MoChatra

From bbc.co.uk:

Saturday's WBC lightweight title fight in Las Vegas between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo has been called off after Castillo did not make the weight. The fight could have gone ahead for no title but Corrales decided it was too dangerous to fight at a heavier weight. "I have a wife and children and I want to see them grow up," said Corrales, who gave up the $1.3m he would have made by fighting Castillo a third time. "All I can say is I'm sorry," said Castillo, who weighed in four times. "Those are just empty words," said Sacramento-born Corrales, who weighed the 135lb (61kg) limit on his first try. "I wanted to hit him in the mouth." Mexican Castillo, 32, could get no closer to the limit than 139.5lb (62.8kg) during his four attempts in two hours. He also failed to make the weight on the last occasion they met last October, when Corrales, 28, paid the price for going ahead with the fight. He lost on a fourth-round knock-out to a fighter who did not have to make the same sacrifice to make the weight. On Friday his manager, promoter and trainer all told him he shouldn't fight because it was too risky against a fighter who so heavily outweighed him. "If he got hurt I could never live with myself again," said Corrales' promoter Gary Shaw. His trainer Joe Goossen added: "He (Corrales) drained himself to make 135lb (61kg) and the other guy didn't have to do it." Castillo's own promoter Bob Arum, who has promoted fights for 40 years, said he couldn't remember a fight being canceled in similar circumstances. "I'm mortified and embarrassed by what happened here," he said. "It's a disgrace. If I was Corrales I wouldn't fight either." Promoters had sold about 8,000 tickets for the fight, and Arum said he stood to lose $1m from the cancellation. The undercard will go on without the main event, but anyone with a ticket was offered a full refund. The cmain event will now be Armenian-born Australian Vic Darchinyan defending his IBF flyweight title against Mexico's Luis Maldonado.

For it to happen once is bad. Twice? What an utter farce.

Here are my RATINGS~ for ROH's March 30th show, Dragon Gate Challenge:1. Homicide vs. Colt Cabana: **1/4 2. Ricky Reyes vs. Chad Collyer: ***1/4 3. BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Jacobs: ***3/4 4. Jimmy Yang vs. Ryo Saito: **1/2 5. Alex Shelley & Jimmy Rave vs. Bryan Danielson & Delirious: ***1/26. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Shane Haggadorn: *1/27. A.J. Styles & Matt Sydal vs. Dragon Kid & Genki Horiguchi: ***3/48. Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, & Jack Evans vs. CIMA & Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino: ****1/4 9. Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe: ****From a match quality perspective, this was quite possibly the strongest top-to-bottom ROH show I've ever seen. Just fantastic.I wasn't expecting much from Collyer vs. Reyes, but they produced a pretty good submissions-based match. Whitmer vs. Jacobs followed on from their break-up a few shows back, and they knocked out a really good ECW-style spotfest. Whitmer has really grown as a worker over the last year, and he must be under consideration for a World title opportunity before year's end.The Embassy vs. Danielson & Delirious bout was another hoot. Shelley and Rave remind me of The Hollywood Blondes, but of course they're still a way off reaching Pillman and Austin levels of greatness when those two were together. This followed your standard tag team formula but the work was good from all involved.Styles & Sydal vs. Dragon Kid & Genki was excellent. Not quite as great as it could've been, because Styles had a rare off-night with two or three miscommunications. That aside, everything was crisp and built well, and the closing stretch was sizzlingly hot.With the previous two ROH vs. DG matches being split in this best-of-three series, the next six-man bout was the decider. Holy shit was this great! Blood Gen brought their own brand of rudo posturing to the ROH ring and their work even had puro cynic Jim Cornette raving. The big heat segment was, predictably, the DG boys working over Jack Evans. Once the hot tag came, though, we went into typical DG overdrive with the match moving faster than Naz's Mercedes SLR and one hot spot after another. Real credit to both teams, because the ROH boys aren't accustomed to working at this frenetic pace, and the DG workers are used to performing in bigger rings. This went over a treat live and was the perfect way to deliver this kind of sprint with its advanced DG psychology where tons of spots all crammed into twenty minutes can still mean something. This was a pleasure to watch.The main event had a really hard act to follow, but Daniels and Joe nearly managed it. Of course, the pace was slowed down compared to what preceeded it, but the match built into another gem. It was what you'd expect, with an outing not too dissimilar to the TNA Impact belter. Daniels won it with three BMEs.Though storyline advancement, in terms of tying the previous few shows in with this, was somewhat lacking- the event centred around the DG vs. ROH series. From that point of view, this show was perfectly acceptable in that regard, and for in-ring, it was easily the best show I've seen this year. Highly recommended.

