My Mania: 4 Shows, 44 Hours…1 Tired Dude

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It’s been over three years since I attended a live wrestling event. In March of 2008, I was attending a different college, dating a different girl and pursuing a different career path. Nigel McGuinness was Ring of Honor champion, Davey Richards & Rocky Romero were the tag champs and Dragon Gate USA was nonexistent. BxB Hulk & Shingo Takagi, Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black, Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi and Kevin Steen & El Generico were all partners, considered four of the top tag teams in the world. Hell, DG & NOAH still liked each other back then, or at least tolerated one another’s presence. Supercard of Honor III is, in my totally biased opinion, the single greatest show ROH has ever run. It’s a top 5 DVD with a damn-near four star match missing from it, repurposed for a cable PPV. Oh yeah…cable PPVs were still considered trend-setting. My how wrestling has changed in just three years. I’ve changed a lot, too. The beard is thicker, I’m dating a way cooler chick and I’ve become more than a little enamored with this company called Chikara Pro. My tastes is wrestling have shifted away from no-selling and no-stories. With Chikara, I am constantly captivated. I expect no less from any other company. WrestleMania XXIV took place in Orlando in 2008, Ring of Honor followed, and I followed them back to my home state for some amazing wrestling action. For WrestleMania XXVII, the WWE, Ring of Honor and DGUSA were kind enough to come to me. Atlanta hosted three days of high-profile wrestling this past week. Here’s how my Mania experience went down.
I didn’t really sleep Thursday night, the final day of March. I was all too aware of what lay ahead and, as many people on this site can attest, I don’t need help having trouble sleeping. Friday afternoon flew by. I cleaned house, ate a sandwich and prepped for my PPV review of WrestleMania XXIV. All these satellite shows were coming to Atlanta thanks to the WWE choosing it as the location for the absolute biggest annual wrestling show in the world. And yet, I didn’t care. The matches were poorly built, littered with competitors that shouldn’t have been so high on a card as big as this one. Still, I do the WWE PPV reviews on PWPonderings, so it was my job to do it. I debated sneaking into Mania, or even claiming to have done so, just to get out of it. Alas, I eventually relented and started prepping the review. I knew that when I got back Sunday that there would be no time to waste, maybe two hours between arriving home and the show starting. I needed to be ready. My girlfriend got off work though, and after eating some food and talking for a while I found that time had escaped my grasp: it was ninety minutes ‘til show time! I rushed like crazy to prep, we drove the hour it took to get there and found our seats up in the nosebleeds.

However, there were no bad seats at this venue. WCW and ECW had both run show there in the past, so I was able to find matches on YouTube to get a look. As I suspected, the stadium seating meant that everyone could enjoy the show unobstructed, no matter where you were. It was finally eight o’clock. The lights were adjusted, the countdown began and ROH’s first of two iPPVs on the weekend began.
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Ring of Honor – Honor Takes Center Stage: Chapter 1

