This Is How We Do It

No, I haven't been listening to too much Montell Jordan. I’m sure some of you may know that Ring Of Honor has started airing on a station I don’t get, HDNet. Since I don’t get that channel I watched it online. And let me just say this: Bravo!

Week after week, month after month, year after year we sit around and talk about how TNA and WWE misuse their talent. How they are wasted. ROH in this first go 'round was very impressive. It had guys I haven’t seen in a while, heard of, or had wanted to see. I’ll list some of the things accomplished that WWE and TNA may wanna take a look at and see how things should be done.

ENTRANCES

Their entrances are short and sweet. No fancy pyro, no ten minutes before the match starts, and as they enter the ring we get the history of the wrestlers, a list of their current feuds, and their finishers. It's beautiful.

CAMERA ANGLES

The way this is shot makes you feel as if you are close to or in the ring. Lots of close ups. Lots of moving angles that keep it feeling fresh. The angles were so good that I actually said, “This looks really good.” I know most shows stick with the hard cam but it isn’t always necessary.

HISTORY

They showed the past legends of wrestling and the stars that left and went on to bigger (and better?) things in TNA or WWE. It's not like when Jeff Hardy or Christian left for TNA and it is never mentioned on TV. It makes their careers seem lessened when you don’t bring up what someone was up to when they left you. They acknowledge history and it makes everything seem like it matters in a sport where sometimes history gets shit on and forgotten.

ACTION

Oh, the action! These guys have excellent cardio. I sat here and watched Brent Albright, who was wasted in WWE, put on an cool match against a guy that I had never even heard of. When was the last time you sat through a wrestling show and didn’t fast forward? I read spoilers and still watched the show from start to finish.

The guys they had on the first show were good. Hell, they didn’t even have the champion, Nigel McGuiness, on the show. No belts were defended but it still felt like everything counted.

Delirious vs. Jerry Lynn (who is better now than ever before) was a really good match. Lots of back and forth, reversals, and the crowd was really into it. Delirious is entertaining as fuck and never seems to have a bad match. Lynn's cradle piledriver never gets old.

Sami Callihan vs. Kenny King was awesome as well. I only knew who Callihan was because I drew a picture of him for his fiancé. He reminded me of wrestlers I grew up liking but packaged with a look for today. Hard ass style. Nothing pretty about what he did. King was someone I hadn’t seen before but was very impressed with him. Athletic as fuck. Imagine Shelton Benjamin with personality.

Rhett Titus vs. Brent Albright was good but as soon as I saw Titus I thought “Cham Pain has gotten STOLEN!” Good match with the crowd really into it. They gave these guys enough time to get their shit in. Albright won with a nasty armbar after a sick ass suplex. At this point, I’m thinking “I have to watch this shit next week!”

With Tyler Black vs. Jimmy Jacobs I knew who Jacobs was from the Project 161 incident where he dangled a Briscoe upside down and let blood pour all over him. I had seen Black once but didn’t know too much about him. You know how to tell when a wrestler impresses you? You rush to YouTube and look them up. And that’s what I did with these guys. Jacobs, this small guy that looks like someone you could beat up in school, was badass. He didn’t wrestle like a small guy. He wrestled like a heel. There was no WWE/TNA thing where the heel gets cheered. The guys in ROH that are hated are hated. And that is cool.

I loved this first show and look forward to the next. Did anyone else catch it? What did you think? Do you have a new show to watch weekly or are you a die hard ROH fan that is nervous about ROH getting bigger?

Share |