ROH A Night of Hoopla

ROH A Night of Hoopla (7/11/2013)- Chicago, IL

OPENING OF THE SHOW- Truth encourages everyone to drink a lot, but to be responsible and to not drink and drive �"because on the way home you might hit a bus full of little children and that would be sad because the women on that bus would never grow to be eighteen years old, and then who will I be bedding next?”
Truth then asks everyone to rise while Scarlett sings the House of Truth’s �"national anthem.” This was amazing. It was a parody of America the Beautiful about, of course, Scarlett taking off her clothes. By the end of the song Scarlett had stripped down to American flag underwear, and just to complete the hilarious, over-the-top awesomeness of this song, the DVD then started showing pictures of Old Glory waving in the breeze, the Statue of Liberty, and the Washington Monument and other such patriotic images… all topped off by a picture of a Wal-Mart.

TRIPLE THREAT MATCH: Eddie Edwards vs. Adam Cole vs. Matt Taven (w/Truth Martini & the Hoopla Hotties)- FUN/10
So… how crazy was this show? Well the first spot in the first match was the referee (who was required to be pantsless) being spanked by Scarlett and Taven… at the request of the crowd!
After this, the babyfaces proceeded to throw Taven into the laps of a few fans and ask the fans to hold Taven so Eddie could chop him. Taven, playing his role perfectly, screamed �"WHY ARE YOU HELPING THEM?!”
At one point in the match, Eddie hit the Calgary Crab on Taven and Scarlett jumped up on the apron to distract Eddie and trick him into releasing the hold. The crowd then started chanting �"USA! USA!” and I honestly can’t figure out if they were chanting ti to support Eddie, who is one half of the American Wolves, condemning Eddie for using the Canadian-named hold of a noted Canadian wrestler, or chanting for Scarlett’s patriotic bra. Maybe a combination of all three. Who knows?
Anyway, Scarlett’s sexy gyrations did distract Eddie enough so that he released the hold. With Scarlett’s back turned, Adam Cole went up to her (presumably to spank her) but Eddie stopped him, then whispered a plan into his ear… and the crowd started chanting �"EIFEL TOWER!” and I just completely lost it. I was laughing to the point of tears. This was just a small sample of the things that went on in his match. This was awesome, and did a great job of setting the tone for the night.

A CONCERT BY JIMMY JACOBS- He started off with the first verse of Ballad of Lacey, which got a huge pop. He then sang a new song about how tough it is to be on the road when you have a significant other at home.

SINGLES MATCH WITH MARIA KANELLIS AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Delirious vs. �"Black Machismo” Jay Lethal (complete with his own Queen Sherri)- no rating.
Maria’s bottoms here were very slim, but I’ve never seen any underwear with a belt on it so I believe she was technically in violation of the �"referees may not wear pants” rule.
You know those old motorized carts the WWF used to use for entrances in the 80’s… well ROH didn’t have those, so they had Jay and this woman come to the ring on a large flat dolly being pushed by a referee. The two of them then proceeded to cut Savage and Sherri’s promo on Ultimate Warrior from Wresltemania VII almost word for word. That was freakin’ awesome!
This was like an abbreviated version of the classic Wresltemania VII match, with most of the spots being borrowed directly (though I don’t remember Warrior grabbing a slice of pizza during that match). And then something happened that I won’t spoil for anyone.
Anyway, this match was fun to watch the first time, but really has no rewatch value.

THE AFTERMATH- Hilarious!
Black Machismo asks Maria (�"Liz”) to marry him… and she just completely no-sells the whole thing and says �"No! I’m engaged to Mike Bennett!” Maria starts to leave and �"Sherri” attacks Jay but Maria eventually gets into her role and comes back to make the save. Jay proposes to her again and she starts to say �"OOOOH YEAH” but Mike Bennett runs out, grabs Maria off of the apron picks her up over his shoulder and runs out of the building with her.

PANTS-OFF DANCE OFF- The judge for this was former ECW referee and manager �"Judge” Jeff Jones. The contestants were the Hoopla Hotties, Val, Selezyia, and of course, Scarlett. They danced. It was sexy. Judge Jeff Jones was about to announce a winner when an angry Davey Richards interrupted him. Davey cut a promo about how the ROH that he came to wasn’t about women taking their clothes off and trash you see on TV. He says it was something special for the wrestling fans and invokes the holy trinity of Dragon, Joe, and Punk. He then demands that the sound guy hit the music.
Davey then showed off his hip-thrusting ability and, being the competitive guy that he is, Davey got very unhappy when the various Hoopla Hotties tried to upstage him. He even spanked Scarlett just for attempting to enforce the rules by trying to take Davey’s pants off. Davey was declared the winner.
Silas Young then came out and demanded to know �"what in the f*ck sh*t is this?!” It turns out that Silas was actually angry about the things that Davey had pretended to be angry about and claimed that Davey was not as much of a man as he, Silas Young �"the last real man in professional wrestling.” Davey refutes this affront to his manhood by challenging Silas to a wrestling match; right here, right now.

