411’s 2007 Year End Wrestling Awards: Part 3

This was so bad. They went for the parody deal, got all the footage from the Hollywood Insider shows and tried to make it into a mockery, but what happened was a shit storm of tremendously shitty jokes and a horrendous match. First we had “Rosey” arrive and meet with Vince. She ate a big ass ice cream cake that looked like a whale, and about stabbed Vince when he tried to get a bite. HAHAHA…she…is…fat…HAHAHA. Then “Rosey” visited the diva’s locker room. She showed Candace and Maria pictures and checked then out, and then dropped the pictures so she could check out Maria’s ass. HAHAHA…she…is…a…lesbian…HAHAHA. Oh the hilarity. We then saw “The Donald” getting approximately 19 cans of hair spray being put on. You see, he has wacky hair and it’s a joke…HAHAHA. Hilarity ensues. And then we go onto the, well, match. Vince got to come out and introduce them, he got to use the word lesbian in several forms, which probably got him off. So he announced them and we were off. Horrendous is the best word I can use here. “Rosey” played the fat powerful role, and “The Donald” had a tremendous hair butt. The only thing I can say here is that Ace Steele was hilarious as Trump, but this doesn’t mean I want to see this shit on my wrestling shows. “The Donald” won after an illegal cake shot, followed by a diving hair butt for the pin. This was so bad, I stopped watching for the night and let the tape run. During the match people chanted boring, TNA and possibly VKM. That never happens at a WWE show and is rather interesting considering to WWE, TNA doesn’t exist. This was a horrible “match,” and I am glad to have not seen anything this bad since. In closing I do feel that I have to mention that as bad as it was, it DID lead to a tremendously successful angle at WrestleMania, a WrestleMania that made as assload of money. But it doesn’t change the fact that this match was HORRIBLE!

Scott Slimmer: I don’t even know where to begin with this little slice of Hell. Let’s start with the fact that the two “wrestlers” were really two-bit actors who had no business ever stepping foot in a wrestling ring. Needless to say, the in-ring “action” was so incredibly horrible that it could later be used as a point of reference to make Kelly Kelly look like a decent wrestler. Next you have the fact that this was just Vince McMahon’s attempt to exploit a real-life feud that NOBODY cared about in the first place. Then there’s the whole issue of this being a comedy match that was in no way, shape, or form entertaining, humorous, or, you know, comedic. And finally, I think it’s worth noting that this match happened a full twelve months ago, and yet here we are still trying to find new ways to express just how fucktacular it was. Seriously, there are a lot of “bad” matches during the year that are short and sloppy and meaningless and thus usually easily forgotten. But it takes a special, unique kind of soul-sucking wretchedness to achieve the kind of badness that resonates just as strongly a full year later. The real problem here is that a match between the real Donald Trump and the real Rosie O’Donnell would have sucked monkey balls. But a match between a fake Trump and a fake Rosie, neither of whom could wrestle, and which made many of us question why the hell we even watch professional wrestling? Worst… Match… of the Year.

Honorable Mentions: Julius Smokes (ROH – 9), Matt Striker (WWE ECW – 19), Kevin Nash (TNA – 3)

3rd Place: Karen Angle (TNA) – 35 points To be a good manager, people have to actually care when you open your mouth. This is not something that happens when Karen Angle opens her mouth, thus…

2nd Place: Runjin Sighn [David Kapoor] (Khali’s Interpreter) (WWE) – 37 points – Much like Khali, I won’t be too harsh here. He happens to be likely the only guy on the road to speak Indian, and when you’re thrown out there with the man voted 2nd for worst wrestler of the year, this probably comes as a surprise to no one.

And your winner is…:

Larry Csonka: When I first saw this category I had a few names run through my head. But in the end, when you really think about it Christy Hemme is rather horrible, and yeah, you could say the worst. She had one of the year’s worst promos when she cried for her freedom as a woman and sighted Chyna as an inspiration, and one of the worst matches of the year with the Big Fat Naked Oily Guy. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! From there she moved onto managing Lance Hoyt and Jimmy Rave. The Rock and Rave Infection. They are a job team that aren’t going anywhere in TNA. She cuts horrendous promos and as in TNA, THEY CAN’T GET ALONG. One week they portray her as a chick that is crazy, the next week fine. One week she is a valet, the next week she can actually wrestle. Her character has no direction, is all over the place and her five-head adds nothing to her team or the promotion as a whole. She sucks in more ways than one.

