ROH TV taping (Louisville, Ky.)
Report by Trent Van Drisse, PWPonderings.com and ProWrestling.net
Here’s the results of tonight’s marathon ROH TV Tapings from the Davis Arena in Louisville, Ky. I say marathon because ROH taped five episodes tonight. The show started right on time at seven, and ended at 11:40. It was good for the most part, and I like the current ROH product, but I find myself these past two tapings in Louisville missing the Claudio Castagnolis and Colt Cabanas of the world in ROH. I think they need something with a slight comedy edge to it to break things up a bit. It gets stale feeling at times.
It was the same set up as last time here, with the announce desk in front of what is the babyface entrance at ROH shows. Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness were again the announcers. No bikini girl this time, but they did have The Blossom Twins (Holly and Hannah) of OVW out a few times wearing, and showing off, different ROH merchandise. There were again delays between the matches, while they do whatever they’re doing production wise. The delays aren’t unbearable, but they’re noticeable.
Again like last month, a few times a random football game started playing on the video screens. That is so strange, and it’s happened two months in a row. The crowd last month was said to be 400, and it was in the same range tonight, maybe a bit less, so I’d guess 350-ish to start, but it thinned out some late for sure. The crowd got tired as things rolled around, but they tried to stay with it to the end.
Jim Cornette addressed the crowd to start the show, same stuff he said last month.
Dark Match
1. Randy Terrez and Adam Revolver beat Mohamad Ali Vaez and Rudy Switchblade. Dark match. All OVW talent here, but two totally slapped together teams. Switchblade is the current OVW Heavyweight champion, but didn’t have the belt with him here. Terrez was bleeding from the forehead a bit, but they didn’t stop the match. Terrez pinned Vaez to win it. The match was fine, and the crowd enjoyed it.
ROH TV Taping
One thing they did do different this taping was they had Kevin Kelly and Nigel McGuinness do a live stand up introduction for the start of each episode in front of the announce desk. The first one was now, there were many more to follow as the night went on.
1. Mike Mondo beat Alex Silva. The was the first match of the ROH tapings. Both OVW guys here, but both were on the last ROH taping as well. Mondo got the win with a double armed DDT. Decent TV match. OVW referee Chris Sharpe reffed this match, and several more matches tonight as well.
2. Mike Bennett w/Brutal Bob Evans beat Jamin Olivencia. Olivencia is also a regular OVW talent. Bennett took the mic before the match and said he was the ROH TV champion, and said this was a TV title shot for Olivencia. Very competitive match until Bennett dropped Olivencia down and won it out of nowhere, so Bennett retains his imaginary ROH TV title.
3. Davey Richards beat Kyle O’Reilly (w/Tony Kozina). Richards with some prematch mic work, saying this would be a fight “American Strong style”. This was the TV main event for the first episode. Non title affair here. Truth Martini joined the announce booth for this one. Excellent match. Richards finally won when Kozina threw in the towell for O’Reilly, while O’Reilly was trapped in an ankle lock submission. Great stuff here.
Truth Martini got in the ring after the match and made Richards an offer of some sort. Richards and O’Reilly beat Martini up instead.
4. The Briscoe Brothers(Mark and Jay) fought Cedric Alexander and Caprice Coleman to a no contest. This was the first match of the second taping. Alexander and Coleman fared very well early against the Briscoe’s. One of the Briscoe’s had a cut on his eyebrow, but the match was not stopped. I thought Kentucky was a state where a match had to be stopped for blood? Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin ran in with chairs, and ended up going out the side door and into the parking with the Briscoe’s, as a camera followed them outside. Due to this, the match was ruled a no contest.
Continued on page two …
