of their rivalry, it was yet another great chapter for both. The mat work was just a sight to behold in this one, and the finish was perfect for Danielson to climb under the ring and surprise the Pure Champion with a small package pin; it was a receipt for McGuinness using a chair on him in their first match.
While the Danielson vs. Joe rivalry renewal would ultimately turn out to be disappointing, it certainly started off on a high note. The same night that Danielson would go on to add Lance Storm to his victims list at Better Than Our Best, he was challenged by Joe to finally have a rematch soon for the ROH Title; it would be their first encounter in ROH since their flawless match at Midnight Express Reunion. Eventually the match got confirmed for August and the event was dubbed Fight of the Century.
A few weeks before that contest though, both men stepped up to represent ROH in the Cage of Death finale against CZW at Death Before Dishonor IV. The two of them having teamed up before against the Briscoes and Generation Next, they made good work of the Kings of Wrestling in the early stages of the violent masterpiece. But Danielson had plans of his own, clipping one of Joe’s knees and then fucking off from the match, allowing CZW to have the advantage in the process.
Danielson now didn’t just have the top-notch workrate going for him. He wasn’t just elevating talents significantly lower on the card like Flair 2 decades earlier. He wasn’t just having matches that lived up to the hype against other stars on his level. Now, at least for a brief time, he was involved in an incredibly interesting storyline.
August 2006 would end up being defined in 2 different ways for Danielson. On one hand, booker Gabe Sapolsky got overzealous in his attempt to have the champion be compared to great performers of past eras, putting him in 60 Minute Broadways that month against Joe, McGuinness, and Cabana. The results varied with the fans. Some hated that the matches went so long. Others weren’t bothered by it and only judged the matches solely for their content.
While all 3 Broadways could’ve had their time shortened, especially against Cabana (and ESPECIALLY since Danielson fucked up his shoulder early in that one), they were all good to outstanding when judged by their content and the story told to get to the draw. The match against Joe certainly didn’t turn out to be a “fight of the century,” but like the also much-criticized CM Punk vs. Christopher Daniels a year earlier at The Homecoming, these two had the crowd aching for a title change in the closing minutes.
Before even addressing the draw against McGuinness, the Unified match must be gushed over of course. Obviously, there was the stupidity of the head shots. That doesn’t need to keep being addressed; both are retired now, so we know. That doesn’t take away that Danielson’s “hometown opponent” portion of his ROH Title reign reached its peak here in a Pure Title unification/retirement match. This would turn out to be the best match in the career of McGuinness, and the one that cemented him as a future ROH Champion. The fighting spirit of McGuinness as his face was a crimson mask is a moment held in high regard by ROH, and for damn good reason as it was goosebumps-inducing. And when the match wrapped up, Danielson looked like the king of the world.
Danielson vs. McGuinness IV would also be an excellent match, hurt slightly by its length. What made this one really stand out so many years later? The Minnesota crowd was very much dead throughout the night, but Danielson managed to take his very basic offense and actually get the crowd to pop for it. How many wrestlers have the charisma and personality to turn chicken shit into chicken salad like that? Never mind that this match had the usual great psychology between these two that ROH viewers fell in love with.
The draw against Cabana is my pick for the coldest draw of Gabe Sapolsky’s tenure as ROH booker. While very much a good match, Danielson’s legitimate injury and Cabana never truly thriving in matches of such length kept this from being anything special. That injury though only led to the story of one of the defining matches of the 2000s.
Every professional wrestler has surely performed at some point with severe injuries. There are very few that managed to perform so excellently as Bryan Danielson at Glory By Honor V Night 2. I don’t know of very many in the pro wrestling industry that would take such stiff kicks to a legitimately injured joint by KENTA. I don’t know very many that would be able to still pull off the technician work and storytelling that Danielson did on the night that ROH made its debut inside the Manhattan Center. This was a tremendous pressure Danielson put on himself on the underground level, knowing that this was such an important event and that the company was counting on Danielson vs. KENTA to deliver in the ring, so that it would then deliver with DVD sales when it would be made available for the holiday season a couple months later.
This wasn’t just an excellent match. It was the culmination of the other master example of Gabe Sapolsky’s booking in 2006. KENTA had finished EVERYONE off that he faced with the Go to Sleep, including Danielson twice. He was the unstoppable juggernaut, and that move was the be-all, end-all finisher in ROH. So when Danielson actually got his foot on the rope, the Manhattan Center erupted. It was a shining example of the benefits from protecting finishers. From that point, the crowd had no idea who’d win this, even with Danielson vs. Homicide seeming the likely main event when ROH would return to the Manhattan Center for Final Battle 2006 three months later.
When KENTA tapped out to the Cattle Mutilation, it signified just how much respect NOAH had for ROH and Danielson in particular. Pinning Marufuji at Final Battle 2005 was a good sign in the business relationship; having KENTA run through like a buzz-saw and then it culminating with a defining Danielson victory displayed how much the fans benefit when companies trust and respect each other. Everyone benefits from it, from those in charge down to the roster, all the way to the fans.
The last 3 months for Danielson’s reign as mentioned had to be dialed back a bit. His title defenses against Aries and Delirious were both good but nothing special obviously. The feud against Joe ended anticlimactically, coming nowhere close to what they had pulled off at Fight of the Century, let alone Midnight Express Reunion.
But as weak as the last 3 months were for ROH, as many signs of burnout for Sapolsky that were on display, none of it could stop the buzz that would come at Final Battle 2006 as Danielson would compete against Homicide for the 9th and final time in their rivalry. The Manhattan Center was buzzing as expected, hoping that the Notorious 187 would finally reach his dream of becoming ROH Champion, against the man that had slain a who’s who for the prior 15 months.
This was the match that while far from perfect, provided a catharsis in storytelling. Sometimes the finale doesn’t have to be an all-time piece of greatness to be appreciated; it just has to effectively bring the story to its emotionally satisfying conclusion. That is exactly what this match was, with EVERY protected finisher of Danielson’s during his 15-month title reign being paid off here by the man that had come to ROH’s rescue against CZW when the champion so selfishly exploited it for his own gains.
Bryan Danielson’s 15 months as ROH Champion isn’t just the greatest reign in that championship’s history. It isn’t just the greatest title reign in ROH’s history. It is unquestionably the greatest title reign in the history of underground wrestling. There is no one before or after that has touched this reign, and none that ever will on the independents.
This is a title reign that had the consistent workrate. This is the title reign that drew money for ROH both for DVD and ticket sales. While Danielson’s ROH Title reign isn’t solely responsible, it was during his reign that ROH packed the Frontier Fieldhouse on WrestleMania 22 weekend. It was during his reign that ROH advanced from the New Yorker Hotel and Basketball City to the Manhattan Center. It was during his reign that ROH made its first-ever trip to the United Kingdom without co-promoting.
This is the title reign that had Danielson repeat as Best Technical Wrestler in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards, a streak that spanned from 2005 to 2013 and eventually led to the award being named after him upon his retirement in early 2016. This is the title reign that was compared to Ric Flair’s peak years, eras held in such high regard by the most well-versed students of the professional wrestling business.
There’s no doubt that the success Danielson would achieve in WWE and his pioneering contributions in that company for underground superstars will be the most well-known part of his legacy for mainstream wrestling fans and those who missed out on the underground “golden years” in general.
But the title reign of Bryan Danielson not only had him being compared to Flair; it would play a significant role in why he became one of the most respected in-ring performers of his generation. It played a significant role in his epic run as the world’s consensus king of workrate. And it ultimately played a significant enough part that had he hit the same frustrating mainstream ceilings as other contemporaries such as Low Ki, Paul London, and Colt Cabana, he very likely still would’ve been voted in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame based solely on his in-ring contributions.
A decade later after Bryan Danielson’s time as ROH Champion reached its conclusion, there is no doubt that based on the evidence provided, not only will there never be a reign on par, but that is the greatest reign in underground wrestling history, and can be argued as the greatest reign of the 21st Century for ALL regions and levels of the industry.
In the aftermath of the Monday Night War, the American wrestling industry found itself in a monopoly due to WWE acquiring WCW and ECW. As with many monopolies, a good chunk of wrestling fans were very displeased; WCW tail-spinned its way with one short-sighted, self-absorbed decision after another disrespecting its customer base, eventually making itself vulnerable to an unfriendly new Turner television executive. ECW simply found itself in a financially unsustainable position and also lost much of its valuable roster in the process; that tickets still sold well and the brand had a loyal, alternative audience wasn’t enough to overcome the expenses and damages.