Scott Slimmer: Let’s take a minute here a do a little brainstorming exercise. What are the roles of a good wrestling manager? To provide a mouthpiece for a star that might struggle on the mic? Sure. To use his or her charisma to help a less confident star gain acceptance with the fans? Absolutely. To lend some veteran credibility to an up-and-coming youngster? Damn straight. Bottom line? The role of a good manager is to get talent over and keep talent over. And that’s the basic problem with using Christy Hemme as a manager. Her gimmick… or lack thereof… is so trite and grating that whoever she manages instantly becomes less watchable. Her voice makes some of Stephanie McMahon’s more infamous screeching sound utterly harmonious by comparison, so she’s useless as a mouthpiece. She’s less charismatic than Bob Backlund, so she’s… wait, let’s reiterate that last point. She’s LESS CHARISMATIC than BOB BACKLUND. Just let that one sink in for a minute. Oh, and veteran credibility? Yeah, I’ve only got two words for ya… Diva Search. Basically, you know a manager sucks when she inadvertently makes her team’s opponents look good. But you know a manager is the Worst Manager of the Year when that other team is the freaking Voodoo Kin Mafia.

Matthew Sforcina: I like Christy Hemme. She’s hot, seems to have a great work ethic, and despite many people’s claims and her start in the business she seems to really like the business and want to succeed. All admirable qualities. But she still is a terrible, terrible manager. Sure, her storylines have sucked, her clients woeful and all the standard rules about TNA apply, but still, she’s just so, so wrong for that role. True, many good managers would find it hard to get anything good out of a guy who’s yet to show any real individuality OR real upside and another guy who’s really still over from just one joke (CROWN JEWEL!), but Christy’s…. just woeful performances have given her this title. Sorry babe, maybe the new year will see your fortunes improve.

Ryan Byers: If Jimmy is the “Rave” and Lance is the “Rock,” I guess that leaves Christy Hemme as the “Infection.” That role certainly fits, because I’ve had infections that are just as painful as watching Christy Hemme manage her charges in 2007. Christy kicked off the year with an infamous promo on the Voodoo Kin Mafia in which she name dropped Joanie “Chyna” Laurer and attempted to stand up for women in wrestling. I personally love women’s wrestling and consider myself to be a feminist, but even I wanted Hemme to shut up during that interview segment. It was that bad. After that failure on the microphone, what does TNA decide to do? They decide to make Christy in to a manager full time! This was completely counterproductive, given that the entire point of a manager is to work the microphone for individuals who can’t do it on their own. Anyway, Hemme embarked on a feud with VKM and brought in a series of teams to defeat them, including the men formerly known as the Heart Throbs in WWE and Serotonin, who for one night only decided to forget that they already had a manager. It looked like Christy finally had a full-time team when the former Basham brothers showed up at her side, but they quickly started no-showing dates and left Hemme all alone with Lance Hoyt, who had turned on VKM to join up with everybody’s least favorite redhead. Hoyt and Hemme were a disturbing pair, as they engaged in on-camera makeout scenes so violent that I could’ve sworn all of the grinding was going to leave one of them with a fractured pelvis. Hoyt and Hemme were then joined by Jimmy Rave, and since that time all of their interviews have consisted of the old TNA favorite: STANDING AROUND AND SCREAMING AT EACH OTHER FOR NO READILY ASCERTAINABLE REASON. I hope that Jimmy still has Prince Nana in his rolodex, because he’s the only person talented enough to come in and get the stank of Hemme off of Hoyt & Rave.

Honorable Mentions: Highlanders (WWE – 6), Lance Hoyt & Jimmy Rave (TNA – 1), The Major Brothers (WWE – 15)

3rd Place: Deuce & Domino (WWE SmackDown!) – 36 points – Started decent, but lack of production, being ignored by booking and sloppiness in the ring have sent them downhill ever since.

