411’s Buy or Sell 09.28.07: Chuck Taylor, PWG in Japan, the Ted Petty Invitational Tournament, and more!

Bayani Domingo : BUY. To me Chris Hero would have made a better “heel” champion than Morishima for the fact that at least the booking would have been more believable against the top competitors. This isn’t to say that Morishima has necessarily done a bad job or has been booked poorly as a champion, but rather at this point you have to question who the heck is finally going to take him down? So far Morishima has gone through absolutely everyone on the roster and has beaten pretty much every top guy in RoH. After he went over Nigel in their feud the thinking was that Danielson was going to be the only guy who could beat him and you ended up with “lame duck contenders” in Claudio, Delirious, Albright, etc. as a result. Basically instead of feeling like either guy had a really good chance of toppling the Jolly Yellow Giant you ended up with token Title matches. I don’t think that would have happened with Hero as a champion.

If you wanted to get over a heel and not necessarily a “monster heel” then I believe Hero would have been your best choice. While creating an unstoppable, unbeatable, and “un-seeable” champion may work for some Sports Entertainment companies, I really feel competitive balance is what makes for a more engaging product. Right now Chris Hero has the in-ring ability as well as the mic skills to get over as a top heel, even as THE top heel. Considering Hero’s one big accomplishment was the excellent, but short, reign of the Kings of Wrestling, one would think that he hasn’t been really booked to his full potential yet. Hell, even an implausible reunion with Double C to take out the Briscoes would be a step up from hangin’ with Bobby Dempsey.

Samuel Berman : BUY . Most ROH Roundtable readers know that this is one of my biggest issues with ROH booking over the last two years. Chris Hero, who was probably the Independent star to establish for himself the highest national profile before coming to Ring of Honor, continues to be one of the most talented performers both in and out of the ring in all of wrestling, yet for whatever reason toils near the bottom or ROH’s mid-card. Hero, who STILL has yet to notch a defining singles victory in his Ring of Honor tenure, should be doing exactly what Bayani proposed: torturing Ring of Honor’s top babyfaces by holding the ROH World Title hostage and outwitting opponents at every turn. And I’m not even opposed to having Sweet ‘N Sour, Inc. remain intact while he does so, as nearly every segment with the group has been hilarious and entertaining thus far. Honestly, whether Hero is leading a newfangled version of Raven’s Flock or going it alone as a cocky self-promoter, he could be doing so much more than he is now.

1 for 1.

Bayani Domingo : BUY . CIMA won BoLA, which says a lot of the PWG 6’s relationship with Dragon Gate, and with the popularity of Dragon Gate in PWG and with their fans it makes a natural fit that at some point PWG would do a short tour of the “land of the rising sun”. RoH managed to work out a deal with both NOAH and Dragon Gate, so I wouldn’t see what would stop PWG from doing the same. Look at how many PWG regulars or at least semi-regulars have already wrestled in Dragon Gate: El Generico, Kevin Steen, PAC, Roderick Strong, Austin Aries, Jack Evans, and the retired Chris Bosh. That is not to mention other PWG regulars that could probably become crowd favorites, at least for a week, in Dragon Gate if given the chance. Clearly RoH figured out some deal with DG in order to split the costs and profits from the show and DVD and if PWG can finance a trip to Europe, I don’t see how Japan could be that much more expensive. I think that CIMA’s win in BoLA coupled with the popularity of many PWG regulars, and the growing awareness of the product in Japan is foreshadowing a tour within the next year. If so, I’m definitely looking forward to the Super Dragon vs Dragon Kid vs American Dragon vs Darkness Dragon, Dragon 4-way match. Or maybe Joey Ryan joining Tozawa-Juku, provided he gets to keep his head band. To-Za-Wa!!

Samuel Berman : BUY . Bayani put his response together well, and there’s little I can add to this one outside of adding my own support of the idea. PWG is a growing and improving part of the U.S. Independent scene, and with one successful tour of Europe already in the books and another just around the bend, it seems like a natural part of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s evolution that the company will eventually make its way to Japan as well.

2 for 2.