With WWE now standing supreme over its contemporary federations, the company and industry had reached a point of downfall. Throughout 2001, WWE found itself making decisions that would be comparable to WCW, from turning Steve Austin heel… TWICE, to marginalizing major stars that jumped over from WCW and ECW, to McMahon family exposure. The result was a dwindling of not just the golden age that had catapulted the industry to mainstream acceptance, but in overall business that has never recovered 15 years later.
Now that only one sheriff was in town, many wrestling fans yearned for something to replace the alternative products of WCW and ECW. In June 2002, Jeff Jarrett would help launch TNA in an effort to replace the former. A few months before that, ROH would be formed by Rob Feinstein. Unlike TNA, the goal was very clear: provide the more grittily marketed alternative void left by ECW, while also claiming that it would very much not be as “insulting” as WWE’s sports-entertainment flavor of professional wrestling, primarily by being an implicit workrate-centered federation.
Throughout the rest of the 2000s, these 3 companies (with WWE being the exception starting in 2008) presented a flavor of professional wrestling that is rarely found as we enter 2017. While all 3 companies had their obvious flaws, the decade was defined by the violence and vulgarity that spilled over from the War, in ways that evolved both positively and negatively.
With ROH aiming to sell itself mostly on workrate at its inception, the company would truly branch out beyond that with other elements in 2003. While CM Punk’s Straight Edge gimmick and breakout feud against Raven led the way, another element tore it up for the company, providing a chaotic sense of charisma and energy that couldn’t be found in WWE and TNA; this individual would’ve likely been far too gritty for the Attitude Era, belonging more in ECW’s peak years of 1994-95 with the likes of Sabu, Rob Van Dam, and Cactus Jack.
For anyone who has become a fan of independent wrestling after 2006, there is no true comprehension of the important role played by Brooklyn native “The Notorious 187” Homicide for the underground scene in the several years after the War. Almost every match of his in ROH had a dangerous undertone going for it, and his lack of traditional mic skills were made up for with his charisma and sometimes unhinged energy.
In 2003, Homicide got so much acclaim from the ROH audience that a compilation of most of his work from that year would be released, titled MVP 2003. Throughout the year, he would be involved in many show-stealers that unlike similar characters before him like Sabu, actually stand the test of time more than a decade later. The quality of work would be against a variety of opponents in different match types, including Punk, Samoa Joe, Trent Acid, Paul London, Dan Maff, BJ Whitmer, Colt Cabana, and the man who would be the Kevin Sullivan to Homicide’s Chris Benoit (tasteless pun NOT intended), Steve Corino. Whether it was aiming for the ROH Title, being placed in action-packed multi-man matches, being assigned to have hardcore match spectacles, or engaging in unpleasant wars involving barbed wire, he displayed a versatility to go with his gangsta rap-influenced persona.
As impressive as 2003 would be for Homicide, 2004 would be far more of an important year. After having dream matches against Satoshi Kojima and AJ Styles, Homicide became a pivotal cornerstone for ROH’s rebirth in the wake of Feinstein’s ephebophilia scandal. At the appropriately named Reborn Stage 1, he would turn heel by blowing up a fireball in Joe’s face, upset that he hadn’t won the ROH Title. In the months that followed, he would lead the Rottweilers consisting of mouthpiece Julius Smokes, the Havana Pitbulls of Ricky Reyes & Rocky Romero, and the returning, heel-turned former ROH Champion Low Ki, who Homicide had trained in the late 1990s and was planned to combat in 2003.
While 2004 wouldn’t see the peak match quality levels of 2003 for Homicide, he became one of the 3 centerpieces in the company’s rebirth along with Joe and Punk. While the rebirth was a collective effort from many others on the roster, it was those 3 who carried the wagon more than anyone else, more than Ki, the Briscoes, Generation Next, and Bryan Danielson. Homicide would eventually lose the feud to Joe at Death Before Dishonor II Pt. 1 and then gain a moral victory a month later at Scramble Cage Melee, and then as 2004 came to close, was slotted in a role very similar to Chris Jericho of the past 5 years. He cleanly put over Nigel McGuinness in 100% clean fashion at Midnight Express Reunion, and then would be moved to a program against Danielson.
Many do not find the Homicide vs. Danielson program to be very memorable when discussing the “golden years” of ROH. However, the match quality largely holds up, going back to their pre-program dream match at Reborn Stage 2; their best of 5 series in the first 5 months of 2005 also holds up well, both coming across as formidable motherfuckers and surprisingly peaking with the series opener in a submission match at It All Begins. Just like against Joe the year before, Homicide would come out on the wrong end of this issue against Danielson in their series-ending cage match at The Final Showdown, but would gain a moral victory the next night in an under-appreciated classic against Doug Williams at Nowhere to Run.
By summer 2005, Homicide was largely just a star in an underground company booming with many stars thanks to WWE’s primitive hiring practices throughout the 2000s. He had value, but had been clearly pushed aside in favor of Punk’s iconic ROH Title farewell tour, James Gibson, the Embassy, and Generation Next. During the Summer of Punk, his contributions were largely insignificant; his in-ring peak would be against Gibson in a program that never truly clicked, and his hottest match would be against WWE’s Matt Hardy at a time when Hardy was one of the most buzzworthy names in the business thanks to his real-life drama with Edge and Lita. Even at Punk: The Final Chapter, he was very much not the star coming out of the show-stealing tag match and follow-up brawl involving Ki, Joe, and Jay Lethal.
It would come out that even though Punk was leaving for WWE with Gibson and Brian Kendrick not far behind, booker Gabe Sapolsky never saw Homicide as a true #1 player for ROH. Let that sink in: CM Punk just left, his ROH Title successor Gibson was about to leave, Kendrick was about to leave, Joe had one foot in TNA as did the returned AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, and the Briscoes were just transitioning back into the business a year later due to a motorcycle accident Mark was involved in. And yet Sapolsky didn’t see the value in Homicide becoming a more prominent act.
That would all change at Night of the Grudges II, one of the worst events in ROH history. The follow-up to Punk’s hometown farewell in Chicago, the event was plagued by injuries and bad booking overall. Nowhere was that more true than Gibson’s ROH Title defense against both Kendrick and Homicide; in this match, Homicide would be disqualified and like would happen for Danielson at the American Airlines Arena 7 years later, it resulted in the crowd becoming vociferously livid; the one-on-one match later on the card between Gibson and Kendrick would be hijacked in Homicide’s favor.
This was the turning point for Homicide. This was the moment when Homicide would rise to iconic status, to be etched in the annals of time for the company. No longer would he be just another big name on the card like Danielson had been before his return a few weeks later at Glory By Honor IV. Sapolsky did what every booker should do, no matter how challenging or inconvenient: he simply listened to the paying customers. He formed a major plan that would culminate in one of the defining moments of the 2000s for the underground scene.
After getting lost in the shuffle through the Summer of Punk period, Homicide found himself starting a program at Dragon Gate Invasion against another Chicago native, that being Colt Cabana. For Cabana, it was a tremendous follow-up after winning his program against McGuinness at Night of the Grudges II. That had been a friendly rivalry turned into a chippy resentment; this time it would be a cultural war.
On an episode of Good Times, Great Memories, Cabana unintentionally crossed a line when he used the phrase “Am I right, my nizzle?” towards Homicide. Not understanding that ANY use of the N-word, even a modified version generated by African-Americans, is offensive when directed towards a black person by a non-black person, Cabana would be attacked by Homicide after the show. What ensued was an engaging arc that expanded Cabana’s growth; like Jim Carrey would first display in The Truman Show, Cabana proved he had the chops to be pitted in an issue involving much more serious tones.
Even though Cabana crossed the line, Homicide had spent the past year and a half as a demented, irrational sociopath. This was the same guy that singed Joe’s face with a fireball when he simply just wasn’t good enough to become ROH Champion. This was the same guy that after Joe and Punk had a pivotal 60 Minute Broadway at World Title Classic, crashed the post-match moment for both of them and stole an additional belt that had been presented to Joe by Les Thatcher. This was the same guy that had dropped Allison Danger with a Kudo Driver, that condoned Low Ki’s narcissistic assault on Jay Lethal in front of Lethal’s family, that condoned Ki’s cruelty towards an innocent referee.
So when Cabana wouldn’t back down from a fight, while also not apologizing for his remark since he honestly intended no harm with it, Homicide turned up the sociopathy. He would attempt to cut out Cabana’s tongue before being prevented from doing so by Ace Steel, Cabana’s trainer and fellow Second City Saint. He would use a coat hanger to choke out Cabana in a brutal hardcore match at A Night of Tribute, showing a cartel-like cruelty on a card dedicated to fellow Latino Eddie Guerrero. In a moment that belongs in the WrestleCrap Hall of Fame for its insipidity, Homicide even tried to pour Drano down Cabana’s throat; this was absurd because under no circumstances can this be argued as not attempted murder.
