wrestling / Columns
The Wrestling Framework 08.19.11: Overrated? Underrated? Part DREI!
Welcome wrestling fans once again to The Wrestling Framework! A beautiful 15 sentence column about things that stopped being relevant in the Clinton administration that’s better than a sandwich on Saturday. Anyhow, this week is a right special one. It’s the week my birthday falls on. Today, in fact. And I’m too damn broke to do anything majorly special, so I’m just going to sit at home and spend the day with my wife. Well, actually, she has to work most of the day, so that’s no good. But she did feel bad, so we went and traded in a bunch of games and my old DS Lite for a used DSi XL from Gamestop. I gotta tell ya, awesome idea. A much bigger screen to play my Pokemon. Yeah, you heard me. Moving on.
This week, it’s the same thing as the last two. Except I’m going to try and make things balanced out as opposed to last week. You should know that I usually don’t make my verdict until I’ve written out my thoughts and did my research. So I tried to have a little foresight this week. So, I’ve decided to take on the heroes of the independents. Well, something like that. The four are Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson, Davey Richards, Roderick Strong and a special double feature with The Kings of Wrestling! So let’s get to it, right?
Oh! Before I continue, the special announcement. I’m pretty excited as I’ve fallen in love with both things I’ve done with my column. There’s hardly anything I enjoy more than watching old matches and discussing them. Only thing that is up there is discussing the talent and where they stand in regards of talent and if they should stand somewhere else in our hearts. So, with that being said, if you haven’t figured it out by now, the style of the column is shifting once again. From now on I’ll be discussing one match, maybe two, and two wrestlers. This is of course, until I run out of relevant enough wrestlers to discuss. So, look for the new format next week. Now, let’s get to it. For real this time.
Thoughts: I’ll be honest, I’ve been a fan of AmDrag for a long time. And when I found out he was going to be on NXT, I marked the hell out. I was just like every other guy who was all over him being in WWE and screaming for the push. Let’s be honest, the guy is pretty solid in the ring. But there’s a little bit of extra honesty that most people can’t admit. The guy is lacking charisma. I hate to say it, but every time I see him talk, it’s painful. It’s painful because he’s just not putting in the emotion that should be there. Or maybe, it’s that he’s trying but just isn’t that great on the stick. And that’s actually something that hurts him. Especially if he’s going to be in the mainevent at WrestleMania. Of course, that doesn’t mean he will actually make it there. Or even win for that matter. In fact, what will most likely happen is he will lose the MitB briefcase in a match before then, or he will be entered in to the match and lose. Then after that it’s back to obscurity. But that’s not what I want to see happen. I think that DB has a certain marketability to him. I think he is a perfect example of the whole “voice of the voiceless” thing. He’s not the big muscle bound guy who kills people dead. He’s not the overly agile high flyer. He’s just a solid technical wrestler who goes in every match to kick some ass. And the label of being a submissions expert doesn’t hurt. Daniel Bryan is definitely not the norm for WWE superstar at all. He’s an oddball, and that’s not a bad thing.
Yup, you read it right. I can actually admit that DB is overrated. It’s not that he isn’t outstanding in the ring and able to put on a good ***1/2-***** match with just about anybody, but rather that he’s not a talker. He’s not going to ever be “the guy”. His thing was that he wanted people to like him because of what he does in the ring and not what he says. He devoted his training to becoming one of the best technicians ever and it paid off. But, alas, he can’t cut a meaningful promo to save his life. I mean, sure, he can go in and say a bunch of stuff we want to hear. He can say it with all the yelling or with a slow serious tone. But I have had a hard time of actually believing that he believes what he is saying. He puts emotion in to his promo’s, but there’s no actual feeling behind the emotion. It’s all just bad acting, really. I hate to harp on him, but no matter how much of a mark I am for this guy, I just can’t bring myself to lie and say anything other than this. I’m really hoping that between now and WrestleMania, DB can work with someone to up his promo skills. I think if he practices for a little while he can be as good at that as he is inside the squared circle. But until then, DB is overrated.
Thoughts: You know, I didn’t pay much attention to Davey when he was with Edwards. The American Wolves were just a solid unit, I didn’t pay attention to either one individually. I don’t think I really noticed Davey until he came back from his last injury. That’s when I started watching him a little closer, but there was just something that was off. He was pretty solid in the ring. In fact, he was what I would expect from the ROH mainevent scene. Then I started to look up old matches that I had watched and noticed that Davey is an all around awesome wrestler. Very sound and very knowledgeable. His match with his former tag partner was out of this world. Both men are outstanding workers who are capable of incredible things inside that ring. And I think that Davey could really be a huge staple in ROH, still, for years to come. At least, I’m hoping that he’ll stick around and keep producing good things. But Davey is suffering from a stigma that seems relevant in ROH. But, I’ll hit on that later in the verdict. To me, Davey was a good choice for champion. Especially how in his interview when he said he was coming back and how passionate he seemed to be. It was meant to be. The man was meant to hold the ROH championship. But how long will he keep it? How many times will he hold it? Would someone else eventually snag him up and take away yet another asset of ROH? It’s possible, but unlikely at this point.
