ROH News & Results 10/05/05

It's no secret that I consider Ring of Honor to be the most entertaining wrestling promotion going on today. In 9 days I will be sitting in the front row as I watch my first ever ROH live event as it debuts here in my home city of Cleveland, Ohio. The card that has been announced so far has my excitement level building up with each passing day. Here is some news from the promotion this week (including new matches listed for the Cleveland debut) and match results from this weekends spectaculars which features Japanese wrestling legend Kenta Kobashi.


ROH News & Notes:
- Two new matches have been signed for the Cleveland debut on 10/14. One is a first time ever dream match pitting Roderick Strong vs. Jimmy Yang!
- Prince Nana has taken advantage of an open contract and signed a mismatch for 10/14 in Cleveland. Generation Next signed an open contract for any member of Gen Next to face any member of The Embassy. Prince Nana has taken advantage of that contract to sign a David vs. Goliath type match as Abyss takes on Jack Evans!
- Your new ROH Commissioner is none other than the legendary Jim Cornette!!! Commissioner Cornette will have a video message for all the fans later this week here at ROHwrestling.com
- Claudio Castagnoli has earned a spot as a regular in ROH with his upset victory over Colt Cabana in Manhattan and strong showing in Philadelphia last weekend
- There was some kind of attack on Roderick Strong in the locker room after his match against James Gibson on Sunday.
- New ROH Tag Team Champions Tony Mamaluke & Sal Rinauro have stated that they will be fighting champions. They have already signed on for title defenses in Cleveland on 10/14 and Buffalo on 10/15. Cleveland will see former champions and new Lacey's Angels BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs with Lacey get their rematch vs. Mamaluke & Rinauro. Ricky Reyes has cashed in his prize for being on the winning team at the "Trios Tournament" and will team with Homicide to challenge the tag champions on 10/15 in Buffalo.
- 10/29 in Woodbridge, CT. It will be Colt Cabana vs. Homicide
- ROH officials have already decided that there will be no commentary during the Kenta Kobashi vs. Samoa Joe match from 10/1 on the home release.
- Kenta Kobashi and Samoa Joe each suffered numerous injuries after their weekend matches. Kobashi had one of his teeth broken in half. Joe suffered a minor ankle injury, but will be fine to compete on upcoming shows. Of course, both men where covered in bruises.

And speaking of Samoa Joe/Kobashi, here are the results from the two ROH shows Kobashi was on:

ROH Results from 10/01/05 in Manhattan:
- Claudio Castagnoli def Colt Cabana due to distraction from Homicide and other members of the Rottweilers
- Christopher Daniels def Azrael and Matt Sydal in a Three-Way Dance
- Tony Mamaluke & Sal Rinauro def BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs to win the ROH Tag Team championships
- ROH Pure champion Nigel McGuiness pinned Jay Lethal
- Roderick Strong defeated Jimmy Rave in a grudge match. Prince Nana accompanied Rave and was dragging Jade Chung around on a leash. At the end of the match Jade Chung finally turned on Nana and Rave. She and Roderick left together.
- Ricky Reyes forced ROH student Pelle Primeau to tap out in 2-3 minutes
- James Gibson def. Jimmy Yang via tap out with the guillotine choke
- Jack Evans def. Homicide after Colt Cabana distracted Homicide. After the match there was a war of words between Homicide and Cabana.
- Kobashi def. Samoa Joe is what was said to a fantastic match that was stiff as hell. One spot reportedly had Kobashi hit Joe with a flurry of about 50 unaswered knife edge chops.

ROH Results from 10/02/05 in Philladelphia
- Tony Mamaluke & Sal Rinauro def. The Ring Crew Express
- Matt Sydal pinned Jimmy Rave (w/Prince Nana). Jade Chung prevented Rave from cheating to win.
- Jay Lethal beat Claudio Castignoli and Davey Andrews and Nigel McGuiness when Lethal hit Andrews with a Tiger Suplex for the win.
- Ricky Reyes beat another ROH student.
- Percy Prinlge came out to say he is the new ROH Commissioner. This brings out Jim Cornette who reveals that it is really he who is Commish.
- Roderick Strong def. James Gibson in what is supposed to be a great match.
- B.J. Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs def. Lacey's Angel (Deranged & Izzy). To begin with Lacey stated that she was tired of losing so she fired all the Angels and acquired the services of BJ and Jacobs
- Colt Cabana def. Jack Evans
- Christopher Daniels def. Jimmy Yang
- Kenta Kobashi & Homicide def. Samoa Joe & Low Ki in what was supposed to be another excellent match.

