2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

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cero2k
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2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by cero2k » Mar 15th, '18, 12:15

Mostly taken from the WOR show, haven't read the report just yet.


Wrestler of the year - Ric Flair/Lou Thesz Awards:
(1) Kazuchika Okada (NJPW)
(2) Kenny Omega (NJPW)
(3) Tetsuya Naito (NJPW)
(4) AJ Styles (WWE)
(5) Kento Miyahara (AJPW)
(6) Rush (CMLL)
(7) Brock Lesnar (WWE)
(8) Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW)
(9) Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW)
(10) Chris Jericho (WWE/NJPW/...free agent?)

Most outstanding wrestler:
(1) Kazuchika Okada (NJPW)
(2) Kenny Omega (NJPW)
(3) AJ Styles (WWE)
(4) Tetsuya Naito (NJPW)
(5) Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW)
(6) KUSHIDA (NJPW)
(7) Zack Sabre Jr (NJPW)
(8) Will Ospreay (NJPW)
(9) Kota Ibushi (free agent)
(10) Io Shirai (Stardom)

Tag team of the Year:
(1) The Young Bucks (ROH/NJPW) (4th year in a row)
(2) The Usos (WWE)
(3) War Machine (ROH in 2017)
(4) Sheamus & Cesaro (WWE)
(5) Nueva Generacion Dinamitas (CMLL)

Best on Interviews:
(1) Conor McGregor (UFC)
(2) Chris Jericho (WWE)
(3) The Miz (WWE)
(4) Kenny Omega (NJPW)
(5) Kevin Owens (WWE)

Promotion of the Year:
(1) NJPW (by far. 5871 votes)
(2) ROH (1297 votes)
(3) WWE
(4) UFC
(5) CMLL

Best weekly TV show:
(1) NJPW on AXS
(2) NXT
(3) CMLL Friday Night Arena Mexico
(4) Being the Elite
(5) ROH
(6) SmackDown!
...
(9) RAW

Match of the Year:
(1) Okada vs. Omega, WrestleKingdom 11 (NJPW)
(2) Okada vs. Omega, Dominion 6.11 (NJPW)
(3) Okada vs. Shibata, April 9th (NJPW)
(4) Naito vs. Omega, G1 CLIMAX 27 (NJPW)
(5) Okada vs. Omega, August 12th (NJPW)

Feud of the Year:
(1) Omega - Okada (NJPW) (by far. 938 votes)
(2) McGregor - Mayweather (UFC/Boxing) (62 votes)
(3) Tanahashi - Naito (NJPW)
(4) KUSHIDA - Takahashi (NJPW)
(5) Jones - Cormier (UFC)

Most charismatic:
(1) Tetsuya Naito (NJPW)
(2) Conor McGregor (UFC)
(3) Kenny Omega (NJPW)
(4) Matt Riddle (PWG)
(5) Shinsuke Nakamura (WWE)

Best technical wrestler:
(1) Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW) (4th year in a row)
(2) KUSHIDA (NJPW)
(3) Hideki Suzuki (BJW?)
(4) Marty Scurll (ROH)
(5) Pete Dunne (WWE)

Best brawler - Bruiser Brody Memorial Awards:
(1) Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW)
(2) SHIBATA (NJPW)
(3) Minoru Suzuki (NJPW)
(4) Walter (WXW)
(5) Samoa Joe (WWE)

Best flying wrestler:
(1) Will Ospreay (NJPW)
(2) Ricochet (NJPW in 2017)
(3) Volador Jr. (CMLL)
(4) Hiromu Takahashi (NJPW)
(5) Rey Fénix (free agent)

Most overrated (which, to Bryan, should be renamed to "most personal hated wrestler"):
(1) Jinder Mahal (WWE)
(2) Roman Reigns (WWE)
(3) Baron Corbin (WWE)
(4) CODY (ROH/NJPW)
(5) The Miz / Bray Wyatt (a tie) (WWE)
...
(8) Braun Strowman (lol) (WWE)

Most underrated:
(1) Rusev (94 votes)
(2) Tomohiro Ishii (92 votes)
(3) Finn Bálor
(4) Sami Zayn
(5) Kassius Ohno

Rookie of the Year:
(1) Ketsuya Kitamura (NJPW)
(2) Microman (CMLL)
(3) Bianca Belair (WWE)
(4) Tomoyuki Oka (NJPW)
(5) Austin Theory (WWN)

Best non-wrestler:
(1) Daniel Bryan (WWE)
(2) Zelina Vega (WWE)
(3) Paul Heyman (WWE)
(4) Stokely Hathaway (EVOLVE)
(5) Dario Cueto (Lucha Underground)

Best TV announcer:
(1) Mauro Ranallo (WWE)
(2) Corey Graves (WWE)
(3) Don Callis (TNA/NJPW)
(4) Shinpei Nogami (NJPW)
(5) Kevin Kelly (NJPW)

Worst TV announcer:
(1) Booker T (WWE)
(2) Percy Watson (WWE)
(3) JBL (WWE)
(4) Matt Striker (Lucha Underground)
(5) Byron Saxton (WWE)

Best major wrestling show:
(1) WrestleKingdom 11 (NJPW)
(2) Dominion 6.11 (NJPW)
(3) UFC 217
(4) NXT Takeover: Chicago (WWE)
(5) G1 Finals (NJPW)

Worst major wrestling show:
(1) Battleground (WWE)
(2) Triplemania XXV (AAA)
(3) Bound for Glory (TNA)
(4) WrestleMania 33 (WWE)
(5) Payback (WWE)
(6) Backlash (WWE)
(7) Clash of Champions (WWE)
(8) Roadblock: End of the Line (WWE)
(9) Survivor Series (WWE)
(10) Destruction in Fukushima (NJPW)

Best wrestling move:
(1) One-Winged Angel (Kenny Omega, NJPW)
(2) Rainmaker (Kazuchika Okada, NJPW)
(3) Destino (Tetsuya Naito, NJPW)
(4) V-Trigger (Kenny Omega, NJPW)
(5) Black Mass (Aleister Black, WWE)

Most disgusting promotional tactic:
(1) WWE promoting Jimmy Snuka a hero in death (WWE)
(2) Jinder Mahal racial interview about Nakamura (WWE)
(3) Ultimate Warrior lionization - Breast Cancer campaign (WWE)
(4) Pushing Jinder Mahal as a champion for the Indian market (WWE)
(5) Gabi Garcia against smaller women (Rizin)

Worst TV show:
(1) RAW (WWE)
(2) Impact (TNA)
(3) 205 Live (WWE)
(4) SmackDown! (WWE)
(5) AAA
(6) Lucha Underground

Worst match of the year:
(1) Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton, WrestleMania 33 (WWE)
(2) Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton, House of Horrors (WWE)
(3) AAA Rumble
(4) Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley, Kendo Stick on a Pole (WWE)
(5) Randy Orton vs. Jinder Mahal, Punjabi Prison (WWE)

Worst feud of the year:
(1) Orton vs. Wyatt (WWE)
(2) Nakamura vs. Mahal (WWE)
(3) Orton vs. Mahal (WWE)
(4) Bayley vs. Bliss (WWE)
(5) Wyatt vs. Balor (WWE)

Worst promotion:
(1) TNA
(2) AAA
(3) WWE
(4) ICW
(5) Lucha Underground

Best booker:
(1) Gedo (by fucking far. 1,025 votes) (NJPW)
(2) Triple H (48 votes) (WWE)
(3) Jun Akiyama (AJPW)
(4) Smallman, Briley, Joseph (PROGRESS)
(5) Christian Michael Jakobi (WXW)

Promoter of the year:
(1) Takaaki Kidani (NJPW) (771 votes)
(2) Dana White (UFC) (198 votes)
(3) Triple H (WWE) (109 votes)
(4) Showtime Sports (36 votes)
(5) Jim Smallman (25 votes)