2nd Place: Voodoo Kin Mafia (TNA) – 53 points – First they pick a fight with Vince, then they pick a fight with the second worst women’s wrestler on the roster. Other than that, they have done squat this year. That will not do you any favors in the voting; in fact, the reality is they were bailed out by our winners…

And your winner is…:

Larry Csonka: With all of the backstage drama, drug addicts, lack of time for people under contract, losing money and everything else that they were going through, TNA thought that this was a good idea? No, this is beyond stupid. This is no buys, no extra ratings. It DID get some mention on Sportscenter, but they have had mentions on there before and it did NOTHING for them, just lie this time. This company is the new WCW right now. Put the title on him, continue to hire other problem children, fuck anyone with talent and your chances of growing. Some said that this is going to be like Tyson and WWE, but Pacman is nowhere near the star level that Tyson was. Piss it all away TNA, that’s the only thing that you are good at right now. Jeff, you’re an idiot. You’re supposed to be the one smart for the business, but you’re the one making the stupidest decisions. Let’s get Chris Henry and Tank Johnson along with Vick and form a stable of rich assholes that will take TV time from the deserving people. Maybe they can get Michael Vick to come in and be the manager for Pitbull Gary Wolfe. And then if that wasn’t bad enough, they couldn’t even have him wrestle because of his football contract. So not only did they hire a guy with a VERY checkered criminal past, but the team that owns his NFL contract decided to but the KIBOSH on things so he doesn’t get injured; just incase they bring him back. This is just one gigantic clusterfuck, and really, one shouldn’t be surprised, THIS IS TNA: WE ARE BULLSHIT. So now they have this guy under contract, he can’t do anything physical and they went ahead and had him pin STING and WIN the TNA TAG TEAM TITLES! The stupid, it hurts so much. Ron killings worked so hard here because he always does and I feel bad for voting for the team, for the simple fact that I feel like I am bashing him, but the sad thing is that this team was stupid, it lost money, it was the definition of NO BUYS and they were bad. Thank God he is gone.

Ryan Byers: Oh, Team Pac-Man. I’ve seen some bad tag teams in my day, but I literally don’t think that I’ve ever seen a team that was so bad at every aspect of the game that we call pro wrestling. Crime Time couldn’t wrestle, but at least they could talk. Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon couldn’t cut a promo to save their lives, but at least they had five star matches. The Bushwackers couldn’t wrestle OR talk, but at least they managed to get crowds to react to them. The duo of Killings and Jones failed to do all three of these things . . . and, surprisingly enough, none of it was Killings’ fault. He was handicapped by having the biggest deadweight in pro wrestling history tied to his waist. When Killings tried to deliver one of his energetic interviews, the focus would then shift to Jones, whose complete lack of charisma would kill the segment dead. When Killings had just executed an eye catching sequence of flashy moves in the ring, he’d immediately have to tag out to Jones, who would bore fans with his drop downs, leap frogs, and footballs to the groin. When Killings finally managed to rally some crowd support, the mere existence of Jones would turn the spectators off. I’ve never seen one man’s negative qualities so strongly cancel out another man’s positives. It was monumentally bad almost to the point of being impressive, and it was the sort of thing that you’re only going to see in TNA.

Scott Slimmer: Okay, so I think we can all agree that the Adam “Pacman” Jones experiment was a monufreakingmental clusterfuck. The fans hated him. Fine. He wasn’t legally allowed to wrestle. Fine. He has a long history of legal trouble and made TNA look like a bunch of mouth breathing thugs my association. Fine. But there was still really only so much damage that he could do on his own. As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t until he teamed up with Ron Killings that the shit really hit the fan. Because that’s when Jones could drag Killings down with him. Killings is a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, but TNA still thought it might be a good idea to put him in a tag team with a douche who can’t wrestle. That seemed to work out so well that Jones & Killings went on to defeat Kurt Angle & Sting for the TNA World Tag Team Championships with… wait for it… Jones getting the pin on Sting, also a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion. So now Ron Killings and Sting have BOTH been flushed down the Pacman crapper. And then you have the issue of the TNA World Tag Team Championships being held by a team in which only one of the members is legally allowed to actually wrestle. That’s just… oh, hell, those are the same championships that were held by a singles wrestler on two different occasions earlier in the year, so I might just let this part of the whole fiasco slide. But the stuff about shitting all over two former NWA World Heavyweight Champions, wasting valuable air time, and pissing off your entire fan base still stands. So yes, yes indeed, this truly was a sucktastic tag team.

