House of Hardcore July 18 results: Young Bucks vs. Team 3-D, John Morrison, Austin Aries vs. Rhyno

By Jordan Breen for WrestlingObserver.com

They announced it was the biggest HOH crowd to date, It was a “sell out” but naturally, the seats at the far far end of the venue were unoccupied. It was at Ted Reeve Arena, where ROH runs when they do the city. The location isn’t great out in the Upper Beaches, but honestly, it probably helps mobilize more of the population from Scarborough, it’s right on a major subway line and the rent on the building is infinitely cheaper than anything in the downtown area. Rest in peace, Maple Leaf Gardens.

The place is a minor minor league hockey arena with nightmare logistics. Literally the only way in and out of the venue and to the floor is through the penalty box, meaning it’s a constant tight line of people going in either direction through the tiny penalty box door. It’s hell. It was a special kind of hell in this case because it was insufferably hot in the arena on an insufferably hot day. Most folks were sweating through their clothes. It was gnarly.

Dreamer booked himself to open against Chris Hero. It was essentially a self-depricating comedy match plus a Dusty tribute. Dreamer wore pants that were half Dreamer logo, half Dusty polka dots and did the Dusty boxing, elbows and wrist rolls. Dreamer did an arm wringer, Hero kipped up and reversed, leading to Dreamer trying to do a kip-up and failing. Eventually, Hero and the ref both helped Dreamer do a pathetic middle-aged man kip-up and the crowd went ballistic, complete with a “HO-LY SHIT!” chant. This was legitimately one of the biggest pops on the night.

They brawled. Dreamer did the bionic elbow and a double DDT. Hero got up and smashed his head in with roaring elbows, got the pin, then some local Toronto workers, Pepper Parks (with valet Cherry Bomb) came out to get heat by trashing the defeated Dreamer. Cherry Bomb was legit on the mic. Dreamer said Cherry Bomb had a “disgusting vagina” twice, got in a WWE dig and said he hated pro-wrestling with too much talking on the mic, and refused to wrassle ’em. Instead, SWERVE! We got a surprise appearance by Bobby Roode.

I’ve seen like six TNA events ever and most of them have been horrifically bad PPVs, so I’m not especially familiar with Roode’s work, but he was over as hell playing babyface. Boilerplate match to make the face look good, with Roode getting in quality offense on Parks, but Cherry Bomb interfering. Eventually, Roode ducked a Parks clothesline while Cherry Bomb was on the ropes, leading to the valet bump from the apron. Credit to Ms. Bomb, Parks actually cuffed her in the back of the head, and she did a dramatic face-first bump off the apron despite the fact she’s not even fitness model-sized. Roode hit the fisherman’s suplex for the win, which must have been very over with this crowd, as I saw four or five gives in the Mr. Man “Mr. Perfect” t-shirts with Hennig’s hair added to the beloved children’s character.

There was an eight-man tag with Ben Ortiz, Vik Dalishus, R.J. City and Ethan Page against Matt Striker, “Hacker” Scotty O’Shea and Team Tremendous. This actually ended up being an embarrassment of riches, as it was clear they’d booked a ton of talent and had no idea where to put all of them, so we end up with this.

Firstly, upon ring entry, Striker (who plays an awful face) reveals that the ref is colluding with the heel team, so they kick him out, Striker goes to the back and returns with TORONTO’S OWN JIMMY KORDERAS, BABY. Jim Korderas receives literally the biggest pop of the night. Ladies and gentlemen, indie wrestling in 2015, where the ref is more over than EIGHT OTHER GUYS IN THE RING.

This match is a classic “get your shit in” proposition, with everyone simply tagging in and out to get big offense in. They even keep Korderas hot by having him kick out Vik Dalishus’ voluptuous valets. This match is notable for two other reasons:

1) Team Tremendous are, well, tremendous. Bill Carr is a little sloppy, but I will accept this, since he’s a 265-plus-pound man doing Rey Mysterio’s move set. I was very, very, very disappointed they didn’t do the spot where they trap a guy in the corner and yell “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE GIRL?!” Also, it seems like a big missed opportunity, considering this match started with a shady ref spot. They’re detectives, that’s the gimmick! Why do they not interrogate the heels as to the details of the ref collusion?

2) The classic indie ringdive massacre spot. This is notable for a variety of reasons. One, Bill Carr’s somersault cannonball ring dive was outstanding. Two, Scotty O’Shea’s moonsault from the top of the ropes to the floor was superb. Three, Dan Barry’s shooting star press from the top rope to the floor was probably the best spot of the night, and the 971 workers on the floor caught him well. Finally, with all eight workers cleared out, Jim Korderas teased a top rope spot, before climbing down the other side humorously.

