wrestling / Columns
411’s Buy or Sell 7.31.09: PWG’s Sixth Anniversary, Nigel Injured Again, RoH On HDNet Moves To Monday Nights, And More!!
Welcome everyone to Week 118 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.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. For one, Human Tornado was the last double champion for PWG, for another Joey Ryan as champion would be a horrible re-run of his first championship run. Not to say that his title run wasn’t at least in some aspects successful, but it seems like PWG needs to forge ahead with new talent at this point and putting the title back on Joey would seem like a desperation move in the face of not being able to consistently book top level talent for the promotion. There is really nothing left for Joey to do as champion considering his last few months seemed to drag on forever and there are really no other ways in which he can keep “cheating to win” and make it look both credible and entertaining. The better money would be on Hero FINALLY turning heel or to move the belt on to someone with a little more prestige.
Steve Cook : BUY. I changed my mind on this several times while pondering the question, and could change it several more times by the time this column actually gets posted. From what I’ve heard, Chris Hero has made a fine PWG Champion, and it’s nice that he actually dresses like a professional wrestler now. But it’s time for Joey Ryan to bring sleazy back to the PWG Championship while Hero goes off to Japan or wherever else he can go to run and hide from Eddie Kingston. I like Ryan…he might not be a technical wizard like Bryan Danielson or a super-stiff guy like Roderick Strong, but he has a personality and can back it up in the ring. The guy gets a lot of heat wherever he goes…longtime PWG fans like Domingo certainly remember how much they hated Ryan when his PWG title reign seemed like it would never end. Let’s see how much they can hate him this time.
0 for 1.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. If this is an attempt to bring the ‘bucks into an actual feud or to perhaps turn them “heel” then this isn’t a total mistake. You know the crowd was willing to turn them after DDT and the 2 matches that everyone thought they lost in the first place. If they go over “2SBG” cleanly then it really is a mistake. I’m not a fan of “non-title matches” per say, but at this point the ‘bucks haven’t had a long term feud since they began other than ‘The Dynasty” and that only last a few shows, perhaps this is a chance for them to finally enter into a more meaningful storyline and perhaps get El Generico yet another title reign. That guy never seems to last very long without a belt.
Steve Cook : SELL. Not if it leads to Two Skinny Black Guys (one of the best tag team names ever) defeating the Bucks and earning a tag title shot at a later date. That’s something called long-term booking, which doesn’t often find a home in the indy scene. The Jackson Two taking on Human Tornado & El Generico should be spotastic fun in a combination we haven’t seen before.
1 for 2.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. Kenny King as FIP champion? Am I the only one here not sold on him being more than an entertaining mid-carder? He always has this feeling of “Shelton Benjamin-lite” to him, although with slightly better mic skills. And DON’T say it’s cuz’ he’s Black…although…you know…he is. Rhett Titus also seems like he’s picking up steam and dropping the belt to Brad Attitude seems fairly farfetched. I don’t even know who Brad Attitude is…but the name alone makes me want to relegate him to Jakked/Metal. The one legit title change actually could be the Tag Titles and the British Lions might have a chance against Strong/Stevens. I’ll go with a “Sell” here just because I figure something has to happen at Heatstroke and if there is going to be a title change, it’ll be the tag titles which will end up in yet ANOTHER Strong/Stevens feud.
Steve Cook : SELL. I gotta tell you, this card doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Davey Richards vs. Kenny King as a main event? Yowza. I guess that’s what happens when all the indy talent is out on the West Coast for the weekend. With the lack of talent, FIP needs to do something to get peoples’ attention, and a random title change or two seems to work wonders for WWE. Who’s booking FIP these days anyway? Did Pearce get control of that too, or did the owner hire somebody else? I’m not a big fan of Kenny King, but putting their title on him would certainly be different.
2 for 3.
