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Let’s start with the ROH World Title picture. Nigel McGuinness has beaten nearly everyone, to the point that pretty much anyone he would beat from here on out would just be a rehash. With his mostly clean win over Bryan Danielson a couple of weeks ago in Chicago Ridge, I would think that mostly takes Danielson out of title contention. But there are two men that Nigel has yet to defend the title against who both have very real chances of beating Nigel for that title.
The first and most immediate of these challengers is Naomichi Marufuji, as the announcement came out this week that Marufuji would get his long awaited shot at the ROH World Title at Final Battle 2008. Marufuji has defeated McGuinness before, way back at Glory By Honor V Night Two when Marufuji successfully defended the GHC Heavyweight Title against Nigel. I think Marufuji has as good a shot as anyone of winning the title, but if he does, I only see it being a short term reign. Marufuji’s not in ROH that often, and you could say that they could do what they did with Morishima and just fly him over here every two weeks for title defenses, but I don’t know if I see that with Marufuji. I think he’s a great wrestler, don’t get me wrong, but if he does get the title, I don’t see him holding it for more than two or three months. NOAH has given a couple of ROH guys short reigns with their titles, so ROH might give Marufuji a short run with the title as a favor back to NOAH.
If Nigel does get by Marufuji, he may eventually have to get in the ring with Brent Albright. Nigel and Albright have been kept apart for Nigel’s entire title reign, but prior to winning the title they were across the ring from one another several times and Albright beat him every time. I think that Albright may be the sleeper contender who could be the one to take the title from Nigel, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they haven’t had a match against one another in over a year. Albright has a ton of fan support and he’s a hell of a worker, and much like Marufuji, I can see him getting the title but I don’t know that it’d be a long reign.
As I said earlier, the two things that both Marufuji and Albright have in common is that Nigel has never beaten either guy, but has yet to defend the title against either. However, since winning the ROH World Title, Nigel has scored multiple victories over Bryan Danielson, a man he couldn’t buy a win over before becoming champion. Given how dominant Nigel has been booked to be this year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up beating both of them at some point. But then who does that leave?
Obviously Tyler Black is being groomed to be ROH World Champion at some point after whenever he breaks up with Jimmy Jacobs, which looks to be happening sooner rather than later. I would think that if Nigel does get through his matches with Marufuji and Albright, he would end up dropping the title to Tyler Black. If that were the goal I were working toward, I’d have Nigel go to a draw with Marufuji at Final Battle, then build up to a pair of 7th Anniversary Weekend title defenses against Marufuji and Albright on consecutive nights and have him win both of those matches, and then finally drop the title to Tyler Black at Death Before Dishonor VII. But then again, I’m not Adam Pearce, so we’ll see what his plans are in the months to come.
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Next, we’re going to look at the ROH World Tag Team Title scene, which basically for the last year and a half has revolved around current champions Kevin Steen & El Generico, Jay & Mark Briscoe, and Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black of Age Of The Fall. The title has spent most of the last two years around the waists of one of these three teams, and I think it’s time to start freshening things up a bit. I say keep the title on Steen & Generico for a while since they’re just now getting their first run with the title, and since they’re established as a top team, it would be best to keep the title on them for now.
As for the Briscoes and AOTF, they both need to get moved out of the title picture. It looks like Jacobs & Black are starting to build toward their inevitable breakup, so the time is perfect for them to move out of the title picture. As for the Briscoes, I’ve made this point before, but where do you go with them from here? They’ve spent so much time as champions that people pretty much expect them to win it back eventually. They are starting to try something different by having the Briscoes turn heel again, but for right now I think it would be a good short term move to have them continue to feud with Steen & Generico, but have Steen & Generico win the feud. Then, have the Briscoes move into a main event feud with someone else and maybe even get a short run as singles wrestlers trying to win the ROH World Title. I could actually see Larry Sweeney playing into their current frustration by offering them deals to help get them back on the title track.
So who do we move into the tag title picture in the absence of the Briscoes and Jacobs & Black? Well, you can probably start by building Irish Airborne up as contenders. They had a mildly successful run back in 2006, and just returned to ROH after a year or so off, and they’ve been said to have looked pretty good, and I think that given their history in ROH and the need for fresh teams, they’d be a good tandem to put at the top. Depending on circumstances, it might also be entertaining to see Grizzley Redwood and Bushwhacker Luke spend some time teaming. This is obviously heavily dependent on how often Luke really wants to work and travel, but I see the potential for them being an entertaining underneath team.
