For the past 5 years or so I've been wanting to get my hands on the early years of Ring Of Honor. I'm very interested in this period of the company, I've read a lot about it and I get the impression that it was more or less a spiritual successor to ECW. The only ROH I've seen really is the "Best Of" compilation DVD that I picked up 5 years ago(this is the DVD with Samoa Joe vs Kenta Kobashi, Lance Storm vs Daniel Bryan, CM Punk vs Terry Funk etc.) and I was really impressed.

I'm intrigued by this era of wrestling because this was around the time that I completely quit watching or keeping up with pro wrestling, I got burned out on WWF Attitude Era by 1999 and eventually quit watching both WWF and WCW entirely. By the year 2000 I was a strictly ECW guy. Gradually through that year the company lost me, I could see the writing on the wall that Summer that they were headed to a shallow grave in Vince Mcmahon's back yard. My family moved out to the country that Summer and we went without cable for a few months, so I stopped watching ECW and just completely forgot about pro wrestling. The early days of the Invasion angle in 2001 drew my interest back but they lost me just as quickly, the moment I seen that it was going to be a Shane & Stephanie Mcmahon angle I divorced pro wrestling and never looked back for 11 years. 

During that time I completely missed out on a promotion that I would have absolutely fallen head over heels in love with, Ring Of Honor. instead I gradually got deeper and deeper into MMA from 2002 to 2008. Pride Fighting Championships became my new squared circle love affair, it got to the point where I became obsessed with it and eventually I was so inspired by my favorite Pride fighters that I strapped on the gloves and stepped into the cage for a brief MMA run of my own(9 fights, towards the end of my run I won a minor league Lightweight title in the state of Arkansas). When I look at Ring Of Honor from their early days I think it's a real shame that I never heard about it back then, I would have absolutely loved it, maybe if I would have found out about it back then I would have never lost touch with my childhood passion of pro wrestling, who knows, maybe I would have strapped on a pair of wrestling boots instead of MMA gloves. 

So it's high time to finally get into these tapes. I've scored all of the 2002 tapes and have 2003 on the way. What I do know about ROH is limited. I do know that the company was started by Rob Fienstien(sp?) and Gabe Sapolsky, two guys that would tape ECW fan cam shows and sell them through mail order company called RF Video, the same company that I bought my ECW tapes from as far back as 1997-1998. I don't know much about Fienstien outside of his 15 minutes of infamy on Dateline and his history running RF Video. I do know that Gabe Sapolsky started out as an ECW fan who would write his own ECW newsletter back in the day. I'm not sure how he got his foot in the door but he eventually became the guy working the camera filming a lot of the fan cam shows, and I also know he's one of the best regarded bookers in pro wrestling today with his Evolve company(the little bit of Evolve I seen I really enjoyed). 

So lets do this. I may not be able to write big huge reviews for all these shows but I figured I'd start this thread to post some thoughts as I watch all this for the very first time. Feel free to join in! 

Nice. Looking forward to this. I've seen most of the early ROH shows (and was even at a few!) so I'm sure I'll chime in with comments.

I should warn you though. A lot of their early events are one or two match shows.

As you can probably tell by my post in the match review thread, I will be eagarly following this thread, and, like Baker,I wil try to chime in with comments along the way.

While Baker is pretty acurate about the early shows mostly being two match affairs, most matches generally hold some level of importance, and I always just enjoyed getting to see the talent on display. One of the best aspects about RoH to me was the growth that these guys go through from their first appearance for the company, which I hope you'll be paying attention to.

I was actually going to try do a similar sort of thread on NJPWword, but quietly addmitted that I have neither the time or patience required for such a task, so I'll leave it to the profesionals

First show was better than I expected it to be. Pretty great show to launch a new fed really, it didn't feel like a first show at all it felt like this promotion had been going for a while and was already established, so whoever put this all together to launch did a pretty great job. They had a big crowd for a debut indy show, they were really into everything, giving standing ovations, chanting "Match Of The Year", etc. Show had a cool atmosphere, very similar to an ECW show. 

The opening segment surprised me, I was expecting a high brown politically correct sport wrestling style promotion and we got a classic ECW/Attitude Era style segment that was about as politically incorrect as a wrestling segment can be, we get two gay characters getting pelted with homophobic slurs from the crowd before being assaulted by a tag team called "The Hit Squad", then we get to top it all off with some violence against women as they powerbomb ole girl through a table. :lol: Nice. 

Was surprised by how many ECW people were involved with this show. Several referees, the ring announcer, Steve Corino on commentary, Mikey Whipreck makes a special guest referee appearance in a match with all students from his wrestling school competing in it. Definitely catching an ECW vibe with this. I like that. 

Two guys I've never understood the appeal of, or how the hell they ever became prominent characters that got attention, "The Extreme Ref" HC Loc and this Towel Boy kid. This started in the dying days of ECW, what booker ever decided it would be a good idea to do angles with these chumps? At least Loc took a hella bump, I thought that move he took from Homicide killed him. 

I dug the Red vs Brisco Brother match, that was fun. Rest of the undercard was not that bad. Eddie Guerrero vs Super Crazy was one of those matches I read about back when I was getting back into wrestling 5 years ago and had to track it down, I think I watched it on Youtube. Eddie was so jacked on steroids it was ridiculous. This match wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be, not bad though, cool to see Eddie in this phase of his career back wrestling in this type of environment. 

Main event was match of the night. Great shit. I love how they mention what wrestling school "Dojo" all the wrestlers are representing. This show got me excited about watching the rest of these. Good stuff. 

Outside of the London/Shane match from Unscripted I haven't seen much of 02 ROH, so this will be something I'll read.

shinobimusashi

Nice writeup.

I was hyped for this show and wanted to make the 90 minute drive to Philly. Too bad it fell on my birthday and I ended up having other plans. Would have been cool to say I was at the first ROH show. Oh well. Got the tape about a month later at an ECWA show and the rest is history.

Oh, and the original ROH building (Murphy Rec Center) was only a few blocks away from The Arena. Maybe a mile. Not far at all. Not running The Arena was a conscious choice on Gabe's part. He wanted ROH to establish its own identity rather than being seen as  ECW Jr. I think this was a smart move on his part.

