More ROH Thoughts (Live Rats), Mae Young Backstage Notes, More

For those who missed my notes from the ROH show last night at the Hammstein Ballroom, I thought the show was really well done. This was my first ROH show and first show at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The line to get inside the building was backed up for blocks. The show started at 7:45, fifteen minutes later than scheduled due to the amount of fans trying to get in the arena. There were very little smaller kids there and nobody had the balls to wear any stuff. The crowd chants throughout the night were amazing as was the foul language that pertained to them! Classic old ECW style chants. The opening is cool as they dim the lights and do a 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1.....we're LIVE deal. It came across really well and the crowd was hot all night. The Ballroom is small and packed together so the OOOHHHH's and AHHHHHH's at big spots really sounds good. I always heard good things about Chris Hero but tonight was not his night. I was just not impressed with his work. Larry Sweeny is an awesome heel manager and gets super heat. Does he sweat all the time? A little too much Sweeny in the first few matches but I understood why they did it. Brent Albright was super over and both he and Adam Pearce bled the hard-way during this match. A very good match and when a NEW NWA champion was crowned, holy s–t did that crowd pop loud. That was the biggest pop of the night and almost flew the freakin' roof off the place. Naomichi Marufuji is VERY good and I'm a new huge fan of his work. Go Shiosaki seemed a little off tonight but was still great. A FREAKIN SHIRANUI OFF THE APRON TO THE FLOOR?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Unreal stuff, second best match of the night. The crowd was chanting Motor City before Shelley and Sabin came out knowing that there was only two matches left in the show. Huge pop for them but like our reporter Ryan said above, it was a good match, but just not the BIG 'dream match;' that everyone expected. The main event was absolutely amazing. Nigel McGuinness is an awesome heel and a superb worker. Nice spiked hair. Claudio Castagnoli was boo'ed out of the building at points. He was the first eliminated. This was my first time seeing Bryan Danielson and he's excellent. Just awesome awesome awesome work. The ending with TONS of near falls between Tyler Black and Nigel was insane. They had the entire crowd going "OHHHHHHH" and 1, 2, ............OHHHHH!. Amazing. I've never seen anything like it in my entire life of attending WWE, TNA, or Indy events. These two tore down the f'n house. What a way to end a show. Awesome show all around and I'll be back in December. It was nice meeting all of you as well. The drive back to Albany, NY had heavy fog and a construction delay at 2AM!!??. I made it back here at 4AM and watched SNME. A little sleep and here we are today!

I also forgot to add that the HUGE RATS outside the arena, crawling in the garbage bags that someone left on the street, was AWFUL. Is this normal in New York City?

Regarding tonight's Saturday Night's Main Event telecast, practically all of the promotion for the show was based around Jennifer McCarthy raising awareness for Autism. They hardly promoted the show around wrestling, and no matches were announced until Friday's SmackDown. WWE's reputation and public perception were damaged in the aftermath of the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide. In an effort to better their reputation, Vince McMahon decided to make the company front-and-center when it comes to publicly promoting certain charitable causes. He wants to make sure to publicize the company's involvement in such causes. That pretty much explains why you've been seeing a bunch of Make-A-Wish and Circle of Champions stuff on television and the company website. Not to say that they didn't get involved with a bunch of charitable causes before the Benoit incident, but the company hardly ever promoted them, or at least not as much as they do now. For example, in the past, certain wrestlers such as John Cena didn't want their work with Make-A-Wish publicized, but since the Benoit incident, WWE has worked on getting these type of stories out to boost the public image of the company. From a business standpoint, basing a show such as tonight's Saturday Night's Main Event telecast around a charitable cause eases the pressure on the rating from network executives. The ratings for Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC have been a constant disappointment to say the least. For instance, the heavily-hyped July 15, 2006 telecast promoting an appearance by Hulk Hogan was beat out in the ratings by reruns of COPS on that night. Also, wrestling is a hard sell on sponsors. In past editions of Saturday Night's Main Event, you'd see a bunch of low-rent commercials for stuff such as vacuum cleaners and other cleaning aids that would never air during other shows on NBC at the same time slot. By basing the show around a charitable cause, whether the ratings are good or bad, sponsors will feel a lot more comfortable supporting WWE. It's a win-win situation for the company, as the likely low rating probably won't have any negative ramifications, and WWE comes out looking good to the public. McCarthy's appearance on tonight's show was actually her second wrestling-related appearance. She appeared at Wrestlemania XI in 1995 as the guest valet for Shawn Michaels when he wrestled Diesel a.k.a. Kevin Nash.

Backstage at Monday's Raw in Washington D.C., Mae Young was begging and pleading to be taken on the annual "Tribute to the Troops" show this December, reports the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. She was flown to Raw, believed to be involved in an angle with Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes, but the plan was apparently nixed. They later had her do to the "Kiss Cam" segment.