wrestling / Columns
411’s Buy or Sell 10.31.08: PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles 2008, Changes Within Ring of Honor, and More!!
Welcome everyone to WEEK Eighty of BUY or SELL. For those of you who haven’t been with us since the beginning, here’s the Reader’s Digest version of what this column is all about. BUY or SELL is very much like 411’s long-running Fact or Fiction column. The main difference is that BUY or SELL focuses on topics like the U.S. Independent scene, Lucha Libre, Japanese Wrestling and pretty much anything else that isn’t mainstream wrestling, WWE and or TNA. This allows for these areas to get a bit more press and for you, our loyal readers, to learn even more about the sport of professional wrestling.
Week Eighty’s Match-Up:
The man in charge of all things Battle of Los Angeles related – Bayani Domingo !
vs.
Reviewing long lost videos out in the Midwest –John Gregory!
But before we get to the questions, I would like to invite you all to check out the Battle of Los Angeles Roundtable being done by our own Bayani Domingo this weekend. We have a little contest going on between us writers and whoever can best predict the winners of the weekend will receive a very special prize, an automatic bid in Buy or Sell’s End of Year Blowout! Ok, it’s not a nice wad of cash, but hey, at least it is worth more than anything TNA can offer.
Bayani Domingo : BUY. I hate to say this because RoH does tend to come up with some gems from time to time but as it pertains to AoTF and “Sweet n’ Sour Inc.” it seems like they are so locked into booking these stables in a certain way that they are simply becoming repetitive. It seems like AoTF is just randomly picking up members and they are getting recycled so much that they are losing any real impact. like how the nWo was such a hot storyline until they oversaturated the faction and we ended up with Vincent and Stevie Ray in the mix. The whole “SnS” storyline seems to be individual wrestlers are hell bent on getting their hands on Larry Sweeney and never do (Claudio, Strong, and now Albright). Hopefully this results in something new but at this point I haven’t seen this angle workout well for the “chaser” and in this case it seems like we’re back on this big treadmill where people fight, but nothing really happens in the end.
John Gregory : BUY. These angles usually work quite well. It’s simple. The babyface wants after Sweeney, Sweeney escapes, and it builds and builds until when Sweeney DOES get his, the crowd goes nuts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when you do it multiple times so close to each other, or even at the same time, or when there is NO payoff. Claudio never got much of any revenge on Sweeney after a YEAR long feud. And now Albright seems to be stuck in the same rut, as is Roderick. Hopefully the new booker will accelerate the payoff for this long Sweet and Sour story.
1 for 1.
Bayani Domingo : BUY. I hate to condemn my man, Adam Pearce, before he gets a chance to run with the “Book” but considering that Gabe has been hailed as a genius for so long and so many matches he has had a hand in have turned out to be of such a high quality I can’t see how you can honestly say that the vast majority of RoH fans won’t look at this as a big let down in the in-ring department. Gabe has spend so much time with each wrestler and understanding the crowd and developing a cult following from the fans that it seemed like he could almost book no wrong. Pearce has had a bit of booking experience as I understand it with a couple of the smaller Indy feds out here in SoCal and I have also heard he does do quite a bit of booking for AWS, but the problem is that I have seen some fairly bad matches at AWS. Then again AWS does tend to give young guys a chance to shine, which is to their credit since they do a damn good job with the little resources they have in competing against a company like PWG, but then I’m not sure if it’s the booking or the execution of the more inexperienced wrestlers that has dragged some of those matches down. However, I have seen quite a few matches I really did enjoy as well as some very entertaining wrestlers and gimmicks so it will be interesting to see how much Pearce did play a part in those shows. I can compare giving Pearce the “book” in RoH rather than at the Alternative Wrestling Show to driving a Porsche versus a Honda Civic (not that there is anything wrong with a Civic, but it’s just no Porsche). Now that Pearce has a more veteran roster to work with and no doubt a much higher set of expectations it will be interesting to see what “Scrap Iron” can do, but for now he has a lot to prove and a real uphill climb with very little margin for error.
