411’s Buy or Sell 08.10.07: Chris Hero as ROH World Champion, Eddie Kingston, California vs. Japan, and more!

Stuart Carapola: SELL. My initial gut reaction is that yes, these guys are wrestling each other on like every show, but the truth of the matter is that after that first match on the Fifth Anniversary Festival, they were kept apart for months before finally getting in the ring with one another. That first match was very good, and if it’s any kind of indicator of the rest of the series, then I expect they’ve all been pretty good matches as well, otherwise the series would have probably been killed by now. Another thing to think about is that it took two guys (Steen and Generico) who weren’t even in ROH at the beginning of the year, and not only legitimized them, but made them believable ass kickers, which is a mind-boggling thought when you consider that they were booked as jobbers when they were last in ROH about two years ago. I think they do have to be careful of not running too many more matches between the two teams, but as for now it’s helping Steen and Generico by turning them into major badasses and making the Briscoes look even better by consistently beating those badasses.

Samuel Berman : SELL . See, I’m a big fan of the old school, constant, town-to-town feuds where guys fight night in and night out. Like Stu said, Steen & Generico have been completely legitimized by this feud, which is a testament to both their work and the Briscoes’ talent. As strange as it may sound, Mark’s injury in March might have been the best thing that could have happened for this feud specifically, as working over his injured head was a major part of getting Steen & Generico over as vicious killers in the ring. That said, please don’t think that I’m glad Mark got hurt or anything, just that he and Ring of Honor were able to turn an obvious tragedy into something that was helpful to a bunch of different people. Don’t think that Mark and Jay haven’t been helped by this feud, too. Steen & Generico have helped to push the Briscoes to continue their excellent run in the ring this year, something that might not have happened on the same level had they not had a constant foil to work with over the last few months.

1 for 1.

Stuart Carapola : BUY . I’ve been looking forward to getting asked this for a while now. Matt Cross is in no way ready to be anywhere near an ROH ring. Sure, he’s getting booked as a total jobber, but there’s so much more to it than that. First of all, no matter how jacked the guy is, he’s a midget even by ROH standards. He blows nearly every move he tries, and the one move he’s even halfway decent at, that stupid bounce off the ropes, is totally overdone thanks to Cross doing it every match. It was cool at first, but stopped being cool once I knew to look for it after like his third ROH match. Now that I’ve seen it about 50 times, I can call it before he even looks in his opponent’s direction. I just can’t take the guy seriously as any kind of threat to the No Remorse Corps or anyone else. Yeah, I know he looked good in WSX, but post-production and retakes have a way of covering up if you’re a guy who hits one out of every 15 spots properly. I know there have been guys in the past who were hard to take seriously at first and later developed such as Jack Evans, but even now years later all of Jack’s offense looks totally contrived and difficult to accept as truly damaging. I don’t see things going any differently for Cross, who doesn’t even have 1/10th the charisma Evans has.

Samuel Berman : SELL . Stu and I couldn’t be farther apart on this one. Cross is a good performer with tons of potential to grow. Though he’s not on Jack Evans’ level right now, he’s certainly as good as Evans was three years ago, when Evans was already getting regular bookings in Ring of Honor. I think that if Cross was booked more competitively in singles contests that the idea of him as a pure spot artist would quickly disappear. I refer anyone who disagrees to his excellent work for UWA Hardcore, where he’s one of the company’s featured singles competitors. Just because ROH hasn’t booked him to look effective doesn’t mean that he’s not ready to be a part of the company.

1 for 2.

Stuart Carapola : BUY . The first thing I’d like to make clear is that you don’t HAVE to work for WWE to make a decent living in this business. No, you’re not going to live as well as you would, but you can still live comfortably, especially for a guy with the reputation of Claudio. In terms of his career in ROH, I have to be honest, at the beginning of the year, I really felt like Claudio was totally stuck in limbo as he had planned to go to WWE and had given ROH notice, but it didn’t pan out and ROH had no plan for him since they expected him to leave, and he was just left floating around doing jobs for a while. Now, though, he really seems to be coming into his own as a singles performer, and while I think we all expected Chris Hero to be the breakout member of the Kings Of Wrestling in 2007, he’s been mired in the midcard with his goofball sidekicks while Claudio has changed his look, added a bunch of new stuff to his repertoire, and come out with even more charisma than he’s shown to this point. I really think the match with the Briscoes at Respect Is Earned was a big breakout point for him, as he really showed how good he is, and ROH has shown confidence in him by making him the winner of the Race To The Top Tournament and giving him a main event against Morishima. He’s a way bigger deal in ROH than he probably ever would have been in WWE, and if he does end up making a living on the indies and maybe internationally for the foreseeable future, I think the exposure is a lot more valuable than a year in Louisville would be.

Samuel Berman : BUY . When I was at the most recent ROH show in Chicago, I was sitting with fellow 411 writers Brad Garoon and Jacob Ziegler. During Claudio’s match on that card, Brad noted that the less Claudio did his European Uppercuts, the more over they got. In that simple statement, Brad may have captured the quantum leap that Claudio has taken as a performer over the past eight months. Claudio has upped his game immensely since his WWE deal went sour, developing into one of the top names in all of Independent wrestling. Claudio has been a part of the NWA World Heavyweight Title Tournament, has won ROH’s Race to the Top Tournament and will soon take part in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Battle of Los Angeles Tournament. Though he might have made more money and had a shot at a higher profile if his WWE deal had continued, Claudio would just as likely have been mired in the company’s developmental system (see also: Cabana, Colt), left to be re-educated in the WWE style. As it is now, Claudio is one of the marquee players in a constantly growing Ring of Honor, and has been in on the ‘ground floor’ for the ROH’s Pay-Per-View era.

2 for 3.

SWITCH~!