Unfortunately HC Loc is an ROH regular during their first few years. He's not a major star or anything but he does appear on just about every show as a member of a brawling tag team with another ECW alum I don't think you will be a fan of. Oh the bright side, he was a part of THE Tag Team Scramble and that nutty brawl with the Texas Wrestling Academy which you have to look forward to.

Thankfully stupid Towel Boy doesn't stick around long.

The 3 Way main event was obviously the highlight and selling point for this show. It's what put ROH on the map with many fans at the time calling it the GOAT Triple Threat. I even remember a few brave souls back in the day calling it the best match ever. It was a bold move to main event with that match. Those guys were the 3 big indie darlings at the time, and were getting booked more and more, but often in a 'special attraction' sort of role, while the main events generally featured more traditional wrestlers. It's kind of weird to picture Low Ki as Andre, or Bryan as Taker, but that's how things were in the immediate pre-ROH indie scene. Choosing to main event with those 3 over more traditional wrestlers, or even Eddie/Crazy, was a statement, and one that paid off big time.

Red/Jay Briscoe was the 2nd best match on the show imo. The fun undercard actionfest between hungry young guys would become an ROH staple. This was the first.

I don't remember much about Eddie/Crazy but I'm sure that was the 3rd best match on the show because I remember the rest of the show sucking. It took ROH a while to get the undercards and sports entertainment stuff right in my opinion.

I also took note of how jacked Eddie was during this period. If you think it stood out here, just wait until you see him interact with the SAT and future Special K members  :lol:  It looks like some jacked CGI superhero character messing around with children.

Dec 5, 2017 0:46:37 GMT Baker said:

shinobimusashi

Oh, and the original ROH building (Murphy Rec Center) was only a few blocks away from The Arena. Maybe a mile. Not far at all. Not running The Arena was a conscious choice on Gabe's part. He wanted ROH to establish its own identity rather than being seen as  ECW Jr. I think this was a smart move on his part.

The 3 Way main event was obviously the highlight and selling point for this show. It's what put ROH on the map with many fans at the time calling it the GOAT Triple Threat. I even remember a few brave souls back in the day calling it the best match ever. It was a bold move to main event with that match. Those guys were the 3 big indie darlings at the time, and were getting booked more and more, but often in a 'special attraction' sort of role, while the main events generally featured more traditional wrestlers. It's kind of weird to picture Low Ki as Andre, or Bryan as Taker, but that's how things were in the immediate pre-ROH indie scene. Choosing to main event with those 3 over more traditional wrestlers, or even Eddie/Crazy, was a statement, and one that paid off big time.

That's interesting that they consciously chose not to run ECW Arena. I really like what they were going for something fresh compared to what was in pro wrestling up to 2002. All in all I was actually quite impressed with this first show, obviously a lot of room for improvement but they really hit the ground running for a promotion of it's caliber. I enjoyed it, plenty of action, 3 good matches and a whole bunch of people getting completely fucking dumped on their heads. If I had to rate this first show I'd probably go 7.5 out of 10. 

I just watched the 3 way main event again showing my little brother(first time watching it last night I had my nose buried in my laptop working on fan fic draft stuff, so I watched it but I didn't really watch it). That was really an amazing three way match, one of the best I've ever seen for sure(if I were a rating man I'd probably give it 4 & 1/4 Stars). I REALLY like Low Ki. I'm hyped to pop in that next show now.

I wish I had the energy to go all out with this project ala American Hardcore Theater, I just don't have it in me and honestly I don't know ANYTHING about any of these wrestlers or any context about what was happening in the biz during this time, so anybody with any knowledge about this feel free to drop it here, this is all new to me.

Dec 5, 2017 1:17:39 GMT shinobimusashi said:

What the hell. I've got an hour or so to kill. kashdinero could probably do this better than me but here it goes...

*This is going to be long. I may have to break it up into two parts.

Before we get to ROH proper, we have to talk about independent wrestling in the dark ages before Ring of Honor. Indie wrestling for much of the 90s consisted of mostly chubby, occasionally roided up, weekend warrior types copying what they saw on tv the previous Monday night. Occasionally you'd get an enterprising soul copying what he saw as a child instead. For whatever reason, most of these folks were biker types. Seriously. Thumb through an old PWI 500 if you have a copy handy. 75% of the indie wrestlers pictured clearly rode Harleys. Main events were typically local heel vs. Duggan/Beefcake/Tony Atlas, etc. Occasionally you'd get one of those guys teaming with the top babyface (usually the promoter or booker) vs. the top two heels (also usually the promoter/booker). Needless to say, these matches were awful.

By the late 90s it started to change a little due to the influence of ECW & WCW Cruiserweights. I'll cover the ECW influence first. Now instead of copying Hogan, many of the weekend warriors became dime store Sandman's. Hardcore promotions sprang up all over the place. These were even sleazier than ECW if you can believe that. I never got into these promotions. But not every indie wrestler became an aspiring Rotten brother. And thank your lucky stars you never had the misfortune of seeing Earl the Pearl do his fake Road Dogg shtick or Platinum Nat, a MANAGER, portray the world's worst Rock.

The WCW Cruiserweight influence is what won out in the end. What I call ROH/Indie style is basically just the evolution of WCW cruiserweight style. But even then, there were far more bad fake Kidman's than there were guys actually worthy of a spot in WCW's Cruiserweight division.

The first big independent showcase of this style came courtesy of the Delaware-based ECWA's annual Super 8 tournament. These were a big deal in the Apter Mags and soon became a big deal on the internet. The Super 8 alumni page reads like a who's who of late 90s-2000s wrestling. For years I thought it was the ECWA Super 8 that inspired Gabe & Feinstein to start ROH. 

I was wrong. From Gabe's own mouth, it was the California-based King of the Indies tournament, which was basically ECWA Super 8: West Coast Version. And with 16 wrestlers instead of 8. In my opinion APW was the closest thing to an ROH style workrate promotion before ROH itself existed. That's where Christopher Daniels first blew up. Vic Grimes, Crash Holly and Spike Dudley started there, as well as a few guys who were regulars in Japan for a couple years. APW never got big because they were way out on the west coast....far away from the Mid-Atlantic/Northeastern population centers which were the hub of indie wrestling, and also in close proximity to the Apter Mag headquarters, which is important because the Apter Mags were the main hype vehicle for indie promotions until most people got online in the early 2000s. And they were also hurt by the fact that their promoter, Roland Alexander, was an old school carny con man who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

So by 2001 the undisputed top two buzzed about indie shows every year are two cruiserweight/workrate tournaments- one on the East Coast and another on the West. Both tourneys imported guys from all over. But that was only a one night a year thing. General consensus at the time said it wouldn't be economically viable to do a bunch of fly ins for every single show.

