And the New ROH World Champion...
 

I was at ROH's 8th Anniversary Show last night at the Manhattan Center and in the main event Austin Aries put his title on the line against Tyler Black. The match was hard hitting an exciting from the get go. Both men put everything on the line and in the end Tyler Black was able to defeat A Double and become only the 12th man in company history to hold the ROH World Championship.

The match was amazing.

And honorable mention has to go to Davey Richards and El Generico for putting on a pretty awesome match as well.

Tyler Black is cool.

:y:

Fun fact: I touched his [Tyler] back after the first championship match on HDNet in April.

It was both super gross and super awesome.

I am underwhelmed.

After so many buildups for Black to win, I just don't care about him anymore. Great wrestler, but there's nothing about him that makes me really care anymore.

I'll be honest, never been impressed with Tyler Black

Kind of agree with this. I love that he got it, but I also feel that this win should have come a while ago.

Though I've never been a gigantic fan of Tyler Black, he's a good wrestler but sounds like a muppet with a lisp when he talks. In the ring he can flat out go and he's impressive between the ropes. His win was quite epic the way the pulled it off.

As for it being too late and too many build ups I disagree.

People felt the same way about Nigel when he won the belt. Nigel had a solid year to year and a half of jobbing out in world title matches until he finally got the gold and Nigel's turned out to be a fantastic title reign.

That being said Tyler isn't the wrestler that Nigel is but Tyler has many people to wrestle to put him over huge as a champion, namely Aries, Strong, Richards, Steen, Delirious, Claudio, Hero, Cabana, Generico, and if Jacobs ever returns that'll be an awesome showdown.

Tyler wouldn't be the guy I picked as Champion (I would have had Aries hold on for however long it takes to build Kenny King into a main eventer) but he's going to do a good job carrying the strap.

He sort of had to win the belt, otherwise they'd have ruined him forever. I'm not the biggest fan either, I would have prefered Strong. Just out of curiosity, how long was the match? Did they approach an hour?

Not even close to an hour about 22 minutes but a very action packed 22 minutes.

I think that was definately the thing to do after the one hour draw.

meh.

Davey should have the title

The way they put the belt on Black was apparently really epic. It made Black look like a bad-ass from all accounts, and he gave all three judges a Superkick after the match, didn't he? The fans reportedly ate it up, which is good considering they have soured on the "hero story" of Black recently.

To be honest, while I wish them well, I've lost a lot of interest in ROH recently. I mean, it's completely unrealistic, but hearing that TNA has allowed The Motor City Machine Guns to wrestle for the company on May 8 makes me want to see a TNA/ROH storyline of some sorts. Even if it is just cross-promotion. Hell, if TNA lets AJ Styles defend the TNA World Heavyweight Title in ROH a few times, then it would give ROH their Ric Flair appearances that they are apparently considering suing Flair over. And if it gets The Kings of Wrestling and The Briscoes making the occasional appearance in TNA, I would be very, very happy.

While this would be a beautiful thing, do you think Bischoff and Hogan know or care enough about ROH to even lightly consider this?

I'm not sure. On one hand, they probably wouldn't give a shit about them; on the other hand, their talent is working for another promotion. TNA is going to want to go into their "war" with the WWE guns blazing. TNA also loves their "clusterfuck wars." It's not like ROH is a seriously threat financially to either the WWE or TNA; but creatively, it would lend TNA a lot of talent, and might create them some "good will." It would also help ROH get some more exposure, which I think they need, as they seem to be in a bit of a slump lately.

I mean, Vince McMahon worked with ECW back in the day. I'm just playing devil's advocate here, by the way. It could be just another way for Hogan and Bischoff to rock the controversy boat.

I feel like I can read Hogan's mind and he thinks that there isn't anybody on the ROH roster that he has herd of or has the look to be a "wrestler". I may be wrong, he might like Kings of Wrestling, Bison Smith, maybe even Davey Richards and the Briscoes. Also, Necro would be a great steal for TNA. I have no faith in Hogan right now, he annoys the shit out of me.

Abyss is gonna be a god, brother!

Not yet, but soon I reckon.

I'm not sure how the ROH faithful would react to a working deal with TNA. It might isolate their main fan base. It would definately entertaining from a personal point of view

He gave all three the super kick at the end of the match.

After he super kicked Jim Cornette Aries went for the roll up but Tyler kicked out. Tyler super kicked Aries then a buckel bomb then as Aries was kneeling he got super kicked again and then Tyler hit the Phoenix Splash for the win.

The ending was very similar to that of Aries/Joe at final battle 2004. The desperation of having to hit all your moves as fast as possible in fear that if you don't put him away now you never will. Those types of finishes are great because not only do they put over the winner but the loser looks like a bad ass that takes a lot to finish.

I loved the finish to Aries/Joe

The KOW is all that matters in ROH.

I watch Tyler live once a month in Iowa. He's pretty good, but I think he needs work on his in ring story telling. I've even talked to him after the show a few times.

Sounds very cool. The irony there is that Aries went into overdrive mode to put away Joe, and the end of his second reign is being compared to that.

ROH fans might be a bit reluctant at first, but in the past they have reacted pretty well to wars against their company. Christopher Daniels and "The Prophecy," the CZW stuff, CM Punk threatening to take the ROH World Title to the WWE and all that jazz. TNA guys coming in proudly wearing TNA colours would get them a lot of heat -- and when TNA guys do turn up in ROH (Abyss, Christian Cage and The Motor City Machine Guns come to mind), they just get met with a "Fuck TNA" chant and don't seem to feel any individual backlash from the fans.

But even if the idea is resisted at first, I think ROH fans would melt if it occasionally meant getting guys like Samoa Joe and AJ Styles appearing in the company. Nigel McGuinness showing up and demanding to be called "Desmond Wolfe" would be something that I imagine would get epic heat.

I'm the only one that I know is making that comparison.

Well, fair enough then. The joke is on me. It's a nice little observation you've made, though.