Daniel Wilcox: Oh damn, Team Pacman. So TNA manages to sign Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones to work a few dates. At the time it seems like a hell of a good idea as Jones was in the media a lot at the time and the move did get a lot of press coverage (shame it did squat to boost ratings or pay-per-view buys but that’s just TNA all over). However, then comes the news that under no circumstances is Jones allowed to engage in any physical contact with the wrestlers. Tremendous. But don’t worry, because TNA has a plan! “You know that guy we paid big bucks for who isn’t allowed to wrestle or we get sued? Yeah, let’s make him a TAG TEAM CHAMPION! And let’s put him over Sting to do it! Damn, we’re good!” So you have Jones and Killings teaming up, and every time Pacman is in the ring, he does some stupid shit with a football and tags out, Killings does all the work and more often than not, Pacman comes back in for the pin. Tremendous. Where do they come up with these ideas? You’d think when Jones first strolled in to the Impact Zone at Hard Justice and got rowdly booed that management would realise fans didn’t want to see Jones in TNA. But it’ll get some press, so let’s do it anyway. This was simply an attempt at a quick cash grab by TNA that didn’t pay off: now a smart company would realize when an idea isn’t paying off and cut their loss, but TNA goes on and continues to promote it even when the fans have pretty much turned their back on the idea. And surprisingly, this probably wasn’t even the worst business move TNA made this year, which is a sad indicator of how bad their creative team and their management has been this year. Stunts like this just won’t cut it in 2007. Even WWE didn’t give Kevin Federline a WWE Championship run when he feuded with John Cena and he garnered a lot more press than Jones signing with TNA did. Do you know how I know that this team must have been really bad this year? They beat the Voodoo Kin Mafia to this award. The only duo that annoyed me more than these guys this year were Mike Tenay and Don West. Bottom line: Ron Killings and Pacman Jones may not just be the worst tag team of the year, but the worst tag team of all time.

Honorable Mentions: Jillian Hall (WWE – 13), Christy Hemme (TNA – 24), Torrie Wilson (WWE – 10)

3rd Place: Layla El (WWE ECW) – 36.5 points – About the only thing pretty looking about Layla this year has been her body in slutty clothing. Matches? Extreme Expose? No… not at all. Get it off my TV until she isn’t as green as Ms. M &M.

2nd Place: Ashley Massaro (WWE) – 68 points Shitty wrestler who disappeared for half a year, and when she was around didn’t contribute to the division in any way.

And your winner is…:

Larry Csonka: Oh yes, there is pretty much no question here for me. Kelly Kelly has been involved in some of the worst wrestling matches of the year. And I use the term “matches” loosely. She is just horrible and should not be in a wrestling ring as of yet. She needs a lot of work, and at this point she is not only endangering herself, but the people she is working with. Unfortunately for her, she’ll be remembered as the worst women’s wrestler of 2007. At least she’s hot.

Ryan Byers: Though I voted for her, I feel bad giving Kelly Kelly this distinction. She can’t wrestle a lick, but that’s hardly her fault. The first person to actually blame is Johnny Ace, who hired the woman based solely on pictures that he saw in a swimsuit catalog. The second person to blame is whichever member of the creative team determined that she should be placed on television immediately after being signed, with little or no time to train. The third person to blame is whichever member of the creative team thought that it would be a good idea to have her wrestle when it was already clear that she lacked the coordination necessary to complete basic dance routines or perform simple tasks like unclasping her top on live television. The fourth person to blame is whoever decided that her first awful match would not be her last. That fourth individual has forced fans to be subjected to some of the most wooden, poorly timed wrestling moves in history as well as a few bumps that looked like they were going to be the death of Ms. Kelly. My hope is that in 2008 she’s allowed to play to her strengths instead of dabbling in an aspect of this business that she’s clearly not ready for.

Matthew Sforcina: Oh dear. Kelly Squared has as much business wrestling as Big Daddy V has wearing no shirt and briefs to the ring. Yes, technically they can do it, but they really, really, REALLY shouldn’t. I don’t want to come off as patronising, but the poor girl is clearly trying, and is only doing as she’s asked to keep her job. This is not an indictment on her, there are a couple of women around who clearly aren’t trying but have enough talent and experience to coast. Poor Kelly X 2 does not have that. Sorry KK, but hopefully they’ll give you enough time out of the ring to improve if they choose to keep putting you out there. This is not aimed at you, more the state of women in the WWE overall.