The opening match between Michael Eglin and El Generico was fun, despite a poor finish. The stipulation, which mandated that Elgin’s mates in The House of Truth be banned from ringside, was loopholed when a masked man ran out, costing Generico the match. The four-way between Homicide, Caleb Konley, Tommaso Ciampa and Colt Cabana was a lot of fun. This was my first chance to see Colt & Homicide live; they did not disappoint, both men working the crowd in very different but equally effective ways. Konley, with his long blonde hair and pink tights, got a “Spanky” chant. He even got a “Thank you, Spanky” chant as he left. Ayumi Kurihara & Hiroyo Matsumoto teamed to face Sara Del Rey & Serena Deeb next. When Deeb walked out, the entire audience uttered a silent “DAMN” at how incredibly hot she looked. I’m never THAT guy to comment on things like this, but it was a strange occurrence and I should commend Serena for getting any heel heat after she had turned the crowd, men and women, into drooling oglers through sheer existence. Deeb also took a sick combination of suplexes at the end to lose the match, with her head whipping around like a drunken newborn. The Briscoes, unlike Serena & Sara, found it easy getting heat from the crowd in their tag against Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly. No one was fawning over those two gruff individuals, at least that I could see. The four men put on a stellar contest, and the Cole/O’Reilly team gelled better here than I had seen in the past. Afterwards, the Briscoes & the All-Night Express had a great pull-apart brawl to set up the following night’s grudge match.
The next contest was between Davey Richards & Roderick Strong. It was hard-hitting, crazy long and the crowd ate it up with ladle. I…hated it. The “intensity” felt phony, the stiffness wasn’t all that stiff and the whole contest suffered from the same logic problem that every other Richards match does: there wasn’t any. Roderick hurt his arm early in the match, so what did Davey do? Worked an ankle lock…repeatedly. In fact, he kept forgetting which ankle to work and flipped them multiple times. However, my gloom was quickly thwarted by the match of the night, when The Kings of Wrestling put their ROH Tag Titles on the line against Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin. I always enjoy matches more on DVD when a guy consistently sells throughout a match, so I wondered if this would be the same live. Oh boy, was it ever. Claudio Castagnoli’s leg was worked hard very early, and I can honestly say that he sold that bad boy every step of the way. When the finish came off of Haas’s brutal leg submission and Shelton dealt with Chris Hero in dramatic fashion, the moment where the titles changed hands was amazing. The crowd went nuts, and everyone was screaming along to ACDC’s “T.N.T.”, their theme. Because of this, it was hard to get up for the main event, which saw Eddie Edwards put his recently-won ROH World Title on the line against ROH TV champion Christopher Daniels. The match was treated as an epic, with tons of huge moves and nearfalls: Edwards took a release side slam through the table but fought back to win after an Avalanche Die Hard followed immediately by a sitout Die Hard for the three count. It was miles better than their previous contest, but still suffered from Edwards’ inability to tell a story in the ring. Overall though, I had a blast, as did my girlfriend, who was attending her very first wrestling event.

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After getting home around midnight, I decided to answer a few questions and Tweets online. Big mistake. By the time I’d finished, it was around 2 AM. I had two big indy shows that day, ROH in the early afternoon and Dragon Gate USA that night. Had I not been at my girl’s place, I might’ve slept longer. However, I heard the adorable yelps of a near three-year-old through the bedroom door at about nine that morning and decided to reenter society earlier than planned. Little Danica was eating breakfast with her mom, who’s a little younger than my girlfriend and constantly forgets I’m in the room. I never know whether to be insulted when she starts acting crazy in my presence: do I just blend into the scenery or is she just comfortable enough to be herself around me? After a couple sausage egg & cheese sandwiches courtesy of Golden Arches, my buddy, ex-roommate and soon-to-be co-fan at these two big Saturday shows showed up so we could get going. It took around an hour to get to Center Stage once again, only this time I was the one driving. We barely survived and actually found a WAY better place to park than the day before. That night, we parked in a deck whose exit involved going up a steep ramp. Traffic forced a lot of bunching in that cramped space, and I’m sure more than one person couldn’t switch from brake to gas fast enough to avoid hitting the person behind them. We actually found a great, flat place to park and made our way to the arena, where our seats where quite a lot better than yesterday’s. Once again though, there were no bad seats. Countdown. Lights out. iPPV number two began!
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Ring of Honor – Honor Takes Center Stage: Chapter 2

