It was a pretty busy, crazy, emotional weekend for me when it comes to pro-wrestling. This will be the first post of several that I type up over the next day or two as there is just too much to talk about for one blog entry.

Ring Of Honor in Manassas: Flair Autograph session
So this past Friday evening was the Ring Of Honor show / Ric Flair autograph session in Manassas. I jumped in the car and left the house shortly after 5pm, and pushed through rush hour traffic for about 45 minutes. I got to the arena shortly after the autograph session had started. I parked, grabbed my stuff, and went inside to get in line. The line was long but it moved pretty quickly and after about 40 minutes, I was standing in front of the Ric Flair! I had him autograph a copy of the ‘Ric Flair And The Four Horsemen‘ dvd. I then shook his hand and thanked him for coming out. It was definitely a great experience and one that I will not forget.

After the autograph session, we had to wait outside until they officially opened the doors. It wasn’t too long of a wait. No more than 30 minutes before they started to let people in. I was near the front of the line so I got in quickly. I bought a ticket to the next Manassas show (in December) and then I went and found my seat. After waiting about 20 minutes, the pre-show started.

There were only two matches on the pre-show but both were good. Match #1 saw Brandon Day beat Ninja Brown with a variation of the Brainbuster. The second match was Bobby Shields & The Set versus John Kermon, Atsushi Sawada, and Bobby Dempsey. Dempsey got the win for his team.

After the pre-show, we had another small break of about 5 or 6 minutes before the actual show started.

Ring Of Honor in Manassas: The Show
Match 1 – Colt Cabana, Necro Butcher, and Grizzly Redwood versus The Embassy of Jimmy Rave, Claudio Castagnoli, and Ernie Osiris (with Prince Nana at ringside). It was a good, fun opening match. As the match was going on, there was some sort of bug flying around the area. It eventually found it’s way into the ring where Cabana smacked it with his hands, killing the bug. The dead bug then found it’s way to Necro Butcher. At that moment, the whole place started to chant ‘EAT THE BUG’….and Necro did, which grossed everyone out. The match continued and the good guys won when Cabana made Osiris tap out.

Match 2 – Alex “Sugarfoot” Payne versus Shawn Spears. This was the first of two matches that I felt bad about simply because I forgot to take my Canadian flag with me. Spears is from Canada so it would have been a great time to show my support for all things Canadian. Anyways, the match was kind of uneventful. I don’t really like Payne at all but Spears looked decent, and he ended up winning the match.

Match 3 – Bryan Danielson versus Kenny King (with Rhett Titus). Some good action from this match which I wasn’t surprised by. Both guys can put on a show. And, if I remember correctly, this match also started off the snapmare obsession for the night*. Danielson picked up the win, despite some sneaky tactics by King and Titus.

(* A bit of history about Manassas and the snapmare. At the very first Manassas show, there was a guy there who called for and cheered every time a wrestler hit a snapmare on his opponent. The same guy has come to every other Manassas show and his calls for snapmares have slowly caught on with the rest of the fans as well as some of the wrestlers. At this recent Manassas show, the guy was sitting in my section once again but he brought a ’snapmare’ sign this time around. This definitely caught the attention of a lot of the wrestlers and several of them started to use snapmares…which got HUGE cheers from all us fans.)

Match 4 – The Young Bucks v Kevin Steen and El Generico. In my opinion, this was the match of the night. It was also my first time seeing both teams in action, and I was definitely excited to see Steen and Generico as they are both Canadian wrestlers. Steen and Generico also won the match after their Package Piledriver/Brainbuster combination finisher.

Match 5 – Austin Aries v Roderick Strong v D’Lo Brown v Eddie Edwards. Another good match, and my first time seeing D’Lo Brown live. The match started out as a 3 on 1 against Strong but quickly turned into an all-out brawl between the four wrestlers. Roderick Strong eventually got the win by making Aries tap out. After the match, we gave D’Lo a huge round of applause which I think really meant a lot to him.

Match 6 – Sonjay Dutt v Jimmy Jacobs. I was probably the most disappointed with this match. I love watching Jimmy Jacobs wrestle, and I know that Dutt is a good worker as well. But for some reason, this match really never got off the ground. There were some good spots and some good action, but it just didn’t ‘feel’ right at all. Jacobs eventually got the win by making Dutt tap out to the End Time.

Match 7 – Jay Briscoe v Davey Richards. This was the match that I was looking forward to the most. I expected a hard-hitting match and this certainly didn’t disappoint. The only disappointing thing about this match, actually, was that Briscoe won.

Match 8 – Tyler Black v Jerry Lynn. The culmination of the Snapmare-fest. Both guys fed off the crowd’s energy, and entertained us all with a series of snapmares. There was even a tease of a super snapmare off of the top rope. The match itself was pretty good. We didn’t get to see Black’s “Phoenix Splash” or Lynn’s “Cradle Piledriver” though. Black eventually won the match.

Overall, this was one of the best Manassas shows, right up there with the first Manassas show and much better than show #2 and #3. I’m definitely looking forward to the next show in December.