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First, I’d like to address the significance of tournament victories in ROH and what they really mean. A complaint I hear a lot is that there’s just too many tournaments these days in both WWE and TNA, to the point where they’re so common that they’ve really lost meaning. I’ve always felt that tournaments in ROH are treated with more dignity than elsewhere, with minimal storyline interference in the progression of the tournaments.
But what does it really mean for somebody to win a tournament in ROH? The complaint I hear most is that nobody ever wins a tournament and then goes on to win the ROH World Title with the title shot they earn. I think that in a world where the winner of the Royal Rumble is guaranteed a title shot and a has pretty good shot of getting whichever title they challenge for, people have been trained to have an expectation that tournament winners are as good as a lock to become a champion in short order. I feel that this is an unreasonable expectation, and will even take that thought a step further and say that the tournaments are not designed to make champions, but rather to make contenders.
Let’s look at the history of Survival Of The Fittest. Bryan Danielson won in 2004, Roderick Strong in 2005, Delirious in 2006, and Chris Hero in 2007. All of these men were respected as good workers before winning SOTF, yet none of those men went on to win the ROH World Title when they got their title shot. However, in addition to winning SOTF, showing that ROH had confidence in them, each of these men had great performances in their eventual title shots and the champions they wrestled worked hard to make them all look good and make it believable that they could win the title. The win was especially beneficial for Roderick Strong who was already a strong midcarder, but was literally made as a top guy by his series of ROH Title matches with Bryan Danielson. The only one of these guys who didn't come out of his SOTF victory looking especially strong was Chris Hero, but I was in attendance when he got his title shot against an injured Nigel McGuinness at Glory By Honor VI Night One in Philadelphia, and I seriously thought they were going to put the title on him. His performance in that match and subsequent string of good matches leading into his memorable run in the four way elimination match at Final Battle 2007 made Chris Hero, who had been portrayed as a midcard comedy act, appear to be a credible threat to the ROH World Title.
Other tournaments did not have the same positive effect on the winner's ROH career. Dragon Soldier B was booed out of the building after winning the Best Of The American Super Juniors Tournament and was never seen in ROH again. The Field Of Honor dragged on for months before Matt Stryker beat BJ Whitmer in an anticlimactic final, and was gone from ROH within months. However, Claudio Castagnoli, who was as good as gone from ROH at the end of 2006 and was directionless as 2007 began, won the Race To The Top Tournament with a very good, very close win over El Generico in the finals, elevating both guys in the process, and then was elevated even further with a pair of very strong performances against Takeshi Morishima. He followed that up with a string of wins over former partner Chris Hero, a win over former GHC Heavyweight Champion Naomichi Marufuji, and is now one of the top guys in the company and a shoe-in for more ROH Title shots down the line.
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But while a tournament win shouldn't be expected to lead to the immediate gratification of a title win, the point of elevating somebody in such a way is to present them as a legit main eventer who could conceivably win the ROH World Title. Everybody has their ideas about who should be main eventing and/or given the ROH World Title, but I thought I'd take a look at some top names in ROH and give my thoughts on whether they have the potential to carry the big belt.
Austin Aries: I've been screaming for this guy to get another run with the ROH Title from the moment Bryan Danielson lost it to Homicide at Final Battle 2006. He's one of the best workers in any company and, despite not being the most gifted promo guy on the planet, is able to get his point across well enough in his low-key, no-nonsense way and is almost universally loved by the ROH fans. While I agree with not having him beat Nigel for the title at Rising Above, I do think a second run with the title is a matter of when and not if.
Bryan Danielson: Though Samoa Joe is usually more closely identified with the ROH World Title, I always thought Danielson (who actually had more successful title defenses than Joe) had better matches and made his opponents look stronger than Joe did. Though somewhat flat initially, his personality developed very well into the supremely confident master technician we are all familiar with today. I think that shoulder injury aside, Final Battle 2006 was the right time for him to lose the title simply because he had run out of challengers. Now over a year later, there's been a lot of changes in the ROH roster and if Danielson got the title a second time, there would be a whole slew of fresh matchups for him. Even though they’re really the only two serious possibilities, I think that either Danielson or Aries would be very good choices if ROH wanted to make one their first two-time champion.