John Gregory : SELL. It could be. The rumor mill churned with reports that Adam Pearce’s booking style will be very “1970s” and everything in the ring won’t be as crazy anymore. Fans were going nuts all over the boards over these reports. There were wild accusations that ROH would become sports entertainment, there’d be more DQs, countouts, interference. Judging from these people, you’d think ROH was turning into Memphis Wrestling. I sincerely doubt, however, that Adam Pearce or Cary Silkin is stupid enough to turn back everything ROH has been about. They know what the crowd has really liked, and what has gotten ROH this far. Hell, it might even be good. If “1970s” style means more character development and better selling, I’m all for it. I will echo Bayani’s sentiment, though, that Pearce has a lot to prove. I’m just a little more upbeat about his chances.
1 for 2.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. Why not give the PPV crowd a little bonus for showing up? If you can book Joe you book him, you don’t try to work him around your schedule, you take him whenever possible and if it helps you pop the attendance for your PPV and makes it look more impressive to perspective wrestlers than so be it. My feeling is that this will end up as a “Dark Match” anyways and will never see the light of DVD, but at the very least it’s an incentive for fans to pack the PPV taping and a little treat for them as well. Conventional wisdom would say that you book Joe for a night that you don’t anticipate to have that big of an attendance, but from what I have seen reported the PPV tapings haven’t been that much more attended than their regular shows so it doesn’t make sense to try and split the potential gate increase. Then again for all we know this might be the only time Joe and TNA would allow this appearance to happen anyways.
John Gregory : SELL. Why the hell not? Joe’s been far too busy to make any of these special appearances, and if boosts attendance then what’s the negative side? Prestige?! Please. It’s about money, people, and having him come in will not only get a reaction out of the fans (good or bad), but maybe someone who doesn’t come to ROH attends and becomes a new fan. Huh? Did you think about that, Negative Nancy the Smark. No, you didn’t.
2 for 3.
SWITCH~!
John Gregory : BUY. I’ll preface this by saying I don’t know much about the other years, but I am really digging this lineup for one big reason: fresh matchups. In tournaments, I always like it when you get matches that you would not see anywhere else, like this year’s TPI with Squire Dave Taylor vs. Claudio. It’s boring if you’ve got stale matchups featuring oft-paired local guys all over the place. Thankfully, there’s none of that here, as we’ve got a nice mix of guys, many of whom haven’t had any notable matches. Think of possibilities like Bryan Danielson vs. Chuck Taylor, Austin Aries vs. Kenny Omega, or even Masato Yoshino vs. Low-Ki! Damn. That last one made me tinkle a little.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. For shame Gregory, all it takes is a simple peak over at Wiki to find out what the line-ups were for past BoLA’s. I’ve actually been to every BoLA and to be honest I find that this year’s field is impressive from a “name” stand point, but it lacks a certain diversity of styles and talents that past BoLA’s had. With the exception of Kenny Omega there are no other debuts and even though I’m one of PWG’s biggest fans the list of competitors just don’t blow me away. It’s nice to see Nigel and Chucky T get a second chance in PWG and Yoshino’s first ever singles match in the states should be good, but otherwise I’ve seen everyone else on the card before, and multiple times at that. Not to say that I don’t actually expect the wrestling to be better from Match 1 to finals than last year’s or ’05, but for me I think the 2007 line-up just looked more impressive because it had so many PWG debuts, International stars, and with the exception of a disappointing injury to AmDrag, represented the best of Indy wrestling at that time. Just compare the two line-ups and you will see:
2007 BoLA: Jimmy Rave, SHINGO, Susumu Yokosuka, El Generico, CIMA (Winner), Alex Shelley, Kevin Steen, Matt Sydal, Doug Williams, Dragon Kid, Roderick Strong, Austin Aries, PAC, Nigel McGuiness, Davey Richards, Jack Evans, Claudio Castagnoli, Chris Hero, Tyler Black, Human Tornado, Joey Ryan, Scott Lost, Necro Butcher, Tony Kozina
2008 BoLA: Chuck Taylor, Davey Richards, Masato Yoshino, Kenny Omega, Brandon Bonham, El Generico, Austin Aries, Nigel McGuiness, Joey Ryan, Scott Lost, Low Ki, Bryan Danielson, TJ Perkins, Nick Jackson, Necro Butcher, Chris Hero, Roderick Strong
If you take away the wrestlers who have participated in both then the difference between them are that 2008 has: Kenny Omega, TJ Perkins, Brandon Bonham, Nick Jackson, Bryan Danielson, Masato Yoshino, and Bryan Danielson. The 2007 tournament has: Jimmy Rave, SHINGO, Susumu Yokosuka, CIMA, Alex Shelley, Kevin Steen, Matt Sydal, Doug Williams, Dragon Kid, PAC, Jack Evans, Claudio Castagnoli, Tyler Black, Human Tornado, and Tony Kozina. For me it’s a no brainer that ’07 had the best line-up ever for a BoLA, however I have a feeling that this year’s edition will not disappoint in terms of the wrestling quality, unlike when Night 3 had to save the entire tournament after the first two nights were simply “Pretty Good” but not “Great”.
