Mr Wrestling X Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 The first name that springs to mind for me is - Mike Awesome This guy truly had it all - size, power, speed, agility, a great physique, a star presence, you name it. His feud with Masato Tanaka was brutal, you could truly believe that these two guys not only hated each other and it brought out that charisma in Awesome, which WCW and WWE (to a great extent), failed to. It's a shame that WWE didn't make Awesome into a big player during the Invasion storyline. He could have had choice matches with anybody, if treated like the powerbomb-vending monster that he was meant to be. Awesome died in 2007, but he left behind a really great portfolio of work, in promotions all over the world. Honeslty, it's very possible that had Awesome not gone to WCW and signed with NJPW instead, that he could have been the top Gaijin worker of the decade. Anybody else to add to the thread? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpchicago23 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 I'll go with another ECW guy and say Steve Corino. He always came off as versatile to me and i would've loved to see him as the ace of the company for a few more years. He was very good at drawing heat and his Mr Old School gimmick is fuckign awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 The problem with Awesome was that he just didn't have any chemistry with most workers. He pretty much did the Awesome Show, and left it up to his opponent to either fit in with that or not. I remember he had a pretty lame match with Scorpio one time, which is something you'd think is practically impossible for any competent wrestler. When he was in there with the right guy, Awesome lived up to his name; when not, his matches could be excruciating. If I had to name an ECW guy, I'd say Tajiri. We all got so used to his consistent level of quality that we kinda tended to take him for granted. Even doing three-minute specials with shitty cruiserweights on Smackdown, he always delivered the goods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Mike Awesome died in the 00s. It feels weird praising a guy's decade who died after he hung himself within said decade. My 00s watching is my weakest of any decade, but I'd probably say Averno, in terms of being really good in lots of matches with bigger stars, but never really getting that much hype for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Fuck Averno is a perfect name. 00's really seem like a weird beast in that more stuff than usual will have to be revisited to see if it holds up especially in regards to the US indy stuff of the early decade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Mike Awesome died in the 00s. It feels weird praising a guy's decade who died after he hung himself within said decade. Awesome was done in the 00's anyway. His knees were gone before he came to WCW. He peaked in the mid-90's in FMW, he wouldn't have lasted long anyway. He wasn't big enough to be a monster like he was in Japan and ECW, and his style demanded so much from his opponent that he could only look good working against an über bumper at this stage. His suicide was really sad as he had settled financially and had a good job outside wrestling, and he seemed like a really cool and down to earth guy in interviews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Chavo Guerrero Jr. seems like another good pick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Wrestling X Posted December 31, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Agree with Chavo, his work in WWE's cruiserweight division was stellar. It would have been interesting to see how things would have turned out, had Chavo accepted the "world title" push that he was offered following Eddie Guerrero's death. Obviously, he had his reasons and therefore Rey Mysterio got the rub instead. I honestly thought that Chavo should have had a run with the US or IC title after he dropped the ECW Championship to Kane in 2008. Chavo feuding with Kofi Kingston and eventually (perhaps) William Regal, would have done wonders for the WWE mid card scene. I'd also like to throw William Regal out there. Sure, he's never fallen into obscurity, but he has/had the goods to be a headliner. His demons have always managed to stall it for him, most notably in 2008, where it seemed he was on the cusp of becoming WWE or WH champion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Regal is a good pick in the sense that once he got clean he got really over with the crowds and there was a period where you could reasonably have seen him breaking into the main events and doing well there. The fact that he's a great wrestler is almost an aside in his case. To me Corino is the best answer. He should have been a huge star and wasn't because of timing and the era in question. Awesome I think would have been a bigger deal in the old territorial era where he could have come in as a special attraction type various places without staying around too long where his flaws would be exposed. Tajiri is awesome and should have gotten an ECW title run. He's rated as a wrestler, but not as highly as I would argue he should be. I like Averno as a heel, but don't like much of his 00's work that I've seen. Having said that the answer to this is almost certainly a Luchadore. I'm just not sure who. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLIK Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 My pick is Tensai. As mentioned above, Mike Awesome is a guy who's act wasn't suited for the major league companies in the US but worked great in Japan and the less restrictive environment of ECW. Tensai is super talented guy who's act worked great in Japan and could have done the same in WWE but poor booking and a failure to maximize his strengths & hide his weakness pretty much has him labled as a failure and as someone who sucks in the eyes of many who've only seen his US run. it's very possible that had Awesome not gone to WCW and signed with NJPW instead Don't think he'd have fit in with NJPW much either. He did have 2 runs in AJPW, 1 before he left for ECW and 1 after he left WWE and then a run in NOAH all of which produced some good stuff but didn't last long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minds_Eys Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Regardless of how underutilized we think Awesome was, no denying the fact that the 70's Guy gimmick completely missed the boat on his potential. That period is blurry for me, was he still the 70's guy once WCW folded? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 I was defining this thread as wrestlers who had the most good matches and got the least credit for it, not wrestlers who should have been pushed harder. In that case, I'd argue Jericho, who became a star and seems like a weird pick. However, he was over enough at the height of his popularity that he could have been the guy to step up and carry things after Austin and Rock left. Maybe he wouldn't have been quite at that level, but he could have been in that spot as the top babyface to build around if he was booked properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Most good matches I actually think Regal might be the answer as pretty much any time he was on tv and got a chance he had good matches, but I don't think anyone really sees him as an "upper tier" worker for that decade. I don't know if they are underrated in the sense we often use the term, but Christian and Matt Hardy had an awful lot of good matches that decade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ButchReedMark Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 That period is blurry for me, was he still the 70's guy once WCW folded? No, he turned heel and was teaming with Lance Storm as part of Team Canada from about December of 2000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 I don't like the modern CMLL style so I don't think terribly much of the matches Averno had, but I think he got his due amongst people who do like that style of lucha as well as from the promotion. Freelance should have been the 2000s Rey Mysterio, Jr. but wasn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Most good matches I actually think Regal might be the answer as pretty much any time he was on tv and got a chance he had good matches, but I don't think anyone really sees him as an "upper tier" worker for that decade. I don't know if they are underrated in the sense we often use the term, but Christian and Matt Hardy had an awful lot of good matches that decade. Matt Hardy might not be a bad mention at this point. He got a lot of credit at the time for being good, but the pendulum seems to have swung firmly to "Matt Hardy sucks" based almost solely on his personal issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yo-Yo's Roomie Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Chavo Guerrero was offered a world title push after Eddy died? What's the story with this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 This is an odd guy for me to mention in this thread because I'm not really that big a fan of his, but Paul London is a guy who had an awful lot of matches that people thought highly of on the indies, then as a guy working random Velocity matches, then teaming with Spanky. I really want Schneider to come into this thread and argue on behalf of Ian Rotten. I don't mean that as a troll either. I think someone could probably make a case for him, but it needs to be someone who has seen more IWA-MS than me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Regal is a good pick in the sense that once he got clean he got really over with the crowds and there was a period where you could reasonably have seen him breaking into the main events and doing well there. The fact that he's a great wrestler is almost an aside in his case. Yeah there was that period in late 2000 with him working a side program with Austin and then getting involved in the McMahon family hijinx in early 01. Then he's back in the midcard feuding for the IC title. Then during the Eugene stuff in 04 he gets over as a face and is squashed by Hunter. Then starts doing tags. those are the two periods where he was hovering around the top of the card or at least interacting with the top workers and personalities oh and then there was the proposed Foley/Regal feud during the Invasion that Foley nixed (and left the company for a year and a half) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Wrestling X Posted December 31, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Chavo Guerrero was offered a world title push after Eddy died? What's the story with this? Well, the story goes that Chavo was initially offered the world title push and feud with Randy Orton. WWE wanted to pay tribute to Eddy.... And do some good business at the same time. What better way than for Eddy's nephew, an unlikely world champion, to win the Royal Rumble and then the title at Wrestlemania? I seem to recall Chavo discussing this in some interviews when he left WWE, it also may have been brought up by some others who were with WWE at the time. I guess Chavo simply didn't want to do it. He was fully supportive of Mysterio, so that suggests that Chavo didn't have any issues with the storyline, but rather, he didn't want to play the lead role. Maybe there is a factor of pride in it? Perhaps Chavo felt that he should be a world champion on his own merits as a performer, rather than getting a reign as part of a tribute to his late uncle? All I know is, Mysterio shouldn't have won the Rumble, let alone the world title, at that stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 I like Chavo, but I don't believe that story for a second. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Wrestling X Posted December 31, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 I like Chavo, but I don't believe that story for a second. I'm split on it myself. It's plausible, purely on the basis that Chavo doing the tribute "underdog" run, would have more emotional impact than Rey Mysterio would have/did have. WWE would have gone to Chavo first, for those reasons, if they were thinking logically - which is always subject to debate. On the other hand, Mysterio was the bigger draw of the two, and as champion, he would have much more long term potential than Chavo as champion. He was also regularly billed as the "ultimate underdog", and was close personal friends with Eddy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 I like Chavo, but he wouldn't have done better than Rey in that role on any level. Rey is a bigger star, better in the sympathy role, and more overtly an "underdog." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Yeah, I don't buy that story either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 I don't buy the story. Another thing. Didn't Meltzer at the time report that Randy Orton was scheduled to win the world title at WrestleMania 22 and the only reason Rey got the title was cause of Orton's unprofessional conduct? Right afterwards, Orton put Rey over again on TV and left for his 60 day suspension. Since that time, this "Orton originally scheduled to win the title" narrative hasn't really been mentioned and most just talk about Rey winning the title due to Eddy Guerrero's death. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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