2007 Year in Review: Wrestling
Oh Wrestling. The fake sport I love more than any real sport. It was a wierd year for me as a wrestling fan. This was the year I completely abandoned mainstream wrestling. I didn't watch the WWE (I had to wrack my brain to remember who won the main event at Wrestlemania this year) at all, and I abandoned the ECW offshoot late last year (damn you, Bobby Lashly!). Even with CM Punk winning the ECW World Title, I couldn't bring myself to return to ECW. Once bitten, twice shy. The madness surrounding the late, formerly great Chris Benoit also left me pretty cold. But I don't wanna talk about that. TNA wasn't worth watching this year, with the company abandoning (is that my word for the day?) quality wrestling in favor of moronic story lines. In addition, TNA's promising roster of young talent was pushed aside in favor of former WWE wrestlers with nowhere else to go. It was pretty sad really.
Was Wrestling Society X this year or last year? It only lasted about a month, so there's not much to talk about, outside of the fact that it gave some mainstream exposure to some Indy talent. Meh. MTV sucks.
So, without any mainstream wrestling, I spent most of the year paying attention to the Independants. My main focus was ROH and Chikara, but I also watched a little IWA: MS, CZW, PWG, and NWA.
ROH continued to put out the highest quality pure wrestling product in America. Great wrestling, period. ROH lost a lot of talent this year to the WWE and TNA (which means they're doing something right...). The list includes Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Homicide, Matt Sydell, Jimmy Rave, and Colt Cabana. In addition, Austin Aries was out for a chunk of the year due to contract disputes with TNA, Bryan Danielson was out with a shoulder injury from last year, and no sooner than Nigel McGuiness wins the World Title than he suffers an arm injury and is out of action for most of the rest of the year. Oh, and Mark Briscoe damn near killed himself. Despite all of this, ROH really stepped it up this year. They toured the world, having shows in the UK and JAPAN (!). They got on Pay Per View, giving them a nationwide platform to display their talent. They even recently released a couple of mass market DVDs. I watched quite a bit of ROH this year. Besides the three PPVs they've released, I watched a fair amount of videos (I never had the money to buy em at the live shows, but my friends did, and we tend to network our wrestling DVDs). I also attended every live ROH show in Chicago this year, except for the Man Up PPV taping (we were all either working or at a wedding at the time). I got to see Mike Quackenbush wrestle live (Woo-Hoo!), I got to see Chris Hero vs. Nigel McGuiness, Bryan Danielson vs. KENTA, and I got to see Colt Cabana's final ROH match. I also got to see the Briscoe Bros pretty much tear the house down all year long. In other words, it was a very strange, but very good year to be an ROH fan.
I also became a big Chikara fan this year. This crazy little family friendly promotion from out of Pennsylvania was a welcome change from the moronic, lewd nonsense of the Bigger promotions, and the admittedly too serious for its own good ROH (not that I'm knocking ROH, it's just that man can't eat steak every day. Sometimes he needs something else. That made no sense). Chikara mix of colorful masked characters, internationally influenced wrestling styles, wacky almost cartoon-like story lines, and matches that range from scientifically brilliant (anything with Mike Quackenbush, Chris Hero, or Claudio Castignoli) to hilarious (I laughed my butt off at so many Chikara matches this year, it's hard to pick a single one that stands out. The Colony vs. the Olsen Twins from Anniversario comes to mind). I bought several Chikara DVDs from Smart Mark Video this year, and Chikara even released a mass market DVD which I scored as well. It was all great stuff, and I could probably yammer on and on about why I dig this promotion, but I've gotta eat breakfast.
So, to summarize, screw mainstream wrestling. I'm getting my wrestling fix from the indies from now on.
Was Wrestling Society X this year or last year? It only lasted about a month, so there's not much to talk about, outside of the fact that it gave some mainstream exposure to some Indy talent. Meh. MTV sucks.
So, without any mainstream wrestling, I spent most of the year paying attention to the Independants. My main focus was ROH and Chikara, but I also watched a little IWA: MS, CZW, PWG, and NWA.
ROH continued to put out the highest quality pure wrestling product in America. Great wrestling, period. ROH lost a lot of talent this year to the WWE and TNA (which means they're doing something right...). The list includes Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Homicide, Matt Sydell, Jimmy Rave, and Colt Cabana. In addition, Austin Aries was out for a chunk of the year due to contract disputes with TNA, Bryan Danielson was out with a shoulder injury from last year, and no sooner than Nigel McGuiness wins the World Title than he suffers an arm injury and is out of action for most of the rest of the year. Oh, and Mark Briscoe damn near killed himself. Despite all of this, ROH really stepped it up this year. They toured the world, having shows in the UK and JAPAN (!). They got on Pay Per View, giving them a nationwide platform to display their talent. They even recently released a couple of mass market DVDs. I watched quite a bit of ROH this year. Besides the three PPVs they've released, I watched a fair amount of videos (I never had the money to buy em at the live shows, but my friends did, and we tend to network our wrestling DVDs). I also attended every live ROH show in Chicago this year, except for the Man Up PPV taping (we were all either working or at a wedding at the time). I got to see Mike Quackenbush wrestle live (Woo-Hoo!), I got to see Chris Hero vs. Nigel McGuiness, Bryan Danielson vs. KENTA, and I got to see Colt Cabana's final ROH match. I also got to see the Briscoe Bros pretty much tear the house down all year long. In other words, it was a very strange, but very good year to be an ROH fan.
I also became a big Chikara fan this year. This crazy little family friendly promotion from out of Pennsylvania was a welcome change from the moronic, lewd nonsense of the Bigger promotions, and the admittedly too serious for its own good ROH (not that I'm knocking ROH, it's just that man can't eat steak every day. Sometimes he needs something else. That made no sense). Chikara mix of colorful masked characters, internationally influenced wrestling styles, wacky almost cartoon-like story lines, and matches that range from scientifically brilliant (anything with Mike Quackenbush, Chris Hero, or Claudio Castignoli) to hilarious (I laughed my butt off at so many Chikara matches this year, it's hard to pick a single one that stands out. The Colony vs. the Olsen Twins from Anniversario comes to mind). I bought several Chikara DVDs from Smart Mark Video this year, and Chikara even released a mass market DVD which I scored as well. It was all great stuff, and I could probably yammer on and on about why I dig this promotion, but I've gotta eat breakfast.
So, to summarize, screw mainstream wrestling. I'm getting my wrestling fix from the indies from now on.
posted by Joseph Morris | 3:26 AM
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