The 8-Ball 09.27.12: Top 8 Overrated Performers

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the 8-Ball. As always, I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and we’re back again with another list that can’t miss.

This week, we take a look at some individuals who dot the face of today’s professional wrestling landscape that I consider to be overrated.

I realize that there are a few different ways that the word “overrated” can be interpreted. Sometimes, when people use the word “overrated” in regards to performers within wrestling, they mean an individual who is pushed more heavily by the promotion he performs for than his talent level justifies. However, I’m not basing my list on that definition. I’m here to talk about performers who are overrated by professional wrestling fans, i.e. performerrs who are held in higher esteem by certain groups of wrestling fans than I think they deserve to be.

I should stress that, just because I refer to somebody as “overrated,” it does not meant that I think he is a bad performer. To the contrary, the majority of people on this list (but admittedly not all of them) are performers who I enjoy watching. However, my enjoying them does not necessarily mean that I don’t think other fans think more highly of them than they realistically should.

So, without further ado, here is a column that I hope results online in a minimal number of death threats . . .

And here is the key example of what I mean when I say that there are some performers that I simultaneously enjoy watching and think are overrated. Dolph Ziggler is one of the more fun young wrestlers to watch in WWE these days, and he’s had some great matches against the likes of Daniel Bryan, Kofi Kingston, and Sheamus. However, there are people who are really getting behind Ziggler and treating him as though he is to modern professional wrestling what Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malekno, or Chris Benoit were fifteen years ago. He’s not on that level. Ziggler is good compared to what the majority of the WWE roster has to offer these days, but he’s not as good as top level in ring performers were a generation ago, despite some current assertions to the contrary. He is not nearly as smooth as those elite performers of the past, as indicated by the persistent presence of some quite awkward sequences and outright missed spots in recent matches against veteran performers Randy Orton and Chris Jericho. Ziggler is good, but people need to realize he’s still got a decent amount of room for improvement.

Though her popularity seems to have waned somewhat in recent months, about a year or so ago, it seemed like you couldn’t talk to a fan of women’s professional wrestling without said fan drooling all over Kana, a freelance graphic designer who spends her weekends moonlighting as a professional wrestler. Again, Kana is good at what she does, for the most part. However, there are many joshi fans who treat her as a goddess who can do no wrong, when nothing could be further from the truth. Kana has been rightfully criticized by the minority of fans for working too stiff with opponents, and, perhaps even more importantly than that, she seems to have a very difficult time selling her opponents’ offense in a logical manner. Granted, a certain amount of “fighting spirit” and popping up from big moves is to be expected as part of traditional joshi style, but selling is still necessary in the early and middle portions of the match in order to build some degree of drama, and Kana just can’t figure out how to do that properly.

Matt Striker is no longer providing color commentary on WWE pay per views or even Friday Night Smackdown, and I’m glad that it’s come to that. I do still have to put up with Striker from time-to-time, though, specifically when watching some of WWE’s b-level content and original programming for WWE Classics on Demand. This is the first example on the list of somebody who many wrestling fans love but I absolutely cannot stand. Why can’t I stand Matt Striker? There are two reasons, really. The first is that there are numerous “facts” that he spews out during commentary which are ridiculous, blatant fabrications, to the point that it is impossible to listen to him without cringing at the inaccuracies every few minutes. The second is that he tries way too hard to get himself over with the “smart” wrestling audience, making cutesy little jokes and insider references that make it feel like I am being pandered to. I hate being pandered to. Really, there’s a certain contradiction between these two practices of Striker. Does he want to entertain smarks with obscure references or does he want to aggravate them with phony facts they will easily be able to see through? This is a man who deserved his demotion.

This is a phenomenon that I have complained about before in this column, but it’s continued, so I’m going to complain about it again. There are some people who consider themselves women’s professional wrestling fans and have decided that they are such big fans that they will accept any match involving two female competitors and consider it worth watching, even if it falls well below the standard of quality that would be expected from male performers. This phenomenon is on display no more fully than when it comes to these fans’ reactions to Kelly Kelly. When Kelly first appeared on the WWE roster and began having matches, she was perhaps one of the dirt worst wrestlers in the entire history of the game. (It wasn’t necessarily her fault, mind you, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t true.) Over time, she did improve. It would’ve been almost impossible for her not to have improved. Many fans overreacted to her improvement, though, beginning to talk about her as though she was an actual, competent professional wrestler. She is not. She’s better, but she remains below average when compared to anybody outside of the WWE Divas division, and some fans out there need to accept that fact.