Roderick Strong: Despite the high hopes a lot of people had for Roderick a couple of years ago, he is in no way ready to be the ROH World Champion. He looked really good over late 2005 and 2006, but it'd be hard for anyone to look bad when they're working almost exclusively with CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries, and the Briscoes. When left to carry a match on his own, as he is usually now forced to do, he often seems lost and falls back on the same few moves to carry him through the heat segments of matches, which don’t seem to get as much heat as they did in the past. The backbreakers were what got him over in the first place, but for whatever reason, he chooses not to use them as much these days. His promo work is abysmal, and that point is just driven home even more by the fact that he spent a year standing behind Aries, who is no Ric Flair himself when it comes to promos, and let him do the talking. Though he is by no means worthless to the company, the Strong Experiment has failed.
Chris Hero: While I don't agree with the vocal contingent who insist that Gabe Sapolsky is holding Hero down because of some personal vendetta (because I doubt Gabe would hire the guy, make him a main eventer, and have him featured on every PPV if he didn't see something in him), I don't see Hero as a guy who can be anything more than a short-term, cowardly heel champion who cheats/lucks his way into the title and then escapes by the skin of his teeth time after time. I hear comparisons made between Hero and CM Punk because of their history together, but the difference is that Punk came off as a serious wrestler who wanted to win despite his outward appearance, while Hero comes off more as a slapstick comedian who wrestles on Friday and Saturday nights. Don't get me wrong, I consider Hero a very talented wrestler and athlete and wouldn't be surprised or at all upset if he did get the title, but I don't see him making history with the belt if he does get it.
Claudio Castagnoli: Hero's former partner, on the other hand, comes off as a much more serious wrestler without needing all the goofy antics to get over. The fans love him, and were going nuts thinking he had won the title when he caught a couple of near falls on Morishima last summer. He's a great worker who has the ability to elevate guys below him, keep up with the guys who are better workers, and can adapt to pretty much any opponent, whether he be high flyer, brawler, power wrestler, or whatever. If his short-lived WWE run is any indication, it doesn't look like he's going anywhere anytime soon, either, so he would also be a safe guy to put the title on. I would be shocked if Claudio didn't get the title at some point down the line.
Jimmy Jacobs: I absolutely believe that Jimmy Jacobs could and should get the ROH World Title. I'm going to go on record and say that he's easily the best promo guy in the company right now, and even though he's small and doesn't always have the most awe-inspiring moveset, he's a very smart wrestler who knows how to tell a story with his matches and knows when to pull out a highspot instead of breaking his ass doing seventeen of them in every match. He very much reminds me of a young Raven in that after a few false starts, he's finally found a character that works for him and allows his amazing promo ability to carry him beyond where he might otherwise be. I had absolutely no problem with Jacobs beating Danielson clean last December, and in fact applauded the move because Jacobs is the most underrated guy in the company, and I think if he does get a chance to run with the title, he'll surprise a lot of people with what he can do.
Delirious: He's over with the crowd. He's a very entertaining character. He's a terrific worker. He has great matches almost every time out. But he shouldn't win the ROH World Title. He's a guy who should beat just about everybody thrown his way, but then put over people that are being built up to challenge for the title.
Brent Albright: I don't know what the hell this guy's doing playing third fiddle to Adam Pearce and BJ Whitmer. Albright's another guy who doesn't have all the promo ability in the world, but is such a good worker that he doesn't need to be because his ringwork is so explosive that it can do the talking for him. Albright's big, strong, fast, he can wrestle, he can brawl...the guy's got so much going for him that he should be the guy who “can't be beaten†until somebody finally does, yet he's doing jobs to Delirious and Kevin Steen. I thought for a while that he would be the guy who would beat Morishima for the title, and he came close and had two very good matches with him, but lost both and was almost immediately dumped into the Hangmen Three with a couple of guys who are, quite frankly, riding his coattails.