What must be mentioned is a match that had no effect whatsoever on ROH’s storylines. On the same night that James Gibson would bid farewell in a fantastic match against Roderick Strong, Homicide teamed up with the Hall of Famer Kenta Kobashi against Low Ki & Samoa Joe at Unforgettable. It is arguably a perfect match, with the only complaint in it being a borderline irrational nitpick. It would be the only time that Ki and Homicide would battle in an ROH ring and it was a doozy, as was Homicide reigniting his feud against Joe. Just like the night before in his singles dream masterpiece against Joe, Kobashi brought his working boots and a level of polished professionalism that is very rarely seen to such a strong degree on the indies. In ROH’s first 5 years, it is my pick as the company’s greatest tag match, better than anything from the tremendous Tag Titles reign of Austin Aries & Roderick Strong the next year.
Homicide kept up the violence over the next few months, but Cabana wouldn’t go down until he had nothing left to give. No matter how vicious Homicide got in their I Quit match at the Fourth Anniversary Show, Cabana refused to give in, instead passing out like Steve Austin did to Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13. With this marking 6 months for the beef between the two, it was time to bring this to an end both for the safety of the combatants, their peers, and the fans in attendance at the live events.
With WrestleMania 22 weekend coming to Cabana’s hometown of Chicago, it was really obvious once those shows were announced that the feud would finally conclude there. While the first ever Supercard of Honor would get the critical buzz due to the magnificent work of art between Dragon Gate factions Do Fixer and Blood Generation, the most well-versed ROH consumers all agree that Better Than Our Best was the superior show from start to finish. That is true, but undervalues the card that saw the Homicide vs. Cabana issue conclude: Better Than Our Best is nearly 11 years later, the greatest event in ROH’s 15-year history. Period.
A major reason for that declaration is because of the hardcore main event feud-ender between Homicide and Cabana. On a card that saw an elevated curtain-jerker, substantial star power, spectacular action, new threads kick off, a successful ultraviolent invasion, and technical wizardry, the two brought the triple-shot weekend for ROH to a close in a brutal garbage match classic. The obvious and correct result would unfold as Cabana slayed Homicide, and the Notorious 187 would immediately re-evaluate his actions over the past 7 months, apologizing to Cabana for taking the issue too far, having also gained a tremendous amount of respect for the Chi-Town native’s grit and determination.
Homicide’s feud against Cabana was critical in having him reach rock bottom in terms of morality. That was necessary for him to have the epiphany once Cabana conquered him; not only did Cabana earn his respect, but Cabana gave him perspective that the grudge had gone too far. But that didn’t mean that Homicide had completely mellowed out. As a competitor and man of pride, he still wasn’t happy to have come out on the losing end of this issue.
The Notorious 187 could also be a territorial character that loved to pick fights and end them. He had proven it years earlier against Corino; he had proven it by his actions towards Joe; he had proven it by his radical brutality towards Cabana. So when CZW decided to invade ROH, they had to know that Homicide would eventually come into the fold for what turned out to be the greatest feud in underground wrestling history, and my pick for the greatest feud of the 21st Century to date.
CZW found itself having the upper hand throughout April 2006. Thanks ultimately to Claudio Castagnoli betraying ROH at The 100th Show, ROH fans begged for Homicide to come save the day and use his brutality for “the right cause.” So once again, Sapolsky listened to the fans. In my pick for the best moment of ROH’s 2006, a year fucking LOADED with historic moments, Homicide finally inserted himself at the event that would be known as Ring of Homicide. He rejected the Kings of Wrestling’s offer and then had an impromptu hardcore main event against the Necro Butcher. It is a moment that as I revisited nearly a decade later, had me produce goosebumps, and the entire segment would get a ***** rating from me due to its chaotic, electrifying storytelling.
Homicide was rewarded with another match against Danielson, this time for the ROH Title. They had a classic at Destiny, but it would be tainted with controversy when referee Todd Sinclair called the match off as Danielson drilled the Notorious 187’s head with elbows. Homicide left in a fit of rage, but having found some sense of morality after being humbled by Cabana, he didn’t resort to his past cruelty. He would face Chris Hero a couple weeks later at In Your Face on the card’s hottest match, with the hometown NYC audience completely behind Homicide. After dispatching of Hero, Homicide made the vow: he was tired of being jipped out of the ROH Title, and if he did not win it by the end of 2006, he would leave the company forever. This created the anticipation for what many New Yorkers and ROH consumers would so badly hope would turn out to be true: Final Battle 2006 would be in Manhattan, and it’ll be Homicide challenging Danielson for the ROH Title.
But ROH was creatively on fire at this point, and Danielson vs. Homicide IX wasn’t necessarily inevitable. Danielson was too busy making most of his opponents look capable of dethroning him in almost every ROH Title defense, and the bigger the star, the more it looked possible, peaking against the juggernaut KENTA at Glory By Honor V Night 2.
In the meantime, Homicide was once again pissed when he lost by count out to Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness at Chi-Town Struggle, leaving the building out of disgust. With that show being the go-home for the Cage of Death feud-ender to come between ROH and CZW representatives at Death Before Dishonor IV, Homicide was still highly sought by ROH thanks to him going 3-0 against Necro, Hero, and Castagnoli in singles encounters. He was on the fence, but said if he helped out, he’d want 3 wishes to be granted by ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette.
After Danielson selfishly attacked Joe in the Cage of Death, giving CZW the numbers advantage that became 3-on-5, Homicide would come save the day in another iconic moment to make it 4-on-5. It was a magical moment as he brought in his own weapons, a major reason why the match holds up as a masterpiece a decade later. Because it made the most sense, Homicide got the victory for ROH after dropping Nate Webb with a Kudo Driver on a barbed-wire board.
One of the major components of Homicide’s journey in ROH is that those he was attached to, either as a friend or foe, found themselves tossed for different reasons from the company. He had actually started in Day 1 for ROH as one half of the Natural Born Sinners with Boogaloo. Their peak would be an awesome garbage match against the Carnage Crew at Crowning a Champion, but the team would be short-lived as ROH stopped booking Boogaloo shortly afterwards.
In spring 2005, something off-screen took place between Homicide and Dan Maff that led to Maff eventually being blackballed from ROH (even as Tag Champion) and many other federations. The issue would appear to be settled many years later with Maff returning to the business, and even though this wasn’t played up as part of Homicide’s journey in 2006, it definitely was an important part for him. The canon reason would be Maff was involved in an automobile accident.
Low Ki has had a reputation for being very difficult in many ways, and it would come to a head in early 2006 after he tried holding up for more money. ROH finally told him to fuck off, and 11 years later he has yet to return. The canon reason would be that he exacerbated the ROH and CZW brawl at Tag Wars 2006, and he kicked a tooth out of Cornette’s mouth.
So in the Cage of Death post-match, Cornette agreed to hear Homicide’s 3 wishes. He wanted Corino to return so their feud could end, and Cornette obliged. Homicide wanted an ROH Title match, and Cornette obliged. Homicide then asked for Low Ki’s return, and Cornette rejected, saying to ask for something else. Homicide accused the commissioner of lying, to which Cornette then retorted with a homophobic insult towards the former Rottweilers. This resulted in Homicide’s ROH teammate Adam Pearce and the legendary JJ Dillon to help assault Homicide, just minutes after he had helped dispatch of CZW. Homicide would be whipped with a belt by Cornette while Julius Smokes and numerous students would be kept at bay outside the COD structure.
The rest of Homicide’s journey throughout 2006 would not be smooth. That isn’t to say it completely lacked in highlights. His dream team with Samoa Joe against the Briscoes produced 3 quality matches of different flavors, all building up Homicide. At Glory By Honor V Night 2 in the Manhattan Center, Homicide dispatched of Jay after a Kudo Driver. At Motor City Madness 2006, Joe would be taken out, forcing Homicide to go solo in a losing but admirable effort due to it being a numbers mismatch. The dream team would come out on top at Dethroned.
At this time, Homicide’s resurrected feud against Corino turned out to be a disappointment. At no point did it come within a fraction of their 2003 magic. The matches were extremely tedious, with the most damning being their finale at Burnout The Bitter End. What was supposed to be a defining match both for Homicide’s journey and ROH’s 2006 ended up being a match that generated ennui and anger for viewers. It emphasized what started at Fight of Century and then became far more glaring at Survival of the Fittest 2006: booker Gabe Sapolsky, after more than 4.5 years as “GM/head coach” since Day 1, was finally reaching exhaustion and losing his touch.