Also, if Tyler Black is leaving Age Of The Fall, that pretty much leaves Jimmy Jacobs out in the cold as far as partners go since Necro left the group, Joey Matthews retired, and Brodie Lee and Zack Gowen probably aren’t coming back anytime soon. Instead, I would throw Jacobs together with Delirious. They’ve already spent some time teaming together, and now they could work an angle where Age Of The Fall has fallen apart, and Jacobs is trying to hold it together with Delirious, the one guy he still has with him. What you could then do is work an angle where Jacobs is unable to replicate with Delirious the success he had with Tyler Black, which would result in Jacobs constantly verbally berating Delirious and eventually pushing Delirious to the point where he snaps and turns on Jacobs and goes full-fledged babyface again. But that’s just me playing fantasy booker again.
Of course you can still put together a team of guys from Sweet & Sour Inc together, they can always mix and match if you need another team. Two guys I would love to see form a team are currently feuding with Sweet & Sour Inc, and that’s Roderick Strong and Erick Stevens. Eventually the S&S feud is going to end, and I’m not sure what’s next for those two after that, but I feel pretty sure neither of them is going to be winning the ROH World Title anytime soon, so why not put them together as a team? They have a long history with one another and are good friends, so I’m sure they could do some good stuff together, and wouldn’t mind seeing them get a run with the tag title, and I can even see them as the team that could beat Steen & Generico for the title.
In any event, there’s a lot of guys right now that won’t have much of a direction after the early part of 2009, and I can think of worse things to do with them than put together some teams and give a renewed direction to the tag team scene in ROH for the first time in about a year and a half.
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Finally, let’s look at the secondary title situation in Ring Of Honor. When he was booking ROH, Gabe Sapolsky was against the idea of secondary titles because they came off like consolation prizes, and even when he attempted to make a second singles title (the Pure Title) which had its own unique rules and was booked to be roughly equal to the ROH World Title in importance, it still was seen as a secondary title, which was apparently one of the reasons he killed it off to begin with. Instead, he brought in the FIP Title, and even though the idea was that it wasn’t a secondary title because it was another promotion’s top title, it still came in at an even more distant second place than the Pure Title. Also floating around in the mix is the SHIMMER Title, which ROH has officially recognized as it’s women’s title.
I ran a poll on the Elite Message Board a few weeks ago to see what people thought about which titles should stay and which should go, and surprisingly to me, the most popular response was to keep the ROH World title and World Tag Team Title and get rid of everything else, but there was also a lot of support for bringing back the Pure Title or keeping the SHIMMER Title and doing away with everything else. Perhaps most tellingly, not one vote was cast in favor of any combination that would involve keeping the FIP Title.
Well, the people have spoken: the FIP Title is not welcome, and I have to agree. Even though it’s just a business move since the owner of FIP is in charge of ROH’s video editing, and since Gabe was booking both companies, the idea was to use the FIP Title on ROH shows to help promote the FIP brand, but even still, it came off like if the FCW Champion started showing up on Raw, it just came off like a minor league title showing up in the big leagues. The SHIMMER Title is at least something different because it’s entirely built around not just a women’s division, but an entire women’s promotion that would give them access to more talent depending on where ROH is that weekend than you would probably get just relying on Lacey, Daizee Haze, and Sara Del Rey like that have been for almost two years now.
Personally I would not only favor keeping the SHIMMER Title, but reinstating the Pure Title in Ring Of Honor. In the last few years, ROH has moved away from the pure technical wrestling that it was built on, and instead we’ve seen a lot more strong style and hardcore stuff, and while there’s nothing wrong with variety on a wrestling show at all, I would like to see the Pure Title come back and maybe help bring back some of the pure wrestling that’s been missing over the last couple of years. It’s been long enough that enough talent changes have happened that we have an entire new crop of wrestlers who could conceivably compete for that title, including the last champion Bryan Danielson, ass well as Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, Brent Albright, and my own personal pick, Delirious. That may sound like a goof, but I’m totally serious: I think Delirious is goofy enough that you wouldn’t expect him to do well in Pure Title situations, but absolutely has the ability to work well in a technical wrestling environment.
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That’s it for me, I’ll be back tomorrow with a preview of this weekend’s debut shows in Nashville, Tennessee and Collinsville, Illinois, but until then thanks for reading, and as always all feedback can be sent to stupwinsider@yahoo.com and you can catch me on Myspace at www.myspace.com/stupwinsider. Take care, and I’ll see you all soon!
