This Saturday marks Ring Of Honor's return to the Murphy Recreation Center in Philadelphia after a near three month absence, and as usual, I will be there. And, as I did prior to last month's show in New York, I'm going to preview the card here.

ROH Title Match: Samoa Joe vs. Xavier (Champion)

Joe won the #1 Contender's Trophy last week in Boston in a four-way over Homicide, BJ Whitmer and EZ Money. This has the potential to be an excellent match, although it will be something of a stylistic departure from Xavier's recent quality matches. Xavier has played the role of cocky heel Champion who dominates flashy babyface challengers quite well, but that won't really work with Joe, who is sure to lay a pounding on the Champ. It'll be interesting to see if Xavier can reverse roles from the one controlling the majority of the match to the one bumping big for the monster Joe. Looking at this matchup I'm scratching my head to figure out how Xavier could possibly overcome Joe's assault, but I don't really think Joe will or should be the one to finally take the belt from Xavier. Paul London or Low Ki would be a much better choice for that, given the storyline of Xavier's reign thus far. This will be Joe's second match of the night (more on that below), so I suppose Xavier will absorb a tremendous beating but somehow manage to eek out a victory.

FWA Title Match: Doug Williams vs. Christopher Daniels (Champion)

The FWA is a British fed. And it was just announced that the now vacant #1 Contender's Trophy will be up for grabs in this match as well, with the winner getting a shot at the ROH Champion on April 26th in Pittsburgh. Anyway, these two had a good match in October, but I think they've definitely got a better one in them, and it's nice to see them fighting over something better than that silly handshake stipulation. The first match had a somewhat screwy finish with Daniels going over, so I assume Williams will be winning this one and taking the FWA Title back to England with him. He'll presumably bring his usual nasty mat-based assault and Daniels will heel it up bigtime, making for good heat and a very good match.

ROH Tag Team Title Match: Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. AJ Styles & The Amazing Red (Champions)

Styles and Red won the belts last week from Daniels and Xavier after Styles' original partner, Paul London, had to have surgery on his sinus cavity and missed the show. It would be nice for the tag division if they could get the belts on an actual tag team instead of a pair of singles wrestlers for once. I understand not doing it before, as most of the actual tag teams in ROH are pretty weak, but now that Mark Briscoe is old enough to wrestle in Pennsylvania, and has turned face to team with brother Jay, they've actually got a halfway decent tag team to put the belts on. I don't know if they will or should do it here, but it should happen in the near future. Jay and Red have worked together a couple of times in ROH and the results have been generally spotty, with more head-dropping than selling, but this match should at least make for a fun spotfest, and since there isn't one of those clusterfuck Scramble matches booked on this show, I can certainly live with that.

Jody Fleisch vs. Low Ki

When this match was announced, the match that popped into my mind and the minds of many others was the Low Ki/Red match from last June. Low Ki showed that he can work with a small highflyer and produce really exciting results, with the immensely fun kung fu movie style opening and Low Ki working quasi-heel the rest of the match, laying a beating on the tiny, resilient babyface Red. But there are several things different with this match. First off, Fleisch isn't as good or as small as Red. He's rather lanky and his matches often seem excessively choreographed. Also, Fleisch is clearly supposed to be the heel in this match, due to his affiliation with the goofy raver heel stable Special K. This match is part of Low Ki's new quest to "beat some respect" into the Special K guys, so I assume the massive beatdown aspect of the Ki/Red match will be present here, but it will make for a different dynamic given the reversed heel/face structure. I have questions about Fleisch's ability to work heel at all, but it'll be especially unusual for him to be playing the heel while simultaneous getting beaten down and presumably making really flashy comebacks. And Fleisch isn't much on selling, as far as I can tell. All that said, this should still be a fun action-packed match. I'm just not sure if it'll rise above the level of spotfest, and it'll almost certainly be the kind of match that's more fun to watch live than on tape.

Six Man War: Homicide & Da Hit Squad vs. Samoa Joe, CW Anderson & Michael Shane

The first team is, along with Low Ki, a loose assemblage of bald, stiff-working babyfaces from New York. None of them are as good as Ki, and the Hit Squad are severely lacking in redeeming qualities as far as I can tell, but they all have the ability to bring a lot of action to a match, which should be enough, along with a good heel/face dynamic, to make for solid six-man action. The latter team is Steve Corino's unnamed stable--thankfully the King of Bleeding and Shouting At The Fans Instead of Wrestling won't actually be at this show--and they range from competent to awesome and can all play the heel fairly well, although the fans don't have any desire to boo Joe. Not that it'd be a wise move to make the man mad. This should be solid, and hopefully it won't result in another stupid riot angle. Maybe this'll be the match where Homicide finally lives up to the hype. I just don't know.

Tag Team Grudge Match: Raven & Colt Cabana vs. CM Punk & Ace Steel

Raven and Punk have begun a "Straight Edge vs. Drug User" feud that really kicked off with their singles match last week in Boston. Apparently Punk has turned heel, or is at least leaning that way, and I'm very interested to see that. Punk and Cabana have had a pair of good matches in ROH and I expect more good work from them. I haven't seen any of Raven's post-WWE work, so I don't know what to expect of him. I assume he'll at least work hard and will look significantly better than Konnan did in his ROH debut. Steel has had one solid, if short, match with Jay Briscoe in ROH. This could be good to very good depending on how Raven looks and generally how well he and Punk work together. I am cautiously optimistic.

Special 4-Way Attraction: Matt Stryker vs. BJ Whitmer vs. Dixie of Special K vs. Alex Arion

I am utterly unfamiliar with everyone but Dixie, who I thought looked pretty good in a four-way tag match in October. Your guess is as good as mine on this match.

Plus more with Special K, SAT, Dunn & Marcos, Carnage Crew, Hotstuff Hernandez, Alexis Laree, Allison Danger, Simply Luscious and more!!!

It looks like the Carnage Crew will take on Hernandez and the Christopher Street Connection in a six-man tag. That could be okay. The SAT really suck lately, and they, along with Quiet Storm are going to "confront" their trainer, Mikey Whipwreck, who turned on them in February. I'm hoping he says he turned on them for being shitty wrestlers and making him look bad as a trainer. I'm also hoping no match comes out of this confrontation. I'm expecting to be disappointed on both counts. Storm is heading off to train with my man TAKA Michinoku in Japan for three months after this show. It'll be interesting to see if TAKA can reign in his spottiness and turn his physical talents and intensity into something resembling wrestling ability. Dunn & Marcos will be amusing, whatever they do. The women will be annoying, whatever they do. I hope we don't get another catfight in the middle of the main event.

Overall, despite the absence of American Dragon and Paul London, this looks like a very good show. And the number of matches on the show seems like it'll be less than usual, so maybe they'll trim some of the fat and put on a slightly shorter show this time. Bits of sports entertainment and, specifically, ECW wannabe-ism have been creeping into the product of late, and I hope they note the negative reaction to these things and return to their "pure wrestling" roots to some degree. This could be a really fun show if they don't muck it up with runins and bad promos and riots and catfights.  ¶ joe | 12:49 AM |