Yet that's exactly what ROH did. The original idea behind ROH was that it would be this Super Indie promotion where every single show would be like a Super 8 or a King of the Indies, only a regular show rather than a tournament.

RF sold tapes from promotions around the world (many of them illegally, it turns out) but ECW had been his bread and butter. Now that ECW was dead he needed a new cash cow. Gabe, Rob & their other buddy Doug Gentry noticed that King of the Indies and Super 8 were their big sellers and wisely decided to base a whole promotion around that cruiserweight/workrate concept. This was revolutionary in America at the time. Even promotions like ECWA that featured a lot of soon-to-be ROH talent in strong roles typically used them as special attractions while the main events were still usually weekend warrior cosplayer types.

Low Ki- The closest thing the scene had to a Sabu. He was to early ROH what Sabu was to early ECW- simply their most "must see" wrestler. He kicked like Tajiri, had the badass aura of Taz, and flew around like....Hayabusa, or somebody like that. Started in the NY/NJ area. His big breakout match came against Daniel Bryan at the ECWA 2001 Super 8. It was heralded as an instant classic.....an Eddie/Dean for the next generation. It's no surprise that he was the first ROH ace. For in 2001 he became THE indie darling having surpassed.....

Christopher Daniels- 1/3rd of the original indie wrestling Holy Trinity along with APW's Michael Modest and east coast-based Reckless Youth in 98-99. Modest rarely left California and Reckless lost momentum when he signed a WWF Developmental deal, never amounting to anything there. So by 2000 Daniels had become THE guy on the indie scene. He was also the first indie guy to really travel all over the place. Established himself on the east coast by winning an ECWA Super 8 and I think he won a King of the Indies too. It was a Daniels/Low Ki match I saw at my first ECWA show that made me an indie wrestling fanatic for a few years. Daniels sold a Tajiri-like head kick by rolling his eyes back into his head. I thought he was concussed for real. He kicked out at 2.9. A short time later he speared Low Ki while Ki was upside down in mid handspring. Then, seemingly in one motion, he lifted him into his finisher, Last Rites, for the 1-2-3. At that moment, I decided Christopher f'n Daniels was the best wrestler in the entire world. He was basically God to the early ROH fans. They booked him as a heel, and the chief rival of top face Low Ki, but he rarely ever got booed.

American Dragon Bryan Danielson- The original buzz about Danielson was "Shawn Michaels student!" That's it, really. He got signed to a WWF Developmental deal solely for being Shawn's student. He was released after about a year working for the Memphis developmental fed(s). Broke out as Low Ki's opponent in the 2001 Super 8 finals. They soon had other matches, and this became the big independent rivalry in 2001. Dragon won the 2001 King of the Indies over Ki in a reversal of the Super 8 result. He then replaced Michael Modest as APW's head trainer. Not much came of that. If Daniels was the entertainer, and Ki was the striker, Danielson was the technician of the ROH founding fathers. To be honest, he was easily my least favorite of the three, as I found him rather dry. I also thought his early rival, Spanky, had more superstar potential at the time.

Spanky- Another Michaels trainee who spent some time under WWF Development contract with his buddy Danielson. Since being released he was basically Danielson's traveling partner. They'd typically debut in a promotion against one another with Danielson usually (always?) going over. In spite of this, I thought Spanky had more 'star' potential due to his charisma. And I guess WWF thought so too since he was re-signed just a few months after ROH started, and would be signed twice before Danielson came back to the company. His ring work was a step or two behind the ROH Big 3, and our next guy, but his charisma made him stand out.

AJ Styles- First got on the map with a few appearances in the last days of WCW. His home promotion was NWA Wildside in Georgia. He broke out on the east coast by going to the finals of the 2002 ECWA Super 8 (a show I attended) and would debut in ROH the next month. If I had to do an early ROH Mt. Rushmore, Styles would be the 4th man even though he was never pushed THAT strong due to his TNA commitments.

SAT/Amazing Red- Probably the most frequently booked of all the future ROH stars in 2001. These guys wrestled EVERYWHERE in the MD/PA/NJ/NY/DE area. I was a big fan. Thought SAT were revolutionizing tag team wrestling with cool move after cool move while Red was basically the next Rey Mysterio Jr. SAT quickly got exposed as one trick ponies and soon became a running gag of sorts as an example of bad 'spot monkeys' but I still maintain Red was a damn good professional wrestler whose career would sadly be derailed by injuries. Red is basically the Simpsons of independent wrestling. Even today when I see a cool move I'm all "Meh. Red did it first." First guy I ever saw do the standing Shooting Star Press and Code Red, among other things. shinobimusashi is going to LOVE his match with Low Ki featuring the Matrix minute. 

Briscoes- Teenage prodigies who were already having "****" matches in places like CZW while still in high school.

Da Hit Squad- The resident brawling/hoss team. Sort of an indie Road Warriors. Legit heavyweights, they made their name by quite literally chucking 120 pound future Special K members into walls.

Michael Shane- Another Shawn Michaels trainee, Shane actually had more buzz than Dragon & Spanky in 2000....at least on the places I frequented. Basically because they were merely Shawn Michaels trainees while Shane was Shawn Michaels nephew~! He had a ton of hype on StrictlyECW and I think actually worked a few ECW shows towards the end. He never lived up to the hype. His basic old schoolish Bobby Eaton (if that) level high flying just wasn't flashy enough for ROH. Early ROH tried to push him as a face against heel Spanky but the crowd utterly rejected that by rooting for Spank and booing Shane. His big ROH claim to fame is helping make Paul London a star.

Paul London- Trained at the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy, though not by HBK himself, as it soon became a b.s. carny sort of thing that used the name without any actual Shawn Michaels involvement. London was the first true ROH homegrown star. I had no idea who he was when ROH started. He would soon come out of nowhere to steal shows, including probably my ROH Match of the Year vs. Michael Shane in a crazy "Fight Without Honor" I saw live. By the end of 2002 he's arguably ROH's most popular wrestler.