Sat: I had not seen that many Kelly Kelly matches, so I watched a few of her matches on Youtube to find out how bad she really is. My conclusion is that she is much better at taking a beating than being the one that is giving a beating. She does do some weird things when she is taking a beating, but I would say that is one of her only strengths in the ring. When Kelly Kelly starts to go on the offense, it is just bad. It is really hard to watch her on offense. She is hot, but she should not be wrestling; she should still be training.

Honorable Mentions: Ken Kennedy (WWE – 6), Andrew “Test” Martin (WWE/TNA – 4), Snitsky (WWE – 16), BONUS: Junior Fatu (TNA – 20)

3rd Place: Carlito Caribbean Cool (WWE) – 36 points – Another disappointing year for the third generation wrestler who seemingly has all the tools to be huge, yet lacks the desire to do so.

2nd Place: The Great Khali (WWE) – 37 points – Not going to knock him too much here. He did what he was asked to do the best he could; at the end of the day though, it just didn’t make for very entertaining television.

And your winner is…:

Larry Csonka: This will be familiar because you’re going to see a lot of this rant again in this column. I apologize, but it’s just how I feel. With all of the backstage drama, drug addicts, lack of time for people under contract, losing money and everything else that they were going through, TNA thought that this was a good idea? No, this is beyond stupid. This is no buys, no extra ratings. It DID get some mention on Sportscenter, but they have had mentions on there before and it did NOTHING for them, just lie this time. This company is the new WCW right now. Put the title on him, continue to hire other problem children, fuck anyone with talent and your chances of growing. Some said that this is going to be like Tyson and WWE, but Pacman is nowhere near the star level that Tyson was. And then if that wasn’t bad enough, they couldn’t even have him wrestle because of his football contract. So not only did they hire a guy with a VERY checkered criminal past, but the team that owns his NFL contract decided to but the KIBOSH on things so he doesn’t get injured; just incase they bring him back. This is just one gigantic clusterfuck, and really, one shouldn’t be surprised, THIS IS TNA: WE ARE BULLSHIT. So now they have this guy under contract, he can’t do anything physical and they went ahead and had him pin STING and WIN the TNA TAG TEAM TITLES! The stupid, it hurts so much. The sad thing is that this was stupid, it lost money, it was the definition of NO BUYS. Thank God he is gone.

Randy Harrison: TNA, you’re retarded. You have a roster filled with talent that could put on shows that would rival ROH in terms of quality and you have guys that the crowds in Orlando desperately want to get behind and see become huge breakout stars. Instead of utilizing this roster of talent and putting them in the position to get over, stay over, and become stars in this business, you go out and court a non-wrestler to join the team and then put him in a featured position above your homegrown talent. Bravo. And you wonder why people are shocked that you’re still around after all these years. Enough about the promotion that housed him though, let’s move on to why Mr. Pacman was indeed the worst wrestler of 2007. He’s a fairly horrible person outside of the ring based on his laundry list of criminal charges and his year-long suspension from the NFL. He was brought in as a wrestler, yet because of clauses in his football contract that were invoked by the Titans he couldn’t engage in any physicality while in the ring. He has absolutely negative charisma and ended up dragging a decent worker like Ron Killings into his Black Hole of Suck, more than likely leading to Killings wanting a release from the company. So what do you do with a guy like this who can’t wrestle, can’t talk, looks like someone who would beat me in an alley and leave me for dead, and has no business being in the ring to begin with? Well, let’s have him beat FUCKING STING and win the World Tag Team Championship, despite the fact that he’ll never be able to properly defend them without some sort of shenanigans. The whole Pacman debacle made my head hurt and based on the fact that you sucked in the ring, sucked on the mic, and suck out loud at life in general, Adam Jones, you sir, are THE WORST wrestler of the year.

