Joined
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701 Posts
Hoping to strike up a little convo about how everyone felt about different Indy feds this past year.
ROH - This year I felt they turned the corner and started to head back towards where they were in 2005-07 in terms of overall quality. Despite the problems with Go Fight Live, I thought the iPPVs where a great addition, especially since I can't ever seem to keep my eyes away from spoilers. I really have loved what the Briscoes are doing this year and Claudio/Hero are probably the 2 best wrestlers in North America right now not signed to WWE. Davey has started to come into his own this year as a singles wrestler and is showing real promise despite his over hype in years previous. I always found Tyler black boring as hell unless he was in the ring with Dragon or Nigel but even he had me interested through the first half of the year and of course Generico/Steen has been the best thing in wrestling anywhere.
The 2nd half of the year has been a little underwhelming for me so far but they did just got through another transition, which is too bad cause I really thought Pearce was starting to figure it out. Roddy as champion is meh to me, I mean he deserves it but I hated the match against Tyler where he won the title and if Truth is gonna be his mouthpiece, then he (Roddy) should shut up, completely. The whole House Of Truth falling apart hasn't helped things either.
Kenny Omega would have been huge this year in ROH, too bad he's pretty much Japan based now, well to bad for ROH I suppose.
One thing that is troublesome though is that it's becoming increasingly obvious that Syd Eck is a bit of a problem behind the scenes. One really has to wonder what that missed opportunity with HDNet Pearce spoke about Syd blocking...
FInal Battle should be amazing.
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Dragon Gate USA - Still struggling to find their way in their 2nd year, mostly not really into DGUSA despite the fact that I really like Dragon Gate and a chunk of the American Indy guys they book. I did think that Enter The Dragon 2010 was fantastic (only saw the PPV not the DVD with SHingo/Danielson) and Bushido was pretty good as well, although I felt it fell victim to the Gabe overhype machine, surprise.
Lots to work with in 2011, the whole supercard concept is not working though, it's the same kinda thing that burned people out in ROH during 2008. There seems to be an improvement in that area though with the building of factions that include american workers and feuds that are unique to DGUSA starting to form. Plus gaining the greatest man that ever lived to your roster dosn't hurt. They really need to get that belt of BxB Hulk though, bleh.
Looking forward to what goes down in 2011
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EVOLVE - Some good matches this year, struggling moreso than DGUSA to find itself, rules changes and fed concept changes have hurt momentum but there are a lot of bright spots like Chucky T, any match with Danielson/Hero/Claudio, Bobby Fish and that promo from Sawa about wrestling Danielson.
Is Gabe spreading himself too thin?
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PWG - I've only been watching PWG for 2-3 years but this year seems off the charts good for them. They produced very high quality shows top to bottom, really good pacing to matches, matches doing their proper job for the proper spot on the card. No wrestlers ever seem to phone it in for PWG this year either and they have their share of MOTY candidates off some amazing performances, crowd reactions and commentary from the great Excalibur.
Plus PWG has the knack for pulling the trigger on a wrestler at the right time. They'd be my Favorite Indy fed this year, if it wasn't for......(Get that Red Rep ready CM Skittle)
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CHIKARA - What can I say? I'm gonna get tons of heat and flamed for this but Chikara is killing other Indy feds this year (Other than PWG) They have the most consistant storylines in all of wrestling and they NEVER have continuity problems with their Storylines, which is almost unheard of wrestling. In fact, the current storyline of BDK has SO many tie-ins all the way back to the break up of the KOW in Chikara and the secret of the CHikara special getting out/Hero storyline. It's epic and obviously Quack is very attentive to detail. While they havn't produced any sureshot MOTY candidates they have put on consistantly great cards that flow well from top to bottom and Chikarasaraus Rex might be my favorite top to Bottom show this year. King Of Trios wasn't as good as 08 or 09 in my opinion, Daniels should have not showed up IMO his matches against Eddie and Hallowwicked where big let downs but the BDK advancement was good and Sekimoto killing everybody made the weekend for me. The Brooklyn show was also really really great and I loved the look of it in the Warsaw, not to mention TOYOTA!!! Oh and anytime Danielson shows up in a Chikara ring, it's great.
Just watched Dark Cibernetico and it was so fun, can't wait to check out the last 3 shows of the year.
-----------------------------------------
IWA-MS - Ian Rotten gets job at Taco Bell and no real shows to speak of = best year ever for them!
-----------------------------------------
Comments? Complaints? Opinions? Love? Hate? Let's go!!!!