*I'm burnt out. Will cover Xavier, Homicide, Scoot Andrews, and the rest of the early ROH crew later if Shin has any interest.

Dec 5, 2017 3:49:09 GMT Baker said:

Dec 5, 2017 1:17:39 GMT shinobimusashi said:

*I'm burnt out. Will cover Xavier, Homicide, Scoot Andrews, and the rest of the early ROH crew later if Shin has any interest.

The Baker primer on the Indies is perfect, but I just want to give a shout out to Jersey All Pro Wrestling, which was the first breakout Indie fed in the Tri-State of NY/NJ/Connecticut to get a buzz post-ECW, and not coincidentally, was the incubator of some future ROH stars. I only went to one JAPW event in February of 2000, but the card had Low Ki, Homicide, Da Hit Squad, and The Haas Brothers (who were awesome, and it's a shame Russ died before they got rolling). That was an Indie who's who before it would even be considered such a thing because they were all starting out, but they were all already good. Homicide was by far the worst, which should tell people how good everybody else was (Don Montoya was also on the card, who was a much bigger deal in the scene than remembered currently). JAPW was mostly hardcore wrestling, but they understood the ECW formula better than CZW, for example, in that you have to give people other things, and the other things was mostly Low Ki, who really was the Sabu figure of the scene, the poster boy for the new "hybrid wrestling." Going into ROH, Daniels was probably the only bigger name than Low Ki. Low Ki had already built his reputation before ROH, which is why he was such a no brainer to be their first Ace. I remember hearing about ROH for the first time, only because I occasionally checked to see what Low Ki was up to after he blew my mind at that JAPW show.

I'm watching the second ROH show now. They put over the "Code Of Honor" and do a better job of explaining the rules and regulations. Good stuff. 

It blows my mind that Paul E. didn't bring in some of these guys to ECW if they were bouncing around the indies as early as 2000. Would have been a lot better than Chilly Willy. 

Kilgore posting about JAPW reminded me of something else I intended to do. Let's take a look at the big pre-ROH indies.

ECWA- Delaware based. Best known for their Super 8 tournament. My favorite pre-ROH indie. Started going to shows in November 2001. The big 3 of Daniels, Ki & Dragon were regulars. As were Red, SAT, Xavier, Scoot Andrews & Prince Nana. Spanky, AJ, Donovan Morgan and more were occasionally used.

APW- California based. The closest thing to ROH pre-ROH indie wrestling had. Daniels got his big break here. Donovan Morgan & Michael Modest were long time indie standouts. By the time ROH started, Bryan Danielson had become their head trainer. Their King of the Indies show was direct inspiration for ROH.

JAPW- Jersey based. Kilgore covered the highlights. In addition to being Ki, Homicide & Hit Squad's home promotion, it also birthed many of the future Special K members.

MCW- My local Maryland indie. Not one of the "cool" ones but SAT & Red did wrestle here at least semi-regularly.

CZW- ECW Jr. Briscoes & Backseat Boys were regulars. Think SAT & Divine Storm XL also wrestled here. Most of the big indie stars showed up for a show here and there.

Frank Goodman's Promotion- NYC based. Think it was either ICW or UCW. I forget. Ki, Homicide & Xavier were regulars. Think the SAT & Red wrestled here as well. I just remember the promoter because he was rather infamous at the time.

IWA Mid South- Indiana based. The big midwestern indie promotion. Similar to JAPW in style as they mixed hardcore with ROH style. A ton of future ROH standouts started here. Most of these guys don't show up until late 2002 or beyond but IWA MS is where CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Chris Hero, Ace Steel, Jimmy Jacobs, Alex Shelley, BJ Whitmer and many, many others first made a name for themselves. Actually watched a lot of their shows in 02-03 since it was the home of a lot of hyped dudes who weren't in ROH (my go to indie promotion from Day One) yet.

TWA- Texas based. Shawn Michaels' promotion. Gave us Danielson, Spanky, Michael Shane and Paul London.

NWA Wildside- Georgia based. Produced AJ Styles, Jimmy Rave and David Young.

*I think that's all the big ones other than XPW, which sucked, and produced no ROH stars. Oh, and Scoot Andrews came out of Florida. Roderick Strong would also come out of the Sunshine State a few years later.

Homicide- One of Low Ki's major indie opponents in the NY/NJ area. Had good buzz. Was often described as "New Jack with wrestling ability." Was looking forward to seeing him based on that description alone. Unfortunately Gabe misused him early by sticking him in a tag team somebody called Boogalou (not even Brown!) who I had never even heard of. Instead of New Jack with wrestling ability I got a fake New Jack carrying around a rubber chicken. Really. This happened. Would break out in 2003 after Boogalou Not Brown disappeared back to Parts Unknown. Did have a killer finisher from Day One though.

Xavier- The infamous X man actually had good buzz coming into ROH as another regular Low Ki opponent in NY. Xavier was insanely overpushed. Like imagine if XPac had won the WWF Championship in 1999 before HHH....or Arn beat Sting for the WCW title in early 1991 rather than Flair. Yeah, it was kind of like that. And for whatever reason Xavier had better matches outside of ROH. Xavier vs. Styles was the best match at the 2002 Super 8, for example. So Xavier didn't "suck." He was just overpushed and weirdly not very good in ROH but he really did excel elsewhere.

Scoot Andrews- A Florida-based competitor who first got over in the hot Mid Atlantic scene by making it to the finals of the 2000 Super 8. Became an ECWA regular after that, even winning their championship. He called himself "The Black Nature Boy" but didn't wrestle nearly enough like Flair for my liking. Had a killer Pumphandle Driver finisher though. Also competed in an APW King of the Indies. In fact, my favorite singles match of his (he was also in an ECWA 4 with lots of buzz against Daniels/Ki/Dragon) was against Donovan Morgan in APW (probably a King of the Indies match). It's also the one time I ever saw him live up to his nickname by wrestling like Flair. He was on all the early ROH shows but they had already stopped booking him by late 2002.

