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THE pROHfile LOOKS AT NEW WRESTLERS MAKING A MARK IN ROH, WRESTLERS WHO SHOULD LEAVE ROH SOON, AND WRESTLERS WHO SHOULD NEVER COME BACK

Welcome to the 50th edition of the pROHfile! To celebrate, I’m going to take a look at several talents who have been given more of an emphasis recently. Some of these guys made debuts or returned to ROH at the TV tapings, others have been in ROH for a few months and have gradually built a name for themselves, and still others have been around ROH for a while and are just now starting to make some kind of an impact. Whatever the case, there’s a bunch of people who are getting people to notice them, so let’s take a look at them, one by one, starting with…

The Dark City Fight Club: After reportedly having a pair of great showings during ROH’s swing through Florida last month, the DCFC were brought up to Philly for the TV tapings and given a push as monster badasses with a couple of squash wins. I know what they were going for with these guys, but it just didn’t work for me. It may have been nerves from being up in from of TV cameras, but the DCFC seemed a bit off during their matches. Also, their look doesn’t work for me because, for lack of a better way of putting it, they both look too friendly for me to take them seriously as tough guys. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they are, but they just look like a couple of dudes from your neighborhood that you sit around cracking jokes with.

Cheech & Cloudy: I love these guys. I saw them at the New Jersey show back in October and thought they had improved 1000% since I had last seen them in 2005. They’ve really got their teamwork down, and they’ve got this fun underdog charisma that really got over with the crowd. I wouldn’t expect them to win the ROH World Tag Team Title anytime soon, but I think they can make a really fun pseudo-enhancement team that picks up a win every now and then to make the kids happy.

Eddie Kingston: I’ve said it a million times, I just don’t get this guy. He’s not a good wrestler, he sure as hell isn’t in remotely good shape, and I don’t get why he’s so over with the Philly crowd. I’m guessing it has something to do with getting sliced up in CZW, but he hasn’t shown me anything in the four or five appearances he’s made in ROH.

Sami Callahan: I’m a bit torn on Sami because he shows a lot of fire and intensity, seems to really know what he’s doing in there, and had a couple of really competitive matches against some top guys during the Danbury/Philly weekend. Plus, the crowds were really into him. I hate his look though, and that might seem petty and unimportant when gauging him overall, and it probably is because it’s a look that probably works better for others, so I’ll give him a pass on that. In spite of his great showings he went winless this weekend, making me think he’ll fall into a sort of enhancement role, though he’s a guy I can see eventually getting a push.

Brodie Lee: This weekend was the first chance I’ve had to really see Brodie Lee wrestle and I liked what I saw. He knows how to wrestle like a big man and certainly doesn’t seem afraid of getting a little banged up during his matches. I have yet to hear him talk, but he’s got a great look of a big, greasy truck driver/oil mechanic. He works as a lackey for Jimmy Jacobs for now, but he’s a guy I can see being a good monster heel in his own right.

Kenny King: If I were ROH, I’d make sure I have this guy under contract, because if he isn’t I can definitely see WWE or TNA making a play for him. This guy can wrestle, he looks like a superstar, and he’s got a ton of charisma. I don’t see how you can lose with this guy, and assuming he stays in ROH for a while, I definitely see Kenny King becoming a major player in the company. His tag team with Rhett Titus is very entertaining and they seem to have the old school, cowardly southern heel tag team schtick down pat. They’re kind of floating in that area where they’re above Cheech & Cloudy and Grizzley Redwood & whoever, but still below Steen & Generico and the American Wolves. I would expect Kenny King to go solo before they are able to make any serious waves as a team.

Alex Payne: Alex Payne fits another old school archetype, that of the young up-and-comer who smiles, high fives, and kisses babies while yelling “COME ON BABY!!” at the crowd to fire them up. Alex has slowly but surely floated into a regular gig on the main roster, and did it so inconspicuously that a lot of people probably didn’t even realize it. Right now he’s pure enhancement, but I can see him eventually working his way out of that position after he’s had some time to grow as a wrestler.