I’m sorry, but I don’t get the appeal of the Young Bucks as a main event level tag team, even if it is on the independents. I really don’t. Part of it is because there are numerous indy tag teams over the course of the last decade who have been significantly better in terms of both in-ring performance and charisma, particularly the Briscoe Brothers, Kevin Steen & El Generico, and even Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team. Another part of it is that, as much as I hate to say it because it sounds like such a minor quibble, I absolutely cannot suspend my disbelief during the Bucks’ matches and pretend they’re kicking people’s asses, because they look like thirteen year old boys. There have been “pretty boy” tag teams in wrestling before, but the Jackson brothers put the word “boy” into that phrase far more than any other, and it hurts their appeal big time in my book. Yes, these two are probably the only entries on the list who could improve their standings just by growing a beard.

Once again, this is a good professional wrestler who has some fans that have taken their love of him entirely too far. Morishima is a perfectly acceptable heavyweight Japanese professional wrestler, and I wouldn’t even mind him in his current role as GHC Heavyweight Champion if it was for a brief run. Many people seem to be convinced that he is god’s gift to puroresu, though, and that’s an exaggeration. Morishima plays his role of a giant badass well up to a certain point, and I understand that it has caused some to compare him to the likes of Terry Gordy . . . but he’s no Gordy. There is something about Morishima’s performances that don’t put across the same level of danger as those of Gordy or other similar heavyweights. Though he hits hard and drops people on their heads, something about his persona is just off for the role he plays. Additionally, he has significantly less charisma than other top level performers on the Japanese scene these days, not holding a candle to names like Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryota Hama, or even his own roster-mate, Go Shiozaki.

I don’t necessarily think that people overrate Zack Ryder as an in-ring performer. I think that people significantly overrate Zack Ryder’s effectiveness as a character. Allow me to explain: I watch WWE television, but I watch virtually nothing that WWE produces exclusively for the internet, I can count on one hand the number of WWE wrestlers that I follow on Twitter, and I sure as hell am not looking up wrestlers’ social media contributions that aren’t officially endorsed by the company. Because of that, I have literally no clue what Zack Ryder’s appeal is. If you have exclusively watched this man on television, what he is supposed to be has never really been explained. He’s just been the guy with a couple of wacky catchphrases and stupid wigs on WWEshop.com who loses far more than he wins and who was consistently and severely embarrassed by Kane for the entire first quarter of 2012. Yes, I’ve been told this guy makes some good jokes on the internet, but he has done absolutely zero to appeal to those of us (i.e. the vast majority of fans) who solely follow WWE through its televised product.

I almost didn’t put Kevin Steen on this list, because there has been a sad trend over the last several years in which Ring of Honor fans clamor for a particular wrestler to win the company’s top championship only to immediately turn on him once he actually captures the strap. I didn’t want to feed that monster, but the fact of the matter is that I simply cannot stand Kevin Steen as Ring of Honor World Heavyweight Champion, even though he has been able to keep far more of the promotion’s fanbase on his side than the Tyler Blacks, Nigel McGuinnesses, and Davey Richardses who came before him and even though I enjoyed him in the roles that he had in the company before moving into championship contention.

Steen’s championship matches have not been the types of bouts that I want to see from Ring of Honor Title contests. They wouldn’t necessarily be bad in a different context, but they have primarily been insane hardcore brawls that many wrestlers on the independent scene are capable of carrying out as opposed to the technical or junior heavyweight masterpieces that only a handful of grapplers could put on, which have been the cornerstone of ROH’s main event scene since the promotion’s inception a decade ago. The other issue with Steen – and I hate to harp on cosmetics again – is his look. Much as I have a hard time suspending my disbelief during Young Bucks matches because they look young, I have a hard time suspending my disbelief during Kevin Steen matches in 2012 because his appearance has deteriorated to the point that he looks like . . . well . . . damn, there’s no good way to say this. He looks like me. Kevin Steen has the build of a pro wrestling fan, not a pro wrestler, and I know as somebody with a similar body that I am in no way, shape, or form an athlete or an ass kicker. Even if Ring of Honor wasn’t having massive technical and customer service issues that were turning me off from the promotion, Steen in their main events would still be doing the trick. At this point, they may as well make Mad Man Pondo their champion.

That’s it for this week’s 8-Ball. If you can’t get enough of Ryan, follow him on Twitter here.