411’s Buy or Sell 08.20.11: Ring of Honor TV taping, PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles, More!

Welcome everyone to Week 222 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.

Steve Cook: SELL – I get that having to do stuff over & over again was probably annoying for the live crowd, but it makes things easier for the folks in post-production. They’re going to have enough of a hard time adjusting to this new TV format anyway without adding more work to it, and if we’re being honest, production has never been ROH’s strong point. One would assume that eventually they won’t be taping stuff five weeks in advance and will have quicker turnaround times, so maybe it’s for the best to do it this way so they don’t just say “oh, we’ll fix that later” all the time. And hopefully they’ll get better at the live to tape thing the more they do it.

Greg DeMarco: BUY – I want to think this happened out of necessity and wasn’t just a poor decision. But I can’t imagine how it was a necessity. You’ve got plenty of time to spend on post-production. Not to mention the fact that the downtime killed the crowd at times. As I stated in this week’s Wrestling 5&1, ROH should’ve kept the Friday event in Dayton and used it as a dry-run/dress rehearsal. They could have taped some stock footage and content to put out on the soon-to-be-new website. Sounds like that would have been a win/win to me.

0 for 1.

Greg DeMarco: SELL – Everywhere I turn, someone is blasting this decision. The ROH message board, Facebook, my own podcast! I don’t get it. Sure, El Generico was a deserving champion—but the main event scene needs him! I don’t like hearing the possibility that it was put on Lethal because he’s a “name.” It’s a silly reason to do that. It doesn’t matter anyways. Why? Because the ROH World Television Championship is a joke. It was mishandled from the start, and putting it on Lethal is fine with me—gives it a fresh start and allows El Generico to fill a much needed void at the top of the card.

Steve Cook: BUY – I don’t really have a good answer for this from a “smart wrestling fan” perspective, as it’s not clear to me if who the TV Champion is matters, but when I heard about this move I automatically assumed that they did it because they think Jay Lethal has more name value than El Generico because he’s been on TNA TV for years. If that’s a sign of how ROH is going to make decisions from here on out, it’s a very bad sign. We’ve seen enough wrestling promotions make decisions based on who was more popular elsewhere. Generico is tremendously popular with ROH fans and people would have been interested in his title matches. While Jay Lethal has a strong ROH past and has done some good things there, I don’t think he was ever as over as Generico has been. Add in the fact that Generico had just won the title at the last show, and it’s just a bad move all the way around.

0 for 2.

Steve Cook: BUY – Who is in ROH’s main event scene? We got Davey Richards as champion. OK. Your main challengers are probably Eddie Edwards & Roderick Strong. That’s fine from a wrestling perspective. But who among these guys is going to cut a main event promo? There are plenty of great wrestlers on ROH’s roster, but not many of them seem to be in the main event scene. Move guys like Kevin Steen, Jimmy Jacobs & El Generico into the main event scene, and then we’ll talk.

Greg DeMarco: BUY – The best example I have is the announcement that Eddie Edwards is facing Roderick Strong at the Death Before Dishonor iPPV. Once this announcement was made, it was immediately apparent that no one was left as a credible challenger for Davey Richards. The roster is talented. Talented but thin. It won’t take much to bolster it, though. There are four names that should be added now that would make all the difference in the world: Joey Ryan, The Young Bucks and Scorpio Sky. It just so happens that all four had WWE tryouts on Monday in San Diego. Ryan can be a main event level heel, The Young Bucks are perfect for the tag team division, and Sky is a much overlooked talent that fits perfectly in the mid-card.

1 for 3.

Greg DeMarco: BUY – I sincerely hope they taped a hell of a lot of content backstage in Chicago. There’s one month before the iPPV airs, and we now know that the World Champion (Davey Richards) will not be there—he’ll be in Japan. But that’s a topic for another week. ROH will rely solely on its website to promote this event. No cards in between to create a buzz, no TV product yet to get the word out. These events carry a very low break-even point, which is good. I see the buyrate dropping a little for this event.

Steve Cook: SELL – This is how Ring of Honor has been building their shows for nine years now. Announcements in the ROH NewsWire hyping the upcoming matches. ROH fans know where to find it, and they’ll know when the show’s going to be. It probably won’t be the biggest show ever, but it’ll do well enough by ROH standards.

1 for 4.