More Academic Wrestling

I approached “Wrestling with Hypermasculinity” by Patrice Oppliger (McFarland & Company) with some apprehension. The title led me to believe that the book would be about gender roles and portrayals in wrestling, which I assumed would lead to the usual overwritten academic discourse blaming wrestling for violence, world hunger, global warming, lost socks in dryers, etc. etc.: the standard rant that watching wrestling is inherently dangerous (especially for child viewers) and wrestling is therefore responsible for everything bad in the world.

To some extent my apprehension was unjustified. The book is written in reasonably clear language, and the title is somewhat misleading, because the book deals with more than gender issues; it looks at how storylines and characters in wrestling have evolved along with trends in popular culture in general. Oppliger admits that she is a wrestling fan, and in the course of her research actually goes to wrestling shows (including some indy shows) and interviews audience members. She also conducted her own survey on a group of schoolchildren to assess whether watching wrestling has anything to do with aggressive tendencies or behaviour.

However, despite these good qualities, on balance I found the book very unsatisfying for a number of reasons. First, Oppliger makes the point early in the book, based on her survey of media effects literature, that it’s difficult to determine causality when looking at whether exposure to violence in media causes violent behaviour (i.e. does the exposure cause the violent behaviour, or would other factors have resulted in violence regardless of the exposure). Yet, at the end of the book, her argument returns to the standard “wrestling causes violence so it should be regulated” argument, which seems to fly in the face of what she was arguing earlier. If there’s no clear causal link, how can wrestling be blamed for causing its viewers to feel or act violently? Also, in making her arguments, she relies far too much on sources that I personally would say are not reliable because they clearly have an agenda and aren’t at all well researched or logically reasoned, e.g. Sut Jhally’s “Wrestling with Manhood” video.

Oppliger also has an annoying habit of putting statements together which have nothing to do with each other and expecting them to prove her point, e.g. following a quote from the WWE’s parents’ guide about parents “letting” children watch wrestling with the “fact” that 75% of American kids have TV in their bedrooms (a number which seems somewhat high, but anyway…) OK, so what? Where is the proof that those kids are all watching wrestling and/or being negatively influenced by it? I would think there was more potential for them to be damaged by blow-em-up shows on HBO or soft-core romances on Cinemax. It’s this kind of lackadaisical reasoning that really makes this book look unreliable and ill-informed.

The second big problem with this book is that it totally misses the role of humour and comedy in wrestling. Now I will freely admit that I have problems with how women and violence are used in wrestling, so I’m certainly not going to argue that these aspects of the sport should be overlooked, nor do I believe that it’s inherently funny to beat people up or to harass women. On the other hand, it would seem important to acknowledge that a lot of what wrestling does is so exaggerated and so tongue-in-cheek that even kids recognize it as satire and not reality. Did anybody really think that Al Snow was a necrophiliac promoting oral sex when he waved a mannequin head and yelled “What does everybody want”? Or that Jake Roberts’ snake was really a “phallic symbol” and his opponents cowered in fear of this representation of his mighty manhood – instead of, oh, I don’t know, being afraid of a BIG SNAKE? Not seriously discussing this part of wrestling performance, and why it is so popular, is a very large omission that further weakens the validity of Oppliger’s arguments.

The other major problem with this book is the HUGE number of mistakes, which a supposedly well-informed fan should not have made. Let’s see: Mark Henry did not win an Olympic weightlifting medal. Mae Young did not give birth to the infamous hand “in the middle of the ring”. Shouting “You f***ed up” and “Holy S***” does not only happen at indy shows. Jamie Noble’s girlfriend’s name was not “Ninia”, and unless I’m missing something, Jeff Jarrett, not “Jared”, is the guy with the guitar. (Amazingly, for a book supposedly dealing with gender roles, the even more infamous Katie Vick incident gets only a passing mention. Now there’s a coffinload of gender portrayals that deserves to be unpacked….)

So I would have to turn “thumbs down” on recommending this book. I sympathize with the author in liking wrestling while being uneasy with some of its portrayals and concerned about the effects it might be having on some of its viewers, but the evidence and arguments in this book are far from being convincing that wrestling really is responsible for all the badness it's associated with.