ROH Reborn: Stage Two, Chicago Ridge, IL
This was the first Ring of Honor show in Chicago (Ridge), and the first ROH show I ever went to live, which is also where Ian Rotten handed me a flyer to let me know that IWA Mid-South were running northwest Indiana, and the rest is history or whatever. This show happened right after the Rob Feinstein scandal so a bunch of TNA talent like AJ Styles were pulled from the card, which obviously did not wind up matching what was advertised, but I left happy. And this was one of my favorite matches from the show because I was a little 22-year-old “hmm, yes, technical wrestling is for me” dork, as most of my favorite wrestlers up to that point for the last 14 years had been guys like Bret Hart, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Owen Hart, etc.
Collyer in particular was a sort of Malenko Clone, which is probably in large part because he was trained by Dean Malenko. Walters never did much for me but was an obvious Feinstein favorite. A graphic flashes at the start of this match to tell me that the current top five contenders for Samoa Joe’s title are Matt Stryker (another one), Bryan Danielson, Homicide, BJ Whitmer, and John Walters.
So I kinda want to watch this and just see how I feel about it now. Even at the time I recognized this sort of thing as pretty vanilla technical wrestling, but that’s what I liked. Listen, my favorite cereals are plain as fuck, I’ve never been a huge sugary cereal person. I’ve loved the distinct light grain flavors of Special K since I was like 10.
This is a rematch from another ROH show, where Walters won. Gabe Sapolsky is on commentary in his “Chris Lovey” character, with CM Punk providing color. He’s not as loose and free was he was on IWA Mid-South commentary around this time, but it’s still Punk.
You know what, I still like this wrestling. It’s nothing special but it is just two rock solid, well-trained, technically sound professional wrestlers doing rock solid, well-trained, technically sound professional wrestling. I get how this wouldn’t do much for a lot of people, but I love it.
Some good mat work, some submission attempts, Walters is targeting the leg. They turn up the heat in the corner, Collyer throwing firm chops and Walters coming back with strong, hard European uppercuts. The higher impact stuff starts coming in, some simple suplexes and whatnot, but delivered with nice technique and all that.
Collyer’s chops are a lot nicer than I remembered, and that goes for Walters’ uppercuts, too. Collyer goes for the Texas Cloverleaf after a Shinzaki-style dragon screw, but Walters is too fresh and gets the ropes, so Collyer keeps working on that leg.
Punk wonders aloud why Collyer has a horse wearing a boxing glove on his trunks. Collyer works an Indian deathlock, and then a figure four as Punk says Oprah told him she was picking Matt Stryker over Samoa Joe later tonight. Walters does manage to turn the figure four over, but Collyer gets the ropes, and at any rate he’s done the damage to Walters’ legs.
Collyer goes for another dragon screw, that one blocked, and Walters gets an Oklahoma roll for two and then springs up with a hard lariat, giving him some time to deal with that leg for a moment. Japanese stranglehold into a lungblower from Walters, then he gets another one and uses a Russian legsweep with the neck tied. Hurricane DDT is countered with a Collyer small package.
Again, fuck it, this is just good wrestling. Collyer with a great German suplex for two. Walters rolls a vertical suplex into a tiger driver into a sharpshooter attempt, and he’s got it in, center of the ring. Nowhere for Collyer to go here, but Punk wonders if Walters’ knee is keeping him from sitting in deeply enough, and indeed it is, as Collyer gets the ropes.
Collyer again going for the cloverleaf, and this time he gets it. Chris Lovey calls Collyer “definitely an odd individual” which in 2021 is hard to argue with.
Finish comes with Collyer wheelbarrowing Walters over and wrapping up the feet and legs for the three count.
Hey, this is a good ass wrestling match. Again, this is oat bran pro wrestling, but it’s damn good oat bran pro wrestling. Two talented guys, didn’t have the big wrestling personalities, were never going to get a ton of people excited, but if you just like good, solid, hard-nosed wrestling matches, I always enjoyed Chad Collyer and I think I probably underrated John Walters a bit, too, like, not really underrated overall, but for my personal tastes. I thought this was every bit as strong in 2021 as I did in 2004.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
You must be logged in to post a comment.