Special K- A bunch of scrawny high school looking 120 pound spot monkeys. Their gimmick was they were on drugs and their many, many botches were the result of wrestling while high. When I think of bad indie wrestling, I think of Special K. I wouldn't be able to pick Deranged, Angel Dust or Izzy out of a crowd. They all looked and wrestled alike. But pay attention to Hydro (Jay Lethal). He's the one that would go on to bigger and better things. He's the one who wrestles like mini-Chris Benoit and actually looks like a wrestler.

Divine Storm- Special K, but boring rather than drug addicts. Quiet Storm was a 5'2 manlet with cool moves and no personality. Chris Devine was a mush mouth who made Ahmed Johnson sound like George Plimpton and didn't even have very cool moves. I was moves guy back then and didn't even really understand the concept of a bad spotfest. I was all like "moves are cool! What's your problem? And then I saw a Quiet Storm vs. Chris Devine match. These two had the worst 'moves' match I had ever seen up to that point on either an ECWA or PWF (Steve Corino's promotion) show. They were so robotic. Like Storm would hit a Burning Hammer. Divine would kick out at 2 and immediately hit a Northern Lights. Then Storm would kick out and hit a Dragon Suplex. Rinse and repeat for what felt like eternity. Their facial expressions never changed. They just kicked out of everything and traded a thousand finishers. It was so bad that the crowd even stopped responding to the cool moves. Hat Guy thought it was great though! And that's when I learned it's never a good idea to meet your heroes.

Carnage Crew- A brawling "working man" team. More ECW style than ROH style. Which isn't surprising give their history. HC Loc actually had hype back in the StrictlyECW days. Don't ask me why.

Doug Williams- A UK import who actually looked like a right proper pro wrestler. The first guy on this scene to popularize the British/World of Sport style which would soon become all the rage. Was always booked strong in ROH as Gabe loved him and wanted to make him one of his top guys but Williams never agreed to move to America. Doug pulled off the first really big upset in ROH history.

*I think that covers everybody important in early ROH.

Fucking love this thread. Can't wait for more. I might join you on the adventure, shinobimusashi, if I can figure out how best to access old ROH.

The 2002 ROH Awards/Synopsis Post

You guys got me in a 2002 ROH mood. shinobimusashi might want to skip this one since it will inevitably contain spoilers.

MVP

Winner- Low Ki- As I've already said a few times, Low Ki was to 2002 ROH what Sabu was to 1994 ECW- simply their most must see wrestler. I reckon he moved more tapes than anybody else, perhaps more than everybody else combined. Was their first champion. Had MOTN on most shows. 

Runner Up- Christopher Daniels- Ki's top rival. The company's top heel, and the only heel who mattered for the first few months.....even if he did get cheered more often than not. Started the first ROH stable. Most of the major storylines revolved around him.

3. American Dragon- The 3rd member of the Big 3. Didn't have the super push of Low Ki or the importance of Daniels early on. Also missed a show or two iirc.

4. AJ Styles- Missed the first few shows but quickly made up for lost time. Most of his matches came against the Big 3 + a certain inexplicable champion.

5. Paul London- Missed the first few shows, and took a while to get going, but was on fire from September on. By the end of the year he was arguably the most popular wrestler in the company.

Match of the Year 

*The order is based mostly on my real time thoughts as I haven't seen most of these matches in years. Any of the Top 4 would be worthy winners here.

1. Paul London vs. Michael Shane- Unscripted 9/21- The live factor surely comes into play here as this was amazing in person. This "Fight Without Honor" became a de facto Ladder Match with a fanatical Philly crowd (myself included) chanting for our latest hero not to die. This match made London a star and the rest is history.

Runner Up- Low Ki vs. American Dragon vs. Christopher Daniels- Era of Honor Begins 2/23- The match that put ROH on the map. Consensus GOAT 3 Way at the time by all who saw it. A lot of the stuff these guys debuted here would soon become Triple Threat standards. I never got all the love for the famous TNA 3 Way with Joe/AJ/Daniels because I had already seen this one. The TNA match just felt like a copy cat.

3. AJ Styles vs. American Dragon- All Star Extravaganza 11/9- Another one I saw live. I imagine this would probably be my #1 today as my tastes have changed a little. What makes this match stand out is the way they intensely fought over simple things like a grounded neck submission. You just didn't see that sort of thing, and still don't, most likely. Also has a great finish featuring the best Styles Clash set up ever.

4. Low Ki vs. Samoa Joe- Glory By Honor 10/5- If you've ever dreamed of seeing Vader vs. KENTA than this is the match for you. I'm not sure this match should have worked as well as it did since it was an even fight (and I do mean FIGHT) where one guy outweighed the other by 100 pounds or more, but Low Ki's presence made it believable. 2nd match in a row with a finish I loved and one which could only work in a match like this.

5. Xavier vs. Paul London- Final Battle 12/28- An oddball choice as I've never really seen anybody else love this match as much as I did. I'm sure the live factor once again comes into play. This was like a Flair vs. Local Hero match....if Flair kind of sucked   But seriously. We were so into this live, hanging on every nearfall, and rabid for our hero. London broke out one awesome trick that I thought was going to seal the deal. Sadly it was not to be. The most traditional match in my Top 5 as it was a basic slimy heel champ vs. heroic face challenger deal, though it still did have the required cool moves.

Worst Match

Konnan vs. Quiet Storm vs. Chris Divine- Final Battle 12/28
A must watch for Konnan haters such as myself. Wait....I actually think this was so bad it got cut from the tape. Too bad, as this bombed big time, and would be a collectors item among connoisseurs of Wrestlecrap. Konnan got horribly blown up after like 1 minute of solid "lucha" style action. I was actually willing to give Konnan the benefit of the doubt here and I'm pretty sure I greeted him with respectful applause. He was back in his early WCW Aztec Warrior garb which was easily my favorite Konnan. But, yeah, he sucked here....and most everywhere else.

Dishonorable Mention: Literally anything involving Special K, Divine Storm, Elax, Towel Boy, the Christopher Street Connection, or, sadly, my man Prince Nana. The TWA guys outside of Dragon, Spanky, London & Shane were rubbish too. Man, early ROH was low key full of scrubs.