LUMBERJICK MATCH: Davey Richards vs. Silas Young- 4/10
What is a �"Lumberjick” match, you ask? Well it is a combination of a �"Lumberjack match” and a �"Lumberjill match,” of course. Lame? Yes… but what else was I supposed to call a match in which the ring is surrounded by men who are dressed as women?
The match itself was disappointingly short and not noteworthy other than one or two comedy spots with the drag queens.

HOUSE OF TRUTH SEGMENT- Truth comes out and invites Scarlett to pick one lucky fan to �"get closer” to the Hoopla Hotties. Scarlett picks a guy and they bring him up on stage and ask him for his name. Once they get his name a graphic appears on the screen for him just like during the wrestlers’ entrances, but in the spot under his name where it would normally say something like what title that wrestler holds or their hometown or height and weight or something like that, for this guy it says �"about to get lap dance.” This was just a hilariously brilliant little touch.
Of course, once Truth had Scarlett put a blindfold on this guy, you knew something was about to go horribly wrong. Anyway, rather than Scarlett and Selezyia, this guy winds up getting a lap dance from one of the drag queens from before and a really fat chick. When he finally found out about this, his reaction was so perfect I became certain he was a plant.

ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: reDRagon(c) vs. Roderick Strong & Cheeseburger- 6.25/10
Solid match. The crowd was a lot more into Cheeseburger than I expected.

HOOPLA UNCUT, WITH SPECIAL GUEST: SATAN-
The fans apparently don’t like the Prince of Darkness and chant for him to �"shut the f*ck up!” I was quite disappointed with the crowd for this because clearly �"shut the hell up” would have been much more appropriate. Never one to be outdone, Satan tells one of the hecklers �"I’ll be seeing you in about three weeks.” That’s genius right there.
Satan then tells Truth that as much as he loves lust and debauchery… this show has been too much, even for him. Truth invites Satan to take his pants off, but Satan refuses and tells Truth, the Hoopla Hotties, and the fans that they are all going to hell. Scarlett gives Satan a low blow, then Selezyia gives him an Attitude Adjustment. Then the Hoopla Hotties take his pants off and I noticed two things: 1) although his face was read, Satan’s legs were extremely pasty and white, and 2) he is wearing underwear made out of what appears to be a heat-resistant material, which is hilarious.

ACH, TADARIUS THOMAS, & ATHENA vs. BJ WHITMER, MICHAEL ELGIN, & MSCHIF- 6.5/10
Truth, who was doing the ring-announcing tonight, kept, mispronouncing BJ's last name as "Wit-more."
ACH being scared to shake hands with MsChif and even running to hide behind Thomas after doing so made me laugh hard. Elgin and Athena start the match off and wind up with Elgin grabbing a waistlock on Athena. MsChif rushes in the ring to break this up and yells at Elgin, prompting the fans to chant �"SLEEPING ON THE COUCH!” MsChif and Thomas get the tags for their teams and we get the exact reverse of the previous spot (except that Elgin shoved Thomas pretty hard to get him away from MsChif). The fans also repeated the �"SLEEPING ON THE COUCH!” chant.

MICHAEL ELGIN JUST DID THE WORM!

Anyway, the match was fun, but the crowd seemed to be pretty dead after the first few minutes… until the finish, that was. The finish saw Elgin and MsChif start to make out. TD interrupted them, so Elgin spat the green mist into his face, then hit the buckle bomb and Elgin Bomb for the win.

I’d definitely recommend that everyone see this show once, but I’m really not sure that it will have very much rewatch value. I was entertained the whole time, but I’m not sure I’ll ever watch this one again. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that this was absolutely not a typical ROH show. This is ROH pulling its own pants down and laughing. With the silliness, the fan interaction and the… well… other stuff… this show felt like ROH’s disturbingly non-family friendly tribute to CHIKARA. Either that or Elgin and MsChif had the world’s craziest combined bachelor/bachelorette party.