bradhindsight

Good crowd in Pittsburgh for the tapings last night, saw the picture Cary posted and also heard from a contact there. Possibly double what they pulled in the fall. That's two good TV crowds to start the year, in good venues, which is critical to getting over with the syndicated audience.

This very much played off their big match from September, with the added twist of the eye injury which Naito used to typically then transition to the knee. Naito doesn't do as much with the knee in the second half of the match, to that point Elgin sells very well - even during bridges and while on offense, including having to use the top rope to set up the power bomb because he doesn't have the strength to get Naito up. Subtle (missed by the english announcers) and really good psychology. Elgin's first kickout of Destino is the segue from their prior tilt and now he moves into the Burning Hammer stuff, a callback to New Year's Dash. Naito just takes a beating here. Literally the only time Elgin doesn't sell the knee in the match is after the power bomb into the rail near the very end - his huge adrenaline finish when he races him back in to finally hit the spinning powerbomb for the big kickout. I was pretty convinced he had him beat there. He then drives Naito into the buckle and on his head. More play off the Hammer and Naito hits two more finishers to come out on top. Perhaps a touch excessive in the 2H, but boy this was a worthy main event. ****3/4

sek69> that certainly was the reason they made the fulltime move for KK last spring and there was a marked improvement. KK has talked before about having to convince Delirious to delegate stuff (which he eventually did). Gotta work smarter than that.

Suzuki was masterful here - he's frantic early, both inside and outside the ring as he goes after the knee. I could certainly see a case for there being one too many kneebar sequences, mainly because they were long(ish) to start so it didn't really build until Gedo started teasing throwing in the towel (a great touch). I liked Suzuki transitioning to the sleeper then. Clearly the knee stuff wasn't going anywhere. I thought Okada's selling was perfectly fine. When he wasn't in a hold for a bit you'd see the knee improve. He'd sell on offense. His comebacks were all logical, he never got the tombstone because of the knee - instead working in levels of the lariat to finally put him away. Didn't have an issue with the interference as it was quickly done away with and is really just to give a false (potential) finish ot the crowd. Made sense given the group anyway. I actually thought the crowd was pretty into it, the quiet shock early of Suzuki decimating him paid off when he did make his comebacks. ****1/4

I'll never get how someone like Joe Koff (who I like and I think is the main reason ROH is still even around) would let Delirious manage that staff the way he does. Awful communication skills and what i'd imagine is a continued source of frustration for both the locker room and office. With the recent stuff about Keith Lee's last weekend, again Delirious can't even tell a guy he isn't booked. I don't even blame the company for cutting his dates once he signed with WWN (they blew off the Briscoes feud and then cut his last date), but you're a bad manager if you can't even talk to a guy to explain the deal.

Well - there are provisions in contracts against tampering so if the WWE did contact someone like O'Reilly before his deal was up, ROH is smart to enforce this, otherwise it could be held against them later if they willingly let *some* guys talk early and others not. The WWE clearly (maybe due to the TNA lawsuit from before) felt they did something in the wrong to immediately put the 60 day provision in.

This is a really good main event. Glad it was elimination because when they say "Fatal 5-way", fatal (I thought) always implied first fall. So I'm glad they could actually do some logical booking. I liked Ali coming in from the earlier match in the show and the finish with him missing his move and hurting his elbow only to immediately tap to TJP was very good. Prior to that Dar was out and came back to crotch Cedric (one heckuva crotching I guess), which eventually led to him going out. Gallagher does sell pretty well here, good finish with the delayed headbutt and conclusive win over TJP . ***1/2

I'm right with you on this one. Loved the early fire but Juice goes a bit too far with the somersault into the gate and Goto takes over. Juice's fighting spirit post being german suplexed on his head was really good. He hung in here fine and impressed. And goto was really good too - very well laid out. ***1/2

(Johnny obviously also)

You are part of the old man PWO contingent with Charles, Pete, Dave and myself Steven.

