Every so often in life people have to look back at where they’ve been and figure out where they’re going. Usually this is something that takes place in conjunction with a major event in one’s life; jobs, relationships, deaths, births, all those things generally force a person to take a look in the mirror and say, “Now what?”
In the world of professional wrestling these moments usually come when someone either achieves their championship dreams, or as in the case of Kevin Steen & El Generico, come up short in their chase for the titles. At “Glory By Honor VIII” the dreams of these former ROH World Tag Champions were shattered when The American Wolves retained the titles in Ladder War II to the shock of many of the ROH faithful. Even with Eddie Edwards operating at far less than 100%, The Wolves still limped out of the Grand Ballroom with the belts in their possession.
Steen was quick to take a great deal of the blame (as seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc2JbRkwfTA), basically stating that he lost focus on the belts and just wanted to hurt Edwards and Richards. That distraction obviously cost Steen & Generico dearly, and left both men bruised and battered as they went their separate ways after the event. Shortly thereafter, Generico headed to Japan to compete while Kevin headed into Collinsville and Indianapolis still healing from the beating on September 26th.
The first night Steen ended up on the losing end of a battle with Roderick Strong, but more telling than the loss was the way Steen carried himself backstage before and after the match. Sources indicate that Steen was distant; withdrawn from the rest of the locker room. One sources described him as a bit morose actually, and that was all before the loss. Following the match Steen went off by himself to change clothes, and was overheard talking about how he “missed that @$$hole”.
Steen showed up in Indianapolis in better spirits, but still went off by himself to change prior to the SOTF Qualifying Match against Colt Cabana. Once the match started, Steen didn’t seem quite on his game, and went for his devastating Senton Bomb very early in the match. Cabana got his knees up to block, stunning Kevin long enough for Colt to pick up the quick pinfall win and advance to the finals of the tournament.
A very quiet Steen limped his thru to the locker room, and went off once again by himself, only asking for some ice for his knee and for a cell phone. Unlike the previous night, Kevin hung around thru the evening, but was very quiet and simply watched the locker room monitor as the show continued. It was different side of Kevin Steen that the ROH locker room hadn’t really seen, and it all seemed to stem from Generico’s absence.
Several phone calls to check on Steen have gone unreturned, and when Generico comes back in Philadelphia on November 5th & 6th, and in Edison, NJ on Nov. 7th, there will be a lot of questions for these two to answer. And the number one question is simply, where do we go from here?