The Shows

Era of Honor Begins 2/23- Watched on tape
*The first show. Set the tone for the promotion.
Main Event: Low Ki vs. American Dragon vs. Christopher Daniels
MOTN: Low Ki vs. American Dragon vs. Christopher Daniels

Round Robin Challenge 3/30- Watched on tape
*Low Ki, American Dragon & Christopher Daniels competed in a one night round robin tournament with each man facing the other in singles matches.
Main Event: American Dragon vs. Low Ki- Round Robin Match
MOTN: Christopher Daniels vs. American Dragon- The consensus MOTN is actually Ki vs. Dragon but I'm pretty sure that match went over my head at the time. I didn't get it, and honestly labeled it with the dreaded "B" word- Boring. A major disappointment after all that hype, I thought it was maybe the most overrated match of all time, and even voted for it in the "Worst Match" category in some year end awards thingie. Whereas Daniels/Dragon was a solid more traditional match with a clear face vs. heel story. And even a piledriver! It's also worth noting that ROH's big money match, Ki vs. Daniels, was a disappointment. Their November 2001 ECWA match that turned me into an indie wrestling fanatic smokes this one. 

Night of Appreciation 4/27- Watched on tape
*A night of appreciation for Eddie Guerrero, who had already returned to WWF and won the IC Title.
Main Event: Eddie Guerrero & Amazing Red vs. SAT
MOTN: Low Ki vs. AJ Styles

Road To The Title 6/22- Watched on tape
*The first two rounds of a tournament to crown the first ever ROH champion.
Main Event: Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles- 2nd Round Tournament Match
MOTN: Low Ki vs. Amazing Red- 2nd Round Tournament Match

Crowning A Champion 7/27- Saw live
*The 4 men left in the tournament would compete in a 60 minute Ironman match with a complicated scoring system to crown the first ever ROH champion.
Main Event: Low Ki vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Doug Williams vs. Spanky- 4 Way 60 Minute Ironman Match to crown the first ROH Champion
MOTN: Low Ki vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Doug Williams vs. Spanky- Loved this live but it really dragged on tape to the point where I'm fairly certain I fast forwarded a few times.

Honor Invades Boston 8/24- May or may not have seen on tape
*The first ROH show outside of Philly. I was not a fan of the change. Philly Phor Life. 
*I didn't think I saw this show...but after glancing at the results, maybe I have?
Main Event: Low Ki vs. AJ Styles- ROH Championship Match
MOTN: Ki vs. AJ and Jay Briscoe vs. Mark Briscoe were the matches with buzz. I may or may not have seen them 

Unscripted 9/21- Saw live
*A bunch of stuff happened which caused the card to drastically changed around at the last minute. Refunds were even offered. A one night tournament was also held to crown the inaugural ROH Tag Team Champions.
Main Event: Christopher Daniels & Donovan Morgan vs. American Dragon & Michael Modest
MOTN: Paul London vs. Michael Shane- Fight Without Honor

Glory By Honor 10/5- May or may not have seen on tape. Can say with 100% certainty that I have seen Joe vs. Ki though.
*Another one I thought I didn't see....but now I'm not so sure.
Main Event: Christopher Daniels vs. Doug Williams
MOTN: Low Ki vs. Samoa Joe- Fight Without Honor

All Star Extravaganza 11/9- Saw live
Main Event: Shinjiro Ohtani & Masato Tanaka vs. Low Ki & Steve Corino
MOTN: AJ Styles vs. American Dragon- #1 Contender Match

Scramble Madness 11/16- Haven't seen
*We leave Philly for Boston again. BOO! I had completely forgotten this show existed.
Main Event: American Dragon vs. Doug Williams- 30 Minute Ironman Match
MOTN: ?? No idea. After combing through the results, none of those matches ring a bell as having much buzz at the time.

Night of the Butcher 12/7- May or may not have seen on tape
*Yet another one I thought I didn't see....but now I'm not so sure.
Main Event: Abdullah the Butcher & Homicide vs. Carnage Crew- Bunkhouse Match
MOTN: Paul London vs. American Dragon was the match with buzz. If I have seen it I remember nothing about it.

Final Battle 12/28- Saw live
*This would become one of ROH's big yearly shows, if not THE biggest. Like Wrestlemania, it would usually be the culmination of a year long story or two.
Main Event: Low Ki vs. Samoa Joe vs. Bryan Danielson vs. Steve Corino
MOTN: Xavier vs. Paul London- ROH Title Match

MOTN Count

Low Ki: 6
American Dragon: 4
Christopher Daniels: 3
AJ Styles: 3
Paul London: 3
Amazing Red/Spanky/Doug Williams/Jay Briscoe/Mark Briscoe/Michael Shane/Samoa Joe/Xavier: 1


Main Event Count

Low Ki: 6
Christopher Daniels: 5
American Dragon: 5
Doug Williams: 3
AJ Styles: 2
Steve Corino: 2
A bunch of guys: 1

Thanks everybody for all the info, I'm a sucker for context, especially when watching through something old that is new to me.

Just finished the second show just now. I actually watched the first half of this show a couple of days ago and never had the time to finish it until just now. Really a damn good show. The Round Robin matches were excellent. Low Ki is very quickly becoming one of my favorite wrestlers, Daniels and Danielson also earning a newfound appreciation from me.

There is a huge shoot style wrestling influence on all of this and I'm so digging it. LOVED the Dragon vs Daniels match, also I love the manner with which they are establishing Daniels as the heel(loved the last scene of the first show with him leaving the arena the way he did).

Match of the night for me though was the main event. Thoroughly enjoyed this, excellent shoot style spots and sequences integrated into the match that tickled me pink. People probably think a lot of this stuff is "MMA stuff" but it's actually been around in pro wrestling long before MMA ever existed, this is pro wrestling for real men's men. It's a god damn shame I never found out about this stuff back when it happened in real time, I would have absolutely been all about it.

The other undercard stuff was skippable. All the cruiserweight stuff isn't really jiving with me for some reason. I liked how they tried to present Guido here bringing up his UWFI/Billy Robinson background and pushing it to be taken far more seriously than ECW ever did. Also cool to see CW Anderson popping up, though I didn't pay much attention to his match. Also must not have paid much attention to Daniels vs Low Ki match because I don't remember much about it other than the promos cut after the match by Daniels.