Homicide’s feud-ending cage match against Pearce would also be disappointing, although not as heavily. While a shallow match, the positive takeaway was that just 2 weeks prior to Final Battle 2006, the fans were going crazy for him, ready for him to dethrone Danielson.
On December 23 at Final Battle 2006, Homicide would finally capture the ROH Title from Danielson, bringing an end to the greatest title reign in underground wrestling history, as well as one of the best underground rivalries of the 2000s. As expected, the Manhattan Center went crazy for what turned out be his career-defining moment. It had been a long journey since The Era of Honor Begins in February 2002. The Notorious 187 had lost friends in the company, been officially declared as the company’s MVP in 2003, formed a hardened heart in 2004, been involved in the greatest tag match of ROH’s first 5 years and probably in the company’s overall history, found some morality in 2006, had numerous wars against Joe, Danielson, Corino, Cabana, and CZW, and now in his hometown, reached his culmination.
When looking back at Homicide’s contributions to ROH in its first 5 years, one cannot help but be disappointed in the fact that he would be one of the many victims of WWE’s primitive hiring practices. Once the Monday Night War had ended, it would take over an entire fucking decade for WWE’s talent relations to finally aim to have a contemporary roster. It would take CM Punk finally breaking down that first barrier in what turned out to be his career-defining moment at Money in the Bank 2011. The WWE could’ve found tremendous use in Homicide’s peak years, instead those in charge missed so many opportunities for him against the likes of John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Edge, Jeff Hardy, Booker T., Undertaker, and Rob Van Dam, just to name a few.
What would be WWE’s loss would be ROH’s gain from 2002 to 2006. For 5 years, ROH was blessed to book a performer that helped define the golden age for both itself and the surrounding underground scene. A decade later, a character like Homicide is dearly missed; while there are understandable reasons for it, the indies have become too sanitized for a personality like his to be tapped into. And that has been a tremendous loss for the underground industry, for Homicide brought the variety that made the 2000s so incredibly special for wrestling fans looking for an alternative to the mainstream product that aired every Monday and Thursday night.
Homicide’s decisions throughout his first 5 years in ROH were largely driven by one thing: to become the ROH Champion. Why did he throw a fireball in Samoa Joe’s face? Because he was mad about not losing the ROH Title. Why did he crash Joe and CM Punk’s moment after their first 60 minute Broadway? Because he wanted another chance at the ROH Title. Why did he help out against CZW? Partially because he realized his brutality should be used on those far more deserving than Cabana, and largely as leverage to get another ROH Title shot. Why did he put his ROH tenure on the line at 2006 came to a close? Because he wanted to put himself in the ultimate must-win position; there would be no option but to finally become ROH Champion.
In the decade that has followed, Homicide has lost significant buzz. His performances dropped significantly; the reasons for this are purely speculative. His time in TNA as part of LAX would peak at the same time as his ROH Title chase in 2006. Many ROH fans say that Homicide just wasn’t as interesting once he became ROH Champion; if one takes the time to thoroughly revisit ROH’s last quarter of 2006, it’ll be obvious that such a narrative isn’t completely true. Sapolsky lost a significant touch in those months, with one of the best examples being that he did a poor job of planting seeds for optimal challengers to Homicide once 2007 arrived. Instead of building up a great mic worker like Chris Hero, who was also getting a mouthpiece in Larry Sweeney, Sapolsky threw everything behind Jimmy Rave… after Prince Nana had left the company. Instead of building up McGuinness as an ROH Title challenger for the company’s return to Liverpool in March 2007, he was repeatedly fed to Rave, and then Joe, who had done nothing to earn such an opportunity, got a shot against Homicide instead.
Homicide would have just a few more months remaining for his first ROH tenure, ending with a farewell speech at Respect is Earned, a segment that wouldn’t be available for many years until the release of The Notorious 187 compilation. He would return as a special attraction in what turned out to be Sapolsky’s last weekend as ROH booker in October 2008, and then after departing from TNA, return as a full-time performer 2 years later at Glory By Honor IX, with his final ROH match to date taking place at Raising the Bar Night 2. His second full-time stint in ROH would be a disappointment, peaking with a tremendous tag match pitting LAX against the Kings of Wrestling at Manhattan Mayhem IV. Homicide would never come close to the level of relevance he had been in the company several years earlier, and he seemed to realize that according to Kevin Steen, as Homicide said to him while they prepared for a match that it was Steen’s time to shine, not Homicide’s anymore.
None of that taints Homicide’s career-defining moment though. It doesn’t taint one of the defining moments of my wrestling fandom that has spanned 19 consecutive years. It doesn’t taint Homicide’s iconic run in the early years of ROH, a run that will result in him being inducted into the Ring of Honor Hall of Fame, should it ever be created. He earned it thanks to his charisma, work ethic, and a booker that accentuated the strengths of the one of the most unforgettable wrestlers of the 2000s.
This will not be about entertainment, but something much more important for our society. You may actually learn something if you dare embark on this lengthy read though.
I will begin this by applauding 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for igniting a national conversation that many in America seem to be unaware has actually spread across international territories and waters.
Until last month, my view on Kaepernick was of a man that had his 15 minutes of fame, unfortunately unable to sustain his incredible peak as a football player. I will briefly elaborate on that. For me personally, no matter how much his production had dropped on the field, I would always appreciate him for the competition he briefly brought to the table. Throughout the 2013 NFL season, he quarterbacked the 49ers that had my Seattle Seahawks on the ropes from beginning to end. He had me on pins and needles at the NFC Championship game in January 2014, making me and thousands upon thousands of other Seahawks fans contemplate that once again, Seattle sports would have to accept defeat in the jaws of victory. That is what I will always appreciate about Kap; no matter how far he has fallen in his job, he will always be the one that led the enemy in terrifying Seattle fans, and he made the rivalry (which turned out to be more comparable to a grudge feud due to the 49ers’ competitive decline a year later) both so much fun and stressful in the process.
However, Kaepernick has become far more than that to me now. While the thought of him being enshrined in Canton is now highly likely to be a lost cause, he has embarked on something far greater to define his legacy. With one peaceful action, he has placed a light on a discomforting issue that many in America, including me admittedly, had and in many cases still wants to sweep under the rug.
I have many different lenses on the various arguments that have been brought to the table. I have seen and heard the worst of the United States military operations; for my first 24 years of life, I had been surrounded by it as an Air Force brat. With my own eyes, I have seen the absolute best and worst of law enforcement.
Before digging into either of those though, I want to fully disclose the following. When I was in middle school, I committed one of the biggest sins of my life. During an unpleasant confrontation with a fellow middle school student, I called him a “nigger” to his face for fucking with me. Like many men who strike the woman they love during a heated argument, there was an IMMEDIATE regret on my part. Although this middle school is still located in a rundown part of the Seattle metro area, I wasn’t concerned for my safety. I was far more concerned, even at such a young age, of my reputation. My mind, heart, and soul were never surfaced, let along seeded deeply in racism, and in fact I was raised to never have that mentality. That is thanks to my Caucasian mother for breaking the cycle, as her father, in many, many deplorable actions as a parent, often told her she was a “nigger lover” for befriending black people and choosing not to be racist like him. So it was incredibly important to me that I ensured this horrific error didn’t define me.
My fellow classmate was thankfully very forgiving of my unacceptable sin towards him. Others were as well. We actually became good acquaintances until I was relocated away from Seattle. I absolutely commend him for that; I am not certain that I would associate with anyone who ever insulted me based on my Caucasian colors or Hispanic heritage, even as someone that very loosely defines myself as a Christian.
I had mentioned that I relocated from Seattle during my adolescence. Thanks to growing up military, my family was uprooted to central Illinois. While I had bounced around numerous times beforehand thanks to my parents’ military assignments, this particular relocation was the most unpleasant I’ve ever experienced to this day. Geographically speaking, it was a humongous downgrade, going from not just a large urban metro area, but one defined with so much beauty, to a far smaller urban area with outskirts that are just littered with flat cornfield eye-sores. The culture change was significantly worse; for the first time in my life as a teenager, I had classmates telling me racist jokes and a number who were blatant, unapologetic racists. Keep in mind that this was in the very early 21st Century, a time when many would assume racism was a past practice and mentality in America.
Not to say some of it wasn’t my own immaturity, but the 3 years I spent in central Illinois were easily the most miserable of my life to date. Once my family was relocated away to southeastern Wisconsin, my step-dad finally came clean to me in admitting that I was right the whole time in central Illinois. As a man who is half-Asian, half-Caucasian, he often sensed racism towards him in our Sangamon County community. This was very disheartening for him, as his entire childhood had been spent in the Midwest. Apparently, some of our fellow citizens weren’t very approving of whatever ethnicity he was that was causing his darker complexion, whether they assumed it was Italian, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, Indian, or Native American.