Best gimmick:
(1) Los Ingobernables de Japon (NJPW)
(2) Velveteen Dream (WWE)
(3) Marty Scurll (ROH)
(4) The Elite (ROH/NJPW)
(5) Drew Gulak (WWE)

Worst gimmick:
(1) Bray Wyatt & Sister Abigail (WWE)
(2) Jason Jordan as Kurt Angle's son (WWE)
(3) Dolph Ziggler (WWE)
(4) Jinder Mahal (WWE)
(5) Mike Kanellis (WWE)

Best pro-wrestling book:
(1) Crazy like a Fox - The Brian Pillman story
(2) Slobberknocker, Jim Ross
(3) Best seat in the house, Justin Roberts
(4) Sisterhood of the Squared Circle,
(5) No is a four letter word, Chris Jericho

Best documentary:
(1) Ric Flair 30-for-30
(2) Bruiser Brody, the last wrestling rebel
(3) Fight Owens Fight
(4) WWE 365 with Kevin Owens
(5) WWE 24: Finn Bálor
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 15th, '18, 14:03

Looking at some of the top tens, I am forced to conclude that Dave doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. How much do you want to bet that all of the votes Dave has listed as "Chris Brookes and Kid Lykos" (8th place, including 25 1st place votes) were all people who voted for "CCK" and Dave has no idea that they meant Chris Brookes and Travis Banks?

I also believe that, by Dave's own qualifications, wXw's Shotgun shouldn't even be eligible for best TV show because it's not frequent enough. It's basically a monthly show- sometimes bi-monthly. If I couldn't vote for the Cruiserweight Classic last year because it wans't on enough even though it was technically weekly, then how the hell is wXw eligible.
And while I cant say that this one is technically Dave's fault for voting for it, but Being The Elite ISN'T EVEN A F*CKING WRESTLING SHOW! Voting for Being The Elite is like voting for TNA Spin Cycle! It shouldn't be eligible, either! But I can blame Dave for going on the air last night and claiming it was one of the best shows ever in terms of getting people over.
1) It's not the show that gets people over, it's the association with Omega & the Bucks
2) Getting over on Being The Elite says more about the state of wrestling fans than it does about their show because you can now get over by being involved in sketch comedy and by having someone put a Bullet Club t-shirt on you (Aiden English's rise in WWE is similar)
3) Last night Dave tried to give Being The Elite credit for getting MARTY SCURLL over.

I also think that New Japan's show on AXS should be disqualified, too, because it's basically a show of reruns where they get to cherry-pick the absolute best stuff several months later. It's not a show trying to tell a story and thus increase its own rating and build up its company's PPV/subscription numbers. WWE or ROH could easily put on something similar out of their libraries if they wanted to use their airtime that way, but they don't.

Also, the fact that people voted for ZACK GIBSON as best on interviews is utterly insane. Just because fans love to boo during your promos doesn't make them good promos if you don't have anything interesting to say. It's like BJ Whitmer in ROH during the Corino feud, but Gibson just does it in more cultish promotions (that's not a knock on PROGRESS for the atmosphere they've created, but rather a knock on fans for voting for him for the boos even though his promos are dull). The fact that Sami Callihan didn't even make the honorable mentions despite his outstanding promo work in AAW is criminal, and the fact Alexa Bliss!, Mickie James and AJ Styles didn't despite often having to deal with the handicap of WWE writing didn't make it is ridiculous. I also think that MMA fighters should have their own category, because most wrestlers are out there cutting promos every week, not a few times a year, and unlike these MMA guys, thy can't go get attention by saying whatever random crap they want (Connor). They are required to stay on target while MMA fighters are not.
And anyone who voted for Cody should just go away forever.

Dave actually made a good point about WWE, UFC, New Japan, and CMLL having built-in advantages when it comes to Promotion of the Year due to their size giving them advantages in the revenue department... but that's on Dave for putting an emphasis on money. I'm much more impressed by ROH, PROGRESS, RevPro, wXw, WCPW etc.'s relative growth to where they were at the beginning of the year (and you can certainly put New Japan's expansion into the US into this category, too) than I am at WWE or UFC or CMLL standing pat.

Anyone who voted for any of Brock's short matches should also go away forever. Do you people WANT to keep getting f*cked out of PPV main events?

What I said about MMA fighters getting their own award for interviews applies even more so to drawing. Or, more accurately, their should be a separate award for them and people like Rock (and Taker and Hunter in some recent years) who only do one or two matches. I find it much more impressive to be a Kenny Omega who goes around the world popping houses than someone who everyone who wants to see them is forced to buy the same two or three fights/matches. The fact that four of the top names on this list only fought/wrestled ONCE in the required time period (in other words, they only drew ONE house/buyrate/rating) as opposed to wrestlers who do it multiple times a week is ridiculous. Even BROCK ALONE wrestled more times than ALL OF THEM COMBINED. Maybe the real award should be Best CONSISTENT Box Office Draw.

Anyone who voted for LIJ vs. Taguchi Japan is an idiot. If you wanted to vote for Tanahashi vs. Naito or KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu I'd disagree with you (especially in the latter case), but I understand where you're coming from. But the idea that Taguchi Japan is any sort of coherent unit is, quite frankly, stupid, and not really supported by any evidence other than the fact that Gedo's limited, rigid mindset forces some of these guys to randomly team together. Why are they a stable but Liger Mask, Ten-Koji, Nagata, and Nakanishi aren't? Or why doesn't Makabe count as being in their group?
The idea that Floyd and Connor was a feud also stupid. People have lost sight of the difference between a "feud" and the build-up to one match! I wouldn't even call Omega vs. Okada a "feud" so much as a "program," but there is no other place to vote for it so I can understand why people would vote for it here. But to call the build to one f*cking fight a "feud" when it's not even people who have an established dislike of each other like Ronda/Tate is ridiculous.
New rule: If, at the end of the year, you don't have vivid memories of at least two major angles/incidents, you shouldn't be allowed to vote for it for feud of the year.
British Strong Style vs. Travis Banks & Friends, Alpha Kevin & Melanie Gray vs. Marius van Beethoven & Alpha Female, Jay Lethal vs. Silas Young, Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens, Brock Lesnar vs. Samoa Joe, Catchpoint vs. Keith Lee & Matt Riddle, Best Friends vs. Zack & Marty. These are FEUDS.

Anyone who voted for Cody "most improved" is also an idiot. The fact that all of his best matches since coming on the indies were either giant tag matches that also included the Young Bucks, Omega, Ospreay, etc., or singles matches involving ZSJ, Jay Lethal, Kazuchika Okada, or Christopher Daniels makes it obvious that he only capable of being carried. The fact that he totally shat the bed time after time as ROH World Champion, even when given MINORU SUZUKI and SANADA to work with should be proof of that. I mean... how much of a f*cking Bullet Club mark do you have to be to vote for Cody- who was having better matches last year in WWE- as "Most Improved" or someone like Strowman, Bliss, the Authors of Pain, Velveteen Dream, Roppongi 3K, or Trent Beretta?

For best Non-Wrestler, how someone could not vote for either Zelina Vega or Stokely Hathaway is beyond me. Bryan winning this one is ridiculous. Anyone who voted for Shane or Angle should be flogged. And how the hell did Regal not even make the list?

Voting for PWG guys as best announcer is ridiculous. They barely even do the job an announcer is supposed to. Nigel should have ranked higher, as should Lenny Leonard and everyone involved with PROGRESS and RevPro. Nice to see Alan Counihan get some acknowledgement but I thought his usual wXw partner, Jeremy Graves, was even better.

The Worst TV Announcer list is pretty good. I like Don Callis but I can see why he would irritate some people. It's also nice to see some people recognizing that JR isn't that great anymore. I'd have had Striker at the top and Percy Watson further down, but in the grand scheme of things, the fact that Striker is not at the top of the list is the only real crime here.