This is excellent stuff though, throwing Shamrock in there really put it over that much more for a guy like me. I believe this was about a month or so after he fought Don Frye at Pride.19, plus he reffed the consensus GOAT match at Mania 13.

Also I like how they have scenes to kinda establish characters, seems like a lot of other indies(the House of Hardcore shows I seen) were just spot shows with no real angles or anything, I like how they tried to give you some personality behind the scenes and the way they do it in these first 2 ROH shows, even though it's bush league at times, I absolutely loved the one scene on the second show where the one guy was trying to show his team mate how to do the crossface chicken wing, then American Dragon walks up and corrects them and just fucking ragdolls the dude with it. :lol:

That Dragon skit was brilliant. Keep an eye out for more shinobimusashi. They really made dude look like a wrestling god (because he was, and is).

I will chime in in a bit with a few comments. Re-read my post in the match review thread and wanted to appologise for any spoilers. I will try to be a bit more conscious of the fact all this greatness is still new to you.

No worries about spoilers, after 15 years I'd say we're well past the statute of limitations for spoilers, it's my fault for not watching this stuff sooner.

Just finished Night of Appreciation, cool show. AJ Styles vs Low Ki was excellent. I love all the backstage segments and the overall little universe they've established with these first 3 shows. I cracked up at the opening with Tony Devito. Ending with Eddie bidding his farewell was very cool, the We Will Miss You Chants was a great little moment all things considered. I'm stoked to see this tournament for the title. Loving this shit.

In before Shin tells us how he flipped his shit upon watching Crouching LowKi Hidden Red for the first time and had to rewind it ten times before he could finish the rest of the match..

My other favourite part of that match is when they botch a spot so Ki just kicks the shit out of poor Red in frustration.

Very much a Kashdinero dream match at the time, but Red was always gonna look out of his depth against Mr Low "Kickyourfuckingheadoffforfunsies" Ki.

Just finished Road To The Title, damn fun show. Kash was right, I marked for the opening sequence of Ki vs Red and had to rewind it and watch it again immediately. With every match I see Low Ki creeps his way up higher and higher on my list of favorite wrestlers. I'm digging Red also.

AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be. Still a decent match, I feel this warm comfort seeing ECW guys popping up on these tapes.

This stuff is surprisingly more extreme than I was expecting. The whole segment with the tag teams was some straight up ECW. Which reminds me to ask, who exactly was booking this stuff? Whoever it was I'm really digging it. These shows are definitely much more enjoyable for me than the 2002 WWE tapes I slodged through a couple of years back.

I'm so into this shit now. I love how they set up this 4 way for the title. I have seen the 4 way back a year or so ago and really loved it.

Also notable just how young everybody is, these guys were all kids, the Briscoes were 17 and 19, Daniel Bryan wasn't even old enough to buy alcohol legally, Red looks like a high school kid, very interesting how young this crew was and how they seemed to be on the cutting edge of wrestling at the time. I'm wildly fascinated by these tapes right now, they are actually better than I was expecting.

After 4 shows I got to say I actually kinda wish they would have ran the ECW Arena instead, would have definitely been a better atmosphere. Also the commentary is terrible. It's not Rob Bartlett levels of bad but it's pretty corny in a bad way. 

Few things..

The main three guys that ran RF Video (the initial parent company of RoH) were (Owner) Rob Feinstein, (Paul Heyman understudy) Gabe Sapolsky, and the late Rob Gentry. These were also the main driving factors behind the daily runnings of RoH. Gabe was the main/sole booker, Doug handled the majority of the camera work, and Rob did whatever he did when he wasn't doing, err, whatever he did.. Doug and Gabe also doubled up and handled the commentary duties under aliases. The commentary is actually a general source of content for most, you're certainly not alone there.

As you know, RF Video handled the ECW Fan Cam videos, and were fairly well entrenched in the company towards the end of its run. This means that they were obviously familiar with the Cdub talent both onscreen and off. When RoH first began, Gabe and co made a conscious decision to use as few of that last group of Cdub talent as possible, if and when they fit into what they were doing. Balls, Sandman, Sabu, New Jack, Kid Kash... All those guys and more were available for work, and reached out to RoH, but were told no. As you can imagine, there were a few upset ECW vets around that time, but they would have overshadowed the new talent emerging, so while some guys were selected to help facilitate the up and coming roster, those core superstars of yonder were shunned from early. As morally wrong as this may be, it was the right choice I think.

I actually really liked that HC Loc and Tony Devito went through a little evolution after ECW and found success as the Carnage Crew. Tony was that grizzled vet in RoH who kept the kids in check and respectful. To see Loc go from one of the hardcore refs to a full on brawler was something I could get behind. Anyone remember the heel hardcore ECW ref they used to counteract Loc? His name was Danny Daniels, and he was a pretty decent wrestler too. He was mainly based out of IWA-MS after ECW died but I am pretty sure he made an RoH show or two, so keep an eye out for him.

Lynn at the time of Road to the Title was actually doing the rounds with AJ Styles, and was doing what he could to take him from a spot monkey to a well rounded performer. While that match at the fourth show was a little below par with what they were doing elsewhere such as TNA, their feud was something I was a big fan of back then.

I laughed when I see Towel Boy being mentioned. He must have been a close acquaintance of Robs or something. Strange one.. Maybe he worked for RF Video(?). Not too sure, but there were some weird fuckers rolling around the scene back then. I mean, Japanese Pool Boy, anyone? Thought not

At the time CZW were actually running monthly shows at The Viking Lodge, so I don't know if it was even viable if they wanted to run shows there early on. They did finally end up there a few years later, but initially it was an identity choice, which, again, I feel they made the right choice. They already had more than enough ECW elements, and truth be told, that raw vibe that building held when ECW ran shows there died with ECW. It would have been like trying to catch lightning twice in the same bottle.

Happy that you are so into LowKi. He is legit in my top five/maybe even three of all time.

