ROH enters hallowed hall
Ring of Honor has been breaking down barriers ever since its debut show in 2002.
It ran its 17th anniversary show two weeks ago in Las Vegas, and Saturday night, it will do what many thought was impossible in the professional wrestling world:
Run a show at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling News Observer, when ROH and New Japan Pro Wrestling present the G1 Supercard Saturday, it will be the first non-WWE affiliated show to take place in MSG since Nov. 14, 1960.
One of the rising stars in ROH is Shane Taylor, a man who lived in Pittsburgh for a while and worked for different indy feds in the area like the Championship Wrestling Federation.
While Taylor has not been booked in a match yet for the show in the Garden, he will be there and the fact that he will be a part of the show in “The World’s Most Famous Arena” is not lost on him.
“When you think about the history we are making, being the first company outside of the WWE to sell out the Garden, to think you will be part of that history, it is incredible and amazing,” Taylor said. “All of the hard work, top to bottom, culminates in just a few short days and to be able to be a part of that in any shape or fashion is a goal for me.
“The Garden is Holy Grounds and the Mecca.”
The enthusiasm in Taylor’s voice continued to escalate.
“I don’t think it will hit us until we are there surrounded by all of those thousands of people,” he said of the magnitude of the show. “I am getting excited right now just talking about it because it is something that will stick with us.”
The 33-year old Taylor trained in late-2006 and debuted the next summer under the guidance of Raymond Rowe, who is known as Rowe in NXT, and J-Rocc.
He is under an exclusive contract to ROH until the end of this year and briefly discussed how his ROH deal came to be after he moved to Houston, Texas.
“I traveled with (Rowe) to ROH shows in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee,” said Taylor, who debuted for ROH in 2016. “After a couple of years of working on every aspect of my game, they liked me enough to start using me more and more.”
Regardless of Taylor’s role on the show, he is sure to make his presence known.
Some of the top matches on the card include ROH world champion Jay Lethal defending the championship against Marty Scurll and Matt Taven in a ladder match, Bully Ray (also known as Buh Buh Ray Dudley) has issued an open challenge in a NYC Street Fight, ROH TV champion Jeff Cobb defends his title against NEVER Openweight champion Will Ospreay, and Women of Honor champion Mayu Iwatani faces Kelly Klein.
The show begins at 7:30 p.m. on PPV and both the ROH and Fite TV apps.
For more information on the massive event, go to https://www.rohwrestling.com/.
NXT TakeOver: New York Friday
Friday night, NXT presents its next TakeOver show on the WWE Network.
Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole will face each other in a two-out-of-three falls match for the vacant NXT championship.
Other matches on the card include The War Raiders (Hanson and Rowe) defending the NXT tag team titles against Aleister Black and Ricochet, Shayna Baszler defends the women’s title against Io Shirai, Bianca Belair and Kari Sane in a four-way, Velveteen defends the NXT North American title against Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne defends the United Kingdom championship against Walter.
WWE Hall ceremony
The ROH and NJPW G1 Supercard isn’t the only event for wrestling fans Saturday night in the NYC area as WWE presents its annual Hall of Fame ceremony.
D-Generation X headlines the card with other inductees being The Hart Foundation, The Honkytonk Man, Harlem Heat and Torrie Wilson with longtime WWE employee Sue Aitchison receiving the Warrior Award.
Another rumored inductee is Brutus Beefcake although he has not officially been announced as of yet.
On This Day…
In 1985, the first WrestleMania took place.
While no match stands out, the show itself helped WWE gain mainstream attention due to the use of many celebrities.
In 1996, Shawn Michaels defeated Bret Hart in an Ironman match to win his first WWE championship.
The match was boring, and 60 minutes of mat wrestling did the struggling company no favors.
Email questions/comments to Bill at powerhousehughes@gmail.com or tweet them to me @BillHughes_III.