While the ground level was set up like a normal show with chairs all around the ring and even an additional section or two of seating on the stage, the two upper levels had NO SEATING AT ALL. Well… that’s not quite true. There was no seating ANYWHERE THAT YOU COULD POSSIBLY SEE THE RING FROM! If you actually wanted to see the show that you had bought tickets for, you had to crowd around the railings and peer over, basically looking straight down. You could have spit a loogie into the ring with very little effort if you wanted to. Because of this, if you weren’t in the front row, the best you could hope for was, if you were tall enough, you could look over the shoulders of the person in front of you and see maybe half of the ring. I missed the entire dark match (Brutal Burgers def. BJ Whitmer & Mikey Webb- Whitmer had offered Webb a chance to prove himself worthy to be the Decade’s new young boy, but he failed so Whitmer assaulted him) because I was walking around trying to find a spot that I could see from.
It took me forever to find one, and the whole time I was getting more and more angry because it was looking like I wouldn’t get to see this show that I had bought a ticket to see (my ticket was the same as the PPV price, but I also paid transportation for my trip and shipping for my ticket that I wouldn’t have had to pay if I had bought the show on PPV). While I did manage to find a place (kind of) I’m sure there were others who did not, and had to watch the live show that they had paid for from a TV monitor in the arena. I would be furious.
One positive note from my time walking was that I did get to see Larry Mercer (the third string ring announcer who also hosts the TV hype specials and always ROCKS his tux) walking around, as well as Mandy Leon (an indy wrestler and ROH wrestling school graduate and occasional member of Adam Rose’s Exotic Express who has gotten the job as Larry’s co-host for the hype specials because she is really hot). To be honest, I did not recognize Mandy when I saw her, but I figured that she must have been a wrestler because no fan would ever wear a dress like that to a show.
They did the pre-show announcements over the PA- you know, the stuff like “we have the right to throw you out if you get too rowdy, no videotaping allowed… that sort of thing. The first thing that they asked was for there to be no foul language because this was being broadcast on PPV. We responded by chanting “F*CK THAT SH*T!” The rest of the announcements were actually done in an entertaining, funny way. They even claimed that if did get thrown out for being too rowdy, they would tape the whole thing and post it on the ROH Facebook page.
I finally found a spot to stand the middle of a speech by Nigel McGuinness honoring Cary Silkin and giving him some sort of plaque. Cary cut a short promo (as he noted, it was the first time he had ever said anything in an ROH ring) in which he thanked all of the wrestlers and office staff who have ever worked for ROH, and all of the fans who have ever supported it. It was all nice and the roster came out to cheer for him, etc. etc.
It was after this that I got the brilliant idea that instead of trying to lean uncomfortably over the railing while fighting with two other guys for enough space to put my shoulders, I could sit down on the floor and watch through the railing. There were some minor obstructions, but on the whole the view wasn’t bad. What was bad was the pain I suffered because of the way I had to angle my ankles because the bottom of the railing sloped inward and the fact that my knees wound up hurting from being stuck sitting cross-legged for three hours, then having to get up and powerwalk sixteen city blocks in order to catch my bus home (enough pain that I couldn’t walk the three blocks home from the bus stop- I had to have someone come and pick me up).
- Mark Briscoe... and said visual obstructions
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- I was sitting kind of like some of the people you see here. Also, I was a level above them, so I couldn't dangle my feet.
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Even worse, this positioning forced me to notice Mark Briscoe’s terrible back-acne.
As I was saying, it was a very sh*tty venue. When Larry and Mandy came out to do their pre-show crowd-hyping and Mandy asked how everyone was liking Terminal 5, we responded by chanting “THIS PLACE SUCKS!” To make all of this worse, it is also nowhere near any public transportation routes, especially those that connect to major hubs like Penn Station, Grand Central Station or the Port Authority Bus Terminal, so it was also a bit of a pain to get to.
The main show started with a Four Corner Survival match between Jimmy Jacobs, Mark Briscoe, Caprice Coleman, and Hanson. Everyone looked great here, especially Hanson. Everyone worked over Hanson’s neck. A very fun, action-packed opener.
The Adam Page vs. Roderick Strong match was next. That match was great. The fans were almost universally behind Roderick, but Page definitely won everyone’s respect by the end of the night… and oh boy did he earn it. I’ve been in the SECOND ROW for Roderick Strong matches before. On this show was up on the THIRD LEVEL, and never have I heard such loud chops. I tried get a picture of just how red Adam Page’s chest was, but my phone wasn’t good enough to get the color from that far away. Roddy won via referee stoppage with a Stronghold when Page passed out, which was a great finish for a great match. After the match, Jacobs and Whitmer told Page he had earned his spot in the Decade. Whitmer also had a confrontation with Steve Corino which was phenomenally well done. Almost no one saw it start because we were all focused on Jimmy cutting his promo, and it was quickly broken up by a bunch of people… exactly like what would happen if it was a shoot.
