9. Davey Richards pinned Michael Elgin to keep the ROH title. This was a one-night star making match for Elgin, similar to Okada in the match with Tanahashi earlier this year or Sting in the 1988 match with Ric Flair. Obviously not nearly as big, but this match was awesome. The basic story was Elgin is this young powerhouse monster that kept coming back no matter what Richards did to him. They did everything in the world to each other. They teased each guy tapping at different times with fans chanting "Please don't tap." Elgin used a crossface and LeBell lock late and Richards teased tapping, but reversed into an ankle lock. Elgin escaped but after the damage of a 26:00 match, Elgin could no longer stand and Richards delivered a running kick and a series of kicks. Elgin kicked out again, but finally after a kick to the head, Richards got the pin. The match was designed and succeeded in making Elgin a star by losing, and a future top level babyface.
Richards did some interesting post-match mic work. He outright said this was the match of the year, and thus far, it probably was. He kind of knocked the other promotions in New York and Orlando for not having a match like this. Given that this was a crowd of people mostly in town for Mania, that didn't get over nearly as much as it would in most places. There was a loud "Fuck TNA" chant but nobody was negative on WWE. Richards said it was match of the year because of Elgin, said some day this belt would be his, but not this day. He said we had the match of he year because of you, talked about how this belt was held by Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson, electing "Yes" chants and then told Elgin he'd got a lot further with the support of the fans than the support of that jack off (Truth Martini).