LOL at Dave not even getting the right number for the 2017 Wrestle Kingdom. I also don't remember the G1 finals being that great a show, even in comparison to some other New Japan shows not on this list (Power Struggle, anyone? Or even the preceding night), never mind non-New Japan shows like RPW Epic Encounter 2017 or PROGRESS 55.

As for Best Maneuver... am I the only one who thinks that Destino looks kind of lame compared to Naito's own Gloria?

Anyone who thought Raw was worse than Smackdown is insane.

The Punjabi Prison Match, Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series match, and even Bliss vs. Bayley weren't as bad as the spots they got on this list. The fact that Suzuki vs. Cody and Suzuki vs. Yano didn't make it is ridiculous.

I think Dave left last year's Worst Feud honorable mentions up. LOL.

Gedo was a worse booker than all of the others in the top five, but he gets the top spot because 1) these things are streaky, and 2) Dave's emphasis on money without looking at what the booker has actually done to get their guys over. Gedo had less to do with getting his guys over than anyone else on that list did. If you gave any of those guys Gedo's roster, they'd get them over. If you gave any of those guy's rosters to Gedo, he'd have no chance with them.
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by cero2k » Mar 15th, '18, 15:51

oh boy, here we go

Looking at some of the top tens, I am forced to conclude that Dave doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. How much do you want to bet that all of the votes Dave has listed as "Chris Brookes and Kid Lykos" (8th place, including 25 1st place votes) were all people who voted for "CCK" and Dave has no idea that they meant Chris Brookes and Travis Banks?
not many really, CCK is more know an Brookes and Lykos than Banks, just looking at the other categories,
PROGRESS landed high ranking spots while RevPor didn't, that tells me that more people are related to the Lykos version of CCK. People are not watching RevPro where i think it would be the most well know place with the Banks/Brookes team


I also believe that, by Dave's own qualifications, wXw's Shotgun shouldn't even be eligible for best TV show because it's not frequent enough. It's basically a monthly show- sometimes bi-monthly. If I couldn't vote for the Cruiserweight Classic last year because it wans't on enough even though it was technically weekly, then how the hell is wXw eligible.
And while I cant say that this one is technically Dave's fault for voting for it, but Being The Elite ISN'T EVEN A F*CKING WRESTLING SHOW! Voting for Being The Elite is like voting for TNA Spin Cycle! It shouldn't be eligible, either! But I can blame Dave for going on the air last night and claiming it was one of the best shows ever in terms of getting people over.
1) It's not the show that gets people over, it's the association with Omega & the Bucks
2) Getting over on Being The Elite says more about the state of wrestling fans than it does about their show because you can now get over by being involved in sketch comedy and by having someone put a Bullet Club t-shirt on you (Aiden English's rise in WWE is similar)
3) Last night Dave tried to give Being The Elite credit for getting MARTY SCURLL over.
agree on Shotgun, but CWC (or other tournaments) shouldn't count because they're not ongoing, they're just like a miniseries. I wouldn't include them.

BTE is a weekly released show about wrestling. I think it qualifies, otherwise LU shouldn't technically since it's not a classic style wrestling show, and hell, if we want to really be picky, NXT is not really a 'TV' show. But you're right, BTE didn't get Scurll over, it was PWG.


I also think that New Japan's show on AXS should be disqualified, too, because it's basically a show of reruns where they get to cherry-pick the absolute best stuff several months later. It's not a show trying to tell a story and thus increase its own rating and build up its company's PPV/subscription numbers. WWE or ROH could easily put on something similar out of their libraries if they wanted to use their airtime that way, but they don't.
exactly, they don't, if they did, it would qualify too. It's a weekly formatted show for TV about wrestling. It's like Superstars or Xplosion, they really don't tell stories, but it qualifies.

Also, the fact that people voted for ZACK GIBSON as best on interviews is utterly insane. Just because fans love to boo during your promos doesn't make them good promos if you don't have anything interesting to say. It's like BJ Whitmer in ROH during the Corino feud, but Gibson just does it in more cultish promotions (that's not a knock on PROGRESS for the atmosphere they've created, but rather a knock on fans for voting for him for the boos even though his promos are dull). The fact that Sami Callihan didn't even make the honorable mentions despite his outstanding promo work in AAW is criminal, and the fact Alexa Bliss!, Mickie James and AJ Styles didn't despite often having to deal with the handicap of WWE writing didn't make it is ridiculous. I also think that MMA fighters should have their own category, because most wrestlers are out there cutting promos every week, not a few times a year, and unlike these MMA guys, thy can't go get attention by saying whatever random crap they want (Connor). They are required to stay on target while MMA fighters are not.
And anyone who voted for Cody should just go away forever.
Again, people would need to actually watch AAW to even consider voting for Callihan, but for anyone else, Callihan is what they see in LU or Impact, and he kinda sucks. Owens, Jericho, and Miz are in there with the 'WWE handicap' so if the rest didn't make it because people don't consider their work as good as the rest of the list. Hell, if you ask me, i'd DQ all the WWE people because they don't write their own promos, at least Gibson is making up everything he says.

Dave actually made a good point about WWE, UFC, New Japan, and CMLL having built-in advantages when it comes to Promotion of the Year due to their size giving them advantages in the revenue department... but that's on Dave for putting an emphasis on money. I'm much more impressed by ROH, PROGRESS, RevPro, wXw, WCPW etc.'s relative growth to where they were at the beginning of the year (and you can certainly put New Japan's expansion into the US into this category, too) than I am at WWE or UFC or CMLL standing pat.
the whole point of the industry is to make money

Anyone who voted for any of Brock's short matches should also go away forever. Do you people WANT to keep getting f*cked out of PPV main events?
Some people don't actually like long drawn out matches. Look at who is the most popular guy in WWE right now, Braun "destruction derby' Strowman, his matches suck because it's just breaking stuff around the ring. Same with Lesnar, Reigns, or Goldberg, but that's what people were salivating all over the year for.


Anyone who voted for LIJ vs. Taguchi Japan is an idiot. If you wanted to vote for Tanahashi vs. Naito or KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu I'd disagree with you (especially in the latter case), but I understand where you're coming from. But the idea that Taguchi Japan is any sort of coherent unit is, quite frankly, stupid, and not really supported by any evidence other than the fact that Gedo's limited, rigid mindset forces some of these guys to randomly team together. Why are they a stable but Liger Mask, Ten-Koji, Nagata, and Nakanishi aren't? Or why doesn't Makabe count as being in their group?
The idea that Floyd and Connor was a feud also stupid. People have lost sight of the difference between a "feud" and the build-up to one match! I wouldn't even call Omega vs. Okada a "feud" so much as a "program," but there is no other place to vote for it so I can understand why people would vote for it here. But to call the build to one f*cking fight a "feud" when it's not even people who have an established dislike of each other like Ronda/Tate is ridiculous.
New rule: If, at the end of the year, you don't have vivid memories of at least two major angles/incidents, you shouldn't be allowed to vote for it for feud of the year.
British Strong Style vs. Travis Banks & Friends, Alpha Kevin & Melanie Gray vs. Marius van Beethoven & Alpha Female, Jay Lethal vs. Silas Young, Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens, Brock Lesnar vs. Samoa Joe, Catchpoint vs. Keith Lee & Matt Riddle, Best Friends vs. Zack & Marty. These are FEUDS.
who's to say that a feud needs to have more than one match? if you're running promos and programs all year and only have one match, that definitely counts as a feud. Are you telling me that Rock vs Cena wasn't a feud?Taker vs HBK wasn't a feud? Hell, i think Joe vs Lesnar had less interaction than McGregor and Mayweather. A feud is just a rivalry,
you don't actually even have to hate each other.