Steve Cook: BUY – As long as Gabe can build some good talent in these promotions, and assuming Sinclair Broadcasting has the money to sign people away, that’s exactly what they will do, and exactly what they should do. They’re going to need to get talent from somewhere because it certainly seems like some folks will be leaving, and those promotions are as good a place as any to find talent.

Greg DeMarco: BUY – This is a buy as long as TNA doesn’t scoop all of them up first! Tony Nese, Shiima Xion and Austin Aries were no-brainers for me, but they all signed with TNA. Johnny Gargano, Rich Swann & Chuck Taylor are perfect fits for ROH. Arik Cannon and Sami Callahan could have an impact on the undercard. I think we will see a few jump ship as the ROH schedule picks up in 2012.

2 for 5.

Greg DeMarco: BUY – Steen is on the ultimate hot streak in the indys right now. He’s getting over at the viral level, which means people are watching his every move. He’s wrestles multiple matches on each of his last few PWG events, and he is the new PWG World Champion. Thnaks to his angle in ROH, he’s a wanted property. PWG changed the winner’s stipulation for BOLA from a title shot to “any match” of their choosing. That better opens the door for the current World Champ to win.

Steve Cook: SELL – Kevin Steen’s been on quite the roll lately, but I think that roll ends in the first round of this tournament. Why? Because he’s wrestling Finlay, and I don’t see that mean motor scooter losing in the first round. I think Buggy has a better chance of beating Terra Calaway than Kevin Steen does beating Finlay. Of course Buggy has no chance of beating Terradactyl…so there you go.

2 for 6.

Steve Cook: BUY – It’s always nice to have a star in your midst that you have access to whenever you want. This is something that PWG’s struggled with in the past, as they’ve built people up only to have their time dominated by other promotions. While PWG has consistently been a strong product, one wonders if they’d be even stronger if their main stars were considered “PWG guys”. If Willie Mack defeated Chris Hero, El Generico/Claudio Castagnoli & somebody on the other side of that bracket all in the same night, it’d make him. He’s already tremendously popular with the West Coast fans, but that’d definitely put him over the top.

Greg DeMarco: SELL – I’ve predicted that Willie Mack loses to Kevin Steen in the finals, as I do think this event will be used to elevate him as far up the roster as they can. Bu it don’t think the company is best off having him win it. Kevin Steen is on fire, but in the ring and in the mic. The possibility of him holding the chance to book any match he wants is too good to pass on. So while I think Willie Mack gets heavily elevated at this show, it’s Steen who walks out the winner.

2 for 7.

Greg DeMarco: SELL – It’s too hard to say that. Being a one night 8-man tournament, I have no doubts it will be a great show. But it can easily fall short of the other cards simply because of lack of the opening rounds. Past BOLA’s have been 2 or even 3 nights, giving them a more “epic” feel. However, going to a one night format pretty much guarantees a hot crowd, not one that gets worn out over time. I can’t say it will be the best yet, but I also can’t say it won’t.

Steve Cook: SELL – I get where people are coming from when they say that less people will sift out some of the riff-raff, and all the matchups look pretty great on paper. But I love the multi-night tournaments with lots of people involved that we don’t always see in PWG, and I was always a huge fan of the Night 2 multi-man tag team match featuring the losers from Night 1. I dunno, I think they’re losing a lot of what makes the BOLA special by cutting the event in half and having less people involved.

3 for 8.

Thanks to Steve Cook for joining me in Buy or Sell this week! We went an entertaining 3 for 8. Be sure to share your answers to this week’s questions in the comments section.

Patrick O’Dowd and I had another great edition of The Greg DeMarco Show this week. Due to a phone issue, Ryan “Skid Marks” Howe couldn’t make the show. But he stayed in constant contact (just not on the phone) and is confirmed to be on next week’s program. To say we made due is an understatement. 411’s own Ari Berenstein filled the void in a big way, sticking around for over 30-minutes to breakdown the ROH tapings. As Michael Ornelas also had to miss the program, his arch nemesis Tony Acero appeared in his place, and issued the challenge of all challenges to Ornelas—battle rap! Justin Freemyer joined the list of people who couldn’t make it, but Buggy Nova & Terra Calaway both filled that nicely—by talking trash for their showdown on Sunday. Of course you know that Steve Cook and I had to defend our ladies! All in all another in what I consider to be a long line of great shows. I highly recommend it—and that’s an objective opinion!

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