Falls Count Anywhere

12-03-07

...damn those quintuplets!

An Honor and a Pleasure
Yes, I saw a bit of SmackDown! this week. I was babysitting and watched a bit. It wasn’t half bad at all, but that’s not what’s important right now. What’s important right now is the promotion of the year and the best thing on pay-per-view at the moment. I’m talking about Ring of Honor.

In 2002, Rob Feinstein, a wrestling tape seller, saw a tape of the 2001 All Pro Wrestling tourney. It was one of the greatest displays of wrestling ever put on in the US, comparable to the classic Super J Cups in Japan, but using American Indy wrestlers like Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles and Sparky. Feinstein was looking for something to replace the loss of ECW, the company that had been his best seller for so long. He came up with an idea: start a wrestling promotion of his own and market the DVDs through his website. He teamed with Doug Gentry and Gabe Sapolsky to start Ring of Honor in early 2002. These guys were the heart of the promotion with Sapolsky doing the booking.

The Ring of Honor concept was an interesting one. They really wanted to set themselves apart from the average wrestling that the WWE was putting out there. The WWE was known for screwjobs and especially ref bumps at that point (and really, has anything changed?) so Sapolsky came up with the Code of Honor:

1. You must shake hands before and after every match.
2. No outside interference -- no interfering in others' matches or having others interfere on your behalf.
3. No sneak attacks
4. No harming the officials.
5. Do not get yourself disqualified

That would mean something very simple. It would mean clean wrestling…or would it? It would actually mean that heels would have 5 easy ways to get heat because the fans understood the concept of the Code. ROH had gathered much of the ECW crowd, but not all of them. They were focusing on the ones that liked the good wrestling and not the ‘vampires’ who wanted the blood and violence. True, a lot of them came along, but mostly it was the quality searchers who joined in.

The stable of wrestlers was amazing. There was Low-Ki, aka Senshi in TNA. There were Eddy Guerrero and SuperCrazy on the early shows, though they both ended up in the WWE before too long. Chris Daniels, AJ Styles, and the two people who were most important to the future of ROH: Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson. Low-Ki won the first Ring of Honor Championship, but the belt really wasn’t solidified as anything important until Samoa Joe won it in May of 2003. That started a long title reign for Joe.

The Samoa Joe era was characterized by great and stiff matches with impressive talent. CM Punk, who in 2003 had had several great matches with Raven in various indies, came in and had three classic matches with Joe. These matches more than anything made the wrestling world take notice. They finished high on the list of Match of the Year in the Wrestling Observer and they even got a 5 star rating in the Observer, something few American wrestling matches ever do.

The Samoa Joe reign lasted until he was beaten by Austin Aries, who would later go to TNA and then return to ROH. He didn’t catch on like Joe, but he had some good matches. Joe continued to work for TNA and even had the Match of the Year for 2005 where he wrestled Japanese Hall of Famer Kenta Kobashi. That was a part of the exchange that brought over a lot of Pro Wrestling NOAH talent, including Morishima, KENTA and Marufuji.

Bryan Danielson was there all along, even facing Joe for the title when he was champion. There’s no question that Danielson was one of the best wrestlers in the world, finishing very high on the list of Best Technical Wrestler in the Observer Awards. The guy had amazing matches and his finisher, the Cattle Mutilation, was one of the best submissions holds ever. He was compared constantly to Chris Benoit, though I think that Benoit never had the audience connection that Danielson manages. The way he works and his size means that he’d never really be able to work the WWE up top, even though he had a development deal at least once. After a few flips of the ROH title, Danielson won it and started the biggest run of his career.

The Ring of Honor-Pro Wrestling NOAH connection is strong. NOAH is the child of All Japan Pro Wrestling, with most of the stars from the 1990s glory days of All Japan going to NOAH. There had been a tradition of sending young guys about to be pushed to the top out to America, England or Canada to work for a year or so before bringing them back and giving them the big push. It worked for Jushin Liger, Hiroshi Hase and The Great Muta, so they needed someplace to do that with guys like KENTA and Morishima. KENTA and Danielson had some great matches, but it was Morishima who ended up winning the ROH title after Danielson was injured. That led to a feud between the two of them that was fantastic and continues on to today.

Sapolsky deserves so much credit for making Ring of Honor into the thing it is today. He never goes for cheap comedy when something real can come out of a program, and he takes good ideas and makes them into brilliant ideas. He even made the two-of-three falls match exciting with the Briscoe Brothers. They were always winning their 2-of-3 in two straight falls, which got the crowd excited to see who would be able to win even one fall. It made the second fall exciting, which is something that has happened in a few decades. He has taken real injuries and seamlessly blended them in with storylines.

The best example is the recent match between Danielson and Morishima where Danielson had his eye injured legit in an earlier match with Morishima and they had him make a gentleman’s agreement that he wouldn’t go after Danielson’s eye. The match played straight, but at the end Morishima started throwing elbows into the injured eye as the finish with the ref stopping it. The crowd hated the finish, but it was a genius piece of booking.

Ring of Honor is on the Fight Network in Canada and is trying to get onto Versus in the US. The company has gone through changes, like when Feinstein was caught by Perverted Justice trying to seduce a young man. He was drummed out of the company and the place took off. Their DVD sales are what supports them and they’ve managed to be profitable for the last three years. They’re likely to have their best year this year since they added the PPVs and those cost very little. We’ll see how they do going forward.

That’s all for today. More on Thursday!

Chris Garcia