Anyone who voted for Cody "most improved" is also an idiot. The fact that all of his best matches since coming on the indies were either giant tag matches that also included the Young Bucks, Omega, Ospreay, etc., or singles matches involving ZSJ, Jay Lethal, Kazuchika Okada, or Christopher Daniels makes it obvious that he only capable of being carried. The fact that he totally shat the bed time after time as ROH World Champion, even when given MINORU SUZUKI and SANADA to work with should be proof of that. I mean... how much of a f*cking Bullet Club mark do you have to be to vote for Cody- who was having better matches last year in WWE- as "Most Improved" or someone like Strowman, Bliss, the Authors of Pain, Velveteen Dream, Roppongi 3K, or Trent Beretta?
It's most improved, if you felt that he sucked even worse at the beginning of the year and now he's bearable, that means he improved in some people's eyes, and he was definitely not having better matches in WWE, he was boring as fuck. To me Braun didn't improve, he just got more mic/camera time and was allowed to smash more things, that's not improving, that's creative giving you more, but his matches still suck ass, for all we know, he had the same charisma last year, but wasn't given the chance to show it. Alexa has been the same thing since last year, she's awesome, but from 2016 to 2018 she didn't really improve. Dream didn't improve, he just got a gimmick change.

This is the opposite of 'overrated'. In overrated, people just vote for 'who didn't i like this year that everyone else did', and here is, 'what wrestler did i start liking this year'.


For best Non-Wrestler, how someone could not vote for either Zelina Vega or Stokely Hathaway is beyond me. Bryan winning this one is ridiculous. Anyone who voted for Shane or Angle should be flogged. And how the hell did Regal not even make the list?
Stokely (again, you actually need to even know who he is) is #4, what more do you want? Angle is not even in the list.

Voting for PWG guys as best announcer is ridiculous. They barely even do the job an announcer is supposed to. Nigel should have ranked higher, as should Lenny Leonard and everyone involved with PROGRESS and RevPro. Nice to see Alan Counihan get some acknowledgement but I thought his usual wXw partner, Jeremy Graves, was even better.
you mean call out moves and keep you informed of the match and wrestlers? Cuz that's what Chuck and Excalibur do during matches, they don't need to sell you stories because we've had this conversation a million times about PWG not really running stories. I could say the same about WWE announcers that are selling me more products than telling me what's up in the match.

LOL at Dave not even getting the right number for the 2017 Wrestle Kingdom. I also don't remember the G1 finals being that great a show, even in comparison to some other New Japan shows not on this list (Power Struggle, anyone? Or even the preceding night), never mind non-New Japan shows like RPW Epic Encounter 2017 or PROGRESS 55.
I think you're now just looking for excuses to hate on dave. anyway, G1 Finals was a more memorable show for Naito vs Omega, so i'm sure more people thought of that one quicker. Epic Encounter and Chp 55 were probably not seen by a lot of people. I myself don't know how NXT even made it to the list with so many so much better NJPW shows.

As for Best Maneuver... am I the only one who thinks that Destino looks kind of lame compared to Naito's own Gloria?
ehh sometimes, Gloria is cool when fighting smaller guys, but sometimes they just look like a normal backplex. Destino is flashier, plus it's the finisher

Anyone who thought Raw was worse than Smackdown is insane.
Consider that for a large chunk of 2017, Smackdown was somewhat better than RAW, plus Smackdown being one less hour makes it more bearable.

The Punjabi Prison Match, Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series match, and even Bliss vs. Bayley weren't as bad as the spots they got on this list. The fact that Suzuki vs. Cody and Suzuki vs. Yano didn't make it is ridiculous.
They totally were and while those Suzuki matches were bad, I can totally see this list being worse.

I think Dave left last year's Worst Feud honorable mentions up. LOL.
I think you're now just looking for excuses to hate on dave.

Gedo was a worse booker than all of the others in the top five, but he gets the top spot because 1) these things are streaky, and 2) Dave's emphasis on money without looking at what the booker has actually done to get their guys over. Gedo had less to do with getting his guys over than anyone else on that list did. If you gave any of those guys Gedo's roster, they'd get them over. If you gave any of those guy's rosters to Gedo, he'd have no chance with them.
not even gonna argue, i know you don't like Gedo.
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 15th, '18, 18:16

cero2k wrote: Mar 15th, '18, 15:51 oh boy, here we go

Looking at some of the top tens, I am forced to conclude that Dave doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. How much do you want to bet that all of the votes Dave has listed as "Chris Brookes and Kid Lykos" (8th place, including 25 1st place votes) were all people who voted for "CCK" and Dave has no idea that they meant Chris Brookes and Travis Banks?
not many really, CCK is more know an Brookes and Lykos than Banks, just looking at the other categories,
PROGRESS landed high ranking spots while RevPor didn't, that tells me that more people are related to the Lykos version of CCK. People are not watching RevPro where i think it would be the most well know place with the Banks/Brookes team

I disagree. Brookes & Banks have been wrestling in more high-profile places than Brookes & Lykos (RevPro, Lucha Forever, and basically carried RevPro for a while. Other than PROGRESS most of Lykos & Brookes' other matches have been in smaller British indies. Lykos was also injured for a while, and every big exposure opportunity (i.e. ROH and New Japan joint shows) went to Brookes & Banks, not Brookes & Lykos.

I also believe that, by Dave's own qualifications, wXw's Shotgun shouldn't even be eligible for best TV show because it's not frequent enough. It's basically a monthly show- sometimes bi-monthly. If I couldn't vote for the Cruiserweight Classic last year because it wans't on enough even though it was technically weekly, then how the hell is wXw eligible.
And while I cant say that this one is technically Dave's fault for voting for it, but Being The Elite ISN'T EVEN A F*CKING WRESTLING SHOW! Voting for Being The Elite is like voting for TNA Spin Cycle! It shouldn't be eligible, either! But I can blame Dave for going on the air last night and claiming it was one of the best shows ever in terms of getting people over.
1) It's not the show that gets people over, it's the association with Omega & the Bucks
2) Getting over on Being The Elite says more about the state of wrestling fans than it does about their show because you can now get over by being involved in sketch comedy and by having someone put a Bullet Club t-shirt on you (Aiden English's rise in WWE is similar)
3) Last night Dave tried to give Being The Elite credit for getting MARTY SCURLL over.
agree on Shotgun, but CWC (or other tournaments) shouldn't count because they're not ongoing, they're just like a miniseries. I wouldn't include them.

BTE is a weekly released show about wrestling. I think it qualifies, otherwise LU shouldn't technically since it's not a classic style wrestling show, and hell, if we want to really be picky, NXT is not really a 'TV' show. But you're right, BTE didn't get Scurll over, it was PWG.

I just checked back on it and I guess I thought the CWC went a bit longer than it did (I thought it had spread over 3-4 months when really it was 2) so I see the mini-series argument, but LU wasn't even on for half a year this year either, and I don't think that should disqualify it. I might say that would make voting for it a little silly if you didn't think it was ultra-consistently the best show of the week every week it was on, but I don't think it should be disqualified by law.
While LU is certainly different, I'd argue that it is a "traditional wrestling show." It shows us all of the promos, storylines, and build-up of the things happening around the Lucha Underground promotion, and then it shows us the matches that fuel and result from those storylines. To say that LU shouldn't count because it's not "traditional" is like saying that CHIKARA shouldn't count as pro wrestling because they are willing to use fantastical plot elements. Kevin Sullivan summoned a demon named "The Purple Haze" from out of the waters of the Florida coast. Jim Cornette wanted me to believe that Leviathan Dave Batista lived at the bottom of the Ohio River. No one would ever call OVW or Championship Wrestling from Florida "non-traditional."
Being The Elite shouldn't count because they're not giving you wrestling matches, and a chunk of the stuff there doesn't even wind up mattering to storylines. Guys are in-character, yes, but as I said, it's basically a new take on TNA Spin Cycle, just slightly more storyline relevant because the guys doing the show have more control over their own angles. But until I start getting full matches on their (and preferably exclusive ones) the idea that a show that is often indistinguishable from some guys f*cking around with their friends can qualify as the best Weekly Wrestling Show is silly.
Talking Smack shouldn't count either since it's basically TNA Reaction (although Reaction at least sometimes had overrun matches from Impact).