Samuel Berman : SELL . Although I’m closer to buying this than I’d like. Outside of his love for Japanese wrestlers, Gabe Sapolsky has always seemed at the very least hesitant to put over talent that isn’t ‘home grown’ in ROH. That’s not to say he won’t give wins to ‘outsiders’, but as for having them hold the company’s top belt, that’s another issue. All that said, Chris Hero remains one of the top talents in all of Independent wrestling, even if he’s underutilized in Ring of Honor. I mean putting a guy with his microphone skills in a stable with a mouthpiece like Larry Sweeney seems counterproductive to me, but what do I know. Hero would be better used as a lone wolf in my opinion, but I’ve gotten somewhat off topic. Back to the crux of the matter, I refuse to buy Hero never winning the title, though I think it’s not particularly likely. It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen to the ROH main event scene in the future, and I think Hero, though not the top option at the moment, could end up being a major player for a long time in Ring of Honor. Barring them jobbing him out to Jason Blade repeatedly, there’s honestly nowhere for Hero’s stock to go but up, so why not take a flyer on him as a future ROH World Champion.

Stuart Carapola : SELL . I say this for different reasons than Sam, however. For one, I don’t see what he’s saying about Gabe not wanting to put over outside talent. One of the biggest complaints for a LONG time about the way ROH was booked was that if somebody was coming in from the outside (from Japan, TNA, legend, or whatever) you pretty much knew they were going to win. As great a match as it was, I don’t think anyone expected for a second that Joe was going to beat Kobashi or that Danielson was going to beat Liger. Even during the CZW war, the supposedly inferior CZW went over on the ROH guys time and time again. James Gibson was the ROH World Champion. I don’t see where there’s any evidence that Gabe won’t push homegrown guys. That said, I do think Hero’s got a shot at eventually getting the belt, especially since he’s now under contract to ROH. I had actually picked him to be the guy to take it from Homicide, though I will admit that Morishima was the better choice. However, Morishima’s on loan from NOAH and won’t be around forever, and with Jimmy Rave gone, Hero would be a good choice to take a spot as a top heel/title contender. He’s got the following to draw as champion, and though I don’t know that I like him being stuck with Sweeney and company, I do think he’s somebody that the fans would accept as champion were they to give him the title and, much like with CM Punk and Homicide, Gabe’s just waiting for the right time to pull the trigger instead of blowing all his booking ideas in one month like some other promotions do.

3 for 4.

Samuel Berman : BUY . I think it’s actually a MUCH bigger deal. For the entire length of their existence, Ring of Honor has been limited to the East Coast and Midwest in terms of domestic markets. Opening the California market is a huge move for the company, signifying their ability to become a true national entity, rather than a glorified regional promotion, which they arguably have continued to be even through Pay-Per-View announcements and International debuts. Running a successful show in San Francisco potentially sets the stage for the company to debut in Los Angeles, as well as run shows in Florida in conjunction with next year’s Wrestlemania. This is all not to say that running shows in Japan (and the United Kingdom) isn’t a major accomplishment for Ring of Honor, just that opening up further domestic markets is a more crucial part of the company’s longterm success. Theoretically, Ring of Honor will be able to add San Francisco or Los Angeles into their regular touring rotation, while shows in Japan or the U.K. remain once-a-year options for the company.

Stuart Carapola : SELL . The key thing to look at here is exactly what kind of business ROH is trying to run. Yes, more markets are always better, but as far as I know, ROH is not trying to become a regular touring company. Their business is all about catering to the smart fans with specific tastes and a variety of styles, and I think that’s where Japan (and England) come into the picture, because that accomplishes two things: a)it makes ROH a bonafide INTERnational company, and b)develops relationships which lead to talent exchanges, such as the one that made Morishima the current ROH World Champion. As nice as it would be for ROH to be able to say that they run shows all over the country, doing it just for the sake of doing it is something they’re probably smarter than. The further from the Northeast that they run shows, the more of a strain it is on them logistically, and they just recently dropped Minnesota from their pool of markets for this very reason. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that running in California is a big deal for them (as will Florida if they run there on Wrestlemania weekend as expected), but in no way do I think that it’s a “bigger” deal than Japan.

3 for 5.

Samuel Berman : BUY . Big time buy from me here. Though he remains something of an unknown to much of the ROH audience, “The King of Diamonds” is one of the most underrated and seasoned performers currently available on the Independent scene. Though he is receiving a Do or Die shot on one of this weekend’s preshows, if it were up to me, Eddie Kingston would already be a part of the main ROH roster. Kingston works well both as a hard-nosed babyface or as a cocky, cheating heel, a duality that is sorely needed on the ROH roster. With heels like Matt Sydal and Roderick Strong struggling to find their voice, how about inserting “The Last of a Dying Breed” to inject a bit of old school rage and grit into the ROH heel scene. Long before Ring of Honor brings Deranged back into the fold, they should take a look at slotting Kingston into the upper mid-card for a feud with Nigel McGuinness or Chris Hero.

Stuart Carapola : SELL . I have to admit up front that I really don’t know anything about the guy. My entire exposure to him consists of what I saw live at Death Before Dishonor IV for the Cage Of Death match and, I have to say, I wasn’t very impressed. For as much of a big deal as everyone around me seemed to think it was, I didn’t think he did anything that really made him seem like a big deal, and I would have been more impressed if Zandig himself walked out. I know he has some kind of beef with Chris Hero, but other than that I though he looked like every other one of the homeless guys CZW sent over for the feud. Seriously, he looks like the guy I used to buy drugs from when I was a teenager. If he does make it to ROH full time and impresses me, I’ll gladly change my tune, but if I’m going by what I saw in Cage Of Death, I’ll take Deranged over him any day.

3 for 6!

The seventeenth 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.