I want to be very clear that the central Illinois region is a largely friendly, law-abiding part of America, and is not defined by the racism my family encountered during our 3 years there in the early 21st Century. We just happened to experience enough of it during our time there that we would never settle down there again in our lives, even for a temporary assignment.
The specific reason mentioned for my numerous locations during my childhood is the United States military, so it’s time to address that. In particular, there has been the argument that Kaepernick and his athletic peers are disrespecting the military for taking such peaceful protests during the national anthem at sporting events. This fallacy is still being echoed even after all of these athletes have clearly stated that the motivation is to bring attention to the lack of justice being inflicted upon law enforcement for gunning down unarmed African-Americans.
In the first 19 years of my life, being an Air Force brat caused me to experience at least 6 relocations that I’m aware of. The upside to that is that I got to experience different cultures and geography, some of it pleasant, some of it not so pleasant as I’ve already detailed. However, the huge downside was that these relocations tended to be in the middle of a school year. My education was being interrupted, as were friendships I had developed.
While much of it I will take responsibility for, I firmly believe that relocating so many times, especially in the middle of my school year, stunted my social growth that often has me lagging about 5 years behind others that are the same age as me. So I find it insulting that the United States military likes to present itself as being a family-oriented operation. Sure, there are the benefits that come along with being a military dependent; that still doesn’t offset the major sacrifices and inconveniences on the part of someone like me, and I never even joined the military!
Due to all these relocations, I have been unable to remain in contact with all but ONE friend from my days in elementary school. I only remember the first and last name of 1 other friend from that same time period. That means I lost out on established tenured relationships during my youth, and perhaps that played a part in not just my social awkwardness (which wouldn’t be resolved until my mid to late 20s), but in trying to attach myself to so many people, not grasping the various differences of socializing.
In addition, while my step-dad will reflect back and take more responsibility for it, I saw that just being a recruiter for the Air Force had its huge downside. Office politics, major stress, mental and physical health ailments, just working a cozy desk job in the “Chair Force” is as unapologetically ruthless and cutthroat as working in actual politics, law enforcement, or the entertainment industry.
A far greater example of the military letting down those who have served its country would be my friend’s father, who had the unfortunate displeasure of being sent to Vietnam during that farce of a war. While he was lucky to survive, he was dealt a fate perhaps much worse: he contracted something just from BEING in southeast Asia that is nearly half a century later, causing him to now slowly die from cancer. All of this is a result of a war in which the consensus is that it was a totally unnecessary one. (Muhammad Ali looks smarter with each passing day for sticking to his religious beliefs and refusing to serve in it, doesn’t he?)
Let’s also remember that a good chunk of people who serve in the United States military are not doing so out of valor and patriotism. Many join just for the free education (which is very smart of them), others for the medical benefits (also smart), job security, and of course in the past some were legally bound to by the draft, FORCING people to put themselves in harm’s way or else they’d be sentenced to incarceration for “betraying” their country (Ali is the most well-known example of this, but he was fortunate enough to win his appeal.) Of course, and I’ve saved this one for last – a good chunk of those in the military join it because at their hearts and their souls, they are fucking murderers, and being in war gives them the legal method of acting upon their homicidal, narcissistic desires.
The other flawed dynamic that jingoistic voices disapproving of Kaepernick and his peers want to latch onto is that they should be more appreciative of their freedoms. These people fail to remember that throughout MOST of the 21st Century, African-Americans (and that includes those who served our country) were not permitted the same rights as white people in the very country they were fighting and dying for. As an example: World War 2 was in the 1930s and 1940s; that’s a good quarter century or so before the likes of Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Muhammad Ali became the faces of the civil rights movement and sparked the changes that are largely enjoyed today. So if an African-American is lucky enough to have survived a wonderfully pleasant time in Nazi-era Germany, well guess what? He’s coming back home to just as much of a racially segregated shithole that would’ve made Adolf Hitler proud, one that committed “legally acceptable” crimes on Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants as a kneejerk, bigoted reaction to the Pearl Harbor terrorist attack. (Source: http://www.asian-nation.org/racism.shtml)
We always wanna give people the benefit of the doubt, and there is nothing wrong in being proud to have served one’s country. However, there is a very thin line between appreciating the sacrifices of our military, especially the ones who lost their lives or became imprisoned, and outright jingoism. It is a fallacy to believe that because an American citizen is disappointed and questions an obvious flaw in his country, that he doesn’t actually love it. He is simply asking “Yes, we’ve come a long way. Why can’t we make sure that we continue to get even better, rather than get complacent, pat ourselves on the back, and then stall or even regress on the progress we’ve made?”
When I first heard about Kaepernick’s kneel down during a national anthem, my initial kneejerk reaction was one of personal apathy. For reasons already elaborated on, I no longer allow myself to be sucked into the “socially acceptable” form of patriotism that so much of our nation buys into and wants to see enforced. I especially view the flag as a piece of fabric just like any other piece of fabric; I would much rather see an “enemy” desecrate a piece of fabric than to torture and/or murder an innocent being. As someone who has also turned attending live events into a favorite hobby, I often get the sense that the pre-game national anthem tradition has been a disingenuous display of patriotism by the likes of WWE, NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and many other sports leagues and companies. That suspicion of mine was confirmed last year thanks to Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain. (Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/11/04/report-at-least-50-teams-were-paid-by-department-of-defense-for-patriotic-displays/ and http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/15611052/nfl-returning-723000-taxpayers-paid-military-tributes)
I had always sensed that the media coverage of unarmed black deaths at the hands of law enforcement were covered to sensationalize and generate TV ratings. While that is very likely true, it has become crystal-clear in the past month that this is a very real epidemic for non-white citizens. It is because of Kaepernick using his platform in the sports world that I have opened my eyes, mind, heart, and soul in listening to those bringing attentions to these injustices.
In particular, I have gained a newfound respect for Skip Bayless, as instead of just being a ratings-hungry troll, he has used his platform on FS1’s Undisputed to speak out on this issue along with Pro Football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe. In also listening to Sharpe, it has become crystal-clear to me that racism and racial profiling is a very real epidemic that NEVER went away. It has continued to exist even after the changes sparked by Dr. King, Ms. Parks, Ali, and Malcolm X. So why is this issue all of a sudden becoming such a national conversation? It’s because of the technological advancements that have been made; we have 24/7 news coverage both on our televisions and the Internet. We have social media that has been perhaps the greatest game-changer in reporting of all-time. We have high-definition cameras on our mobile devices, allowing us to carry them anywhere and record our surroundings, along with the wireless Internet technology to upload these videos in mere minutes or seconds for the entire world to see.
What the likes of Kaepernick, Bayless, and Sharpe have done for me is also open my eyes to any behaviors or mentalities I may have had that could be indirectly racist. I no longer cringe when a person of color tells me that I may have an easier time getting employment due to my Caucasian skin tone; perhaps there is a very real and scary likelihood that wouldn’t be the case if I had my father’s tan and far more obvious darker Hispanic colors. I no longer assume that people of color are lazily jumping to a race card when they face a setback or injustice. Instead, I choose to listen to these people and determine if there is actual validity to their claims.
Do I believe some of these unarmed African-American man have been gunned down simply for their skin color? I absolutely do, based on a very unpleasant experience with a police officer. A dozen or so years ago, I witnessed reckless behavior by a cop with my own eyes. At a Best Buy location in the Milwaukee metro area, my mother and I spotted a very young child looking at items alone. We ensured the boy got back to the safe supervision of his parents, and the conversation they had with my mother became ugly. A Best Buy employee on-scene very smugly told my mother that he would allow a child of a similar age at a similar to roam the store by himself. This justifiably pissed my mother off as she’s an advocate for children’s safety; the local police department was called.
A cop by the name of Scott Hibler was unable to calm my mother down so he handcuffed her in incredibly tight fashion in front of my younger sibling and me and then threw her in the back of a police car. The entire conversation between them was unpleasant and my mother was in tears as she pleaded for the cuffs to be loosened because they weren’t just handicapping her, but actually causing physical pain to her wrists. He very rudely told her to calm down while she was in tears and that if she didn’t, she would be taken away and leaving both my younger sibling and me without her. Thankfully, he did release her and didn’t take her anywhere.
I approached Scott Hibler just to let him know he was overly aggressive over the situation. Rather than take the time to listen to me and help diffuse the situation, and just as importantly understand that my mother was simply upset over irresponsible parenting that could’ve led an innocent child to suffer the same type of tragic rape-and-murder fates as Adam Walsh, Christopher Barrios, Jessica Lunsford, and Jacob Wetterling, he told me very rudely that he didn’t care what I had to say and if I had a problem, file a complaint with the department.