Team Tremendous got the pin when Bill Carr hit the Canadian Destroyer, which got a big pop as well as partial laughter. To his credit, he did actually nail the move in spite of looking like Amish Roadkill.

Kaitlyn Moore got tough after the match with Korderas. Havok came out of nowhere and chokeslammed her.

John Morrison and Tony Nese wrestled more of a classic 1980’s throwback match, good offense both ways. Nese missed a 450 and Morrison hit Starship Pain for the win. This match wasn’t bad, but after the theatrics of the match prior it kinda bombed. Also, the fact that your nephews The Young Bucks (and other vendors) were selling merch throughout the show didn’t help matters, either, as a decent portion of the crowd designated this match for extra browsing/buying time.

The Kingdom and the Addiction wrestled in the part of the evening brought to you by ROH. It was… a pretty standard ROH tag match, apart from a bunch of ring dive spots. Kingdom easily got over as faces because the crowd loved Maria Kanelis, which was actually a problem at ROH Global Wars 2014, when they were heel in the same venue and the crowd marked for Maria. There was an amusing moment where one of the road agent type dudes (some guy with a mullet and moustache, I think I remember him from the ECW days?) tried to tag the ROH tag titles off the apron mid-match and Daniels had to chew him out, obviously because the belts were going to be involved in the finish.

Lo and behold, we get a big multi-superkick spot that results in the ref getting clipped. Maria tries to pitch the title belts to Kingdom so they can use them, but Traci Brooks shows up, spears her to death, Addiction recover and get the win. Kazarian then gets on the mic and they ran a tribute on the big (well, biggish) screen to her career, gave her the retirement bouquet and all the rest. Kazarian gave her a very convincing motivational smack on the ass, leading me to think that him and Daniels could get over as a team of well-intended-but-meatheaded bros just called “The Husbands.”

Tommaso Ciampa and Eddie Kingston beat the shit out of each other. Ciampa was over from the first guitar lick of “Psycho Killer” and him and Kingston just brawled inside and outside and hit some power spots. Not that it matters and not to sound markish, but since you love body analysis, I was surprised how small (or, not massive) Ciampa was in person after seeing him in PWG for so long. Perhaps it is a testament to how potent his offense looks that he physically seems larger.

They were brawling on the apron and broke the bottom rope, which became a fun running gag for a few minutes subsequent. Crowd chanted “Made in China!” for a good 20 seconds at the bottom rope. Ciampa eventually took the kneepad down and landed a quality-looking running knee for the dubya.

At this point, a whole bunch of crew tried to fix the ring while ring announcer Justin Roberts cracked wise about the bottom rope not vein hardcore enough. Roberts actually killed it on the mic on the evening with a jokes about how disgustingly hot it was and how House of Hardcore 9 had set a Ted Reeve Community Arena temperature record at 51 degrees celsius. He’s got the right kind of disposition to yuk it up with the audience without seeming like he’s brutally pandering.

The ring rope resuscitation was also weird because there was a couple local Toronto workers who appeared (not sure if they were on crew, or in the front row or what) and actually got popped for, including Tomer Shalom, who works the locals here as a beefy Israeli heel. Some of the front row crowd, obviously hardcore fans and the sort of folks that hit the local indies, actually chanted for him and some of the other Toronto workers who weren’t even on the card. With the strong crowd, plus the insane amount of merch and autographs they were moving, I imagine this card made money, but they could’ve probably actually saved a decent amount of coin by booking a little less freelance talent and some more locals.

Sidenote: you know the major star of one of the big Toronto indies here, Victory Commonwealth Wrestling, is a big white guy with bleached blonde hair and a beard who does the PN News gimmick? I’m talking the exact gimmick. He calls himself “Chunk E. Fresh,” has the exact same electric pink and green tights and punctuates everything with “Yo baby, yo baby, yo!” You’ll be happy to know that he is over as fuck.

Rhyno (Rhino? Rhyeno? The War Machine Rino?) had previously issued an open challenge for anyone hard enough to challenge him. This led to Canadian reality show darling Spencer Rice, of Showcase and Comedy Central’s “Kenny vs. Spenny,” to come out in a bandana and cut a heel promo on the company. Since Spenny is a natural social punching bag, as demonstrated in his TV show, the crowd booed while he talked about how “Tommy Reamer” owed him $10,000 for showing up, despite his doctor not allowing him to wrestle Rhyno. Rhyno came out and clotheslined him, which was incredible, because I got to watch an esoteric reality TV star get clotheslined. However, I would’ve much preferred to see him get gored.

Fortunately, we were then graced with the presence of Thea Trinidad, who cut a decent promo on Rhyno and questioned his sexual prowess. Naturally, Austin Aries was Rhyno’s real opponent and since he was unadvertised, got a pop so big you’d almost think he was Jimmy Korderas. 

