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THE pROHfile VOL. 21

Death Before Dishonor VI is in the books, which means it's time for the latest edition of the pROHfile! I have a lot of stuff to cover in the wake of this past weekend's events, but that's going to have to wait because I have something I really need to get off my chest.

Today, I want to talk about the sudden heel turn of Claudio Castagnoli. The turn was pretty jarring because it literally came out of nowhere, and I'm at a loss as to explain how it happened. I really can't explain it, Claudio was huge over with everybody, and then one day he shows up and is just getting booed out of the building. I can't identify any circumstances that would have led to the fans just turning on him like that. At least when Nigel turned, you could point to the string of injuries that led to him missing matches and, lame as the reasoning was, you could at least identify why the fans turned on him. With Claudio, he just showed up one day to a hostile crowd.

Could it have been the fact that he was in the ring with Bryan Danielson and Tyler Black, who are both over like Grover in New York? Could it really be the “HEY” thing? That's never been a problem before, even in the face of heels using it as promo fodder to bury Claudio. It can't possibly be his work, because Claudio's one of the best workers in the company and can keep up with anybody else there.

Unfortunately, I think what it really comes down to is that ROH fans simply look for reasons to hate people, especially when they get inserted into the World Title picture. I don't know when the fans became experts in deciding who can work as World Champion, but it doesn't seem like they're willing to even give anyone a chance before picking apart any little deficiency they can find. Okay, so Claudio goes “HEY”, so what? Is that any stupid than Samoa Joe's ole kick? Or going “I have until five!” with Bryan Danielson? Lame stuff gets over, but somewhere along the way, it became some kind of glaring deficiency and a reason why people shouldn't be pushed.

For a bunch of people who complain about WWE never elevating anybody new, the internet fans aren't exactly jumping at the chance to see fresh blood in ROH's main event scene, even at a time when, quite frankly, it could use it. Where does it end? Austin Aries is probably one of the two or three most over guys in the company, but even though he's over and can outwork just about anybody on ROH's roster, if they gave him the title again I think it would take about thirty milliseconds for people to start going “Aries doesn't deserve another run at the top, his prime was in 2005 and he'll never work now.” Right now the fans are tripping over each other to be in the front of the “Tyler Black is a star in the making” crowd, but I can guarantee you that if and when he does get that title, the fans will turn on him.

This isn't anything new, either. Of course we're all familiar with Nigel McGuinness and his fall from favor following his title win, but he's just the latest in the line. Remember how hot Homicide was all through 2006 when he was on his big road to the ROH Title? Well, he won the title at Final Battle, following which there was such a huge celebration at the Manhattan Center that you'd swear it was New Year's in Times Square, but then after that he was dead. Done. Nobody cared about him anymore, and for every one of his four title defenses (three of which I was in attendance for and can tell you firsthand), the fans sat on their hands totally silent at best and outright booed him at worst. You could have heard a pin drop during his big Fifth Year Festival title defense against Jimmy Rave, and that was in Homicide's hometown. He was booed against Joe (though I have to say it was pretty stupid to put him in there with Joe in a title match if you were trying to get the fans behind him), and the fans were almost completely behind Morishima when he beat Homicide for the title.

There's also the case of Xavier. Go ahead and laugh, but the fact is that I've been going back and watching old ROH shows from 2002-03 and as ridiculous as this sounds given how badly he's been vilified since, Xavier was easily one of the three or four most talented guys in the company at that point, unlike the spot monkeys that filled the other 80% of the roster at the time. He was a solid, fluid worker and had good to great matches every time out. Yet somehow the fans turned on him, and I don't mean in the sense that they turned him heel. He was supposed to be a heel, but the fans turned on the idea of him as champion. Granted, part of that is due to the fact that they had him beat Low Ki, the god of ROH at the time, to win the title, but I think it just comes down to the fact that the ROH fans are probably the most fickle fans in the history of the business.

In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that you're almost required to turn heel when you get the ROH Title. Seriously, which ROH Champions haven't been predominantly heel? Joe, he's the only one. Low Ki and James Gibson were both faces through their entire reigns, but both of their reigns were so quick that you could blink and miss them. Bryan Danielson worked heel pretty much through his entire run as champion. Even CM Punk ended up going heel after getting the title. The problem is that as soon as anyone gets the title or anywhere close to it, the fans will start picking them apart.

To tell you the truth, I really don't understand why a lot of these people even watch wrestling. I guess it's because they feel like they need to present themselves as an authority on something, anything in their lives. Really, I think they're so bent on throwing out opinions that make people go “Oh, snap!” that they really don't enjoy just watching wrestling anymore. I have to assume they were fans at one point, but they've become so ingrained into this mentality of playing Siskel & Ebert that they won't allow themselves to just be fans anymore, and I think that's both unhealthy and sad.

Believe me, I have just as many opinions as the next guy, but I think that if it got to the point where I just followed the business to find things to complain about, that'd be my signal to find something else to do with my time. I watch wrestling because I enjoy watching wrestling. I like ROH a lot, which is why I watch it, drive all over creation to go to live shows, and write about it. I think TNA is okay and I like some of their wrestlers, but pretty much just follow the PPVs since the TV product seems a little inane to me. WWE has really turned me off, so I barely watch it or keep up anymore. Simple as that. I don't feel the need to go on the internet whining about everything that's wrong with WWE and TNA because there's a lot of good things going on in both (even if it's not enough to get me to tune in every week) and I really think that nonstop complaining without any kind of contructive criticism is pointless. This doesn't seem to stop some people.

Seriously folks, stop taking the business and especially stop taking yourselves so seriously. Guess what? As long as you're going to shows and buying DVDs, you know how much your whining mean to ROH? Absolutely nothing. You want to boo Nigel McGuinness for being concerned about his health instead of going out and risking permanent damage for your entertainment? Fine, they'll turn him heel and give you what you want. You want to suddenly decide that Claudio Castagnoli isn't World Title material and boo him even though you'vve been cheering him for a year? Fine, they'll have him lay out Bryan Danielson so now you'll pay to see him get his butt kicked. See how this works?

And I'm sure that all the wrestlers are really truly upset over the reactions they get from the fans. Actually, they probably aren't because you're still paying to seem them and this is their job, not their social scene. I think that as long as the money's coming in, they really don't care what a bunch of marks are saying about them on the internet. As much as you all probably hate to admit it, JBL is absolutely right about 90% of the wrestling fans on the internet, they just sit around complaining nonstop as if they have idea one about how the business works or the best ways to go about things, when the reality is that if you took any one of these marks, myself included, and put them in charge of a company, that company would be out of business within months. Somehow, the internet crowd seemed to develop this notion that all you need to sell wrestling is good matches, and if you put these people in charge, Chris Benoit, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Samoa Joe would all have been World Champion 100% of the time. They'd also book them to never lose or look the slightest bit weak which, by the way, is what people constantly complain about with guys like Triple H, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin Nash, and Hulk Hogan, but I guess it's okay if the guy can work, right?

I think you get the point. Obviously this doesn't apply to everybody, but I am convinced that it applies to 90% of the online wrestling community. Seriously, get over yourselves and just start enjoying the show. Or don't, I don't care, but stop acting like the scathing promos you cut on message boards is the be all and end all of the truth and beauty of professional wrestling, because your opinion, just like mine and everybody else not working in the business, means absolutely zip.

If you're still with me, thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback, go ahead and send it to stupwinsider@yahoo.com because I have a feeling this subject is going to make one hell of a feedback column.