Daniel Wilcox: Isn’t it ironic that Pacman Jones wins Worst Wrestler of the Year despite the fact that he wasn’t actually allowed to wrestle. That’s right, TNA pay the big money to get a guy who would earn them a fair bit of publicity (which got them no money in return) but then they discover that they can’t have him come under any kind of physical scrutiny or they risk being sued. Fair enough, there’s still the chance to use him as an on-air personality, manager or whatever. But nope, that’s not good enough for TNA. What do they do? They go and put the freakin’ tag titles on the guy! Only in TNA, folks. The fact is, this is a prime example of how TNA has no idea how to use celebs in wrestling. They get footballers, baseball stars, basketball players, golfers, croquet players, cricketers and bowles teams to show up in an attempt to get a little bit of publicity, maybe boost some ratings, earn a few extra pay-per-view buys. But they have no idea what to do with these people and in the end they end up with no cash gain and a lot of loyal but pissed off fans. I know we say that TNA shouldn’t be trying to out-WWE the WWE but if they have to bring in a celebrity personality, they should take notes from WWE who used Kevin Federline perfectly just a year ago and they probably made a fair bit out of that.

But this category is supposed to be about a wrestler. However, it’s hard to write like that about a guy who has a smaller move set than The Great Khali. All Pacman could do in the ring is a leapfrog, drop down, or throw a football at a guy’s nut sack. The sad part about this is, they put Pacman and his partner over other people! Over Team 3D, and worse still, over Sting! Sting! This is TNA: We Are Clueless.

Michael Bauer: How exactly to we define the Worst Wrestler of the Year? In past years, you had guys that were given pushes, but were a waste of space. We are talking about guys like The Great Khali and to an extent, Carlito. This year, it’s all about a guy so bad that not only was he a waste of space and money, but he did less with what he was given that anyone else before him. Adam “Pacman” Jones signed with TNA this year, but there was a problem… he couldn’t get hit and he couldn’t hit anyone. That’s right, somebody had to wrestle where he couldn’t touch anyone. So he somehow wins the Tag Team Titles by actually pinning Sting, yes you read that right, after Kurt Angle planted his partner. His title defenses involved Ron Killings doing all the work, except for Jones “making it rain” from the ring apron or spiking a nerf football into somebody’s groin. But that is not what makes him so bad. What makes him really, really, pathetic was what TNA did to afford him. Yes, just to sign this guy, they had to release five actual wrestlers, all of which had fingers that were worth more than Pacman. All in all, the damage was Jerry Lynn, the Bashams, Matt Bentley, and Brother Runt. Jerry Lynn was still serviceable and he ahd been proving it since the end of the last year and Matt Bentley was part of a jobber stable, but still was a great performer before then. The Bashams were obvious and Brother Runt was not a huge loss. But to release all five of them just to allow a guy who can’t throw a punch to take up television and Pay Per View time was just pathetic.

Honorable Mentions: CHIKARA Pro (18), Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (22), Wrestling Society X (9)

3rd Place: WWE SmackDown! (WWE) – 38 points – SmackDown! had RAW on their heels last year, so what did RAW do? Plucked half of everything going right on that show; injuries further hurt the brand and despite all of that, the “Little Engine That Could” B-show is still producing a pretty entertaining product.

2nd Place: WWE RAW (WWE) – 54 points – Big year for RAW, no question. HBK back to his old self, Cena having a career year, the 15th Anniversary, the return of Chris Jericho and the Hardy Boyz, the emergence of Cody Rhodes and Santino Marella, William Regal’s return to the mic, Orton finally busting out of his shell, etc etc. RAW has had itself a pretty good year.

And your winner is…:

Theo Fraser: What a year. Where WWE has presented illegitimate midgets and TNA has all but buried an entire division of innovative and exciting athletes, ROH has excelled with the Briscoes/Steenerico feud, the Danielson/Morishima trilogy, the rise of Claudio Castagnoli, and an influx of fresh, new talent. It’s amazing to think about all the ‘doom and gloom’ talk that plagued the company in the early portion of the year, when TNA pulled top level talent such as Samoa Joe, Homicide and Christopher Daniels. Back then, judging by some posts on the ROH boards, you might have thought the apocalypse had arrived. But Ring of Honor bounced back tenfold, pushing new stars such as Matt Cross & Erick Stevens whilst bringing in CHIKARA talent to round out the roster and further establishing guys like Kevin Steen & El Generico. 2007 has brought about one of the most diverse rosters in ROH history, thanks in part to a greater contribution from overseas companies like Dragon Gate and NOAH. This strong relationship was no doubt helped by Takeshi Morishima’s unexpected title reign, and led to the very successful Japanese tour in early Summer. When Kenta Kobashi made a two-date appearance for the company back in 2005, who would have ever imagined that in two years time the ROH World Champion would also be a NOAH representative, and for 8 months at that!? It has been another year of expansion for Ring of Honor, and that point was made clear when management unveiled that the company had signed a deal to bring their shows to pay-per-view. With three awesome PPV offerings under their belt, they have made a statement to the rest of the wrestling world; ROH is on the rise, and it’s only here on up from now.