Oh, and I imagine the guys who made the RoH roster so awesome were going to end up in ECW had the place not folded. It was too early in 2000 for most of them to join, and by 01 ECW could barely afford Chilly Willy, let alone be in the position to introduce the next generation of hardcores.

shinobimusashi Glad you're liking these shows. I figured you would. I had forgotten about their early backstage "sports entertainment" segments. They may have been bush league but there was a certain earnest charm to them. For whatever reason, the ones I remember most are the SAT playing basketball and a bunch of random dudes debating who was the best Texas Wrestling Academy graduate, complete with Shooter Schultz & Lance Cade mentions  :lol:

Gabe was the booker....and also one of the awful commentators....unless he hadn't started on commentary yet? It actually might have been Doug Gentry & Eric The CZW Guy, come to think of it. Don't remember for sure. Kash would know.

First show was "CZW Guy" and Steve Corino, I think. Corny Gentry and Sapolsky aliases came on the second show. They definitely sucked. Oh well, shit gets real when Punk shows up on commentary anyway so at least there's that.

Why can't I remember the name of "CZW Guy" but can remember his long time co-announcer, John House, no problem?

*Looks down at his spliff. Shrugs.*

I should use Google at this very moment, but I won't....

Eric... Gargulio?

*head explodes*

All of the first four shows I believe have been the same guys, Steve Corino and another guy that mentioned in the last show that his brother was Nova, he even looked like Nova when he got into the ring at the end to reveal the surprise in the envelope.

When I was checking out some of the ROH classics a few years back, I was absolutely horrified by the quality of the commentary. In the late nineties, they used to have backyard wrestling on one of the New York Cable Access channels, and ROH commentary was akin to that. I do remember some of the big matches didn't have commentary at all, though, which was really cool. It was just crowd and ring noise. That might be way in the future of 2002, though.

Ohhh, yeah, Donny. Yeah, he helped run Steve Corino's promotion PCW (??). So, basically, it doesn't get much better. They really could have done with a Joey.

To touch on your point about them being so young. Yeah, they were just kids when the spotlight fell upon them, which makes it seem like a movement across the industry, that, over time, did a very good job of changing the industry. So many prodigies from that era. The Briscoes as you mentioned were very young when they first started. I think the first time I saw a full match of theirs was their insane CZW Best of the Best match they had against each other in 2001. Mark must have been 16 at the time. Crazy when you think about it.

I watched Crowning A Champion today. Something that I liked about the previous show that I forgot to mention was how they played up Low Ki knocking out Prince Nana, I love how they put that over as such a huge deal.

This was a decent show. I was surprised at the level of violence in the tag match between Devito/HC Loc vs Homicide and Boogaloo, the blood in this match made me queasy for some reason. Great stuff. I'm digging what they got going with the tag teams now.

I actually don't mind the gay fellers, even though they are all over the show at this point, some of the shit they do actually kind of cracks me up, they were definitely living their gimmick, surely these fellas were really gay? If not, these dudes deserve some type of award for their performances.

Once again I got to say I like this little kayfabe universe they got going after just a handful of shows, I like that there are characters and how the shows have continuity, I'm into it.

The four way match for the title I've actually seen before, I caught this on Youtube back probably when I was trying to learn about all four of these guys for something fan fic related. Speaking of, watching these really makes me wish I could read back through my 2002 fed. I wish I had access to these tapes back when I was writing that fed.

I did not like the 4 way very much this go around. The rules were stupid, I believe you got 2 points for a pin/sub but you were subtracted 1 point if you got pinned/subbed, this sounds good in theory but boy it was kinda goofy once they got going and guys had negative points, a little too much to keep track of I think. Really long drawn out hour long match kindof a mess really.

Yeah the commentary, it's not the worst by any means but it's bad in it's own way. I'd still take this over Rob Bartlett or Mark Madden but it's almost as if Steve Corino reverted back to his early 1999 persona with that whiney bitch dork voice constantly plugging the RF Video website and phone number and talking about how this is the best match/show he's ever seen in his life, with the other guy just being very amateurish with an equally dorky voice. They definitely should have flipped the bill for Joey Styles, but I don't think they could have afforded him.

Something else that I hate was the shit names everybody has. I guess people just gave up when it came to picking pro wrestler names in the early 2000's, Brian XL? Quiet Storm? Special K? WTF?! 

I love me some Divine Storm XL. The rivalry they had with Red and the SAT around that time ran through a bunch of different promotions, and I was a big fan. They were sloppy as fuck but those kids captured my attention big time with their mad innovative moves and spots. The same goes for the green as duckshit Special K.. But, yes, they had some goofy names, although I am a big mark for Quiet Storm, name an' all. Mostly for his intensity, but STORM! CRADLE!! DRIVER!!! is all kinds of the best thing about him.

The continuity of RoH had me hooked from the off and then kept me going until they ended up on iPPV/PPV/TV ect; the frustration of trying follow what was happening as thoroughly as I had grown fondly accustomed to caused me damn near stop following them completely for a while. You still got years to go before that happens, though.

I like to look at the first five shows as the first little era in RoH. Five pretty fucking damn great events that established so much, mainly it's own fresh and unique identity. They capitalized on everything that was brewing on the scene post ECWCW and created a platform for the best of the best to do their thing, but those first five shows? They were just the begining of the greatness. A lot of the fat gets trimmed in terms of the roster as things progress.

Oh, and, according to Homicide, Mase isn't gay, but I think Buffy might be. Christopher Street Connection ruled, though.

Speaking of Homicide, him and Boogalou vs Carnage Crew was one of those early extreme matches that showed that when it came time for the hardcore, they were gonna do it just as well as the technical shit. Loved that match back then. Brutal as fuck finish amd a whole heap of violence preceding it.

I watched Honor Invades Boston and Unscripted last week but was so deep into my fan fic draft stuff that I didn't have time to post about them here. The Boston show was one of the weakest shows so far but still not all that bad, the Jay vs Mark Briscoe match was really good though, AJ Styles vs Low Ki was ok.

Unscripted I enjoyed the hell out of it, I love tournaments so I dug the tag team tournament. I liked some of the Heyman style unpredictable booking. Shane vs London was a spectacular 4+ Star match, my new favorite match of these tapes so far.

Also went back and watched Paul London vs Brian Kendrick from Road To The Title with my little brother, I didn't realize how good this was on first viewing, fun as hell match. These guys are really good.

Things started to pick up at Unscripted with the debut of CM Punk who cuts a promo about how wrestling was back in Philly, he gets a lot of love from the crowd. They were also promoting the debut of Samoa Joe at the next show, business is picking up.