As for who got Scurll over, that would be PROGRESS, RevPro, and Marty himself. PWG just gave him his first exposure in North America. To quote a previous debate on the topic about Scurll and Ospreay (in the CHIKARA Identities thread, or all places?):
Big Red Machine wrote: What PWG did for them is just like what Zandig did when he let the Steen/Generico/SeXXXy Eddie/IWS crew come in to work a match for CZW. He just let them have a match and they had a match that was good enough that it made other people want to book them. It was the wrestlers that did everything there, with no help from the promotion other than giving them a platform on which they could be seen by others who then actually booked them to make them stars in the US.




I also think that New Japan's show on AXS should be disqualified, too, because it's basically a show of reruns where they get to cherry-pick the absolute best stuff several months later. It's not a show trying to tell a story and thus increase its own rating and build up its company's PPV/subscription numbers. WWE or ROH could easily put on something similar out of their libraries if they wanted to use their airtime that way, but they don't.
exactly, they don't, if they did, it would qualify too. It's a weekly formatted show for TV about wrestling. It's like Superstars or Xplosion, they really don't tell stories, but it qualifies.
But at least Superstars and Xplosion have new matches. New Japan on AXS qualifying is like voting for the 2016 Tokyo Dome main event as the best match you saw in 2017 because you didn't get around to watching it until now. It's a show made up of things that already qualify for the awards for their presence on other shows. New Japan is basically getting credit for all of their big shows in a totally different category.

Also, the fact that people voted for ZACK GIBSON as best on interviews is utterly insane. Just because fans love to boo during your promos doesn't make them good promos if you don't have anything interesting to say. It's like BJ Whitmer in ROH during the Corino feud, but Gibson just does it in more cultish promotions (that's not a knock on PROGRESS for the atmosphere they've created, but rather a knock on fans for voting for him for the boos even though his promos are dull). The fact that Sami Callihan didn't even make the honorable mentions despite his outstanding promo work in AAW is criminal, and the fact Alexa Bliss!, Mickie James and AJ Styles didn't despite often having to deal with the handicap of WWE writing didn't make it is ridiculous. I also think that MMA fighters should have their own category, because most wrestlers are out there cutting promos every week, not a few times a year, and unlike these MMA guys, thy can't go get attention by saying whatever random crap they want (Connor). They are required to stay on target while MMA fighters are not.
And anyone who voted for Cody should just go away forever.
Again, people would need to actually watch AAW to even consider voting for Callihan, but for anyone else, Callihan is what they see in LU or Impact, and he kinda sucks. Owens, Jericho, and Miz are in there with the 'WWE handicap' so if the rest didn't make it because people don't consider their work as good as the rest of the list. Hell, if you ask me, i'd DQ all the WWE people because they don't write their own promos, at least Gibson is making up everything he says.
These are WON subscribers. I'd wager to bet that most of them new who Sami was well before he showed up in NXT and I'd imagine they've probably seen at least some AAW this- even if it was just one match or one promo.
I'd draw a distinction between scripting and "being told what to say," as I'm certain, that Owens (and Joe, and Bryan and Bliss and Ambrose an a chunk of others) goes off script- but not off message- relatively often, and that Jericho, Cena, Miz, and Heyman in particular are allowed to say whatever they want. Compare them to Angle or Naomi or even Balor and Rollins and it sounds totally different.
But even so, to disqualify someone just for being scripted negates the importance of the quality of the delivery.


Dave actually made a good point about WWE, UFC, New Japan, and CMLL having built-in advantages when it comes to Promotion of the Year due to their size giving them advantages in the revenue department... but that's on Dave for putting an emphasis on money. I'm much more impressed by ROH, PROGRESS, RevPro, wXw, WCPW etc.'s relative growth to where they were at the beginning of the year (and you can certainly put New Japan's expansion into the US into this category, too) than I am at WWE or UFC or CMLL standing pat.
the whole point of the industry is to make money
I'd prefer to think that part of a successful company is artistic merit (which is why I think MMA should be all their own awards), but even if you're just looking at it from a money point of view, it's shouldn't be about the bottom line: it should be about how far you've come in the past year. WWE did nothing new. wXw, RevPro, AAW, and especially ROH, New Japan, and PROGRESS have all made major steps in growing their business. Or somewhere like NOAH, which definitely seems to be turning around, is much more impressive to me than WWE or CMLL making the same big bunch of money that they did the previous year by standing pat this year.

Anyone who voted for any of Brock's short matches should also go away forever. Do you people WANT to keep getting f*cked out of PPV main events?
Some people don't actually like long drawn out matches. Look at who is the most popular guy in WWE right now, Braun "destruction derby' Strowman, his matches suck because it's just breaking stuff around the ring. Same with Lesnar, Reigns, or Goldberg, but that's what people were salivating all over the year for.
I'm not asking for Gulak and O'Reilly to do grapplef*ck for thirty minutes every week (although I would totally watch the sh*t out of that). But when you give me something that is supposed to be a big deal like a world title match and it's over in five minutes then I get pissed. Braun squashes don't happen in main events. I want big matches to go at least ten. That's why I never watch MMA PPVs. If I'm paying my hard-earned money to see a match, I don't want want it to be over in three minutes (and especially not because someone got in a lucky punch). That's why Ronda got boring. She was like The Ascension in NXT.
Brock and Joe was THE dream match, and they totally ruined it.



Anyone who voted for LIJ vs. Taguchi Japan is an idiot. If you wanted to vote for Tanahashi vs. Naito or KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu I'd disagree with you (especially in the latter case), but I understand where you're coming from. But the idea that Taguchi Japan is any sort of coherent unit is, quite frankly, stupid, and not really supported by any evidence other than the fact that Gedo's limited, rigid mindset forces some of these guys to randomly team together. Why are they a stable but Liger Mask, Ten-Koji, Nagata, and Nakanishi aren't? Or why doesn't Makabe count as being in their group?
The idea that Floyd and Connor was a feud also stupid. People have lost sight of the difference between a "feud" and the build-up to one match! I wouldn't even call Omega vs. Okada a "feud" so much as a "program," but there is no other place to vote for it so I can understand why people would vote for it here. But to call the build to one f*cking fight a "feud" when it's not even people who have an established dislike of each other like Ronda/Tate is ridiculous.
New rule: If, at the end of the year, you don't have vivid memories of at least two major angles/incidents, you shouldn't be allowed to vote for it for feud of the year.
British Strong Style vs. Travis Banks & Friends, Alpha Kevin & Melanie Gray vs. Marius van Beethoven & Alpha Female, Jay Lethal vs. Silas Young, Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman, AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens, Brock Lesnar vs. Samoa Joe, Catchpoint vs. Keith Lee & Matt Riddle, Best Friends vs. Zack & Marty. These are FEUDS.
who's to say that a feud needs to have more than one match? if you're running promos and programs all year and only have one match, that definitely counts as a feud. Are you telling me that Rock vs Cena wasn't a feud?Taker vs HBK wasn't a feud? Hell, i think Joe vs Lesnar had less interaction than McGregor and Mayweather. A feud is just a rivalry,
you don't actually even have to hate each other.

