WWE Vs. ROH Vs. TNA

[goodhelmet]

For ROH, the best worker now is clearly Bryan Danielson. At the beginning of the year you could make the argument for James Gibson, Punk, Danielson and to a lesser extent Joe.

 

For TNA, I have a bunch of shows that I have been collecting but I have not really watched anything.

 

For WWE, the best workers were clearly Eddie and Rey when working together this year. Now? I wouldn't know where to look.

 

 

I can't honestly say who the best talkers are because I haven't watched too many complete shows. I watch matches here and there from TNA, watch my favorites go to work in ROH and watch the EJ comps for WWE but do not actually sit through the skits and the silliness that comes along with it.

[Guest savagerulz]

I thought the Three-way from the very first show was a beautiful match. Between that and Dragon-London, probably the best of the year. Every single sequence in that match made sense. Every move was executed flawlessly. Mix in a little comedy and each wrestler playing their roles perfectly and I am a happy camper. With the exception of the ending, I think it smokes the WM20 Three-way.

It can be as beautiful as you like, but by the end of the match I still didn't care who was going to come out the winner. Far too much flash and nowhere near enough emotion. As always you'd be hard pressed to tell Daniels was even meant to be a heel.

 

As for Punk-Joe, if you didn't like the feud or the matches, I really do not know what you expect out of a wrestling match.

Emotion. I care very little about good matches in the grand scheme of things. I'll take a midcard Road Dogg match from 1998 over almost anything TNA or RoH have produced simply because I cared about his character and enjoyed watching him. I don't care about guys just because they have good matches and workrate, hence why I've never really liked the X-Division either.

[Guest Kilgore Trout]

For ROH, the best worker now is clearly Bryan Danielson. At the beginning of the year you could make the argument for James Gibson, Punk, Danielson and to a lesser extent Joe.

 

 

 

 

How can Joe possibly be considered 'lesser' than James Gibson? Punk too for that matter though I do like him loads. Also wouldn't say Danielson's clearly better than Joe... or better at all but I think it's really close.

 

Emotion. I care very little about good matches in the grand scheme of things. I'll take a midcard Road Dogg match from 1998 over almost anything TNA or RoH have produced simply because I cared about his character and enjoyed watching him. I don't care about guys just because they have good matches and workrate, hence why I've never really liked the X-Division either.

 

I get what you're saying but don't really think it applies to the Punk/Joe match. Punk wasn't really seen as a 'workrate' kind of guy and the crowd loved him because he was from Chicago and charismatic. They wanted to see him win not just put on a match. If you don't engage with the match then that's fine but I really don't think it can be accused of lacking emotion and being some sort of X division exhibition match.

[Loss]

I've always wanted someone to define workrate. In the strictest sense, Rob Van Dam is going to have a higher workrate than Harley Race, but that doesn't mean RVD is the better worker.

[Loss]

Emotion. I care very little about good matches in the grand scheme of things. I'll take a midcard Road Dogg match from 1998 over almost anything TNA or RoH have produced simply because I cared about his character and enjoyed watching him. I don't care about guys just because they have good matches and workrate, hence why I've never really liked the X-Division either.

I agree with your sentiment, but I don't know if I agree with the vocabulary you used or not. We may just be arguing semantics, but I think a match sucks if it is unable to generate any kind of emotion from the viewer, since that's the goal being worked toward. Some people seem to have the misconception that good wrestling is about athletics, when in truth, it's all about connecting with people. If someone like Rey Misterio Jr can take all his exciting highspots and channel that into a babyface role and make people relate to him because he's a classic underdog, then he's a good worker. If he's just doing the spots to show off his gymnastic ability, then he's not. So I too want emotion from matches, but I don't think a good match has no heat. Also, I've never come across a good worker who is unable to get over. If they can't get over, they're obviously not that good.

[Guest Kilgore Trout]

I've always wanted someone to define workrate. In the strictest sense, Rob Van Dam is going to have a higher workrate than Harley Race, but that doesn't mean RVD is the better worker.