Sterling James Keenan: I have to admit, I’ve never known quite what to make of Sterling Keenan. He’s definitely into his 90s rock music as every time I see him, he looks like a new 90s musician, having gone from Marilyn Manson to Scott Weiland before apparently now settling on Vanilla Ice. The little of his wrestling that I’ve seen looks good, but I haven’t seen enough of him to really say whether he’s got a shot of eventually hitting it big in ROH. He’s had tryout shots in ROH for years going back to at least 2005, so I would have to think if he hasn’t gotten a shot by now, he probably isn’t going to.

Kenny Omega: Speaking of guys that I needed to see more of to get a handle on, I said after the first two Kenny Omega matches that I saw at All Star Extravaganza IV and Final Battle 2008 that he had a ton of charisma and connected with the crowd, but I would need to see more of his wrestling to say for sure what I thought of the guy. Well, I saw him wrestle Austin Aries during day two of the TV tapings, and I was really impressed with what I saw. I got to see him closer up than I previously had, and he’s a lot more physically imposing that I originally thought. He’s definitely built, and he’s a hell of an athlete as well. He and Aries had a great, competitive match that made Omega look like he was on the same level as Aries and made it believable that he could have conceivably even defeated Aries. Not sure if there are plans to make Kenny Omega a regular part of the roster in 2009, but I would suggest that they should make plans for him if they haven’t already.

”Dirty” Ernie Osiris: I love this guy. Here’s a man who goes the extra mile for his gimmick which, for those who haven’t seen it, is that he’s basically homeless. He comes out to the ring in sneakers, sweatpants, and a torn up t-shirt, and walks around the ring begging for change before his matches, but I’ve even seen him walking around the crowd during intermission begging for money, and even saw him panhandling the crowd outside the building as they were waiting to get in. Ernie is just perfect with the role, and he even popped me after he lost and he yelled out “I needed that money to get home!” I don’t ever see him getting elevated in any way with this gimmick, but if you want to talk about an entertaining part of the show and a guy who will go all out to be his character, I give Ernie Osiris several million points for imagination and creativity.

Bobby Dempsey: I don’t know how he’ll last in the long term, but for right now Bobby Dempsey is crazy over, and the crowd loves seeing him come in and squash Orange Cassidy in dominating fashion in 30 seconds or make the hot tag during a tag match and come in an annihilate everyone. He hasn’t gone long enough yet that I can say for sure whether he’s too limited to do anything longer than that, but for right now I say get all you can out of him and see where it goes, because even though I doubt we’ll ever see him even challenge for the ROH World Title, right now he’s got that kind of Mikey Whipwreck crowd sympathy thing going for him, which is pretty funny considering what a big, tough guy he is.

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Now, whenever you have new people coming into a promotion, odds are some people are going to have to find their way out the door, and looking at ROH’s roster, four people stand out to me as people who ROH could probably live without right now:

Chris Hero: There were several opportunities where they could have put Chris Hero over the hump and either given him the ROH World Title or made him a regular main eventer, but they never did, and I think by now the ship may have sailed. His transformation into the Young Knockout Kid has really freshened him up, and even though I’m a little sad to see the goofy antics go, I like how Hero has transitioned himself into a guy that can be taken seriously if he were to become a main eventer rather than a guy who would weasel his way into the spot. That said, he’s been floating around aimlessly for over two years now since splitting with Claudio Castagnoli, and I think that unless they’re finally going to pull the trigger and do something with Chris Hero instead of having him do meaningless tag matches, it might be time for him to leave. Now is the make or break time with him.