More than one match? No. But you should have at least more than one angle, even if that angle is as simple as a passionate promo about how much you want to beat the other guy Joe and Brock had less interaction that Connor vs. Mayweather? Fine. But it also had a much shorter time frame in which to get in that interaction, in that we had multiple brawls, plus Joe choking out Brock's manager (who I don't anyone had put their hands on in years. Probably since Punk, and that was because the feud morphed into Punk vs. Heyman after the Brock match, because Heyman cost Punk that match. (And with Connor and Mayweather in particular, I never believed for one moment that they saw this as anything other than a payday.
Maybe it would be best to replace feud with "Rivalry" or to do something like did on ROHWorld last year where we separated "feuds" from "programs."


Anyone who voted for Cody "most improved" is also an idiot. The fact that all of his best matches since coming on the indies were either giant tag matches that also included the Young Bucks, Omega, Ospreay, etc., or singles matches involving ZSJ, Jay Lethal, Kazuchika Okada, or Christopher Daniels makes it obvious that he only capable of being carried. The fact that he totally shat the bed time after time as ROH World Champion, even when given MINORU SUZUKI and SANADA to work with should be proof of that. I mean... how much of a f*cking Bullet Club mark do you have to be to vote for Cody- who was having better matches last year in WWE- as "Most Improved" or someone like Strowman, Bliss, the Authors of Pain, Velveteen Dream, Roppongi 3K, or Trent Beretta?
It's most improved, if you felt that he sucked even worse at the beginning of the year and now he's bearable, that means he improved in some people's eyes, and he was definitely not having better matches in WWE, he was boring as fuck. To me Braun didn't improve, he just got more mic/camera time and was allowed to smash more things, that's not improving, that's creative giving you more, but his matches still suck ass, for all we know, he had the same charisma last year, but wasn't given the chance to show it. Alexa has been the same thing since last year, she's awesome, but from 2016 to 2018 she didn't really improve. Dream didn't improve, he just got a gimmick change.
I don't think there is anything that even resembles evidence that Cody has improved, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. He certainly hasn't been better this year than his WWE peak, and any issues with the end of his WWE run are pretty clearly because he got stuck in a horrible place on the card. Now he has the freedom to do what he wants and unlike other guys like McIntyre or Kendrick or Eli Drake or Juice or Justin Gabriel or Emma who go around proving that WWE was wrong to cut them/misuse them so badly that they asked for their release, Cody has gone around and had disappointing matches with top names and showed everyone that his impression of a heel should be is some goofy cartoon character who wastes half his time stalling. If he has the exact same matches in 2017 but no one gives him a f*cking Bullet Club shirt, he isn't getting votes for sh*t other than Most Overrated.... although that's assuming they would have given him the ROH World Title in the first place if he hadn't been part of Bullet Club. The convergence of the Bullet Club/Young Bucks marks and the WWE-style "we're really marks for ourselves" crowds, starting in ROH and now having spread pretty much everwhere in the US and Canada has been the single worst thing to happen to pro wrestling.


As for the others, I think Braun has improved in that he's not doing the Nia Jax deal anymore where he's not dropping people safely. I think Alexa's timing and match-structure have gotten noticeably better. She would not have been able to have the match she had with Charlotte one year earlier. I see your point on Dream, but I think that winds up in a gray area of him now being able to merge character with in-ring to create something more charismatic from bell to bell, whereas before this gimmick he either didn't have the ability or didn't have a gimmick he was capable of doing it with, so whether he has "improved" or merely had the opportunity to display a skill he previously had but couldn't display is debatable. Ditto for Keith Lee.



This is the opposite of 'overrated'. In overrated, people just vote for 'who didn't i like this year that everyone else did', and here is, 'what wrestler did i start liking this year'.

I don't think that fits in with the definitions that Dave asks for in underrated/overrated. He specifically asks for a comparison of the person's ability to their push.



For best Non-Wrestler, how someone could not vote for either Zelina Vega or Stokely Hathaway is beyond me. Bryan winning this one is ridiculous. Anyone who voted for Shane or Angle should be flogged. And how the hell did Regal not even make the list?
Stokely (again, you actually need to even know who he is) is #4, what more do you want? Angle is not even in the list.
I want someone who deserves credit to get it. Either Angle or Shane getting any votes at all is ridiculous because they were TERRIBLE.

Voting for PWG guys as best announcer is ridiculous. They barely even do the job an announcer is supposed to. Nigel should have ranked higher, as should Lenny Leonard and everyone involved with PROGRESS and RevPro. Nice to see Alan Counihan get some acknowledgement but I thought his usual wXw partner, Jeremy Graves, was even better.
you mean call out moves and keep you informed of the match and wrestlers? Cuz that's what Chuck and Excalibur do during matches, they don't need to sell you stories because we've had this conversation a million times about PWG not really running stories. I could say the same about WWE announcers that are selling me more products than telling me what's up in the match.
PWG announcers don't feel like they're there to call the match. They feel like they're there to goof around while calling the match. WWE announcers are at least doing their jobs but they do it poorly.

LOL at Dave not even getting the right number for the 2017 Wrestle Kingdom. I also don't remember the G1 finals being that great a show, even in comparison to some other New Japan shows not on this list (Power Struggle, anyone? Or even the preceding night), never mind non-New Japan shows like RPW Epic Encounter 2017 or PROGRESS 55.
I think you're now just looking for excuses to hate on dave. anyway, G1 Finals was a more memorable show for Naito vs Omega, so i'm sure more people thought of that one quicker. Epic Encounter and Chp 55 were probably not seen by a lot of people. I myself don't know how NXT even made it to the list with so many so much better NJPW shows.
I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that Dave should proofread his sh*t before he puts it out. I know that I make typos, too, but I'm not getting paid, nor asking people to pay money to read my stuff... and I do go back and correct them when I can.
You might want to go back and watch the NXT shows in Orlando and Chicago.
As for G1... I thought Omega vs. Naito was a better match, but as far as memorability goes, I thought Omega pinning Okada was much more memorable.


As for Best Maneuver... am I the only one who thinks that Destino looks kind of lame compared to Naito's own Gloria?
ehh sometimes, Gloria is cool when fighting smaller guys, but sometimes they just look like a normal backplex. Destino is flashier, plus it's the finisher
I'm arguing that Gloria should be the finisher. It looks more impactful and I think it looks cooler.

Anyone who thought Raw was worse than Smackdown is insane.
Consider that for a large chunk of 2017, Smackdown was somewhat better than RAW, plus Smackdown being one less hour makes it more bearable.
I don't think Smackdown was better than Raw for more than maybe a month. It had the three worst feuds of the year, the worst promotional tactics, it's storylines often went nowhere/recycled the same old crap for months and made zero sense, the babyface authority figures (especially Shane) were often insufferable hypocrites... how the hell was this better than Raw? Length can't be the reason because more people hated 205 Live and that was shorter than this, and I'm certain fewer people were watching that than SD.

The Punjabi Prison Match, Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series match, and even Bliss vs. Bayley weren't as bad as the spots they got on this list. The fact that Suzuki vs. Cody and Suzuki vs. Yano didn't make it is ridiculous.
They totally were and while those Suzuki matches were bad, I can totally see this list being worse.
I seemed to hate the Punjabi Prison match less than most others, and while Bliss vs. Bayley was bad (especially for Bayley's character) at least it was short so I'm willing to cut them the benefit of the doubt... and more importantly, the main was over more quickly. Same with Lana vs. Naomi. Elgin vs. Yano wasn't any worse than any other Yano match other than the finish. Yano vs. Suzuki was just plain horrendous. It was guys having a match that not only sucked and was boring, but in a gimmick match where no one had any idea how the gimmick worked.
Mechanically that CMLL match was probably the worst, but I would almost feel bad voting for it because what did you expect form a bunch of old guys (who aren't Atlantis or Ultimo Guerrero or mid-90's Terry Funk)?