The show started off brilliantly with Castagnoli & Hero, whose one day shy of a year title reign ended the night before, attacked opponents Cole & O’Reilly as the bell rang. The match was far too short, but it was an electric ten minutes. The Kings stiffed the two youngsters even more than the Briscoes had, defeated them off of a tornado kick / bicycle kick combo and the match was the perfect way to open the show. It might’ve been my friend’s favorite match of the night had Rhett Titus not lost his mind. More on that later. Colt Cabana beat Dave Taylor in another short match and Homicide lost to Tommaso Ciampa thanks to Embassy shenanigans. Embassy member RD Evans ate quite a nasty chair toss to the face afterwards. Next up, Christopher Daniels avenged his loss in the main event of last night, beating Michael Elgin after a low blow. This, coupled with Daniels not shaking Eddie’s hand at the end of last night’s match, definitely indicated a future heel turn on the part of “The Fallen Angel”.
After an intermission, Jim Cornette came down to ring and called out Davey Richards, offering him a future title match against tag partner and ROH champ Eddie Edwards. His unintentionally condescending response declining it irked Edwards, who came out and had words with Davey. It was a very strong segment that ended with a lot of question marks for the future of the two. Ayumi Kurihara & Hiroyo Matsumoto impressed once again, ultimately losing a shorter but somehow better match to Daizee Haze & Tomoko Nakagawa for their SHIMMER Tag Titles. Haze got mad heat and even a “You’re A Crack Whore” chant. After that, we were treated to the stiffest and craziest match of the weekend, as The Briscoes took on Kenny King & Rhett Titus. It started incredibly slow, but picked up after Titus was bloodied from being tossed into the post. He would later put Jay Briscoe through a table with a Sex-Factor, but from my angle it looked like he took the worse bump. Nevertheless, Jay came away a bloody mess; we’re talking his cage match with Samoa Joe messy. After a couple really intense spots, it came down to the two bloodied men, Jay & Rhett, throwing absolute bombs with one another. The final blow, a sick elbow to Jay’s face that caused both Cornette and Delirious to jump up and lose their minds at the guerrilla position, was the highlight of Ring of Honor’s weekend. The Briscoes were ultimately the winners and, with juice spewing from his face, Jay cut an intense promo to fully turn the brothers bad. It was incredible.
El Generico against Roderick Strong suffered from having to follow the previous match and a lot of unnecessary interference from The House of Truth. It was still a good match, but not nearly as good as it should have been. Afterwards, we were treated to the heel turn of Christopher Daniels, who decked El Generico with The Book of Truth he allegedly threw away. The group beat on Generico and the arriving Colt Cabana. It was very well done, but I just can’t get behind any group involving Martini. He’s annoying in a turn the channel sense and he’s not even a very good talker. By this time everyone was already drained and there was one match to go: Richards & Edwards against the new tag champs Haas & Benjamin in a non-title match. This was easily the longest match of the weekend, too long in fact. There was a lot of stuff to like, a little to love, but in the end people were filing out fairly steadily before the well-over half hour match concluded. It was a very successful weekend for Ring of Honor, but I could only get into so many things, thanks in large part to the shows being so Davey & Eddie heavy.

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I was super happy with the way Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate USA had their shows separated. I’d be able to fully enjoy one company and then the other, without them bleeding into one another. We had about two hours to kill before the DGUSA show, so we popped into and grab some grub at a place called America’s Top Dog.The place was empty but the staff was super nice to both of us. I got one dog with Cincinnati-style chili, nacho cheese and crumbles of tortillas chips and another one with a tomato & onion sauce, shredded cheddar cheese and some Parmesan as well. I forget what my friend had…try and figure it out from the pictures. The meal came with a mess of fries and cold beverage. Looking back, dogs might not have been such a great idea: we both had trouble doing simple things like walking up stairs and breathing normally. Still, they were delicious and I’d highly recommend it if you’re in their neck of the woods.
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While we were waiting in line for the DGUSA show, Bryce Remsburg walked by. I am totally not a guy to mark out to someone’s face, so I simply offered a hand as he walked by. He kindly shook it and announced he had to pee. It was the greatest moment of my life. After getting to my seat, I realized Bryce had a good idea. Upon entering the bathroom, Open the Dream Gate champion Masato Yoshino was standing there getting his hair straight. I…now had to do more than pee. I checked the stalls and both were locked, though I heard no sounds. As I waited, Yoshino and I locked eyes and he gave me a funny look as I waited. He then went to a stall to pee and again shot me a bewildered look. I suddenly panicked, theorizing that either the stalls are empty and he knows it or he thinks I’m some sort of pervert…or both.  He finished, washed up and left. Finally, after about the third try, I basically kick the second door in and…it’s empty. They were just stiff doors. I finished, washed up, felt a thousand times better, found my seat in the third row and got ready to enjoy the first in-house iPPV from DGUSA.
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Dragon Gate USA – Mercury Rising 2011