I've pretty much given up on the word. It would make sense if it just meant the quality of someone's work but I think most people use it to mean the speed and intensity at which a wrestler works. I'll stick to putting it in inverted commas

[Loss]

The magic of the Joe/Punk series was that it was the closest thing to an NWA world title match in the 00s I've seen, with the Les Thatcher belt presentation at the beginning, the emphasis on holds, and the hometown hero challenging and pushing the established champ to the limit, despite not appearing to have a legitimate chance of winning under normal circumstances.

[World's Worst Man]

I've always wanted someone to define workrate. In the strictest sense, Rob Van Dam is going to have a higher workrate than Harley Race, but that doesn't mean RVD is the better worker.

I always took it to mean pro-wrestling ability, which includes everything, not just the spot:resthold ratio. Although I guess there's backlash against the term these days, because of its "traditional" meaning. It's probably one of those terms that one should clarify their definition of when using it.

 

Anyway, the ROH slagging is pretty much nonsensical to me. They generally put out 2-3 quality matches a show, and the rest is typical indy stuff/thrown together crap. And you can pretty much tell which matches will be worth watching, and which won't. There's basically a handful of ROH wrestlers who are churning out the good stuff. So how is that different than any other competent promotion? The crap in TNA is just as bad as the crap in ROH, but TNA's best stuff isn't even sniffing ROH's best stuff. Ever watch a whole NOAH show? Usually 2 good matches, 1 or 2 passable matches, the rest is horrible. Why ROH is held to a higher standard, I do not know. It's like I said before. Compare ROH or NOAH's junk to WWE's junk, and you'd never know why those promotions utterly kill WWE's product. Compare best on best, and it's blatantly obvious.

[Resident Evil]

Workrate = how hard someone is physically working in the ring. It's as simple as that. Look at the word itself.

 

 

 

A lot of ROH's problems come with it being non believable which is kind of funny since they're supposed to be the realistic smark friendly organization.

 

 

THe ring is horrible. How am I supposed to believe or care about a wrestler when he's taking his bumps on a softer surface? I can't sympthasize with him and I can't believe in what he's doing. Already I'm being taking out of the match.

 

The wrestlers don't look like wrestlers. Now I'm not saying the ROH crew should take more steroids but I've got to be honest. It looks like any guy off the street can get in the ring and wrestle. Now obviously that's not true but that's what it looks like. A problem wrestling can present since it's cooperative is that a wrestler can get away with doing things that they really shouldn't be able to. Top wrestlers and basically all your wrestlers should at least look athletic or at least that they can beat their viewing audience. If they don't look athletic than they should at least be athletic once that bell rings. If they're not than it destroys anything a match has going for it. Wrestling at its core is supposed to be atlhetics in a kayfabe sence. In a nonkayfabe sense it's about athletics and making your audience care.

 

 

A lot of ROH stars are not engrossing in the ring. They don't look natural. Like wrestling is walking to them. I can watch Marc Rocco wrestle and it is like walking or riding a bike to him. It looks like he belongs in there.

The ROH wrestlers can often give off that artificial feel. It's like they're pretending to wrestle instead of just professional wrestling. Now I realise a lot of them are beginners and hopefully this is something that'll improve with time but it something that annoys me.

Look at Kobashi and he completely destroyed anyone from ROH in terms of ring presence and being captivating.

 

Of course the ring audience helps destroy any believability a wrestling match may have. I couldn't believe how bad they were in Kobashi vs Joe(however their wrestling was good enough to make the match beliebable all by itself). The wrestlers at times also seem to be wrestling to appease what is supposed to be good in smarky world instead of what is good in a wrestling match. This is what has hurt several of their most talked about matches for me.

[Mad Dog]

I'm watching Kobashi/Joe right now and I actually had to stop watching it for a few minutes because the fans completely took me out of it by chanting "this is awesome" like a minute into it.

[goodhelmet]

In defense of the "This is awesome" chant....

 

I think the atmosphere and experience of seeing Kobashi in the ring against one of ther favorites inspired the chant not because they were witnessing a great match 2 minutes in. I can't believe so many people miss that and assume the fans are referring to the quality of the match itself.