I think Dave left last year's Worst Feud honorable mentions up. LOL.
I think you're now just looking for excuses to hate on dave.
I want to know who the honorable mentions were. I want to know if Raw vs. SD or Yano vs. Suzuki or Dar/Fox/Cedric got their just hatred.

Gedo was a worse booker than all of the others in the top five, but he gets the top spot because 1) these things are streaky, and 2) Dave's emphasis on money without looking at what the booker has actually done to get their guys over. Gedo had less to do with getting his guys over than anyone else on that list did. If you gave any of those guys Gedo's roster, they'd get them over. If you gave any of those guy's rosters to Gedo, he'd have no chance with them.
not even gonna argue, i know you don't like Gedo.

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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by cero2k » Mar 16th, '18, 15:33

I disagree. Brookes & Banks have been wrestling in more high-profile places than Brookes & Lykos (RevPro, Lucha Forever, and basically carried RevPro for a while. Other than PROGRESS most of Lykos & Brookes' other matches have been in smaller British indies. Lykos was also injured for a while, and every big exposure opportunity (i.e. ROH and New Japan joint shows) went to Brookes & Banks, not Brookes & Lykos.
that's what i'm saying here, progress is waay bigger profile than revpro and forever lucha, and lykos has been making more noise there. to answer this and the AAW one, i think you overestimate how much open the subscribers are to other promotions, not only do they have an older crowd, but some just watch lucha, but i think most just watch wwe,
and maaaaybe roh or impact that are 'local'. I know of AAW, but never seen a full show. There are bigger promotions right now like The Crash, and we've never seen one. We don't really follow CZW either and they're somewhat huge in the indie scene.




Being The Elite shouldn't count because they're not giving you wrestling matches, and a chunk of the stuff there doesn't even wind up mattering to storylines. Guys are in-character, yes, but as I said, it's basically a new take on TNA Spin Cycle, just slightly more storyline relevant because the guys doing the show have more control over their own angles. But until I start getting full matches on their (and preferably exclusive ones) the idea that a show that is often indistinguishable from some guys f*cking around with their friends can qualify as the best Weekly Wrestling Show is silly.
Talking Smack shouldn't count either since it's basically TNA Reaction (although Reaction at least sometimes had overrun matches from Impact).




i don't disagree with this exactly, i too think it's either all or none, and in a way, the NJPW show could fall under these since they're all in a way recaps of other shows. I think the problem here is not that things should be DQ, but rather they need to update the categories to now include internet shows. we're seeing more and more wrestlers get over due to their online presence and i think that should be merit to an award.



I'd prefer to think that part of a successful company is artistic merit (which is why I think MMA should be all their own awards), but even if you're just looking at it from a money point of view, it's shouldn't be about the bottom line: it should be about how far you've come in the past year. WWE did nothing new. wXw, RevPro, AAW, and especially ROH, New Japan, and PROGRESS have all made major steps in growing their business. Or somewhere like NOAH, which definitely seems to be turning around, is much more impressive to me than WWE or CMLL making the same big bunch of money that they did the previous year by standing pat this year.
that opens up a lot of problems i think. DEFY for instance started not long ago, with only 2 good main eventers, now they have better shows and a better roster, should their improvement put them up there over WWE just because they improved? or Impact, it went from shitstorm to bearable and to having a better direction, they're still not close to being best. I think this is why we have the distinction between best wrestler and best improved wrestler. I do agree on the artistic merit tho, I don't think making money because your brand sells regardless should be reason alone to win best promotion if your product sucks on a show to show basis. WWE makes tons of money for many different reasons, but they populate the 'worst major show' and 'worst tv show' categories.

I'm not asking for Gulak and O'Reilly to do grapplef*ck for thirty minutes every week (although I would totally watch the sh*t out of that). But when you give me something that is supposed to be a big deal like a world title match and it's over in five minutes then I get pissed. Braun squashes don't happen in main events. I want big matches to go at least ten. That's why I never watch MMA PPVs. If I'm paying my hard-earned money to see a match, I don't want want it to be over in three minutes (and especially not because someone got in a lucky punch). That's why Ronda got boring. She was like The Ascension in NXT.
Brock and Joe was THE dream match, and they totally ruined it.

ok, so this is something that I've always argued, when it comes to Box or MMA, any real fighting competition, the real value is in following the whole build up to the match, the training, the promos, the press conference,
and when it comes to the fight, that's just the climax, and sometimes a quick climax like McGregor killing Aldo, followed y McGregor getting killed by Diaz; or Ronda's losses are just incredibly awesome because of the whole build behind them.

So in wrestling, I think sometimes you need the long classics and sometimes, I hate to say it, you need Goldberg beating the shit out of Lesnar in a few minutes. There are some type of wrestlers, or better said, some type of pairings, that just work by having a quick 5 minute explosion. Like Ishii and Shibata, if you're just gonna beat each other senseless, it doesn't need to be more than 8-10 minutes really (hence why I hated Elgin vs Ishii). Now, if all of the Lesnar/Goldberg matches had been two move matches, I've completely agree with you


More than one match? No. But you should have at least more than one angle, even if that angle is as simple as a passionate promo about how much you want to beat the other guy Joe and Brock had less interaction that Connor vs. Mayweather? Fine. But it also had a much shorter time frame in which to get in that interaction, in that we had multiple brawls, plus Joe choking out Brock's manager (who I don't anyone had put their hands on in years. Probably since Punk, and that was because the feud morphed into Punk vs. Heyman after the Brock match, because Heyman cost Punk that match. (And with Connor and Mayweather in particular, I never believed for one moment that they saw this as anything other than a payday.
Maybe it would be best to replace feud with "Rivalry" or to do something like did on ROHWorld last year where we separated "feuds" from "programs."

Connor vs Mayweather is indeed a really unique example that we're dealing with this year, it was a 'real' fight played like a wrestling match with promos where we need to set yourself to believe that these promos being cut are legit sentiments. If we look at it as a wrestling story, it has all the checkpoints checked, one dude calling the other out, several promos, confrontations, the obstacles that they had to overcome to finally get their matches, and a decent match at that.

I don't think there is anything that even resembles evidence that Cody has improved, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. He certainly hasn't been better this year than his WWE peak, and any issues with the end of his WWE run are pretty clearly because he got stuck in a horrible place on the card. Now he has the freedom to do what he wants and unlike other guys like McIntyre or Kendrick or Eli Drake or Juice or Justin Gabriel or Emma who go around proving that WWE was wrong to cut them/misuse them so badly that they asked for their release, Cody has gone around and had disappointing matches with top names and showed everyone that his impression of a heel should be is some goofy cartoon character who wastes half his time stalling. If he has the exact same matches in 2017 but no one gives him a f*cking Bullet Club shirt, he isn't getting votes for sh*t other than Most Overrated.... although that's assuming they would have given him the ROH World Title in the first place if he hadn't been part of Bullet Club. The convergence of the Bullet Club/Young Bucks marks and the WWE-style "we're really marks for ourselves" crowds, starting in ROH and now having spread pretty much everwhere in the US and Canada has been the single worst thing to happen to pro wrestling.

As for the others, I think Braun has improved in that he's not doing the Nia Jax deal anymore where he's not dropping people safely. I think Alexa's timing and match-structure have gotten noticeably better. She would not have been able to have the match she had with Charlotte one year earlier. I see your point on Dream, but I think that winds up in a gray area of him now being able to merge character with in-ring to create something more charismatic from bell to bell, whereas before this gimmick he either didn't have the ability or didn't have a gimmick he was capable of doing it with, so whether he has "improved" or merely had the opportunity to display a skill he previously had but couldn't display is debatable. Ditto for Keith Lee.

so in this case, it seems like Cody and Braun could be seen the same way, two guys that on their previous years, where not allowed to do certain things and now they have more liberty to do them. Also, most of Braun's improvement has been on the charisma/character side, but his matches are still shoulder block posts and his one move,
so we could argue that Cody's improvement has also just been on the character side.