We started with the Golden Circle bonus card presented by Rampage Pro Wrestling. I gotta say, the whole thing was incredibly well done. The opening match was all comedy between Sugar Dunkerton, a guy I was really looking forward to seeing, and Sal Rinauro. No one really knew what to make of it, especially when the ref called a foul on Sugar and awarded Rinauro two shots. Sal made them both, banking a ladies ball off of Sugar’s face through his hooped arms. There was also a spontaneous dance-off that included the ref. I hope this makes the DVD. Next up was the RPW Tag champions The Usual Suspects putting their belts on the line against Hot Like Lava. One of their members, Shaun Banks, was incredibly awesome and quite effective as a heel. The match was actually really good, too, as the next match. J-Rod put his RPW Title up against Bull Buchanan…yes, THAT Bull Buchanan. It was another fun match that smartly ended in controversial fashion, enticing you to head over to RPW to watch it go down again in the future. Finally, a fit bearded fellow named Kyle Matthews took on indy stalwart and former TNA “superstar” Jimmy Rave! He got a great reaction and match was pretty good, though I enjoyed it the last out of everything. With the bonus card complete, it was time for the main show!
Jon Moxley with pornstar Trina Michaels and some other floozy versus Arik Cannon was terrible. Cannon, known for being able to have a good match with anyone, had finally met his exception. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mox (the heel) was getting pops due to his scantily-clad prostitutes. It was a truly horrible use of money, and Moxley won to make matters worse. The six-way elimination match between Brodie Lee, AR Fox, Jimmy Jacobs, Jon Davis, Silas Young and Stalker Ichikawa was totally nuts in the best way, kicking the show into gear and out of the funk the opener left us in. Stalkers comedy bits took a bit to understand but he eventually got over huge, Brodie (who won the match) was already hugely over and, of all people, Jon Davis really impressed. Unfortunately, Sami Callihan versus my bathroom buddy Masato Yoshino was everything I thought it’d be: Sami-centric, crowd-killing bullshit. You have GOT to be an awful wrestler when you can’t even make a Yoshino match fun. Yoshino is the fastest wrestling alive and he was stuck on the ground doing nothing. The finished annoyed me, too, as it made Callihan look far too strong. A running Lightning Spiral should’ve put that idiot down; the Sol Naciente that followed was academic. I’m saying it outright: Sami Callihan is the worst in-demand indy wrestler on the Earth. Next up we had PAC defending his Open the Brave Gate title against Akira Tozawa, and it was awesome! There was lots of stiffness from Tozawa and high-flying from the incredible PAC, but the end, like many of PAC’s DGUSA contests, was really bad. So Akira dumps PAC with, like, five Germans and can’t pin him but one from PAC does the trick? Bleh. It also suffered a little from the lingering Sami Syndrome, in that the crowd was still reeling from how awful he is. Intermission was a good idea here; it really helped the live crowd (and me) recharge. Intermission hit and I met the guy sitting in front of me, a British wrestler named Joey Starr.

The picture is one I cropped from his Facebook page to fit better. He was a well-built, truly friendly guy who recommended that I go get put through a table by Stalker Ichikawa. So after intermission, the guys who impressed during the DGUSA seminar earlier in the day got a chance to wrestle…or so they thought. Sami Callihan came out to destroy two of them, Arik Cannon came out to destroy the other two and then they cut a profanity-laced promo together. They swore far too much and it was all too clear how it was going to eventually end up. However, none of this was as interesting as what was going on at ringside. Joey knew one of the seminar guys from back in England and kept screaming at him to get up. I surmised that his buddy had been picked from the tryout, and since he himself had not that his friend would now be getting the business. It was hysterical! He kept trying to hide a huge grin as Starr continuously berated his performance. As he was carried to the back, still trying to hide a grin, he finally gave up, turned around and yelled, “Later Joey!” before existing. I couldn’t stop laughing at the sheer lunacy of it. The semi-main, with YAMATO putting up the Open the Freedom Gate against Austin Aries and his DGUSA career, was utterly amazing!