Bayani Domingo : SELL . If anything this should help PWG get a bit more publicity, especially if some of their wrestlers start showing up more on the RoH shows. Guys like Steen-Erico, Davey Richards, and even Candice LaRae are all PWG guys who are doing fairly well in RoH and if more PWG regulars or semi-regulars are booked on shows then perhaps that will entice fans to start buying more PWG DVDs in order to find out more about those wrestlers. One would hope that a West Coast presence from RoH would results in more bookings for local talent, but I guess you never know. Right now I wouldn’t imagine that RoH would book more than 2 or 3 shows per year on the West Coast and since PWG and RoH never run on the same night usually I don’t see this being a problem from a talent booking stand point or a “burn out” factor.

Besides, if there is one thing I’m certain of is that Indy fans will watch as much GOOD Indy wrestling as they possibly can get their grubby little, Cheetos stained hands on. Besides, most PWG fans are well aware of RoH and have either decided they like PWG more than the East Coast product due to the subtle differences in booking, wrestlers, and overall feel, or they just shell out money for both products. Remember, this is Indy wrestling, where normal laws of economics don’t apply. No one chooses which wrestling company they’ll spend their money and which they won’t, they just choose not to buy gas or deodorant. Tough choices call for tough decisions.

Samuel Berman : BUY . There are parts of Bayani’s reasoning that make sense to me: wrestling fans tend to figure out ways to watch all the companies they want, talent exchanges (or in this case, further overlaps) would be good for both companies, ROH wouldn’t be running a ton of shows on the West Coast anyway, etc. However, I think that the key idea in the question was PWG’s audience has thus-far been a captive one, separated by an extreme distance from getting involved in the live Ring of Honor product. PWG provided a high-quality alternative to ROH for wrestling fans in Southern California, and had the added advantage of giving them the opportunity to attend shows live monthly, if not more often. Diehard PWG fans are used to spending money almost monthly to attend a live event, something ROH fans in many markets do only once every 6-8 weeks or so (if not less often). Will PWG suffer if a segment of its fanbase chooses to spend that money to see Ring of Honor instead? I don’t see how the answer could be anything but no. I sincerely hope that ROH running shows on the West Coast will have nothing but a positive effect on business for PWG, but I just don’t think it’ll end up being the case.

2 for 3.

SWITCH~!

Samuel Berman : BUY . Trust me, I wish I could say ‘sell’ here, but I just can’t. Considering the field at one point included Low Ki, Samoa Joe, Alex Shelley, El Generico, B-Boy and Matt Sydal, it’s pretty much impossible to not sell the current lineup as a disappointment by comparison. Now, I do not mean that to say that I think the tournament will be bad, because I don’t. There’s still plenty of great first round matches (Jimmy Jacobs vs. Chuck Taylor, Claudio Castagnoli vs. Nigel McGuinness, Mike Quackenbush vs. Billy Roc, etc.) and a lot of big names left. Unfortunately, when the tournament includes names like Dysfunction, Tank, and CJ Otis instead of Low Ki, Samoa Joe, and Alex Shelley, you’ve taken a step backwards and a big one at that. I don’t mean that as a knock on the former names, but rather as respect to the list of talented guys who have been forced to pull out of the event.

Bayani Domingo : BUY . How could you forget “Tornado” Tony Kozina?? Sammy hit the nail on the head here. The tournament itself will still be pretty good, but considering that a lot of the top name talent has been pulled the tournament is going to have to blow a lot of people away and get great word of mouth to be as successful as it has in previous years. I’m sure a few less tickets will be sold as well as a few less DVDs due to the TNA talent pull out alone. The problem is that the TPI was in serious danger of having BoLA overtake it as THE indy tournament of the year and now with this year’s BoLA’s good reviews and TNA not wanting to do business with Ian (at least for now) this kind of unofficially made the IWA:MS give up the crown before they were ready to. For how long the TPI has been publicizing their roster of competitors in advance this just has to be considered a major disappointment from a talent perspective alone. But of course that’s just the names, not the talent, I guess we’ll find out soon enough though how well CJ Otis and Drake Younger can make people forget about Joe vs. Ki.

3 for 4.