In researching Mr. Hibler, we found that he had once been under investigation for a different type of violation. When we brought it to the police department’s attention, it was dismissed as being totally irrelevant to my mother’s mistreatment at Best Buy. My mother argued that the prior violation along with the Best Buy situation displayed Hibler as corrupt, reckless, and irresponsible at the very least. The entire encounter reeked of police department good old boys “we got each other’s back” mentality.
Mr. Hibler is an example that some members of law enforcement are indeed bad apples. There are reckless cops in America that don’t get fully adequate training, or still get hired on without the correct mental stability to diffuse a situation rather than lazily resorting to hostile, kneejerk reactions. He is an example of an irresponsible police officer that has been protected as a member of law enforcement, rather than be properly put under the same scrutiny as someone not in the same position of power and authority.
Mr. Hibler is proof that some cops do abuse their responsibilities of serving their communities; this isn’t to say that he is irresponsible with every task of his job. While he obviously didn’t shoot my mother or treat her in any bigoted or misogynistic manner, the behavior displayed by him towards her parallels the “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality that many of his peers resort to; this is especially more frequent towards people of color as many of our citizens are capturing and exposing in online uploaded videos. I cannot help but wonder if my mother would’ve been treated even worse by Hibler if she wasn’t Caucasian. I only wish today’s technology had existed back in the mid-2000s so I could’ve exposed Mr. Hibler and the Best Buy employee’s failure for the entire world to see, rather than just rely on my own memories of the situation.
Scott Hibler is still today an officer at the Town of Brookfield Police Department in Wisconsin. He is more than welcome to target me for exposing his reckless behavior towards my mother.
These elements that I’ve gone through today are a major reason why many other nations do not hold our country in a very fond, positive light. Kneejerk xenophobia along with a lack of justice towards racism and corrupt law enforcement failures do not paint a pleasant picture for our nation.
I am no longer proud to be an American. That isn’t to say that I’m ashamed to be one. I’ve just seen far too much injustice, both in my own circle and at a distance, both involving the military and law enforcement, to boast about this country with pride. For me to become proud of this country, I would ask those who automatically jump to misguided patriotism and favorable law enforcement viewpoints, and especially those who are quick to deny the existence of racism, to be open-minded and willing to listen. Open your eyes, your minds, your hearts, and your souls beyond your own lens and perceptions. Have this important conversation with your fellow American citizens, as this is absolutely crucial to our nation’s growth and evolution.
Lastly, a protest is peaceful, but it is also supposed to be bothersome and causing feelings of discomfort. That is the intent so that people will be bothered and moved into having this important conversation about racism and police failures in our country. The protest isn’t a sign of disrespect to the flag or the military; if it was meant to me, then these athletes would be grabbing their crotches, sticking up middle fingers, wiping their asses with the flag, or perhaps even mooning those around them with their bare asses during the national anthem.
If these peaceful protests, which is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, cannot move America as a whole into coming to the table to have this critical conversation and get the necessary changes implemented to properly enforce equal rights and weed out the cancers in our law enforcement communities, then that opens the doors for the oppressed citizens throughout America to seek far more drastic and unpleasant measures to get the results that we need as a nation. One look no further than the ongoing riots in Charlotte as evidence of what could come unless we come together to take learn from these terrible tragedies and do our damnedest to make sure they’re not repeated.
The bottom line: if one cannot be moved by the reckless or malicious abuses and murders of innocent, defenseless human beings and animals, but gets outraged over a peaceful protest during a patriotism ceremony, then that individual needs to take a long look in the mirror to reexamine and rearrange where his morals stand.
Thank you, Colin Kaepernick. Thank you for using your platform to help me see the light, to open my heart, and have this conversation. I am a better person because of it. Just like you have grown, I will continue to grow because of it, and that means significantly more to me than anything you ever did on the football field.
Pulse Glazer provided the following perspective on Bryan Danielson vs. KENTA:
Bryan Danielson, or Daniel Bryan as he’s better known now, is my favorite wrestler ever. Since this is the 10th anniversary of the match and angle that made him my all-time favorite, today we discuss the angle and match that put him over the top. First, though we need to look back at a bit of Ring of Honor history.
Coming out of the Summer of Punk in 2005, Ring of Honor needed an ace. Their top two guys for their rise to national prominence, CM Punk and Samoa Joe, were winding down their runs, both being signed (I wonder what ever happened to them.) Other top guys were signed or unavailable too, like Low Ki, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels. Austin Aries, the only main eventer staying with the company around then, had just lost the belt to Punk at Death Before Dishonor III and as champion, lacked personality.
Enter the Dragon. Danielson was a main eventer from ROH’s first show and a major player in at least a third of the company’s best matches to that point, but he was also largely a part-timer, spending a ton of time in New Japan’s juniors division. Worse, if Aries was considered dry at the time, Danielson was the desert. He got heat in the ring, but nothing he did outside was considered a plus. James Gibson (WWE and WCW’s Jamie Noble) was a transitional champion when he dethroned Punk at Redemption, but his quality of work was known. Beating Gibson was a huge rub and the right guy had to be chosen for the job. That guy, the guy chosen to be the man, was formerly the ROH part-timer with no charisma, Bryan Danielson.
I had only recently gotten into ROH around this time. I started slowly buying DVDs before finding a lot on eBay with every DVD to that date. Danielson was my favorite ROH wrestler besides (maybe) Samoa Joe. He was able to adapt and work any style and really, his all-substance, no-flash persona embodied ROH at the time. When he showed up and beat Gibson for the title at Glory By Honor IV, I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait for more classics just like those he had already had with Paul London, AJ Styles, and Samoa Joe.
I did not get an all-substance and no-flash championship reign. What I got instead was the development of one of the best all-around performers ever, a man who could headline WrestleMania one day (and everyone thought I was completely crazy about that one.) What I got was a true champion who put together the single best championship run in North America since the heyday of the NWA and Ric Flair.
During this run, Danielson declared himself the best in the world, and went out nightly to prove it. ROH was bereft of main eventers, so he wrestled what he had turning Roderick Strong, Colt Cabana, and Nigel McGuinness into stars. He built angles and stories – the unification of the Pure and World Titles, the CZW war, Homicide looking for retribution, but none of those stories can match, none of those matches can come close to the war he had with Pro Wrestling NOAH’s KENTA (now Hideo Itami.)
KENTA came to ROH as a buzz saw. He was impossible to beat, putting on classics and crushing everyone in his path. He even beat Danielson twice (once in a tag match, the other in a three-way) at a time where no one beat Danielson. Eventually, KENTA was clearly in line for the title, as Danielson was finishing off all comers, keeping things interesting and different after almost a year with the belt with several hour-long draws. During one of these against Colt Cabana at Gut Check, fate stepped in, and Danielson badly separated his shoulder. He needed surgery and certainly shouldn’t have wrestled. He really, really shouldn’t have wrestled KENTA, one of the stiffest wrestlers in the world. This seemed sure to be the end of Danielson’s impressive reign… but instead, it was its most impressive moment.
The two were set to meet at Glory By Honor V Night 2. The night was huge not only for this match, but for this being ROH’s debut at the Manhattan Center, their biggest venue to date. In addition, Bruno Sammartino, the most important regional wrestler in New York’s history, would be addressing the crowd. NOAH’s heir apparent Takeshi Morishima would be present for the first time at an ROH show. Samoa Joe, a part-timer and the previous greatest ROH wrestler ever, would be wrestling, and also for the first time, NOAH’s top belt, the GHC Championship, would be defended in America as Nigel McGuinness challenged Naomichi Marufuji. Still, with all of that, KENTA and Danielson were the main event, the ticket sellers, the draw.
At the time, Danielson had been working heel, but like Flair worked heel in that he played to the crowd’s expectations and was respected by everyone. Here, he was the injured underdog facing the invading monster. On this night, Danielson would be a face. KENTA, ever cocky, came out on fire, attacking, no, destroying Danielson’s legitimately injured shoulder. Danielson for his part, tried everything in his arsenal, ultimately failing to do much damage to KENTA who had a laser-like focus on the shoulder. Eventually, though, Danielson was able to turn the tide and begin to damage KENTA’s back and arms. How did he get through the monster? Working face, it wasn’t just persistence that got him through – he started using signature moves, counters and combinations from his opponents earlier in his title run – here Nigel McGuinness’s arm work, there Roderick Strong’s attack on the back. With these, he was able to hold KENTA at bay… almost.