YAMATO dissed Moxley, telling him he was a fighting champion and sending him to the back so that neither man had a second. I knew something was up, but I couldn’t put my finger on it then. Austin hit a brainbuster in the first thirty seconds and the 450 Splash right after, both earning crazy close two-counts. The nearfalls at the end had EVERYONE believing we’d have a new champ, but YAMATO ultimately retained in a remarkable contest. Aries got a nice farewell chant and I was sure nothing could top it or even tie it. I was dead wrong! The main event grudge six-man tag between the Blood WARRIORS of CIMA, Naruki Doi and Ricochet against Ronin (Chuck Taylor, Johnny Gargano & Rich Swann) was completely insane. Everybody looked awesome, though Ricochet did botch quite a bit. Taylor was crazy over, as was CIMA (duh).

The best part though was how Blood WARRIORS member Brodie Lee, who came down to second the group, kept jawing with fans on our side. He & Ricochet were saying everything from borderline racial stuff to Brodie almost flat-out throwing a chair our way, laughing like a madman when we all flinched. The ending was unnecessary and horrifying in the best possible sense: Swann ate Meteora, CIMA’s big match finisher, and then the Muscular Bomb, Doi’s finisher that NO ONE kicks out of, for the BW victory. Maybe not as strong overall as the ROH shows just in terms of entire shows, but the top three matches beat out everything I saw from Ring of Honor and I had way more fun here, too. The friend who was with me totally agreed.

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Once again, I woke up far too early. Once again, it’s all Danica’s fault. I am a huge fan of kids, and because of how exhausted I was I partially preferred the idea of staying home and flying the little girl around like Superman all day. I already had the tickets though, and I KNOW my girl wanted to see the Dragon Gate dudes. Strangely, we once again had Mickey Dee’s. We both agreed this was a bad idea, but we were in a rush and it was close to us. Traffic was fantastic at eleven that morning, as we made our way to the “world famous” Presidential Ballroom, as Larry Legend kept calling it, for my final live show of the weekend, and perhaps my last one for a very long time.
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Dragon Gate USA – Open the Ultimate Gate 2011

We were once again treated to a bonus match involving Sugar D! I was glad my girlfriend got a chance to see him, as she’s a big fan of Chikara. He faced Kyle Matthews in a short, fun contest that involved more Dunkerton shenanigans. By the end of the weekend, Sugar was really over, so it’s no surprise that he’s already hinted at future DGUSA bookings. On to the main show!
This was a cable PPV taping so this was the only show that I’ve seen that people cannot immediately watch as well. Unfortunately, it was also the worst of the weekend. It wasn’t an awful show or even a bad one, just an okay show with a lot of peaks and valleys in front of a worn out crowd. BTW, my girlfriend ran into Trina Michaels in the bathroom before the show. She had my girl take a picture of her, as the toilet situation was apparently very odd, and my girl said that she was super nice and excited to be a part of the show. I may not agree with money being used on a pornstar when it’s better applied elsewhere, but her being enthusiastic was really nice to hear. Ricochet was out of his match due to an injury he suffered on the previous night, so Naruki Doi had to replace him. Johnny Gargano, scheduled to take on Doi, faced Jimmy Rave instead in a solid opener. During the six-way freestyle match that followed, Arik Cannon & Sami Callihan bailed together, leaving it Rich Swann, Lince Dorado, Silas Young & AR Fox. Swann pinned Dorado with the Standing 450 for the win and got a great ovation. Stalker Ichikawa came out next, only to be obliterated by Brodie Lee and all of the Blood WARRIORS. Ric was limping badly, so the injury seemed legit. Ronin then came out and Chuck Taylor challenged Brodie Lee to a singles match, ultimately losing a pretty great little contest. Brodie hit tons of boots, Chuck showed serious fire and courage, but he eventually fell to the Liger Bomb. He did hit him with a couple of dives though, one of which, a standing moonsault off the apron to the floor, caused Chucky T quite a head blemish. Courtesy of Taylor’s Twitter:

Afterwards, CIMA & Doi called out Open the Twin Gate champions Masato Yoshino & PAC for their tag team title match to begin. There were lots of really funs spots, including CIMA taking a sick head bump off of a second rope Sling Blade. The best moment came when Doi put PAC in the Tree of Woe, who hung in from of Yoshino sitting in the same corner. CIMA came off the top with Tokarev and Doi hit Dai Bosou at the same time! In the end, Yoshino & PAC retained the belts after Doi tapped out to Sol Naciente in a really good match. I don’t think it was as good as it was planned to be when Ricochet was in the mix, but it was still pretty awesome. Ric was at ringside so he & his rival PAC were jawing at one another the whole time. PAC mocked him for his bum ankle and man did it feel like legit heat between those two. Ronin came out again afterwards to mock BW, but they came off like sniveling bitches when they mocked CIMA & Doi for losing, drawing mostly boos from the crowd. I sincerely doubt that was the plan, and right now DGUSA is starved for clear faces. At halftime, I got to wander around, grab a lemonade and meet Matt Galyon from out lovely site! WE’RE CO-WORKERS! He’s a Tennessee fan and I’m a Gator fan though, so our meeting was terrible tense and unfortunately brief. Just kidding…about the tenseness. Post-intermission, the Dark City Fight Club made their DGUSA debut but Callihan & Cannon came out again to challenge them as a tag team, winning a mediocre match (no fault of DCFCs) with some sort of sliding clothesline / superkick combo that looked kind of cool. I was pretty bored though, and that’s when I noticed that I was sitting behind Simon Cowell.

In a horrible segment, Callihan & Cannon basically suggested that they don’t care what you call them, but they REALLY want to be called Dirty Ugly F**ks. Yeah. Arik reiterated this point, making the lost irony more glaring. “We don’t care what you call us…but seriously, call us this.” It was abysmally sad, but at least Cannon’s getting pushed. Here’s a perfect encapsulation of Sami Callihan and Arik Cannon: when they debuted together at the PPV taping, Sami took the mic fist, rambling and doing his fake laugh for about ninety seconds. After he finished, the crowd literally didn’t do a thing: no cheers, boos, “Go Sami!”, “No Sami!”….it was silent. Cannon took the stick, said one sentence (something old school like “Thanks for shutting you mouths while I talk.”) and he had us booing like crazy. In his farewell match, Austin Aries lost to Jimmy Jacobs via small package in a really fun match. Jacobs locked him in an early headscissors and Aries pushed his way out of it. This annoyed Jacobs, who pushed Aries’ head back down and demanded that he dropkick out of it. Aries did and later caught Jacobs’ legs while he was going for his backflip rana. The crowd told him that Jacobs gave him one so Aries should return the favor. He said, “Alright…” and allowed Jacobs to drop him with it. Aries said something like, “Okay, we each got one like we agreed” and slapped Jimmy on the tush. Jimmy slapped back, things escalated and they started really fighting. There were lots of cool counters, including Aries countering a spear by diving at Jimmy, catching his head and turning it into Last Chancery, and a finish that came out of nowhere, pissing some people off. I thought it was perfect, showing that Aries had lost a step and it was clearly his time to go.