Best in the World was standard ROH fare. Nothing glaringly bad, logical storylines and plenty of sound in-ring action.

 

There weren't any notable storyline events, as such, other than Bryan Danielson dropping the pin in the tag main event between he and Joe against NOAH's Marufuji and KENTA (who pinned AmDrag in a great match that somehow felt disappointing consider who was involved). I'd peg the match at ****.

 

The opening matches involving Jimmy Rave were nothing special, and only served as an opportunity to get that great visual of Rave and Nana being pelted by a barrage of bog rolls.

 

Elsewhere, the SHIMMER four corners was refreshingly good. For someone that sits through WWE diva matches on a weekly basis, watching women who don't stumble through spot after spot is nice to see. At least this match gave me the motivation to check out the two SHIMMER DVDs sitting on my 'to watch' pile.

 

Daniels vs. Shelley and Briscoes vs. Evans and Strong were also fine outings, though really, this DVD was more of an appetiser for the 'Mania weekend triple bill. Speaking of which, I'll have Dragon Gate Challenge Series tomorrow, and I can't wait to check it out.

Caught Arena Warfare last night followed by CZW's When 2 Worlds Collide this morning.I know it's ROH policy to darken arenas for their live events, but it really detracted from the company's first show in the old bingo hall. It didn't affect the atmosphere, though, and the crowd was buzzing all night.Danielson is the best worker of 2006 thus far, in my opinion, and he strengthened his chances of winning Wrestler of the Year awards with a typically excellent display against Alex Shelley. Danielson's personality and mic work is far better than it was in ROH's infancy, thanks in no small part, no doubt, to extensive touring here in old Blighty.If Danielson is best worker of 2006, then the ROH vs. CZW issue wins my vote for feud of the year thus far. The interpromotional segments were red-hot, with genuine heat and fiery brawling (with a few too many soft forearms to backs for my liking, but that's just me being picky) and the main event, its result and post-match angle played perfectly into this absorbing storyline.Elsewhere, Matt Sydal and Austin Aries wowed the crowd with a terrific sprint, as did the four teams in the opening tag scramble. I'd peg the show as being slightly below Fourth Anniversary, but it was still great viewing all the same.For storyline continuity, I didn't watch When 2 Worlds Collide until Arena Warfare turned up. The CZW show was, as expected, inferior to the ROH event that preceded it. However, the Combat Zone crew turned it up, compared to the January and February shows, likely due to the bigger than average crowd.The opening six-man and El Generico vs. Justice Pain were perfectly acceptable outings, with some of the spots in both bouts (especially El Gen's awesome tope from one side of the ring to the other) causing even this here jaded jaw to drop in amazement.Gage vs. Havoc vs. Hyde in a glass pane match and the six-way ladder match were a joy for fans of crazy highspots, and admittedly, I did enjoy moments from both matches. The main event was interesting. Generation Next fought Ruckus, Eddie Kingston and Necro Butcher in a six-man outing. Gen Next dominated most of the match, with Ruckus on much of the receiving end. In light of the main event finish from Arena Warfare, I did expect the ROH boys to go over. However, Gen Next's dominance over Ruckus was followed by further domination leading to a convincing win which meant the match was little short of an extended squash. Needless to say, CZW fans weren't singing when the ROHbot contingent in the crowd went into 'ROH! ROH!' chant mode. I thought the match would be more competitive than it was, but I guess that's the price CZW had to pay for the Arena Warfare ending.Next up- the 'Mania weekend triumvirate of shows~!

The first post-100th show newswire is up, so here it is...