KENTA managed to hit the Go to Sleep. As the founder of the move, this was his ultimate finisher, his no escape move. As KENTA hit it, the crowd gasped. Danielson had fought valiantly, but Danielson had lost… except… in working the arm with his vicious kicks, KENTA had neglected head-kicks. He had taken the Go to Sleep, but was not knocked unconscious. Rather, showing the heart of a champion, Danielson fought back, and in doing so, regained the advantage from his shocked opponent. He threw every hold in his arsenal at KENTA, finally locking in the Cattle Mutilation and retaining his title.
This match is the forgotten classic of ROH. Its slow build, hard hitting, and great psychology aren’t the flashiest match ROH has put on, but this match, Danielson vs. KENTA from Glory By Honor V Night 2 could main-event any promotion at any time in wrestling history. It used every element that makes a great match, every nuance of storytelling, short and long term, and paid its viewers back for paying attention and knowing its participants and their history. Danielson and KENTA stepped into the ring great wrestlers who had many great matches. They left with an all-time classic.
Cattle Mutilation Punk now reflects back on Glory By Honor V Night 2 as an event:
September 16, 2006. Glory By Honor V Night 2. ROH takes its next step in growth, moving from the New Yorker Hotel, the venue that had played host to incredible events such as Manhattan Mayhem, Escape From New York, and Joe vs. Kobashi, next door to the Manhattan Center. This is the same Manhattan Center that had been the first-ever host of WWE Raw back in 1993, as well as numerous ECW events, including the very special ECW-branded One Night Stand PPV broadcasts of 2005 and 2006. To top it off, it’s the venue that sits right across the street from the iconic Madison Square Garden.
This venue move was perhaps the greatest sign of how on-fire ROH had become in 2006. While the bottom line surely wouldn’t make bean-counters as stiff/wet as under the Sinclair Broadcast Group ownership of the past 5 years, this move showed that ROH had grown a tremendous following. It was certainly well-deserved, with one hot angle after another (including the greatest feud AND rivalry in company history), one classic match after another, one fantastic event after another. There appeared to be no end in sight for booker Gabe Sapolsky and his magical rabbits that he kept pulling out of the hat. Yet, as quickly as it was built up, concluding at this event, it would all come crashing down.
This isn’t the story of what ultimately led to Sapolsky’s termination from the company after serving as its “head coach” during its first 6 and a half years though. Rather, this is about the event that turned out to be the end of ROH’s absolute aesthetic, critically acclaimed peak. After this show, there would be no more rabbits to pull out of the hat for Sapolsky. In fact, there were very clear warning signs on this historic event (and even beforehand) that he was starting to suffer from burnout.
Many ROH viewers of the 2000s will often vaguely point to the Sapolsky era as the “golden age” of the company. That is somewhat correct, but often fails to pinpoint the true “golden age” of his tenure in the company. For all of ROH’s classic matches in its first 2 years, and even tremendous storytelling dynamics provided by CM Punk, the company presented many, many flaws in its product under inaugural owner Rob Feinstein. In particular, this particular era of ROH has many events that are often labeled as “one-match shows.” In other words, whether it was horrific commentary, undercard junk, or lousy DVD production, ROH did many things to alienate potential customers that were looking for an alternative to WWE in the aftermath of the insane Monday Night War.
Like many other times in professional wrestling history, ROH found an opportunity in the face of controversy to rebound, redesign, and truly lay claim to the top of the underground food chain. ROH very boldly declared that it was going to be “reborn,” and not allow itself to be defined by Feinstein’s caught-on-camera Ephebophilia sting. This scandal eventually led to him selling the company off to Cary Silkin, Doug Gentry’s departure (leaving a hole in production, but a spot open in the commentary booth), and a number of talents being removed either by choice or their primary federations, including ROH Pure Champion AJ Styles, Jerry Lynn, Christopher Daniels, Low Ki, and planned-to-return Raven.
In the wake of this adversity, ROH held true to its “rebirth” claims, kicking off what would be the true “golden age” of the company with its Reborn weekend in April 2004, as it made its debut in the Twin Cities and Chicago markets. Over the next few months, major storyline moments that would emphatically debut, return, and redefine so many talents would occur. Such examples include Homicide’s heel turn and formation of the Rottweilers, Alex Shelley spearheading the newly-formed Generation Next faction, Austin Aries breaking out as a future top star, CM Punk cementing his name in the ROH Title contenders mix, Punk turning full babyface, Jimmy Rave becoming Prince Nana’s Crown Jewel of the Embassy, a new Pure Champion being crowned, and then all of that being capped off with Low Ki’s return and subsequent heel turn as he joined the Rottweilers.
All of these epic moments laid down the groundwork for the company’s next 2 years. Historic title changes and reigns, new but familiar talents coming in to compete against these established ROH stars, and absolutely tremendous storylines. That is not to say this time in ROH was perfect; even at ROH’s absolute best, there were flaws, most glaringly throughout 2005 with the Tag Titles (that will be covered more in-depth next spring when the calendar reaches the 10th anniversary of the Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer feud-ending cage match.)
Now fast-forward to September 2006. ROH was on a roll creatively speaking. The greatest feud in underground wrestling history had just concluded, that being the inter-promotional war between ROH and CZW talents. Danielson was absolutely killing it as ROH Champion, having unified the title with the Pure Title, and eliminating Roderick Strong, Colt Cabana, and Nigel McGuinness from contention. In the process, McGuinness had become established as a future tippy-top star in the company. The Tag Titles that were so atrociously booked in 2005 had been rejuvenated by an incredible reign by Austin Aries & Roderick Strong. Numerous imports came in from Dragon Gate and Pro Wrestling NOAH to engage in genuine MOTYCs, in a time when such consistent workrate wasn’t so common and congested across the industry.
With AJ Styles having parted ways once again, as well as the greatest feud, big unification match, the highly-anticipated Danielson vs. Joe rematch, and many of Danielson’s greatest challengers now in the books, Sapolsky once again knew he needed another rabbit to pull out of the hat for the next time ROH would be in Manhattan. After all, the company would be making its historic Manhattan Center debut, but the standards had also been set by prior events at the New Yorker Hotel, including the mouth-watering CM Punk vs. Roderick Strong, Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi, and Embassy vs. Generation Next Steel Cage Warfare classics. With this being New York City, something big had to be planned.
Sapolsky meticulously didn’t just come up with 1 magical rabbit, or even 2. He came up with FOUR. The event would host a quadruple main event, with 4 matches that could easily headline any “normal” ROH event at the time (and would easily do so in today’s ROH climate.) Each of these 4 main events brought something different to the table as well, and did so without having to be cleverly crafted yet highly dangerous smoke-and-mirrors brawls to connect with the audience like the ROH vs. CZW saga had been.
Even more ingenious, 2 of the 4 main events were born out of the ROH vs. CZW saga. In the wake of events after the blistering Cage of Death at Death Before Dishonor IV, Samoa Joe had befriended and formed a dream team with former arch-nemesis Homicide to take on the Briscoes, who were the muscle for the now-despicable ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette. This was a brilliant, hot, marquee match for all 4 participants, and especially so to keep Homicide busy, who was obviously being groomed at the time to challenge for the ROH Title in the same building at Final Battle 2006.
The other main event coming out of the ultraviolent CZW saga’s ashes would be for the Tag Titles, as the Kings of Wrestling of Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli had briefly stolen the belts throughout August. During this time, Hero had been excommunicated by Cornette after CZW’s failure to win the Cage of Death, while Castagnoli was still around but was a man without a country. Unlike Alex Shelley the year before though, he made no effort, not even an insincere one, to win the locker room back, in fact still proud of his decision to violate ROH at CZW’s behalf. Meanwhile throughout 2006, the Tag Titles saw a resurgence while being held by Aries & Strong. The titles were now main-eventing numerous events, and the body of work during this reign was quite impressive, with numerous gems against the Briscoes, Danielson, Styles, Matt Sydal, Samoa Joe, CIMA, Naruki Doi, McGuinness, and Jay Lethal.
There were even more impressive rabbits Sapolsky pulled out of the hat for this event, with them being the more marquee half of the quadruple main-event. After being pinned twice by KENTA in NYC earlier in the year, Danielson would now have to defend the title against him in the closing match of the evening. This was easily the second-most impressive story of the year for Sapolsky; both wrestlers had run their various gauntlets to become juggernauts in the company since 2005, and were now on a collision course. In addition, KENTA had been unbeaten in the company, with his only loss when Davey Richards lost a tag match against the Briscoes. Along with Homicide’s inevitable coronation to come at the end of the year, this was the one remaining marquee match for Danielson’s reign.