2 for 4.
John Gregory : BUY. What other choice do they have, really? PWG’s had a pretty rough go of it ever since TNA pulled their talent, with very little buzz being generated by a company that shares most of its (talented) roster with ROH, who are higher on the totem pole. Yeah, it might not look good from a prestige standpoint to have to work around another nearby event, but:
A. I’m sure they’d rather not lose their asses on the show.
B. Like I said before, this is indy wrestling-who cares about prestige?! MO MONEY, MO MONEY, MO MONEY!
Bayani Domingo : BUY. I don’t think PWG would have lost their ass on the show by keeping an evening start time (Do you realize how much ass Super Dragon has to lose?), but I definitely think they would have lost anywhere from 50 to 100 people to the show. At $20 or $25 a pop that represents Block D’s entire booking fee and transportation. Well, almost. Still they would have lost some money due to the conflicting shows and considering that this is a Saturday show, one would assume that not too many people will have to miss Night 1 due to working schedules. If you do…go back to work, get a good M-F job that doesn’t require you to wake up on Saturday morning to make “secret sauce”, we all know it’s Thousand Island and Mayo anyways. The other thing Gregory didn’t think about is that this leaves the very remote possibility of a TNA contracted wrestling coming in and wrestling a non-tournament match. A few years ago Samoa Joe participated in a non-title match with NOSAWA against Top Gun and Kikutaro on Night 2 of the ’05 BoLA, the Briscoes surprised everyone in ’06 by showing up unannounced for a match, and this year there is the possibility that PWG had some “incentive” for moving their show as well to accommodate fans. I know this is a long shot considering TNA and PWG aren’t exactly buddies anymore, but remember that last year TNA allowed PWG to use Alex Shelley in BoLA, they allowed Frankie Kazarian to appear in a show earlier this year, and they are allowing Samoa Joe an RoH appearance next month so you never know. If my hunch (okay, wish) is right PWG might not have bent over backwards without receiving a little something in return.
3 for 5.
John Gregory : SELL Only because the PWG Champion is Chris Hero. Hero is a damn good wrestler, the fans like him, and best yet, he hasn’t gotten injured, disappeared from wrestling, or no-showed the company. I’d be wary of putting it around someone else who may potentially have these problems, or just out of superstition almost, because a new champion went down again, it would hurt PWG, like it did before.
Bayani Domingo : BUY. Look, I’m a big fan of Chris Hero, both as a wrestler and as a human being. But the fact is that he’s not the most popular wrestling in PWG, he’s definitely in the Top 5 or so, but there are a handful of wrestlers out there (Low Ki/AmDrag/PAC) that are at least as popular as him and if he were to lose the title the fans wouldn’t revolt. I’m actually on board with Hero turning heel as there were signs of the fans possibly turning on him directly after winning the title and the man has the chops to be a heel, he really does. Injuries, no-shows, and “prior commitments” happen in Indy wrestling, in PWG in particular, but you can’t book around the “possibilities” because then you will end up with a year long Joey Ryan title reign. My guess is that this is the year that it happens and whoever wins BoLA will end up taking the title from Hero in good time. I don’t think Hero will lose the title soon, but I can almost guarantee PWG finally pulls the trigger this time, lest they make the entire tournament win look like a joke. I actually figured they were going to give CIMA a short title reign and have him lose the belt maybe a show or two after he got it, but his injury and subsequent hasty angle with him “Drawing” Danielson with the BoLA title shot on the line put an end to that. This year that all changes and the ghosts of past BoLA winner’s squandered title shots will finally be exorcized.
3 for 6.
The Eightieth edition of BUY or SELL finishes at 3 for 6! Stay tuned for next week when two new men will go head to head with a whole new set of topics.