Roderick Strong: Three years ago, I don’t think anyone doubted that Roderick Strong would have been ROH World Champion by now. Even though he held the ROH World Tag Team Title for a record (at the time) nine months with Austin Aries, he never got that push to the top spot and since splitting with Aries, Strong has gone nowhere fast. This breaks my heart because Roderick had so much promise in 2005, but the promo skills never developed and even though he’s gotten in great shape, upped his in-ring game in a big way, and been in some amazing matches, nobody really remembers any of it because he just doesn’t mean much in today’s ROH. The chance to make Roderick a top star passed a long time ago, and I think that never getting a singles win over Bryan Danielson in ROH had a lot to do with that, as Danielson was the guy he got closer and closer to beating similar to what Tyler Black is doing with Nigel McGuinness now. But even though Tyler will almost certainly get that win eventually, Roderick never did, and now he’s become the guy who never really fulfilled his potential. I think at this point they’ve done all they can with Roderick and it’s time to move him out the door and replace him with someone new they can try and mold.

Daizee Haze: I don’t know why this girl keeps getting booked by ROH. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a very talented and dedicated wrestler, but we’ve seen her wrestle Sara Del Rey and Lacey about ten million times apiece, and with ROH’s apparent lack of desire to book any other women, I don’t see what the point is of keeping her on as a wrestler. She might work as a manager, but she’s pretty much bounced from person to person as a second at ringside for years now, and often the pairings make little to no sense and she never does anything that matters while with them anyway. They finally found something fresh for her to do with the Delirious angle, but once that is done I don’t know what’s left for her. I would have moved her out the door a long time ago.

Erick Stevens: Here’s a guy I think had a ton of potential and even now has a nice fan following, but has been booked so poorly over the last two years that it’s hard to take him seriously as a top level guy anymore. He came in strong and was steamrolling over people before he got involved with Austin Aries’ ill-fated Resilience, which served to do little but make Stevens and Matt Cross look like losers who couldn’t get it done against the No Remorse Corps. Since then, he won the FIP Title twice and then lost it twice almost immediately before spending most of the rest of 2008 getting beat up by Sweet N Sour Inc. I think this guy had monster potential written all over him, but the yo-yo booking has totally destroyed any momentum he had. Erick Stevens will be Roderick Strong in two years: the guy who had everything and was a sure fire, can’t miss prospect but poor booking killed him.

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And before we go, two guys who should never, ever come back to ROH:

Jimmy Rave: Flat out, Gabe Sapolsky tried everything he could do, in every which way to try and get this guy over and failed. Nothing worked. The only thing about him that ever got any kind of reaction out of the crowd was when they were able to throw toilet paper at him, and once they took that away nobody cared about him. They even tried making him into a serious main event heel by giving him multiple wins over Nigel McGuinnes, and nobody bought it. He challenged Homicide, a guy who could get a reaction in New York by going out there and playing Solitaire for 20 minutes, for the ROH World Title in the main event of a show in Manhattan and the crowd sat on their hands. Rave is done, you’re never going to get anything out of him unless you have him come back for a one shot deal where he wants to get back with Nana and ends up just getting squashed by Bison Smith. Other than that, don’t do it.

Jack Evans: This guy never had any business in ROH in the first place. Do the fans love the acrobatic stuff? Sure. Is he a good acrobat? I wouldn’t even say he’s passable, because he has an even worse percentage of hitting moves than Sabu did, and a lot of his stuff took way too long to set up. He has no psychology whatsoever to any of his matches, and he is reckless enough that he could become a serious liability to ROH were he to get hurt trying something stupid. Plus, he’s in, he’s out, he’s in, he’s out, and I think that if he can’t stay in ROH long enough to work his way into an important spot, they shouldn’t keep bringing him back. All that said, he’s a really nice guy who obviously loves what he does, but he doesn’t belong in ROH.

So there we have it, I guess maybe I’ll check back in about six months or so to see whether any of this panned out the way I thought it would or if I’m just a glorified mark with a column, which seems far more likely to me. Thanks for reading, and if you’ve got any feedback, you can as always send it along to stupwinsider@yahoo.com. Take care, and I’ll see you all soon!