The highly anticipated McGuinness-Danielson match actually ended in a 20-minute TLD. Fans chanted "five more minutes" and McGuinness did mic work demanding five more. Then Danielson ran back into the ring and McGuinness got him in the camel clutch/armbar hold and Danielson tapped. Afterward, it was announced that the draw stood and both men were eliminated from SOTF. There was even somewhat of a tease that both men would be added to the SOTF final, making it a seven-man match, but instead it was announced that the winner of a three-way match (who turned out to be Human Tornado) would get the slot. Fans didn't like that at all, and didn't seem to know what to make of it.

Sorry, I'm not overly familiar with ROH, so I missed a few names, likely screwed up the match order and don't know what half the moves are called. In fact, after this day, you're lucky I remember my own name, but I digress. They ran the Empire Ballroom on the Las Vegas strip.

Show opened with Nigel McGuinness cutting a brief promo saying he was proud to be ROH champion. Roderick Strong interrupted, extolling the virtues of his FIP title over the ROH belt. This lead to Brent Albright interrupting Strong, which lead into the first match.

Strong beat Albright in a first-round SOTF match. Good opener.

Rocky Romero beat Carl Anderson (?) in a first-round SOTF match. Not great.

Austin Aries beat Delirious in a first-round SOTF match. Best match of the night. Crowd was into both guys, especially Aries, who was the most over guy all night. At one point, Delirious motioned like he was playing a slot machine and yelled "Ching ching ching! Delirious wins!" Crowd liked that a lot, and gave respect to both when the match was over.

Chris Hero beat ? in a first-round SOTF match. Good match. Hero and Sweeney are freakin' great live.

Claudio Castagnoli beat Davey Richards in a first-round SOTF match. Claudio either hurt his neck legit, or the guy could sell a timeshare to Ricky Morton.

Non-title: Nigel McGuinness 20:00 TLD Bryan Danielson in a first-round match, eliminating them both from SOTF. Couldn't touch their PPV match, of course, but still very, very good. Crowd really hated the screwjob, though.

Human Tornado won a three-way over ? and ? to advance to the SOTF final. Billed from "Hollywood, Alabama," Tornado was over from the moment he appeared. He pulled off comedy spots credibly and his interaction with fans was great.

The Age Of The Fall (Jimmy Jacobs & Necro Butcher) beat The Briscoes in a non-title match. Wild brawl that went all over the ballroom. Lots of chair stuff.

Hero won the SOTF final. Hero played chickenshit heel, sitting out away from the ring doing tactical run-ins to pin guys. Hero first beat Tornado with Hero's welcome. Hero later beat Romero by stealing Aries' pin. Aries was the crowd favorite, so when Hero him, it took a lot of steam out of the match. Sweeney paid off Strong to allign with Aries against Castagnoli. Strong tucked the cash into his kneepad. Naturally, Hero turned on Strong and pinned him. Hero then took back the money. Hero and Castagnoli traded nearfalls including kicking out of each other's finisher. Hero finally got the win with his STF/chinlock submission. Very good main event.

Crowd (which was maybe in the 300 range) stayed hot all night and chanted "please come back" at show's end. Despite advertising an 8pm bell time on their posters, the show started at 7pm. A pretty good show if you can forgive the McGuinness-Danielson draw, which a lot of us could not. {plug}