Next up was Elgin vs. Ciampa. They did a spot where Ciampa prevented a delayed vertical suplex by grabbing Elgin’s testicles. He then held on and squeezed, even after Elgin had put him down. This was not a DQ. If you’ll recall, the angle is that Ciampa has to be on his best behavior or else he will be fired. Later in the match, they did a spot where Elgin ducked a lariat, causing Ciampa to nail a ref, and we were supposed to buy this as a big deal because Nigel stormed off in anger… but the fact that there was no DQ for a testicular claw completely killed the angle.
The match was pretty good, but had a few things in it that I hated, inlcuidng Ciampa kicking out of a lariat at one because… um… because Ishii did it, I guess. Ciampa has done this so many times to the point where it got almost no reaction. Elgin won with a double arm DDT that looked absolutely sick from my vantage point way up in the clouds.
The six man tag was totally awesome. It was like a PWG match, but with better selling and the match didn’t drag on forever. The Addiction let Cedric wear their cool goggle and strut to the ring with them. ACH got to wear a Bullet Club shirt to team with the Young Bucks. He definitely got the better end of that deal. Everyone get to show their stuff in the ring aside from Kaz, who really didn’t do anything too cool. He did impress me with his verbal communication and teamwork with Daniels. Those are the little touches I like.
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Anyway, Nana and Stokely Hathaway go ejected from ringside, then Veda went to protect R.D. from Moose… then she Russo-swerved him and gave him a low blow so Moose could hit him with the spear and win. That was dumb. Easily the worst match of the night.
The TV Title match was up next. The crowd was very into Jay Lethal, but Sydal won people over as the match progressed, as he has done in every venue ROH has visited since he returned. Sydal seemed to have the match won, but Truth kept getting involved. He got his in the end, in the form of a Shooting Star Press, but Sydal ate a Lethal Injection on the way down for a super-cool finish.
Next up was the tag team title match, which was super-awesome. The crowd was super-hot for everything. This match was worth the price of admission alone, and helped me forget about the atrocious “seating” situation for a while.
This match also contained the funniest moment of the night, which was both completely unintentional and almost completely unrelated to the match. KUSHIDA kicked Kyle in the face, causing his mouthguard to fly out. The referee, seeing this object on the floor in the ring, quickly batted it out of the ring. Unfortunately, he batted it right towards the timekeeper’s table, and it laded right on Scarlett’s chest. She got this look of pure disgust on her face, then finally reach up and picked it up and put it down on the table, while the timekeeper and Bobby Cruise (seated on either side of her) both laughed their asses off.
The main event was utterly crazy. A lot more “ultraviolent” stuff than you normally see in ROH, including possibly the first use of a staple gun by a member of the ROH roster (the CZW guys at Arena Warfare don’t count, and I don’t think Necro or anyone else ever used one). Jay was wrestling with a piece of paper stapled to his forehead for at least three or four minutes. They also did the thumbtacks in the mouth spot from the Young Bucks vs. Candice & Joey match from PWG this year.
The match was awesome, and I think they got every last person in the arena to bite on the “the state commission will stop the match for blood” spot. The finish took pretty much everyone by surprise.
The only other thing of note is that they had a big screen by the entrance that played entrance videos for the wrestlers. They were all very basic- just a combination of clips and the wrestler’s names and maybe a quick graphic with a nickname- but it was a nice little step up in production value and added a bit more of a (and I hate using this term, but it’s the only one that fits) “big league” feel.
Two more random observations:
1. The most popular t-shirt was the Bullet Club t-shirt, although the coolest t-shirt belonged to a guy who had my avatar as a t-shirt which I am now trying to find online.
2. I noticed that there were a lot more women at this show than in my previous ROH experiences, which means ROH is making new fans, which is a good thing.
So overall, a great wrestling show that I’m sure came off well on PPV, but a disappointing live experience (and if the show hadn’t been so good it would have been a downright miserable one). I am in the middle of writing ROH a letter telling them how much I hated the venue, although if they do run there again and the show is not on PPV, I will probably be more inclined to look for a real seat on the first level rather than not go, but I definitely will never ever get another general admission ticket to this sh*thole.