Aries-Rhyno was solid if unspectacular with some good stiff striking. Rhyno hit an airplane spin into a falling ace crusher, but Trinidad hopped up and interfered. She entered the ring and took an absolutely fantastic Gore. She almost did a full backflip. I can’t say enough about how awesome this looked. Despite obviously varying levels of wrestling experience, all the women who bumped on this show took excellent bumps, but Trinidad’s was bump of the night for either gender, I think. Anyway, Aries recovers, waylays Rhyno, hits the 450 splash for the win. 

Main event time. The Dudleys’ music didn’t play for the ring walk, which was an obvious fuck-up. The Young Bucks did synchro suicide dives to start the match and from there, it was basically a 10-minute montage of their recent matches. The match was rushed and was basically just spot after spot after spot, crammed into a tight window, but the crowd honestly didn’t seem to care. Your ponytailed nephews are so over on these indie shows now that they could probably get “This is awesome!” chants just standing in a ring masturbating. Plus, they was a very obvious if small contingent of casual wrestling fans — guys who were definitely not part of the indie wrestling fraternity and who had very little if any idea who the Young Bucks were — who were clearly there just for the Dudleys, and were just spent all night smashing beers to prepare for yelling “GET THE TABLES!!!!111”

Eventually, a table was got and it dramatically hung out in the ring for a few minutes. One major gripe: the ring was too damn small and while it presented a problem earlier cause of so many tag matches, your nephews actually had to modify your namesake maneuver, as the ring didn’t allow much room for the 450 flip, so it was basically just a springboard tombstone on D-Von. Eventually, everyone gets superkicked, Bucks included, and the Dudleys do the top rope powerbomb on Nick Jackson and get the fall. 

Postmatch, the Dudleys (mostly Buh Buh. Bubba? Bully? Bully Ray Traylor Dudley?) got on the house mic and put the Bucks over huge, repeatedly calling them the best tag team in wrestling. Buh Buh compared the Bucks to them, saying that pundits (surely he’s not talking about you) said they’d never get over doing what they wanted to do and that by flipping the bird to the establishment and striking out on their own, they found greatness. At this point, realizing the subtext of the promo, the crowd broke into a “Fuck TNA!” chant, which Buh Buh actually quelled with your standard “if you’re a wrestling fan, you want all promotions to succeed” trope.

D-Von did the Dudley Commandments, changing the third to “Thou shalt not mess with… … … The Young Bucks” to raucous applause, and that was the end of the evening.

In a way, the Dudleys highlighted one of the only real “negatives” of the card, inferno heat aside. It’s not even that they worked poorly, because they didn’t. It may seem minor, but it’s notable that D-Von didn’t get to say “Thou shalt not fuck with…”, since we all know that’s how the Commandments really go. It’s not like this was live on TV, it was taped, so it could have been edited. I’m not saying that profanity is always necessary, but spiritually, “House of Hardcore” presents itself as some kind of distant grandchild of ECW, but a lot of the “hardcore” aspects are missing.

In fact, apart from a rote powerbomb table spot to end the night, nothing I would describe as “hardcore” in the pro-wrestling sense happened. This card markedly less “hardcore” than a PWG card and really, the card’s construction is far more akin to the usual indie blueprint laid out by ROH. That’s fine by me, but there was an insane amount of “EC F’N W” shirts in the crowd, some choice moments of misogynistic chanting and even an instantaneous, vicious “YOU FUCKED UP!” chant when a guy slipped on the apron getting into the ring. The crowd was into the vast majority of the show, but it still felt like part of this audience wanted strippers, kendo sticks and New Jack flying from the balcony.

Minor note: they used the Cool Beer Brewing Company as a vendor and I would describe this as a major success. Only $5.5 for a beer, and three decent beer options at that, as opposed to the insipid $8-per-Bud you get at other shows. Beer prices that cheap, no wonder some people wanted to see New Jack.

I’m a cold-weather dude and normally sweating profusely ruins my enjoyment of whatever I’m doing. Despite being forced to constantly wipe my face like a sweaty Robert Fuller, this was still a damn good wrestling show and having been to ROH’s and some other local shows here in Toronto, I think it did a surprising job and mobilizing fans (i.e. WWE-era Dudleys fans) that wouldn’t have bought a ticket otherwise. Even better: compared to most indie shows, there wasn’t an obvious booking necessity for all the talent to show all their offense and get to flex for the crowd. You didn’t have a bunch of relative novices trying to win over diehards with 20-minute matches. Apart from the main event, none of the matches felt rushed, but you didn’t feel like you were going to have to sit through another five minutes of spotfests to see a pinfall that should’ve happened five minutes ago.

I’d give it a solid 7, 7.5 Tommy Dreamer kendo sticks (or Beulah nudes) out of 10. Would go again.