Joe/Whitmer/Pearce vs. Hero/Dragon/Butcher ROH 4/22/2006

Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer & Adam Pearce vs Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon (ROH The 100th Show, 4/22/06)


I always thought that ROH and CZW, in their own ways, were sort of the spiritual successors to ECW. Some of those reasons are admittedly pretty stupid, like the E-C-Dub/C-Z-Dub chants. Others make a little more sense (or at least they do to me and to be honest it's really only myself I'm here to amuse anyway), like how both ran out of Philly and CZW even briefly referred to the ECW Arena as the CZW Arena. ROH took up that ECW position as the #3 promotion in America for a while there, and at one point were probably closer to supplanting TNA as the #2 than ECW ever were to supplanting WCW or the WWF. There are a number of scumbag parallels between Heyman and Zandig. Both promotions had their very different but very niche fanbases, even if ROH's philosophy was based on Good Wrestling and CZW was always more of a deathmatch fed than a garbage fed (I don't use garbage fed derogatorily). Either way it was pretty fitting that both combined to produce the best ECW style brawl of the lot.

You could make a decent case for this being the career match of every single person involved. I'm not saying I'd personally make that case, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who did. It's carnage from beginning to end and everything that was good about the ROH/CZW feud. Joe was incredible here and felt like the biggest badass in the world. The stuff with Necro was unreal. They pair off in the ring and Necro sets up two chairs like he's going to put Joe through them. Joe gets up and elbows him a bunch in the face (stiffly) and the crowd start a "Joe's gonna kill you" chant, then Joe spins the chairs around so they're back to back and there's an audible "oh Christ he's ACTUALLY gonna kill him here" reaction because fuck man, you know Necro would let him. Then he suplexes him on the backs of the chairs, people losing their mind, Joe surveying the carnage of his own making, a god in his own domain. Hero, who was also awesome, had scurried away at some point, and there's an amazing shot of him in the crowd amongst the ROH fans with this "oh my days I can't believe he fucking did that" look of horror. Fittingly enough the Hero/Joe exchanges were great. Hero was a complete douchebag and his obnoxiousness ruled so people were just DYING for Joe to mangle him, which he did more than once. I've never cared about Adam Pearce but he either bladed the side of his head like a maniac or got split open hardway and bloody and battered Adam Pearce stumbling around wellying people with chairs is the very best Adam Pearce. The fist fight with him and Necro was perfect, a couple vagrants fighting to the death over a tin of beans. Whitmer is another guy I can't be bothered with and yet he made magic here. He took two of the most insane bumps I've ever seen, first having his head double stomped while it was placed through the back of a standing chair, then taking a Psycho Driver off the apron through a table. Other than committing those two acts of murder Super Dragon was actually a bit inconspicuous in this, though you can absolutely imagine him going full Tracy Smothers in the crowd and goading someone into a fist fight by calling their girlfriend a manky bitch.

They paid homage to ECW with the finish as well. It was overbooked to hell and back and you know what? It was fucking perfect. Earlier in the show Claudio became the first person ever in ROH to receive a handshake from Christopher Daniels, almost in a passing of the torch moment. He then came out at the start of this and stole Zandig's barbed wire bat, as Zandig had obviously tried to stick his nose in because he's Zandig. Zandig comes back out again at the end and when Claudio appears you're thinking he's here to even the odds. And of course he turns on ROH, saddles up with his old buddy Hero and CZW use their numbers to score the win in ROH's house. Joe staring a hole through them as they celebrate with their section of CZW fans would shrivel your testes and I love how the show went off the air with BJ being carted out on a stretcher while the CZW music blares over the speakers. This is one of the absolute peaks of ROH and maybe a top 5 match in its history.

I'll fourth this. This won't make my list, but I think everyone should give it a watch as it's a fantastic match.

This was a wild and chaotic brawl that managed to keep the hate flowing throughout the entirety of the 25-minute match. The fans are well into the ROH vs. CZW storyline and it makes for an incredible atmosphere. Necro was probably my man of the match, his slugfest with Pearce looked vicious, and anytime Necro and Samoa Joe are in the ring you can expect magic. My main gripe about this is that it went a touch too long and I couldn't buy BJ Whitmer kicking out of that devastating double foot stomp chair spot. The homophobia during that pre-match promo can get right in the bin too. ★★★★¼