ROH - This year I felt they turned the corner and started to head back towards where they were in 2005-07 in terms of overall quality. Despite the problems with Go Fight Live, I thought the iPPVs where a great addition, especially since I can't ever seem to keep my eyes away from spoilers. I really have loved what the Briscoes are doing this year and Claudio/Hero are probably the 2 best wrestlers in North America right now not signed to WWE. Davey has started to come into his own this year as a singles wrestler and is showing real promise despite his over hype in years previous. I always found Tyler black boring as hell unless he was in the ring with Dragon or Nigel but even he had me interested through the first half of the year and of course Generico/Steen has been the best thing in wrestling anywhere.
The 2nd half of the year has been a little underwhelming for me so far but they did just got through another transition, which is too bad cause I really thought Pearce was starting to figure it out. Roddy as champion is meh to me, I mean he deserves it but I hated the match against Tyler where he won the title and if Truth is gonna be his mouthpiece, then he (Roddy) should shut up, completely. The whole House Of Truth falling apart hasn't helped things either.
Kenny Omega would have been huge this year in ROH, too bad he's pretty much Japan based now, well to bad for ROH I suppose.
One thing that is troublesome though is that it's becoming increasingly obvious that Syd Eck is a bit of a problem behind the scenes. One really has to wonder what that missed opportunity with HDNet Pearce spoke about Syd blocking...
FInal Battle should be amazing.
---------------------------
Dragon Gate USA - Still struggling to find their way in their 2nd year, mostly not really into DGUSA despite the fact that I really like Dragon Gate and a chunk of the American Indy guys they book. I did think that Enter The Dragon 2010 was fantastic (only saw the PPV not the DVD with SHingo/Danielson) and Bushido was pretty good as well, although I felt it fell victim to the Gabe overhype machine, surprise.
Lots to work with in 2011, the whole supercard concept is not working though, it's the same kinda thing that burned people out in ROH during 2008. There seems to be an improvement in that area though with the building of factions that include american workers and feuds that are unique to DGUSA starting to form. Plus gaining the greatest man that ever lived to your roster dosn't hurt. They really need to get that belt of BxB Hulk though, bleh.
Looking forward to what goes down in 2011
--------------------------------------
EVOLVE - Some good matches this year, struggling moreso than DGUSA to find itself, rules changes and fed concept changes have hurt momentum but there are a lot of bright spots like Chucky T, any match with Danielson/Hero/Claudio, Bobby Fish and that promo from Sawa about wrestling Danielson.
Is Gabe spreading himself too thin?
---------------------------------------
PWG - I've only been watching PWG for 2-3 years but this year seems off the charts good for them. They produced very high quality shows top to bottom, really good pacing to matches, matches doing their proper job for the proper spot on the card. No wrestlers ever seem to phone it in for PWG this year either and they have their share of MOTY candidates off some amazing performances, crowd reactions and commentary from the great Excalibur.
Plus PWG has the knack for pulling the trigger on a wrestler at the right time. They'd be my Favorite Indy fed this year, if it wasn't for......(Get that Red Rep ready CM Skittle)
---------------------------------------
CHIKARA - What can I say? I'm gonna get tons of heat and flamed for this but Chikara is killing other Indy feds this year (Other than PWG) They have the most consistant storylines in all of wrestling and they NEVER have continuity problems with their Storylines, which is almost unheard of wrestling. In fact, the current storyline of BDK has SO many tie-ins all the way back to the break up of the KOW in Chikara and the secret of the CHikara special getting out/Hero storyline. It's epic and obviously Quack is very attentive to detail. While they havn't produced any sureshot MOTY candidates they have put on consistantly great cards that flow well from top to bottom and Chikarasaraus Rex might be my favorite top to Bottom show this year. King Of Trios wasn't as good as 08 or 09 in my opinion, Daniels should have not showed up IMO his matches against Eddie and Hallowwicked where big let downs but the BDK advancement was good and Sekimoto killing everybody made the weekend for me. The Brooklyn show was also really really great and I loved the look of it in the Warsaw, not to mention TOYOTA!!! Oh and anytime Danielson shows up in a Chikara ring, it's great.
Just watched Dark Cibernetico and it was so fun, can't wait to check out the last 3 shows of the year.
-----------------------------------------
IWA-MS - Ian Rotten gets job at Taco Bell and no real shows to speak of = best year ever for them!
-----------------------------------------
Comments? Complaints? Opinions? Love? Hate? Let's go!!!!