[Mad Dog]

It comes off as unnatural to me. Hogan/Rock is a good example of a crowd marking out for someone they hadn't seen in a long time. They just cheered for the guy and went insane for every move he did, The crowd during Joe/Kobashi came across like they were trying too hard to make it seem like an epic encounter no matter what.

[goodhelmet]

Eh... I think at this point, ROH could put Ric Flair against Ricky Steamboat from their primes in the ring and you would still dislike the product so there is no point in arguing.

[Mad Dog]

I actually don't hate everything RoH does. It's just they've done a lot to kill my interest in them since they gave the title to Punk in July.

 

This match had a lot to overcome with me to begin with though because I haven't liked Kobashi's work since before his GHC Title run.

[World's Worst Man]

Kobashi probably meant more to those fans than Hogan did to the WMX8 fans, so I don't see how one is alright, but the other isn't. It was basically a once in a lifetime opportunity to see Kobashi live. With that being said, the chant was kind of lame that early. But in the end, I didn't care. I watch wrestling to see good wrestling. The crowd, commentary or wrestling ring (give me a break ) has nothing to do with how well the wrestlers are performing.

[Resident Evil]

I watch wrestling to watch good wrestling too. Don't we all? Otherwise we wouldn't watch too much.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

The wrestlers aren't wrestlers. Fuck that. They pretend to be wrestlers. That's what they aspire to be. When they throw a "stiff shot" they are not throwing a stiff shot to make the match look real and engage the audience, they're throwing a stiff shot so they can look like an All Japan match. It's all pretend. They're the wrestling equivalent of a cover band. The vast majority of ROH matches (not all, there are some good ones) come off as faker than WWE matches. They are so contrived. The wrestling sequences serve no purpose other than to show that they can mat wrestle~~! just like Eddie and Dean did (which was also very contrived).

 

And to say the environment doesn't matter in a wrestling match is one of the dumber things I've heard.

[sek69]

I think ROH takes a beating because they have a vocal segment of fans who hype everything the company does as the BEST EVAH~! which starts to create a "boy who cried wolf" sitiuation where even when they do have a top quality match, people get skeptical because every match was said to be top quality.

 

Still, I've enjoyed what I've seen of the in-ring product so far. Not everything has been gold, but ROH's crap is at least better than WWE's crap if that makes any sense.

[The Thread Killer]

In defense of the "This is awesome" chant....

 

I think the atmosphere and experience of seeing Kobashi in the ring against one of ther favorites inspired the chant not because they were witnessing a great match 2 minutes in. I can't believe so many people miss that and assume the fans are referring to the quality of the match itself.

I agree. I would LOVE to see Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi or Taue live and in person, and I'd probably be marking the fuck out if I was ever lucky enough to see one of them live up close. I know that all of them are nothing close to as good as they were when they were in their primes about 10 years ago...but it would still be a BLAST to see them live. Hell, I would have driven down from Toronto to see Kobashi if that had been possible for me.

[Guest Famous Mortimer]

Well, this has sucked any enjoyment out of being a wrestling fan. Shawshank Rudotion, what do you actually like? "Pretend to be wrestlers"? Eddie / Dean contrived...this thread is why people think the internet is full of hate-filled smarks. If you're going to say things like that, which the vast majority of people do not agree with, you need to present something to us which is the antidote to that. Otherwise, why do you watch wrestling? You seem to get no joy from it.

[JHawk]

In defense of the "This is awesome" chant....

 

I think the atmosphere and experience of seeing Kobashi in the ring against one of ther favorites inspired the chant not because they were witnessing a great match 2 minutes in. I can't believe so many people miss that and assume the fans are referring to the quality of the match itself.

I agree. I would LOVE to see Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi or Taue live and in person, and I'd probably be marking the fuck out if I was ever lucky enough to see one of them live up close. I know that all of them are nothing close to as good as they were when they were in their primes about 10 years ago...but it would still be a BLAST to see them live. Hell, I would have driven down from Toronto to see Kobashi if that had been possible for me.