I liked that PWO2k was the main topic that weaved through all the other questions and introspections Sam was asking. Good show. I found myself having a number of thoughts on the wrestling fandom/silos of conversation / spheres of influence point that Jason brought up

2011-present

Rocky definitely deserves a spot, I'm hoping he finishes well. Childs - it's funny, early on there were some big names where you'd see a guy say "there's no way he makes my list", but when you actually sit down to flesh it out, it's not that easy to get that many names. Which is why we did 50 - it allows for some good variance in the last 20 or so (some actually scoffed at why we wouldn't do 100 - no way). The SBG era has a lot of guys that don't rank at all when it comes to ROH significance or influence so they're muddled together in a lower tier (for me at least).

I wanted to shoot a quick note of thanks to both Kris and Devon, but to also everyone who has been a part of these (Johnny, Will, Pete, Dylan, Eduardo, Johnny P, and many more). Hard to believe, we're going into our fourth year producing these; we started with the Royal Rumble 2014!

Yes- I started a thread and added to list. That's another good one. Thanks for participating!

Man, is this the hardest hitting match in NXT history? Roddy puts so much energy into everything - grappling, kicking out, etc - that it adds a nice touch of realism. Both guys are sweating profusely from the action. Roddy drops Almas on the corner ropes as a backbreaker. Good smart reversals too. This is really where the selling happened at the end - it was each guy's exhaustion vs. holding his arm or whatever. Roddy looked downright spry, amazing conditioning (as usual). Roddy taking the lariat and then rolling across the ring back to the corner was probably the one blemish for me, admittedly nitpicking. Fantastic stuff ***3/4

And hey - don't forget the Top 10 Non-Wrestlers offshoot poll guys. Our buddy Will threw in a late nomination for Papa Briscoe (I loved this). There's a good mix of managers/backstage guys and other folks in play here.

Good stuff there. The one category I found myself dismissing (from its roots in BIGLAV) was base ability. Because I feel like if you're in the top 50, ROH is a very worker-heavy promotion so everyone's base is high. I refined my categories to: Length of run (calculated "years" worth of work so a 6 month run = .5) Roles/styles (heel/face, tag/singles, etc) Significance/influence (titles is a component here) Matches/stories/feuds (quality of work plays into this cat) Intangibles

Thanks Mad Dog - I'll create a thread for Sal. and thanks SLB - appreciate you guys both sending one in.

The ROH 50 Greatest Wrestlers Ever project is now LIVE - here's the thread with links to the forms and discussion: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/36930-the-honor-roll-rohs-50-greatest-wrestlers-ever-project-voting-now-open-through-228/

Veda's been long gone. They seem to be booking around Klein, Leon, Hendrix and Purazzo. There's been some talk of late of contracting them as well. While they've had their own hour-long TV episodes to bookend around TV tapings and PPVs (as well as taping a couple matches at TV tapings for their YouTube page), I still think they'd be better off giving them at least one match per 4 episode taping block. They wrestle regularly on the house shows, which is another step in the right direction.

To celebrate Ring of Honor’s 15th anniversary, Place to Be Nation and Voices of Wrestling have teamed up to present The Honor Roll: ROH’s 50 Greatest Wrestlers Ever and an offshoot poll ROH’s 10 Greatest Non-Wrestlers. Here are links to both pages, which include the embedded form for voting. Links to the nominees' discussion threads and other project info are also within: Top 50 ROH Wrestlers: http://placetobenation.com/the-honor-roll-rohs-50-greatest-wrestlers-ever-poll/ Top 10 Non-Wrestlers: http://placetobenation.com/the-honor-roll-rohs-10-greatest-non-wrestlers-poll/ I want to thank everyone in advance who takes the time to submit a ballot. Voting is open through the month of February and the results will be released March 1st - 9th in advance of their 15th Anniversary show.

I parachuted in on part 3 and in the hour I was able to listen to I was extremely impressed.

I'm parachuting in a bit on NXT gimmicks, but I like this role for Eric Young a lot. Solid story for an opener here with Young having trained Dillinger and is now trying to recruit him. And the booking around Dillinger trying to overcome Sanity throughout is well done. ***

Just finished the show - loved the segments and thought they worked great to cover a huge swatch of promotions and wrestling. And as Loss noted in here, there were no spoilers really, just recommendations.