Naomichi Marufuji: If it weren't for Morishima getting a lengthy run with the belt in 2007, I would have no problem with Marufuji getting a run with the ROH World Title. I consider him the best worker out of the NOAH regulars, and even though he wins 99% of his matches in ROH, everybody comes out of a match with him looking better than they did going in even from the losing end. Unfortunately for him, Morishima got the nod as the Japanese outsider who runs over everybody in his path without having to speak a word of English. Plus, ROH is now at a point where they have to start watching their talent budget, and I don't know that they'd want to spend the money flying Marufuji to the United States every two weeks like they did with Morishima. I think if it weren't for KENTA and Morishima being around, Marufuji probably would have gotten a run with the title or at least a series of title shots, but he was more a victim of poor timing than guilty of lacking anything in his own right.
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Finally, I’d like to touch on the secondary title situation in ROH. Gabe Sapolsky has gone on record as saying he isn’t a fan of secondary titles, but even still, ROH had the Pure Title for a good two and a half years. Though the title was pushed as being equal in stature to the ROH World Title and was held by some big guns like Doug Williams, Samoa Joe, and Nigel McGuinness, it was still seen by nearly everyone as secondary to the World Title. ROH did a good job of making it different by creating unique rules for Pure Title matches, rules Nigel McGuinness was a master at using to add drama to his title defenses and often turn them into one of the best matches on the show, but despite this and the fact that Nigel successfully defended his title against most of the same people Bryan Danielson was defending the ROH World Title against, the secondary title stigma was still there, and the decision was eventually made to do away with the title completely and unify it with the World Title.
Taking the Pure Title’s place almost immediately after the unification was the FIP “World†Title, and I put that in quotes because any notion of the FIP Title being on the same level as the ROH Title, much less any other recognized World Title, is absolutely ridiculous. FIP is a small-time promotion which would have sunk years ago if it weren’t for Gabe bringing every ROH wrestler with a free weekend to work down there and then shoving it down everybody’s throat every chance he got. 99.999% of FIP Title defenses have either been in Florida or on the undercard of ROH shows, and just because the title was defended once or twice in England or Japan doesn’t make it a World Title. FIP is almost universally recognized as being, at best, ROH’s little brother, and this is driven home by the fact that FIP Title matches are always well down the card from the main event on ROH shows. You can put Erick Stevens over Austin Aries and Bryan Danielson as much as you want, it’s still a regional title and the idea that it should be thought of as equal to the ROH World Title just because it’s the top title in Gabe’s other promotion is laughable.
On top of that, both Bryan Danielson and Roderick Strong, during their FIP Title reigns, were only selectively acknowledged as being the FIP Champion. Sometimes they came out with the belt, but they didn’t just as often. That is the same kind of treatment the Cruiserweight Title gets in WWE where it seems like they sometimes “forget†that the title even exists. At least when the Pure Title was around you always knew who the champion was even if he wasn’t defending on that night. Plus, there was an extra degree of prestige to the Pure Title in that you had to be a good technical wrestler to hold it. In my views, the difference in rules did set it apart as more than just a secondary title because there was a different format and strategy to Pure Title matches, and that difference set it apart from the ROH World Title a lot more than the FIP Title does.
It’s pretty obvious that other than using it as a marketing plug to sell DVDs, there is no benefit to having the FIP Title used as a secondary title on ROH shows, and given the choice I’d much rather have the Pure Title back, especially since ROH fans who don’t follow FIP will have a better idea of what’s going on with the title without having to buy even more DVDs than they already do.
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That’s it for me for now, I’ll be back in another day or two to preview this weekend’s shows and more. In the meantime, all feedback can be sent to stuwrestling@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading, and see you next time.