I could agree with that to a point.

 

However, you've more or less set yourself up to be disappointed. I'd always wanted to see Ric Flair compete live and never thought I could because there was only so much the NWA came to town, and Flair may or may not have been at that particular show. So when he came to the WWF and wrestled Roddy Piper in the main event, I was sure to go and mark out like hell. But if I started chanting "This is awesome" as a markout move and the match sucked? Yikes.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

Why does "This is awesome" have to be vocalized? Hogan vs. Rock at WM 18? Rather than chanting "This is awesome" we *gasp* reacted to the match itself.

 

I know, it's a horrifying thought for ROH fans. That means, like, drawing the attention away from themselves.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

Well, this has sucked any enjoyment out of being a wrestling fan.

 

Hey, welcome to me watching ROH.

 

Shawshank Rudotion, what do you actually like?

 

UWF-i, All Japan, PRIDE, UFC, SHOOTO, there's a buncha matches from ECWCWWF that I've enjoyed.

 

"Pretend to be wrestlers"? Eddie / Dean contrived...this thread is why people think the internet is full of hate-filled smarks. If you're going to say things like that, which the vast majority of people do not agree with, you need to present something to us which is the antidote to that. Otherwise, why do you watch wrestling? You seem to get no joy from it.

 

I like 2 things in my wrestling

 

1. Emotion

2. Realism

 

Right now, I can find those two things more in MMA and it's a rarity to see either of it in ROH, or the WWE. You may say "Well, All Japan had contrived spots" but AJ was so emotion-filled that it didn't matter. And in that emotion, those contrived spots worked. They also were able to get over an epicness through the selling of the wrestlers, the camera work, the crowd, and the announcers that ROH thinks they can do by throwing fucking streamers in the ring and having dueling chants and having the wrestlers have a trade off and then stand there like idiots for the crowd to fap fap fap in "appreciation", but it doesn't work that way. It comes off phony. And, ironically, in wrestling coming off as phony is the worst thing you can do.

 

Nothing about ROH is original or genuine. It's all copied and pasted in an attempt to be something that it's not. ROH will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be All Japan. And the more they try to be All Japan, the further away they get. Because All Japan didn't try to be All Japan, that is until it became a parody of itself with the excessiveness.

 

How can you not watch two lanky shits trade forearms like they have any power behind them and not think "they're pretending to be Misawa"? It's awful. You want to talk about sucking the enjoyment out of something, there ya go. ROH is the equivalent of community theatre.

[Guest EastCoastJ]

Actually OVW is the promotion that best suites my tastes in 2005, both under Jim Cornette and Paul Heyman, is it's really just booked like quality old school territorial wrestling. The guys are green as hell for the most part, but in the context and setting of OVW, a match that wouldn't get over in WWE or especially ROH is awesome and the young guys actually do a better job of telling stories in the ring than a lot of guys elsewhere. Doug Basham, Brent Albright and Matt Cappottelli are some of my favorite guys to watch right now.

 

WWE I will always watch, but they need to do something radically different than their formula to get my interest up again.

 

Ring of Honor is really good from what I have seen, but it is exhausting to watch because it never lets up and too laced with the weird crowd dynamic where the crowd is too worried about getting themselves over to enjoy the storylines and heel/face dynamics.

 

TNA is just awful at this point in terms of booking. They have all of the peices in place, but the writing and backstage segments are as bad as almost anything that I have ever seen. The crowd is the single biggest bunch of tools that I have ever seen. On one hand, TNA owes everything to their crowd for making the product look so hot, but on the other hand every time they flash to shots of that middle aged red headed woman flashing gang signs along with "B Gizzle" or the kid who looks like a white Urkel shouting "ABBBBBBBBYSSSS....WHOOOAAAAAAAAAAAA" I cringe.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

I said before that I didn't think Paul Heyman could book for 2005 wrestling, but reading the OVW reports, I think I was wrong about that. That's probably the only thing in wrestling right now that I want to see.