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Steve Cook : BUY. I don’t think Kevin Steen & El Generico would be doing the job for guys that ROH has no plans for. Then again, it’s not like Steen & Generico have been doing a whole hell of a lot since the Pearce Regime took over ROH’s booking. I haven’t had the opportunity to see a lot of the SSB, but they have a fun gimmick and people seem to like them. ROH could do worse than bringing them in on a more permanent basis. I’m sure they’d be a hell of a lot cheaper than Bret Hart…not that I’m bitter that he won’t be in Dayton the night before the Chicago show he’ll be at. Of course not.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. I don’t know that “mainstays” is the word, but I’m sure they’ll be back again on a very sporadic basis. The thing about these guys is that they are actually competent wrestlers, but they are more or less a very gimmicky team that seems more at home in a CHIKARA or even PWG ring than in RoH, then again I haven’t been to any RoH shows this year so maybe the crowds have really changed. RoH seems to be suffering lately from a lack of consistent tag teams as they have recycled more teams in the past two years than Smackdown and RAW combined. I know on paper the tag division looks strong, but there seems to be a real lack of continuity when it comes to elevating any “novelty acts” to anything more than title fodder. The SSB might be booked on occasion, but I just don’t know that they are going to be regulars in RoH any time soon.
2 for 4.
Steve Cook : SELL. Unless I’m missing something, ROH has already gone further to the right than Rush Limbaugh with their matches. Matches with people going balls to the wall are the exception, not the rule. Yes, the cradle piledriver isn’t the safest move in the world, but Jerry Lynn has a pretty good history of not hurting people with it and I can’t blame him for the injury or blame ROH for letting him perform the move. It was a freak accident. Now, I would say that Nigel needs to be more careful with what he does considering his recent injury history for the sake of his well-being. If he’s not in condition to take certain moves, he needs to let other people know that. He’s at the point in his career where he can get by with that sort of thing without pissing people off.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. I’m not so sure that “conservative” is the word to use. Anything can happen in wrestling and if you start changing your philosophy on matches and booking now then you might as well concede everything that you’ve tried to build to set you apart from what’s currently on mainstream TV. At this point you have to just hope that no one gets hurt in the ring and that all of your wrestlers work as safely as possible, without working too injured or exhausted to begin with which tends to contribute to even worse injuries. A guy can get paralyzed in a ring just as easily from a 2 minute squash with 18 arm drags as he can from a 45 min hardcore match. I don’t think RoH’s style of working matches is to blame here, I think it’s all just a few isolated incidences. Hell, look how many guys in the “e” are hurt every year and they don’t come CLOSE to working as fast paced and “stiff” as RoH does.
3 for 5.
Steve Cook : SELL. Even if they did, we’d have no way of knowing because I’m pretty sure HDNet isn’t monitored by Neilsen Media Research. But let’s go with the hypothetical here…there is a lot of programming on Monday nights. Much more than on Saturday nights, when ROH currently airs. While Monday night is a traditional wrestling night, most of the fans who watch Raw probably have no idea what an ROH is, and if they do, they don’t know what channel HDNet is on, if they even have it. Though it probably wouldn’t take much of an uptick in viewership for them to improve by 50%, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
Bayani Domingo : SELL. So then HDNet is going to give away 50% more subscriptions to their channel? Or maybe we’re just saying that the numbers are so low that only a few dozen more folks tuning in are going to spike the ratings? I’m not sure that ratings are going to jump that much , especially since so many people still get RAW for free on Mondays. To be honest I think this comes down to HDNet’s availability and accessibility than RoH’s time slot. While Monday nights are traditionally a big wrestling night, I can’t imagine that there are that many fans who are either going to not watch RAW to watch RoH or that many fans willing to add the network to their TV bill just to watch. In theory they should see at least a small spike, but don’t expect a miracle.
4 for 6.
The 118th edition of BUY or SELL finishes at 4 for 6! Stay tuned for next week as two more people will go head to head with a whole new set of topics.