The most impressive rabbit Sapolsky pulled out of the hat was once again with another promotion. To ensure this would be a special event, the newly-crowned GHC Heavyweight Champion Naomichi Marufuji would be defending the title against Nigel McGuinness. This would be the first time that this title would be defended on North American soil, and at the time was THE top prize in all of puroresu, not just NOAH, thanks largely to Kobashi’s insanely epic 2-year reign. Thus, this was a major coup for both companies – ROH would have the bragging rights of hosting this landmark match, while NOAH, which had only been around since 2000, would have its top prize defended not just in America, but in New York City!
This particular match had its own backstory as well. It was only a week prior to Glory By Honor V Night 2 that Marufuji dethroned Jun Akiyama in a monumental upset. Puroresu viewers had been conditioned for decades that a junior could challenge, but never actually reach the top of the industry. It was a major risk taken by NOAH to crown Marufuji; even with the obvious benefit of Marufuji being available to defend the title in NYC, this was unchartered territory not just creatively, but for the all-important box office. On the other hand, this title match would be a tremendous follow-up for McGuinness after being eliminated from ROH Title contention by Danielson, and even more so after breaking through at Unified. He absolutely NEEDED a marquee match at this historic event, and this fit the bill.
To top it all off, Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino would be appearing, as would NOAH’s next assumed ace Takeshi Morishima, two months removed from a PHENOMENAL tag match involving Takeshi Rikio, KENTA, and Marufuji.
With ALL of that in mind, Glory By Honor V Night 2 met all the insane expectations fans had of it. That’s not to say that every match was a barnburner; instead, this was an event that, while far from perfect, lived up to being the company’s Manhattan Center debut. The event mostly had a gradual rise in match quality as the event progressed too, peaking with a sensational double main event.
At the time, many ROH viewers, especially those who were blessed enough to attend this fantastic event, proclaimed it as the show of the year. That wouldn’t be accurate; such a distinction belongs to what is today, STILL the greatest event in ROH history, that being Better Than Our Best, having taken place earlier in the year on the eve of WrestleMania 22. Unlike that event, this show had some questionable undercard placements and booking decisions that didn’t fully ensure this entire event would be mouth-watering from start to finish. In particular, the booking of the Delirious vs. Adam Pearce match was low-rent dog shit unbecoming of ROH’s identity a decade ago. In my review, I compared it to the entertainment value of an Ed Leslie vs. Horace Hogan classic on Nitro, and I still strongly stand by that comparison.
Of course, this was still a fantastic event. In a rarity, a borderline-bigoted promo was cut and it actually worked! That was thanks to Cornette knowing exactly how to pull it off and it being somewhat true to his tenured character, unlike many others that have tried and failed miserably in going down a similar promo path. The New York crowd was absolutely bonkers for Brooklyn native Homicide, as he cemented his ROH Title shot for Final Battle 2006 to come just 3 months away. On the downside, Homicide’s LAX buddy Konnan was mentioned during this segment, indicating the former WCW star’s return. Despite LAX being a hot act in TNA a decade ago, NOBODY was demanding a Konnan return to ROH after flopping during his prior stint a few years earlier.
Lacey, Jimmy Jacobs, and Colt Cabana had tremendous angle advancement. While their segment may not be as appreciated in a vacuum, it was pivotal storytelling for an arc that had started 8 months earlier, and still had plenty of juice remaining. This was perhaps the absolute low point of the Jacobs character during this saga, allowing himself to be a purely beta bitch to his crush and her far more alpha, confident fuck buddy.
Sammartino’s speech would be a dime-a-dozen pandering towards ROH and its fans, although certainly genuine from his heart. The far bigger news coming out of this segment would be as he was leaving; Joe and Morishima bumped into each other, and their natural tension led to a pull-apart brawl, leaving NYC craving their inevitable dream match to come in the future.
The epic Tag Titles reign of Aries & Strong would reach its conclusion in a somewhat disappointing match. While the match was good, there were antics displayed by the Kings of Wrestling that foreshadowed a downgrade for their time as Tag Champs, when they were capable of much better. It should come as no surprise to those who go back and watch this match that Dave Meltzer buried Hero & Castagnoli’s performance in this one; it was honestly well-deserved and maybe in a small way eventually led to both individuals becoming the elite performers they are today.
Marufuji vs. McGuinness was a dramatic, fitting addition to the GHC Heavyweight Title’s legacy, living up to the pressures for both men in such a historic setting. While the box-office metrics for Marufuji’s reign were to still be determined later, this match showed he could definitely project himself as a top star and not be fazed by the spotlight. For McGuinness, the match was crucial in keeping him hot; while he wasn’t quite groomed enough yet to reach the top of ROH, this kept him in the mix after losing the 2006 portion of his rivalry against Danielson.
As for Danielson vs. KENTA, the match turned out be a defining gem for the company. It had a tough act to follow in Marufuji vs. McGuinness, but they blew that timeless classic out of the water thanks to much deeper, even more dramatic storytelling, both real and fictional. There have been many impressive performances overcoming far-too-real injuries in the industry’s history; Danielson’s performance here, in which he and KENTA totally blew the roof off of the joint, isn’t just defining for his career, but in displaying the mental toughness that the industry so emphatically demands from its performers. This blows away Finn Balor at SummerSlam 2016, Sami Zayn on Raw and Takeover: Unstoppable in May 2015, and Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XIV and Taboo Tuesday 2004. This performance by Danielson belongs in the same conversation with Curt Hennig at SummerSlam 1991, Triple H on Raw in May 2001, Chris Benoit on SmackDown the following week, McGuinness at Rising Above 2007, and John Cena at SummerSlam 2013.
Danielson took a savage beating on his damaged shoulder from KENTA, but wouldn’t go down as explained by Glazer in the attached match retrospective on this column. However, the peak of the match would be when Danielson kicked out of KENTA’s Go to Sleep; NOBODY had kicked out of it beforehand in ROH, so this had the Manhattan Center rocking. It was in that moment that nobody in the building could forecast who would leave that magical September night as the ROH Champion; instead, they jumped up and down in jubilance, knowing and appreciating that they were in the presence of a masterpiece.
Some long-time ROH viewers will proclaim Danielson vs. KENTA as the greatest match in ROH history. As the decade has passed since its occurrence, that proclamation has largely gone cold. I certainly wouldn’t give it that distinction, but it definitely belongs in the conversation. This is a defining match for the company, the ROH Title, the 2000s decade, and both participants. In Danielson’s case, this belongs in his 10 most defining matches of his 16-year career, right up there with his classics against Paul London, McGuinness, Joe, HHH, Cena, and Morishima.
Upon looking at this event a decade later, it has a much more important identity than any one moment or classic match. In reality, this marked the end of ROH’s absolute peak as mentioned, which had started 29 months earlier at Reborn Stage 1. In particular, the apex would intensify 364 days prior to Glory By Honor V Night 2, when Danielson dethroned James Gibson at Glory By Honor IV.
The 365 days spanning from Glory By Honor IV to Glory By Honor V Night 2 would prove to ultimately be unsustainable for Gabe Sapolsky. That isn’t a criticism; it is in fact incredibly admirable that he could keep such a hot streak going for an entire year, and to do so after what looked to be an incredible run that would’ve “only” spanned from April 2004 to Punk: The Final Chapter in August 2005. In the wake of losing Punk and Gibson to WWE, Sapolsky somehow managed to top himself for 365 days, with an unprecedented workrate consistency at the time, championship rejuvenations, historic dream matches, incredible angles (including the company’s best ever), fresh rivalries, more elevated talents, major returns and special attractions, and a number of other rabbits in the hat.
Glory By Honor V Night 2 unfortunately had warning signs that the company had reached its apex’s conclusion. The Konnan tease, Adam Pearce segment, and good-but-nowhere-special-as-expected Kings of Wrestling coronation were blatant foreshadowing of an undercard that would see a significant downgrade, but unfortunately nobody could see it at the time to warn Sapolsky. In addition, with Danielson severely injured and no secondary singles title to headline while he was preserved and the Kings goofed around with the Tag Titles, the company was only left in a further bind throughout the rest of 2006.
While there would be many great matches, new stars, and some terrific angles to come during Sapolsky’s remaining time as ROH booker, the consistency across the entire card that had made April 2004 to September 2006 so special was gone after Glory By Honor V Night 2. No longer after September 2006 would Sapolsky be able to pull an abundance of new and fresh/special rabbits out of the hat, instead having to recycle the same ones over and over again, or simply pulling out ones that had minimal to no magic at all. The one-of-a-kind formula that served the best wrestlers, matches, characters, storylines, promos, and moments, in such distinct but delicious varieties, ALL on one dish, was no longer to be provided.
Here’s to the greatest era in underground wrestling history, never to be duplicated again. It all ended at Glory By Honor V Night 2.
Cattle Mutilation 