Samuel Berman : BUY . Though Jigsaw wouldn’t have been my first choice (I would have gone with Eddie Kingston), I actually think he’s a great fit in the group. Adding Kingston would have turned the Vulture Squad into ROH’s version of the BLKOUT, which isn’t necessarily the direction the group needs to go. Evans, Ruckus, and Jigsaw are all smaller, slimmer guys who have reputations of being able to hang with larger, bruising competitors. Jigsaw has been portrayed as something of a fill-in and a jobber since coming to ROH, a role that doesn’t fit him given his success and profile in CHIKARA. Ideally joining up with Evans and Ruckus will help to change that perception, giving ROH another reliable in-ring performer.

Bayani Domingo : SELL . Silly Sammy, how the hell does Jigsaw even fit in with the rest of the crew? Basically this was shaping up to be the “Nation of Spot-ination” but somehow took a detour. Jack and Ruckus make sense and certainly Julius Smokes as the mouth piece works, but Jigsaw? Don’t get me wrong, I think the CHIKARA guys could work into RoH quite well and Jigsaw is one of them, however this is a big disappointment considering most people had Kingston pegged as the 4th member. I don’t see how you can take this stable serious considering they’ll be facing the NRC, Hangman 3, AotF, and the Resilience who all have at least one big brawler in the fold. This stable is now sorely lacking some muscle or an “ace in the hole” if you will. These guys are all aerial spot artists and while that seems like a cool enough concept, if you really think they have anything more in common than that then you are surely mistaken. What ever happened to stables have a uniform theme or gimmick, like Special K or Prophecy? You go from 3 Hip-Hop centric characters to a mute masked wrestler. I guess that means El Generico will be joining BLK OUT soon. Hell, even Gran Akuma would have made more sense if you want get a CHIKARA guy over, but Jigsaw just seems odd. I guess Gabe didn’t have any confidence in letting a CHIKARA stable run on its own which is sad because Quack, Hallowicked, and Jigsaw would have made a fine stable on their own. Oh well, I won’t totally damn the choice of Jigsaw as the 4th member until I see some results but right now I am a bit disappointed, maybe they’ll change the enigmatic masked man’s finisher name to something more appropriate now that he’s running with this crew, maybe the Jig ‘n Juice. With his mind on his money, and his money on his mind.

3 for 5.

Samuel Berman : BUY . Looking at the field, the following seem like legitimate threats to win the tournament in my eyes: Chris Hero, Mike Quackenbush, Claudio Castagnoli, Davey Richards, Brent Albright, and Chuck Taylor with the two dark horses are probably Jimmy Jacobs and Joker. Breaking them down that way, the only full-time Mid-South performer in that bunch is Taylor, who has the extra incentive of having to defend his IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Title throughout the tournament. Now, I know that when last that was the case (Petey Williams in the 2004 event), the champion barely made it out of the first round, but Taylor has the advantage of being the one legitimate player in the field to be generally associated with Mid-South (rather than Ring of Honor or some other company). I think Ian Rotten understands the special kind of talent he has in Taylor, and will use this as an opportunity to give him a quartet of quality wins to further put him over as the top dog in the company. Can you imagine if Taylor ran through names like Jacobs, Hero, Castagnoli and then Richards and Albright in the finals to win the tournament. That run would end up being borderline legendary in Independent tournament history.

Bayani Domingo : BUY . He is the odds-on favorite to win this year’s TPI, but that doesn’t mean he will. I actually think that having him win would be pointless as he has CLEARLY been pegged as THE star of the IWA. He’s held every title they have, almost simultaneously at one point. Or are we counting that Women’s Title win still? Chuck is cemented as the top guy right now in that company and having him win the tournament won’t do any more for him than simply adding another unnecessary accolade. While that doesn’t mean he won’t win. I just don’t think a TPI win would do nearly as much for him as someone else. Besides, didn’t Danny Daniels already pull that same shtick years ago when he won the tournament while retaining the title the whole way through? While Chucky is definitely the favorite in the tourney, I would hope Ian wouldn’t give him the Superman push and risk over exposing him. Besides, it’s not like he can’t get knocked off and still hold on to the belt through one nefarious means or another right?

4 for 6!

The twenty-fourth edition of BUY or SELL finishes at 4 for 6. Stay tuned for next week when two new men will go head to head with a whole new set of topics.