Before we take a look at the feud between Steve Corino and Homicide, let’s do a little bit of a background for the men leading up to this point. A lot of you will know that Steve Corino was a former ECW World Champion and held the NWA World Championship. Corino had a few shots with NWA-TNA, but didn’t stay long with that promotion. By 2002, Homicide had made a name for himself on the independent scene and was regarded as a top name for Ring of Honor, a new independent company which made it’s debut in February 2002 in the ashes of ECW. What would happen between Homicide and Steve Corino on October 5th, 2002 would lead to several years of bloodshed and hatred.
One night while teaming, Corino & Homicide had a miscommunication during a match with the Backseat Boyz which saw Corino superkick Homicide and cost them the match. The following show on November 9th, 2002 saw Homicide attack Corino backstage with a fork. That’s right, Homicide attacked another human being with a fork, which he made sure to sharpen beforehand. As a result of the attack, Corino would “quit” ROH due to lack of respect. Steve would be back by ‘Final Battle’ 2002 on December 28th and would form a group to take over ROH simply known as “The Group.”
Corino got some revenge on Homicide at the show by attacking Homicide prior to the main event. In a form of revenge, Corino used a fork on Homicide and hit him with several piledrivers to take Homicide out and replace Homicide in a match involving Low Ki, Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe.
The first match between Corino and Homicide would take place at the ROH’s first year anniversary show on February 8th, 2003 in New York. The crowd was one hundred percent behind Homicide, but Corino was able to earn the win by making Homicide pass out right in the middle of the ring. The bigger story of the match is that there was a legit riot afterwards. It initially started off as a worked riot, meaning it wasn’t intended to be real, but it ended up turning real as non-planted fans got involved with the planted fans. It was truly a hectic scene and added fuel to the feud.
Steve Corino would be in Japan for several months following and as a result couldn’t directly continue the feud with Homicide. However, the feud would not die. On March 22nd, 2003 at ROH ‘Night of Champions’, Homicide made a statement by delivering a Cop Killa to Corino’s then girlfriend Simply Luscious. You ought to know that Corino isn’t going to let that one slide.
They would meet for the second time on August 16th, 2003 at ROH ‘Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies’. It is one of the most violent matches in ROH history and to this point, probably the most brutal in company history. Homicide gets the big victory but only after Corino’s buddy, LeGrande, tossed in the towel believing that Corino had suffered too much punishment. In reality, Homicide had slapped Corino so hard during the match that Corino’s hearing was damaged. At this point, they had one win a piece over each other but it wasn’t over yet.
Corino would attack Homicide at the November 1st ‘Main Event Spectacles’ and tried to damage Homicide’s hearing as he hit him several times with a chain wrapped around his fist. It was then announced that they would finish their feud on November 29th competing in a barbed wire match for the “rubber match” between the two. The night prior to November 29th saw Homicide cost Steve Corino a match against Josh Daniels.
The showdown on November 29th, 2003 was dubbed ‘War of the Wire’ as the brutal match between Homicide and Corino took place in a no ropes barbed wire ring. As expected, it was a hard hitting, crazy match that saw both men give their all to settle the feud. Corino was able to win the barbed wire match when Julius Smokes tossed in the towel for Homicide because Corino had a cobra sleeper locked in on Homicide while wrapping him up in barbed wire! Corino tried to shake hands with Homicide afterwards, but Homicide refused the gesture. After the match, Corino announces he is done with ROH.
On September 11th, 2004 Steve Corino came back to ROH to be by CM Punk’s side as he was feuding with Generation Next. Homicide tried to shake hands with Corino this time to make up for not shaking hands nearly a year ago. But, Corino wasn’t interested in that happening.
Corino would again return to Ring of Honor on October 14th, 2005 when he would team with Colt Cabana to take on Homicide and Low Ki as at the time, Homicide was feuding with Cabana. Anyway, Corino pinned Homicide and the feud between Corino and Homicide seemed to have picked up where it left off. They would wrestle oagain n December 3rd, 2005 at ‘Steel Cage Warfare’ where Corino would get another victory over Homicide after Colt Cabana’s interference against Homicide.
The feud would continue at ROH ‘Final Battle’ on December 17th, 2005. Corino lost to Alex Shelley on the show and was attacked Homicide, who was looking for revenge. Homicide was looking to literally “kill” Corino by pouring Drano down his throat. Thankfully for Corino, Colt Cabana came out to make the save and Cabana instead had Drano poured down this throat.
Corino and Homicide’s next singles match wouldn’t happen until November 4th, 2006. This was one of the three wishes that Homicide wanted for helping ROH beat CZW in the promotion wars feud. Jim Cornette decided to make things difficult for Homicide by allowing the match to be “anything goes” for Corino and Homicide had to pin Corino for a whole ten seconds instead of the three seconds. Homicide would win the “Fight Without Honor” as Cornette’s rules had been thrown out before the match. After the match, Corino would shave his head and both men ended up respecting each other to finally end the feud.
The stuff between Corino and Homicide was top of the line entertainment from 2002 – 2003. Corino wasn’t able to be with ROH full-time and I think that may have prevented the feud from excelling to even better things. After all, there was roughly six months in 2003 where Corino didn’t make an appearance, but to both Corino and Homicide’s credit the feud remained very entertaining.
There are countless memories for this feud, whether it be the riot, Corino legit losing his hearing, the Drano incident, the barbed wire match, their violent match at ‘Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies’, and even the promos by both men throughout the conflict were top notch.
The only negative I can see for this feud was the countless times Gabe Sapolsky tried to bring it back. By 2006 the feud didn’t really need to be back, and it was overkill. In 2005, the feud was more of a sub-feud to help advance the issues between Homicide and Cabana, so it was still beneficial.
It’s a feud that truly showed how good Corino is, and if he was able to give ROH a full-time commitment I have to think he would’ve won the ROH World Championship at some point in 2002 or 2003. The shows were billed around him a lot in the early days.
Instead, the feud really made Homicide a star in ROH and on the indy’s. Yeah, he was already known on the indy’s but this really gave Homicide momentum and credibility that eventually landed him in TNA and all that. This was Corino and Homicide at their very best and people should watch this feud to appreciate both men.
Feel free to leave your memories on this feud below.
Next week I take a look at “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs. Kurt Angle!
Thanks for reading.
I have followed ROH from the beginning. This was the first major feud that I remember from the company. I have to state that I am not a fan of either of these guys, but this feud was done so well that I became a fan of both men after this. Homicide especially. The barb wire match stands out the most to me, as that match showed how much both men hated the other. It made things seem so very real, which made things even better. I only wish that they would have had a few more matches closer together, things were so spread out that it may have hurt the feud, but not too badly. That’s just me nit picking. lol All in all it was a great feud.
Good article man, solid stuff and really good topic choice. I wish clips from this feud were available on YouTube but sadly there’s only one clip regarding that riot.