He cut a really nice speech and called out Ronin, putting each guy over individually: Taylor for being genuinely likable, Swann for being one of the most athletic and darkest guys on the indies and Gargano for reminding him of himself. Blood WARRIORS came out and Aries questioned why they were there. He said that Ronin wants to earn a place in DGUSA while BW thinks they are owed it for being tan and jacked. Aries than says that he was only leaving because he had no purpose, but now he has one. He then decked Ronin with the Blood WARRIORS, barking “advice” at them. He whipped them with his belt. He did the BW call sign with them and they all left. It was really, really bad and pretty much negates a lot of the stuff I loved about his matches again Jacobs and YAMATO. As embarrassing as that was, it was followed up with an impromptu Bunkhouse Brawl between Jon Moxley, once again with Trina Michaels, and Akira Tozawa that went five minutes. Mox came out with YAMATO for his non-title main event match with Tozawa, telling Akira that if he could beat him in the match that he could face YAMA for the Open the Freedom Gate. Tozawa won the mercifully brief battle and the real main event came next. Truthfully, it might have been the best match of the weekend. It was crazy stiff, super fun and had a really hot ending. However, the crowd was nearly dead at this point. To Tozawa’s credit, he really fought to keep us in it, and I hope it comes across strong on PPV. YAMATO eventually retained after two Gallerias and told Tozawa he respected him afterwards, hugging him and setting up for a future Kamikaze USA shake-up of some sort. Of course, it came out recently that Mox signed with the WWE, so these decisions make a lot of sense given the circumstances. The wrestling was strong here once again, but every in-ring segment failed on some level. Couple the horrible segments with bad booking, a horrible migraine I had and the exhaustion, and it was definitely the most difficult show to get into all weekend. My girlfriend, who had a day between shows, actually loved this MORE than the first ROH show, so take that into consideration. Still, if you order the pay-per-view and skip EVERY segment, you’ll seriously be better off and shouldn’t be disappointed in the slightest.

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Whew. I made it home in time to greet my grandmother, who was in town as my grandfather and brother were headed to The Masters. Looking now, I can’t even imagine doing all of this again. Hell, some did what I did and added WrestleMania to the equation. I decided it wasn’t worth the money or my time to physically go there, but I still had to review all four hours of action. If you want a live account, PWP has you covered there, too.

My WWE PPV Review: WrestleMania XXVII

Matt Galyon’s column: WrestleMania 27: My Experience

I hope you enjoyed reading all of this very long review. If little else, I hope it persuaded you to take the plunge if WrestleMania ever comes your way and feast on every bit of wrestling you can stomach that weekend. Believe me, it was worth each drop of fatigue I felt. Below, you can find some completely arbitrary awards that I conjured, a link to my Chikara Pro columns and a link to my Twitter.
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The All-Important M’s

