Finally 'Canada's finest' turns 'chickensh#t heel' .....but has he gone far enough?

In the build up to ROH Montreal, Kevin Steen embroiled himself in a war of words and a battle of inflated egos with colour commentator for the French weekly broadcast of TNA, Sylvain Grenier leading to a massive six man clash. The two men neither of them known for being shrinking violets clashed over which of the two was the better and the more popular wrestler in Quebec. For his team, Kevin Steen chose another Montreal favourite son, El Generico along with “The Best in the World” Brian Danielson. On the other side of the ring, Sylvain Grenier chose to ally himself with the American Wolves, Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards. A good strategic move for Sylvain since the American Wolves just beat Steenerico for the ROH Tag Team titles.

On the other hand, Sylvain Grenier may not be prepared for how hated he is about to become for allying himself with two men who (from the perspective of most Quebec wrestling fans) stole the ROH Tag Team Titles from their hometown heroes. And on the gripping hand, Sylvain my also not be prepared for how heated the match may get as an enraged Kevin Steen leads a team with blood in their eyes against three men that they may respect, but definitely don’t like.

Michael "Llakor" Ryan reports ......

Kevin Steen Dominates Sylvain Grenier
ROH Montreal results 04/17

Kevin Steen led his "Best in the World" Trios team (featuring El Generico and the American Dragon Bryan Danielson) to victory against the team of Sylvain Grenier and the ROH Tag Team Champions, the American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards) in the main event of the Rong of Honor show in Montreal Friday night. As El Generico prowled the ring, keeping Davey Richards at bay, Kevin Steen trapped Sylvain Grenier in the Sharpshooter while Brian Danielson tortured Eddie Edwards with his trademark Cattle Mutilation chickenwing. While to this observer Edwards and Grenier's submissions were simultaneous, backstage Sylvain Grenier was lobbying anyone who would listen to convince them that Edwards had tapped first. The victory brought the crowd of about 450 to their feet chanting "Meilleur du Monde!" and sent the crowd home happy.

The match was arranged when Kevin Steen made a guest apperance during the French broadcast of TNA on RDS (the Quebec sports network), a program for which Sylvain Grenier is colour commentator. Both men are convinced that they are not just the best wrestler in Quebec, but also the most popular. Their clash of egos lead to a war of words culminating in Steen and Grenier agreeing to lead teams against each other at the ROH show. Based on the match Friday night, the only competitions that Sylvain Grenier will be winning over Kevin Steen is the "Best Chickenshit Heel" contest as Grenier used the American Wolves to shield himself from Steen for most of the night.

In the main event, the American Wolves got their cheap heat by coming to the ring wearing Boston Bruins jerseys and crowing over the fact that they had just recently taken away the ROH Tag Team belts from Montreal hometown heroes El Generico and Kevin Steen. Davey Richards upped the ante, taunting the crowd by singing a rendition of the US National Anthem so bad he made Roseanne Barr soud like Maria Callas. Fortunately, Sylvain Grenier interrupted the anthem. Grabbing the mike and baffling Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards with his French, Sylvain briefly convinced the crowd to rise for the singing of "the most beautiful National Anthem in the world" and then launched into his own rendition of the US National Anthem, a version so wretched it gave dogs migraines for blocks around.

This brought out Kevin Steen who advised the American Wolves to treasure their ROH tag team belts because Steenerico will take them back before ROH returns to Quebec. Then to the roar of the crowd, Kevin Steen congratulated Sylvain Grenier on having a job that allowed him to sit on his ass, because Kevin was going to break both his legs and put him in a wheelchair. Sylvain obviously took the threat seriously because he spent most of the match avoiding being anywhere near Kevin Steen.

Before the match, the critics said "Grenier will have to do something amazing to shut up detractors." Bearing in mind this was an ROH crowd, how did he score ......?

Well not everyone was happy [see below] ..... suggesting Grenier must ramp up both work rate and worked violence ..... Some will remember Shane Douglas' transformation from a blonde surfer to hard-core ECW champion - a quantum leap Grenier should now take to get favorably noticed outside Montreal...... Here's some of the feedback ....

"Grenier a prouvé que c'est un bumpeux et rien d'autre, mise à part d'avoir l'air d'une graine quand Steen lui faisait des prises..."

"Crowd was hot for Steen, Generico AND Danielson, roughly equallly. Anerican Wolves hunted in a pack all night and pulled some impressive teamwork and double teams.
Sylvain Grenier didn't tag into the match until the 10th minute!!!
Generico played face in oeril.
There was a great dive squence.

There was also a great bit where Steen charged Grenier in the corner, Grenier avoided it and flipped Steen over the ropes to the apron only to eat an OLE! kick. Then they did a sweet Sreeenrica double top-rope move that fot Steen a long two count but where Generico seemed to hurt his knee.

Sylvain Grenier was rescued from the Package Piledriver by an American Wolves low-blow ...

Dave Scherer for Pro Wrestling Insider writes-
"In the main event, Bryan Danielson, Kevin Steen & El Generico defeated ROH World Tag Team Champions the American Wolves & Sylvan Grenier.. The American Wolves were in 100% drawing crowd heat mode tonight, Edwards came out wearing a Boston Bruins jersey and then they started singing the American national anthem. This drew out Grenier, who came out and I guess started to bitch them out (I couldn't tell, it was in French), but then started singing the anthem himself, causing the babyfaces to rush the ring. This match was awesome, no thanks to Grenier who you barely knew was in this match because he spent 95% of it camping out on the apron. The crowd didn't seem to like him either, chanting "you can't wrestle" .... To his credit, he did eventually take the fall, tapping out to Kevin Steen's Sharpshooter.

The ROHbot Report : James Bullock- "The main event wasn’t a total wreck, and Grenier reportedly played his part well. Lets just not make a habit of him showing up, okay. At least ROH didn’t pull a WWE and job out the home country boys."
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Grenier avait la chance de nous prouver qu'il savait lutter et suivre les gars de la ROH et de nous faire ravaler nos mots, mais il a misérablement échoué... Il a fait un bon move dans tout le match (son fallaway slam où le gars tombe en pleine face derrière lui alors qu'il tombe assis), that's it!

Grenier had a chance to prove to us that he knew our address, by following the ROH guys and making us eat our words, but he failed miserably ... He made a good move in the entire game (his fallaway slam), and that's it!

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Sunny War Cloud writes - The main event was good but I would have preferred if, after the feud, the heel champions had left Grenier, Steen, Generico and Danielson alone in the ring. Grenier did the job and his role for the night was to play the coward, nothing more. He looked perfect in the ring and don't forget he was there because of his role as a commentator on RDS.

La finale était correcte mais j'aurais aimé d'après la feud que les Heels champions partent à la fin et laissent Grenier tout seul pour Steen , Generico et Danielson . Grenier a fait le travail que je pensais qu'il ferait et il était là pour un travail de peureux , rien de plus. Il look parfaitement dans un ring et n'oubliez jamais qu'il était là pour le travail qu'il fait à RDS .