Holy late column Batman! It’s Hit or Miss 19!
The sale of ROH to the Sinclair Broadcasting group
Matt Waters: Hit. You can boil this down to as simple a notion of a wrestling company with a television deal is a bigger success than one that doesn’t. If you want to take it further then I believe the old HDNet show was a tremendous promotional tool that allowed fans of the company to see their product on a weekly basis, creating interest in the iPPVs. Now that TV is gone it’s becoming more difficult to invest as fully in the company as we must wait weeks for DVDs in order to see precisely what’s going on. Sinclair have the potential to put them in more homes than HDNet and the announcement that the show will also be available on their website means people have no excuse to not watch. The fact Sinclair have outright purchased the company is a double-edged sword however; on the one hand, ownership means Sinclair will be more invested in the company’s success and should use more resources than HDNet did. On the other Sinclair now hold the power to close Ring of Honor down. I hope the latter doesn’t happen and that ROH will get a nice cash injection to afford the significant cost of Haas & Benjamin, and perhaps some other free agents such as Low Ki and TJ Perkins. We’ll see what happens moving forward.
Chris GST: Hit. Slight hit as I understand this is big for ROH, it could also turn into the end of ROH if they do not deliver though I would also presume that they will get decent ratings and maybe just enough that advertisers are buying up some time. So we’ll just have to see.
1 for 1
Jimmy Jacobs returning to ROH
MW: Hit. Jimmy Jacobs was once my favourite person in the wrestling world, I was a huge Age of the Fall fan, and thought his intense feud with Austin Aries over Lacey was absolutely tremendous. His promo skills alone were enough to convince me he should be back with the company, but he was also capable of putting on great matches with the top dogs, most notably Bryan Danielson who he is undefeated against in ROH. He was getting burned out near the end of his run with the company so it wasn’t a huge loss, but having seen what he’s done in DGUSA and Evolve, I’ve missed him tremendously. He really is in incredible shape now and is putting on some really good matches. I was surprised he turned his back on the man that pushed him hardest in order to return to ROH, but it’s not the kind of surprise I’m going to question, because Jacobs back in the company is a heck of a boon. He’ll be a very popular babyface for several months, but if they ever turn him heel again they have themselves a mini-Steen.
CGST: Hit. Personally missed Jimmy Jacobs in ROH and though I don’t think either of the “big 2” will ever pick him up I see this as a good move for ROH going forward. He has a familiar history with the fanbase and can be good enough on the mic to grab an audience, especially a tv one.
2 for 2
Davey Richards will beat Eddie Edwards at Best in the World 2011
MW: Miss. Davey promised if he didn’t win the title he wouldn’t ever challenge again. Some day he’s getting the belt so that can’t happen. Eddie Edwards has been champion for two months and has made three defenses. He can’t lose this soon. I think they’ll go with a one hour draw or something like that. A disqualification or anything of that nature would start a riot. A 60-minute draw might do as well, but these two can put on a better match than Austin Aries and Tyler Black, and have a much greater chance of keeping the fans invested until the final moments. If they do decide to go this route I beg them to keep the rest of the show short, have as many clean babyface wins as possible, maybe book some Japanese talent, and for the love of God, do not announce how much time remains every ten minutes and give the finish away. Book a rematch at Final Battle or something.
CGST: Hit. Doesn’t he have to beat Eddie or he’ll never be granted another world title shot? So yeah.. kinda in the bag. Unless they do a swerve of a swerve and make it so that Edwards cheats to win and Davey is angry but as a babyface he must keep his word to never…. oh wait this is ROH, not TNA.
2 for 3
The concept of Evolve 8 (the styles battle)
MW: Hit. Conceptually this was a nice idea, pitting different styles of wrestling against each other, much like the original idea of the UFC. Unfortunately the execution was lacking as we got some very questionable style names, such as ‘standing combat’ for a man that runs and jumps constantly, including both ‘super heavyweight’ and ‘power’ styles, and ‘Rich Swann style’. That last one was tolerable because it was funny, but they needed to do a better job of naming the styles.
CGST: Miss. I have yet to see the tournament but I don’t quite see how this is any different than any other tournament other than each guy is representing a different style, in some cases their own style. But then next year what are they going to do? Have other guys representing other styles? There should have been set styles already in place and the guys had to win to represent that style. That IMO would have made more sense.
2 for 4
The ending of Miz/Cena at Over The Limit
MW: Hit… I guess? What were people expecting? If Miz was going to regain his title from Cena it wasn’t going to be in an I Quit match. If you think Cena is ever going to utter those words in a WWE ring then you need your head examined. The call-back to Rock and Mankind with the prerecorded message was a nice idea, and I guess that might have been a way to get the belt back on Miz, but even then Cena would need to retake it in a month or two to set him up for a feud with Alberto Del Rio. We just have to hope Miz can stay strong without the belt by feuding with Rey Mysterio, possibly Big Show, maybe even Morrison or Kingston.
CGST: Miss. One word: Stupid.
2 for 5
Abyss winning the X-Division title
MW: Hit. Call me crazy but I think this was a good move. Abyss is the enforcer of the company’s top heel faction, the people that on-air control TN…Impact Wrestling. Ever since AJ, Joe and Daniels graduated to the main event, the X-Division has been little more than a punching bag for the top dogs. They get one match per television episode, and get to get the crowd warmed up on PPVs. They’re in no way important. Until now. Mick Foley outright acknowledged that the X-Division is what put TNA on the map years ago, and while his method of saying this is somewhat hammy (the whole meeting with The Network to tell them about the company thing), it’s lead to the division banding together to fight Immortal. Sure, Abyss is going to kill several of them before he loses the belt, but someone is going to defeat this hulking monster for a championship. It’s gotten Brian Kendrick into the semi-main event and how that can be a bad thing I do not know. At the end of the day that belt is not about weight limits, it’s about no limits. A super heavyweight winning it is only a bad thing if the matches that follow are bad, and Abyss is as his best when he’s working with much smaller underdog opponents. Remember his war with AJ Styles?
CGST: Miss. While I understand this from a storyline stand point, and it does make sense, I am still going to say miss because I do feel they could have done more to build the prestige of the belt before Abyss took it. They didn’t even have a set match for the PPV before this occured so fans already don’t care about the X Division. Now if Abyss had taken the belt from the division champion when people were really into it then it would have meant more.
2 for 6
That’s all for this incredibly late edition of Hit or Miss. Matt and Chris went 2 for 6 this week, but lots of excellent discussion was had. Until next time loyal readers!
I agree that anybody who thought Cena was going to lose an I Quit match is nuts, but still-could they have made Miz look like any bigger of a bitch? WWE’s unwillingness to create any strong heels at all makes their faces look pretty bad too. I think TNA should scrap the X-Division. It’s meant nothing for years now.
In many ways we went 3 for 6 because I went with a technicality by saying Hit on Evolve. I said I liked the concept, not the execution.
As for the heels, yes, I think they’re frightened about making Cena look bad. But I also think they’re aware that Alberto has less years left in him than Miz and that he’s losing a lot of momentum so if they want to get him into the main event it needs to happen now so they’ll give him the feud with Cena and then revisit Miz as champion down the line.