Michael Elgin

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Shining Wiz]

I want to hear the reasoning on this one....

[BillThompson]

Absolutely no chance, now or ever. I find everything about Elgin to be terrible; his moveset, the way he structures his matches, his fundamental lack of understanding of psychology, his selling, his bumping, his repetitive nature, and so on and so forth. Essentially Elgin wants to be some sort of Kurt Angle/legit shooter hybrid, only minus any of the charisma, legitimacy, or grasp of what makes for a quality pro wrestler,

[W2BTD]

I don't hate Elgin like most people do here, and I think he's had some great matches, but I can't see any way he'd make my list. He hasn't even done enough to spring to mind when people have asked me to run off 15 or 20 top indie names since the indie boom.

[Shining Wiz]

Absolutely no chance, now or ever. I find everything about Elgin to be terrible; his moveset, the way he structures his matches, his fundamental lack of understanding of psychology, his selling, his bumping, his repetitive nature, and so on and so forth. Essentially Elgin wants to be some sort of Kurt Angle/legit shooter hybrid, only minus any of the charisma, legitimacy, or grasp of what makes for a quality pro wrestler,

I was just going to say he's kind of bland and nondescript, but this works.

[Steenalized]

Elgin is probably my least favorite wrestler to see on tape or live. Just can't stand him. He's a great example of "I have to get my shit in," no matter what. I get it, you love the delayed vertical suplex spot, why do you have to work it into every match regardless of how it fits, if it even does? Atrocious seller. I think he's a terrible tag wrestler too, FWIW, since he can't sell well enough to be the FIP, can't control well enough to get heat as a heel, and does nothing inspiring on the hot tag.

[goodhelmet]

I was there live for the Richards vs. Elgin FIVE STAR MATCH from Florida. I enjoyed Elgin early on. Hated the match overall once they started getting into no selling top rope dragon suplexes. Will definitely finish ahead of Davey Richards in my listings.

[concrete1992]

Favorite live Elgin moment? Does the vertical suplex spot in a not "smart indie" crowd and he does it to crickets.

[goodhelmet]

You gotta give me some details!!! This sounds fascinating.

[Steenalized]

How pissed did he get?

[GSR]

More chance of voting for the Ultimate Warrior than this guy.

[GOTNW]

He had a surprisingly good G1 run which included probably his career match (vs. Ishii). But yeah, he has no chance of making my list.

[InYourCase]

There's a portion of Elgin's career from about mid-2011 through early 2014 that I love. He completely fell off a cliff after winning the ROH World Title, though. He had two matches with Tommaso Ciampa in the second half of last year that I loved, but other than that, he did nothing for me. His G1 run was a breath of fresh air. He seems motivated for the first time in two years. Won't be anywhere close to making my ballot, but I'm glad that people have been showing #BigMike some love lately.

[MJH]

I credit him getting over in the G1, but my God were his facials goofy as fuck in a very distracting Johnny Ace way.

[SomethingSavage]

I find him to be much more tolerable in PWG than ROH (or anywhere else really), but I think that's more a credit to the hot crowd and atmosphere in Reseda than anything Elgin does directly, to be honest.

 

To be fair, I haven't seen any of his G1 stuff just yet. It'd be nice to see him come back stateside with a broader understanding of what to do & when to do it with regards to his psychology, but I don't have any indication of whether he's really "picking up" things in Japan - or just being guided along to better performances.

[MJH]

He's working 2015 New Japan not 1995 All Japan... I thought the Ishii match was as ROHrific as it gets.

 

In response to the post above, though, I have no issues with his delayyyyyyyed vertical. As a "show of power" spot it's nice and simple. If there's a Kobashi bump I'd urge everyone to steal though, it's his bumping in synch on the vertical, which greatly emphasises the impact, and Elgin should definitely take it.

[W2BTD]

Does "ROHrific" mean "super fun", because that's what the Ishii match was. Two bowling ball shaped pit bulls mauling each other. It was fantastic.

 

Elgin arguably carried Yujiro to his best match, then had a bordeline 4-star bout vs YOSHI-HASHI of all people on the final night, which was easily the best singles match of YH's career. The Elgin/Honma match wasn't the best match of the tour, but might have been the most fun.

 

I thought Elgin was being guided along early in the tour, and he probably was, and he was in a block with good, smart veteran hands like Kojima & Nagata, but by the end of the tour Elgin was more than holding his own and in some cases carrying matches. There was a tag match involving a couple of young lions & Yujiro where Big Mike basically held the entire thing together.

 

In a world where Tanahashi wasn't beyond brilliant, you could make a realistic case that Elgin was the most impressive worker on the tour (although with a gun to my head, i'd still choose a few others).

[shoe]

I thought he had a good G1. The crowd got behind him and that meant a lot. It gave him the confidence. It was smart of him or who ever to basically do Cesaro strength spots. He got rid of the flippy stuff that an ass kicker doesn't need. He needs to keep the beard. I was majorly against him going into the G1. His work grew on me. He now needs to come back to ROH and continue the momentum. Still has no business sniffing the list.