Steve Cook: When you think of all the talent that has come through ROH in the past few years, it’s really quite amazing. Since the first ROH show I attended in Dayton in February 2005, the following people on that card have left for the bright lights of WWE or TNA:

They certainly aren’t the only ones…we all know about men like Christopher Daniels, Paul London, Low Ki, Jay Lethal, Matt Sydal, Ace Steel and others that the alcohol has made me forget about. ROH has been the preeminent breeding ground for talent in recent years, which makes it tough for them to sustain periods of excellence. But somehow they have managed to do that. Despite the departure of all the people mentioned here, ROH somehow manages to reach new levels with every passing year. 2007 saw the emergence of the Briscoe Brothers as the undisputed best tag team in American pro wrestling. It saw the domination of Morishima, which was finally put to a stop by Nigel McGuinness. We saw Bryan Danielson continue to have classic matches with anybody put in front of him. Chris Hero became one of the top heels in ROH, and Sweet & Sour Inc. established themselves as one of the most entertaining acts in wrestling. Jimmy Jacobs has become one of the most compelling people in wrestling, and the Age of the Fall angle took the Internet by storm. Whenever you think ROH is going to fade into the sunset, they kick it up a notch. They put on a product that entertains me, which is more than I can say for WWE or TNA these days. That’s why they’re Fed of the Year in my book.

Samuel Berman: Since the end of 2006, Ring of Honor has put on in-canon shows in the U.K. and Japan, seen a Pro Wrestling NOAH regular represent them as ROH World Champion and defend the belt in the main event at Budokan Hall, and debuted on Pay-Per-View. For any other promotion, the loss of top talent like Samoa Joe, Homicide, Colt Cabana and Christopher Daniels would have been a blow too difficult to recover from, but despite those loses and extended injury layoffs by Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness and Jimmy Jacobs, the company has continued to grow and improve, and looks to have a wave of momentum heading into 2008. Commercial DVD releases are already on the way and, as of now, ‘the little Independent that could’ seems poised to have an exponentially increasing profile in the coming year.

Jerome Cusson: Ring of Honor wins this “Best Fed” award simply because they put more effort into their product than WWE and TNA do combined. If you want bells and whistles, watch television. If you want to be sold lousy Pay-Per-Views, rehashes, horrible looking t-shirts, and have bad announcers tell you why what they’re doing is good, turn on USA or Spike. If you are a fan of wrestling, then check out an ROH Pay-Per-View or go to their website and check out one of their DVDs. I will take lower production values, smaller arenas, and two camera shoots because I know ROH appreciates the support they get. I know that when I spend money to go to a live event, I will get my money’s worth.

Believe me when I tell you, ROH isn’t perfect. Some of their storylines were not perfect. Morishima’s title reign was a huge disappointment. “The Age of the Fall” is a convoluted mess. However, when Bryan Danielson or The Briscoes step foot in the ring that is all forgotten. These three gentlemen make wrestling fun again because they can go out there and have a match of the year candidate on any given night. ROH’s Pay-Per-Views are worth more than that 9.95 or 14.95 price tag because it’s two hours of wrestling. No gaga. Just two (or four or six depending) guys getting in ring and competing because this is what they do. The titles mean everything. Wins and losses matter.

If you want more than just 10-minute or less matches without much tact, then ROH is here for you. If you want to think conceptually instead of thinking why you wasted your time, ROH is here for you. Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Homicide, Colt Cabana, Matt Sydal, and Jimmy Rave all left ROH this year to go elsewhere. And you know what? ROH is still the best wrestling company in the world. There’s no reason 2008 will be any different.

Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2, and check back tomorrow for the finale in Part 4!