Match: It’s a tie between YAMATO versus Austin Aries and Blood WARRIORS versus Ronin, both from Mercury Rising. YAMA/Aries was more technically sound and had a lot of meaning attaching seeing as we all thought this was Austin’s swan song. What BW/Ronin lacked in overall storytelling more than compensated with completely insane in-ring action and palpable hatred between the two sides. Ring of Honor’s best match was also a tie: Kings/WGTT from Chapter 1 and Briscoes/ANX from Chapter 2. Claudio sold beautifully through the epic tag title match and the finish felt really important. The heat in the Briscoes match with Titus & King started off a simmer and ended up boiling hot. Lots of things turned up the heat: Rhett bleed, the table spot, Jay GUSHING blood and Mark surviving One Night Stand, ANX’s signature finisher. By the end, everyone was on their feet.
Move: I’m telling you, man, the elbow show Rhett Titus gave Jay Briscoe at Chapter 2 was otherworldly. Ever since the Briscoes and the All-Night Express did the double turn last month, people have been saying how hard it is to take Rhett seriously as a face. Hell, I was one of’em. This one elbow shot pretty much completely changed my opinion on the matter, and this feud has me really interested in Ring of Honor for the first time in a while. Hero & Castagnoli’s King Swing was cool seeing live and Deeb taking a sick uranage right into a Backdrop Driver was great, too. On DGUSA’s side, the Tokarev/Bosou spot was damn cool, as was the spear counter into Last Chancery from Aries/Jacobs. One of my girl’s favorites? Silas Young’s always awesome Peegee Waja Plunge.
Moment: Like I said before, a RHETT TITUS ELBOW caused Corny and Delirious to lose their minds at the Ring of Honor Chapter 2 show. It was really awesome seeing two guys within the company marking out like we were. Haas & Benjamin winning the belts and everyone singing “T.N.T.” and Christopher Daniels joining Truth were also really cool, very different moments. Every time Bryce Remsburg came to the ring, the crowd roared with applause. He remained very humble, never soaking it in, and it always drew a wry smile on my face. CIMA & Doi absolutely murdering Rich Swann at the end of their six-man, Tozawa’s series of, like, nine billion Germans and the comedy stuff at the beginning of Aries/Jacobs were all tremendous and memorable.
MVP: I just have to say YAMATO. The guy was in the best match on both nights of DGUSA, versus Aries & Tozawa. He’s the champion, and he’s starting to act like one: in broken English, he sent us home happy after his match with Tozawa, thanking us for coming. He also sent Jon Moxley packing before his match with Aries, which earned with lots of kudos from me. He’s the best pure wrestler in Dragon Gate right now and, despite a questionable start, has already eclipsed Hulk’s previous reign as Freedom Gate champion in just one weekend. Ring of Honor’s a tougher call. I ain’t giving it to Davey or Eddie, that much is assured. They might be the company’s MVPs, but they both had their glaring weaknesses on full display this weekend. I’m going with the now former tag champions, who had the best match at Chapter 1 and started Chapter 2 off with a bang, In fact, Hero & Castagnoli’s seven minute affair with Cole & O’Reilly was BETTER than the half hour odyssey between WGTT and The American Wolves. It’s clichéd, but the Kings Reign Supreme once again.
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Other Terribly-Important Awards

Hardest Strikers: Eddie Edwards had the hardest chops on the Ring of Honor show. I know, I’m as surprised as you are. Both Roddy & Davey’s strikes were pretty tame live, especially Davey’s kicks. On the DGUSA side of things, Arik Cannon, Jimmy Jacobs & YAMATO all had some sick punches, slaps, chops & elbows. Brodie Lee’s big boots are the real deal, too. Callihan, despite being called “The Hardest Hitting Man on the Plant”, didn’t live up to the moniker at all.
Most Over: In DGUSA, Akira Tozawa was an absolute God, getting the best reaction of anyone on any of the indy shows. CIMA, Doi, Brodie Lee and Chuck Taylor were also fan favorites. Davey Richards was incredibly popular on the ROH shows, as were The Kings of Wrestling, Haas, Homicide and Cabana. None of these wrestlers in either company, however, were as over as Bryce Remsburg. No joke.
Breakout Stars: Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly were truly the big breakthroughs of the weekend, having great matches against The Briscoes & The Kings. Kurihara, Matsumoto and Rhett Titus were also surprising highlights to the weekend. All of Ronin really shined in Dragon Gate USA. I’ve never seen Chuck Taylor believable intense before these shows. Gargano upped his game in a big way, clearly a step or two ahead where he was only a few months ago. Swann is becoming a very reliable high-flying, too. Outside of them, Silas Young really got the crowd going on Sunday, AR Fox looks like he could do a dive anywhere, at any time, and Austin Aries, long thought to be on empty, had an amazing match against YAMATO to prove that, when motivated, he’s still one of the top juniors in the States.
Best Overall Show: Mercury Rising 2011, despite just an okay beginning, ended better than any show on the weekend with three absolutely awesome contests. Both Ring of Honor shows were great, but I’d have to give the slight edge to the one that opened the weekend, as I was just so into everything except Davey/Roddy. Finally, Open the Ultimate Gate, which I was just gassed for. Despite the terrible segments, my girl still had fun so who knows if my fatigue affected my judgment. I cannot stress enough though that I didn’t see one bad show this weekend. Still, one thing’s for sure: DGUSA’s iPPV was cream of the crop.
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