Another overrated guy. Yeah, I am a fan of the guy, but he’s got the ROH stigma. And that’s being that a guy will be phenomenal in the ring but the mic work is lacking. Davey is kind of boring sometimes. Maybe it’s just me, but he’s failed to wow me quite a few times while talking. I think very few guys in ROH can actually deliver. You’ve got Punk, Joe, Tyler Black, or even the Kings of Wrestling who we’ll be talking about soon. Davey is lacking the ability to give a good promo at least occasionally. He’s had maybe one that I remember that was okay and it was his return interview. Maybe I’m being too hard on Davey and even on DB, but truth is that these guys wouldn’t be able to hang with even John Cena and his scripted promo’s. Why? Because Cena actually has feeling behind what he says. He can actually get the crowd to believe that he believes what he’s saying. But, Davey is still a world class wrestler. I’ll give him that. He’s won me over to the point that I’ll happily plop my ass down in front of the tube with a cold beer and enjoy his in ring magic. But the guy is no where near as amazing as people make him out to be. In fact, he’s not even as good as DB. And I’m even tempted to say that Eddie Edwards is more marketable than Davey. And to end it all off, Davey is kind of an ugly sumbitch. Not gonna lie.
Thoughts: Roderick Strong was one of the first guys from ROH that I really latched on to and loved to watch. There was something about his style that always made me watch in awe. Maybe it was the way he smoothly did most everything. Or, most likely it was all the back breakers he used. Yeah, pretty sure it was that. I love back breakers. I don’t know why, but I just do. And Roderick was the master of them. He had a back breaker for damn near every position. In fact, when I attempted to make my way in to the business, he’s what I based my style on. Probably not the first choice for most people, but for me it seemed right. You didn’t have to be the biggest guy to put someone in a lot of brutal looking back breakers. But that’s about all I can say for Roddy. Other than that, he was just another ROH guy who could perform in the ring but not much else and it saddened me, to be honest. Still does that some of these guys are outstanding performers, but like DB, Davey and Strong, they just are lacking something. Maybe it’s charisma, maybe it’s emotion. Whatever it is, I wish they had it. Strong, he’s like the underdog that always fails to me. He’s been chasing the ROH title for so long and when he won it, it was bitter sweet in my mind because I knew he was only a transitional champion.
I know a lot of people wont agree with this, but I see it like this. Roderick Strong is that underdog who will always be chasing the gold but will never be the top guy. He knows it, you know it, they know it, we all know it. It’s a sad reality for his fans, like me. But I think if he embraces that, he’ll find his own bit of success through that. And that’s why he’s just right. Because he’s Roderick Strong and everyone, including himself, knows what he’s capable of and don’t expect anything else. Like usual, maybe I’m wrong. In fact, this is the only verdict I’m a little shaky on. It was a tough one to come to, but this is what I truly feel. I know a lot of people will call him overrated. But I ask you how? Maybe he can be revered as one of the best workers in the world. If someone so chooses to accept that label. But besides that, I don’t see him getting an undeserved push. I don’t see him doing things that he shouldn’t because he’s not good enough for it. He’s doing what he should be. He was the transitional champion and for good reasons. A lot of his fans wanted to see him finally get it. If anything, I’d compare him to Tommy Dreamer. He’s to ROH what Dreamer was to ECW. Well, maybe not. Dreamer was always the loveable underdog. Strong, well, he works best as a heel. But in the end, he’s right where he needs to be. If he were in WWE, he’d be overrated.
Thoughts: These guys right here have to be one of, if not the, best tag teams on the American independent scene. Save for maybe WGTT, there is no other tag team I can really place on their level. In fact, there’s so much going around right now about them going to WWE or should be going to WWE that I think they actually should go to the WWE. But at the same time, I know what happens to tag teams when they go to the WWE. They eventually get split, one is elevated as the other is pretty much pushed out of the company. The way I’d see it is they would bring in KOW, give them bad names like Kent Superman and Estaban something and their tag team name be literally COW. Then they split them, Hero is stuck on main eventing Superstars while Castagnoli is elevated to the midcard where he continues to kick ass and take names. I’m not trying to show favor towards Castagnoli over Hero, but think about it logically. Castagnoli has more the WWE look than Hero. Not that he’s much bigger, but he IS a lot more cut than Hero. And it’d be a travesty, I say, for them to go to the WWE. They would never really be the same again after that. But it would be cool to see them with the tag titles or see one of them win like the IC or US title. That’d be another point for the “indie guys” or “internet darlings” or whatever the hell you want to call them.
You know, maybe this is a but hypocritical of me to call them underrated like this, but it’s what I feel. As much as I don’t want them to go to the ‘E, I feel they’re underrated because they haven’t already been picked up by them. But if you were to take a look at the American indie scene, they’d be right at just right. Both guys have incredible chemistry together. Not only that, but they’re both more than capable of having some epic matches with people. And on top of all that, they both have the “it” factor. I’ve seen them live and I can tell you that they really know how to work the crowd to give their undivided attention. I think the night I saw them the only other person who was better than them on the mic was Kevin Steen. Then again, Steen didn’t have a mic mid match as he was telling people in the crowd to go fuck themselves or some other wacky shit. KOW are THE premier tag team in wrestling right now. And they should be on national television. Hell, I wouldn’t mind them getting a permanent gig in TNA to wrestle MCMG or Beer Money every damn week. I’m no fan of repetition like that, but I’m sure there would always be something different each time to make it more enjoyable. But, yeah, that’s my verdict and I stick by it no matter what. These guys are vastly underrated because they have not gotten national attention. I mean, once they do and they fail, well…the tune changes to overrated. Kinda fickle, but it’s my column and my opinion.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So there you have it. I think this was the worst of the three parts. I just didn’t have the time to dedicate my full attention to it all. I mean with my birthday and also taking classes for BSIS and also studying for this test and that test ON TOP of writing and re-writing my resume to sell my IT skills to some company looking to higher…it’s been bad. The only good was that my wife had all last week and half of this week off so we got to spend some much needed time together. Anyhow, yeah, so shitty column this week, but next week it’ll be the new hybrid and I’m looking forward to writing that. See you all next week and remember…wait, no. No party hard this week. Instead, I introduce to you The Dancing Weston.