April 23rd: ROH lost much more than a match in last night's main event. The CZW team of Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon defeated the ROH team of Samoa Joe, Adam Pearce & BJ Whitmer when Claudio Castagnoli turned on ROH and sided with Chris Hero, who he teams with in every other promotion. ROH's 100th show ended with team CZW celebrating in the CZW bleachers and the ROH fans shocked. We did not work for 100 shows to have things end like this. CZW already ruined our ECW Arena debut and now they've taken our 100th show celebration away from us. There will be hell to pay and it will start next week in Ohio. April 23rd: Claudio Castagnoli will be the first to pay. This Saturday, April 29th, in Cleveland will see a one-on-one match as Castagnoli will be faced with a very angry Samoa Joe. We'll have much more on this match in the upcoming days. April 23rd: Both Adam Pearce and BJ Whitmer were forced to go to the hospital after last night's chaotic main event. Pearce needed 12 staples to close an "H" shaped gash on his head as a result of a Necro Butcher chairshot. Whitmer's injury was even more serious as it is believed he suffered a very bad neck injury at the hands of Super Dragon and the Psycho Driver from the ring through a table. Whitmer felt tingling in his left arm. Both Pearce and Whitmer are listed as doubtful for next week. This is causing ROH officials to reshuffle things for Ohio, which is why we can't announce more new matches now. However, none of the already advertised matches will change. We'll have an update soon right here in the ROHwrestling.com Newswire. April 23rd: Colt Cabana wanted to send an apology to all the ROH fans at last night's show. Cabana feels that he really let the fans down. Cabana told ROHvideos.com that his wrestling game is off after months of brawling against Homicide and fighting The Rottweilers. This led to Cabana losing to Bryan Danielson in just 5 minutes last night. Cabana says he wants to start in the opening match and work his way back up to the card to earn another World Title shot. Cabana will begin this Friday in Dayton against Jimmy Jacobs, who also needs a win. Cabana will then face Flash Flanagan on Saturday in Cleveland. This is an important match for Flanagan, who is still trying to earn a fulltime spot in ROH. April 23rd: The much anticipated Straight Shootin' With Raven & Sandman Vol. 2 is now out and available for immediate delivery at ROHwrestling.com. We must warn you that this shoot interview is not for younger viewers and it really could carry a XXX rating. If you are looking for deep insights in the wrestling business then you are going to want to skip this one. If you want wild stories about sex, drugs and more this is a must see. Sandman and Raven discuss everything from religion to the ECW reunion shows. There is no telling what topic will come up next. This is one wild shoot!!! April 23rd: In case you missed it, Davey Richards suffered a knee injury on Friday and his ROH debut will be pushed back until June 3rd in East Windsor, CT. April 23rd: Delirious suffered a deep wound on the inside of his hand when he was cut on the cornerpost of ROH's new ring. Delirious' head was also lacerated and his mask was torn by ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson. Delirious wants another shot at Danielson and revenge for Danielson ripping open his mask.

I was going to do it in spoiler tags, but I don't know how to do that.

All spoilers should be enclosed within squared brackets with 'spoiler' in the first and '/spoiler' in the second. Just like with quotes.gadgetboy,Have you watched the Fourth Anniversary show yet? I'm watching it later tonight. Any opinions on the event?

Considering the problems that plagued Unscripted, I thought it was a decent show. It was a stand-alone event in that it didn't really fit into the storyline progression of previous shows but the matches were mostly fun.Xavier entered an impressive performance against AmDrag (or maybe Danielson is so good that he made Xavier come across as being better than he really is), Jerrelle Clark was fun to watch in the four corners match, the Strong vs. Whitmer match was pretty solid and the main event was perfectly fine.It's far from a must-see show, but under the circumstances, it was good for what it was.

From the paid members board:

ElSupremo. In my view, the award should go to the person who's contributed the most to on-topic discussion, and this year it was ES. He's made a whole bunch of threads really interesting, and the marked improvement in the main forum over recent months is largely due to him.

Kobashi vs. Sasaki.

Kenta KobashiCM PunkSamoa JoeAJ Styles

AJ Styles.

CM Punk.

CM Punk's ROH World title reign.

Ashley vs. Torrie.

Delirious and Ebetaro doing slow motion wrestling at ROH Final Showdown. That was fucking mental.

NOAH Tokyo Dome showECW One Night Stand

The best match I saw in this country was Doug & Akiyama vs. Go and Kobashi.

It's a toss-up between NOAH and CMLL.

Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita. They were far and away the best tag team; the KENTA and Marufuji of 2005.

Kriss Sprules.

The terrorist angle.

Great American Bash.

Who won the boxing fight which was heavily plugged during Summerslam '88? I think it was Sugar Ray Robinson vs Donny Lalonde.Cheers.

How much did ringside seats cost to any of the recent raw and/or smackdown ta[ings in the UK?

The ones in manchester were

I wonder if Bobbins feels the same way about the word 'prick' as he does about 'twat'.

Here's something nobody has considered. Maybe the FWA has secured the exclusivity clause NOT to lock out other British promotions already trying to make somethings of themselves like WZW and ICW. It could be that the clause was put in place to counter the possiblity of someone coming along with huge financial backing that might try to sign away most of the FWA roster and take up residence on TWC, with the FWA having nothing to counter such predatory actions.Don't forget a similar situation occured four years ago, when UCW came along and signed many of the FWA's top stars to exclusive contracts. There's no reason why something similar wouldn't happen again.For all this talk of no other promotion being allowed onto the channel for the next five years and arguments about production values, I think the real reasons for the clause are probably aligned to the issue I've just outlined. When you look at it that way, you really can't blame the FWA.