I don't think that fits in with the definitions that Dave asks for in underrated/overrated. He specifically asks for a comparison of the person's ability to their push.
not saying that's what dave is asking for, that's what people respond because that's how people reason someone improved/is overrated


I want someone who deserves credit to get it. Either Angle or Shane getting any votes at all is ridiculous because they were TERRIBLE.
I don't disagree, but when the only thing you watch is WWE and you're one of those that see the AE or the RAE with nostalgia glasses, you may actually think Angle and Shane are good, or at least better than the rest

PWG announcers don't feel like they're there to call the match. They feel like they're there to goof around while calling the match. WWE announcers are at least doing their jobs but they do it poorly.
If this were the case, Excalibur definitely deserves a mention, because when you don't interrupt him with a joke or comment, he just goes on and one calling moves. I think that given the type of promotion PWG is, Excalibur and Taylor do the job they need to do, they may joke a lot, but they always keep it within the show or match. I can't remember ever hearing them ramble about another match or segment while calling someone else's match.

I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that Dave should proofread his sh*t before he puts it out. I know that I make typos, too, but I'm not getting paid, nor asking people to pay money to read my stuff... and I do go back and correct them when I can
You might want to go back and watch the NXT shows in Orlando and Chicago.
As for G1... I thought Omega vs. Naito was a better match, but as far as memorability goes, I thought Omega pinning Okada was much more memorable.

LOL is a really passive aggressive way to suggest Dave should proofread. but anyway, those NXT shows were for the most part 2-match shows, to which I could easily pull up several NJPW/PROGRESS/PWG shows that were arguably better all round. And you could probably do the same with wXw and RevPro.
I actually don't think a lot of people remember Omega pinning Okada that much to be honest, it was overshadowed by the other Omega/Okada matches and having Naito/Omega so soon afterwards.

As for Best Maneuver... am I the only one who thinks that Destino looks kind of lame compared to Naito's own Gloria?
ehh sometimes, Gloria is cool when fighting smaller guys, but sometimes they just look like a normal backplex. Destino is flashier, plus it's the finisher
I'm arguing that Gloria should be the finisher. It looks more impactful and I think it looks cooler.


I don't think Smackdown was better than Raw for more than maybe a month. It had the three worst feuds of the year, the worst promotional tactics, it's storylines often went nowhere/recycled the same old crap for months and made zero sense, the babyface authority figures (especially Shane) were often insufferable hypocrites... how the hell was this better than Raw? Length can't be the reason because more people hated 205 Live and that was shorter than this, and I'm certain fewer people were watching that than SD.
RAW and Smackdown turned around after the 'shake up' post-wrestlemania and it wasn't day and night, it was progressive. Just go back and check out the titles of your reviews from Jan to June-ish, and at least you thought that Smackdown was better than RAW, or at least not as bad.

I seemed to hate the Punjabi Prison match less than most others, and while Bliss vs. Bayley was bad (especially for Bayley's character) at least it was short so I'm willing to cut them the benefit of the doubt... and more importantly, the main was over more quickly. Same with Lana vs. Naomi. Elgin vs. Yano wasn't any worse than any other Yano match other than the finish. Yano vs. Suzuki was just plain horrendous. It was guys having a match that not only sucked and was boring, but in a gimmick match where no one had any idea how the gimmick worked.
Mechanically that CMLL match was probably the worst, but I would almost feel bad voting for it because what did you expect form a bunch of old guys (who aren't Atlantis or Ultimo Guerrero or mid-90's Terry Funk)?

Elgin v Yano was also super short, no benefit being cut?

I think Dave left last year's Worst Feud honorable mentions up. LOL.
I think you're now just looking for excuses to hate on dave.
I want to know who the honorable mentions were. I want to know if Raw vs. SD or Yano vs. Suzuki or Dar/Fox/Cedric got their just hatred.
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 17th, '18, 16:46

cero2k wrote: Mar 16th, '18, 15:33 I disagree. Brookes & Banks have been wrestling in more high-profile places than Brookes & Lykos (RevPro, Lucha Forever, and basically carried RevPro for a while. Other than PROGRESS most of Lykos & Brookes' other matches have been in smaller British indies. Lykos was also injured for a while, and every big exposure opportunity (i.e. ROH and New Japan joint shows) went to Brookes & Banks, not Brookes & Lykos.
that's what i'm saying here, progress is waay bigger profile than revpro and forever lucha, and lykos has been making more noise there. to answer this and the AAW one, i think you overestimate how much open the subscribers are to other promotions, not only do they have an older crowd, but some just watch lucha, but i think most just watch wwe,
and maaaaybe roh or impact that are 'local'. I know of AAW, but never seen a full show. There are bigger promotions right now like The Crash, and we've never seen one. We don't really follow CZW either and they're somewhat huge in the indie scene.

You might have a point there. The next question then becomes "who the hell watched mostly just WWE and PROGRESS this year and voted for Brookes & Lykos over Mustache Mountain?


Being The Elite shouldn't count because they're not giving you wrestling matches, and a chunk of the stuff there doesn't even wind up mattering to storylines. Guys are in-character, yes, but as I said, it's basically a new take on TNA Spin Cycle, just slightly more storyline relevant because the guys doing the show have more control over their own angles. But until I start getting full matches on their (and preferably exclusive ones) the idea that a show that is often indistinguishable from some guys f*cking around with their friends can qualify as the best Weekly Wrestling Show is silly.
Talking Smack shouldn't count either since it's basically TNA Reaction (although Reaction at least sometimes had overrun matches from Impact).




i don't disagree with this exactly, i too think it's either all or none, and in a way, the NJPW show could fall under these since they're all in a way recaps of other shows. I think the problem here is not that things should be DQ, but rather they need to update the categories to now include internet shows. we're seeing more and more wrestlers get over due to their online presence and i think that should be merit to an award.

Yeah. And maybe one for best Podcast as well.


I'd prefer to think that part of a successful company is artistic merit (which is why I think MMA should be all their own awards), but even if you're just looking at it from a money point of view, it's shouldn't be about the bottom line: it should be about how far you've come in the past year. WWE did nothing new. wXw, RevPro, AAW, and especially ROH, New Japan, and PROGRESS have all made major steps in growing their business. Or somewhere like NOAH, which definitely seems to be turning around, is much more impressive to me than WWE or CMLL making the same big bunch of money that they did the previous year by standing pat this year.
that opens up a lot of problems i think. DEFY for instance started not long ago, with only 2 good main eventers, now they have better shows and a better roster, should their improvement put them up there over WWE just because they improved? or Impact, it went from shitstorm to bearable and to having a better direction, they're still not close to being best. I think this is why we have the distinction between best wrestler and best improved wrestler. I do agree on the artistic merit tho, I don't think making money because your brand sells regardless should be reason alone to win best promotion if your product sucks on a show to show basis. WWE makes tons of money for many different reasons, but they populate the 'worst major show' and 'worst tv show' categories.
With the DEFY example I think there is a reasonability factor that should make people factor them out. It's not just about improving over your previous baseline but about doing so in a way that feels important and feels like a major stride for a company that started in the position you started in. I don't know how many people DEFY regularly draws or how that has trended upwards over the course of the year, but ROH set their own gate records in several builds, New Japan had instant sellouts in another country, and PROGRESS did similar (although they partnered with EVOLVE for a lot of it so they had some help). Or a company like PROGRESS or wXw whose relative size in terms of what they draw in their home country wouldn't normally have people paying attention to them, but they've been good enough that they have demanded the attention.
As for TNA... they're still making zero money, and while you could argue that they have improved, the idea that they made any real big leaps in 2017 is hard for me to buy.



I'm not asking for Gulak and O'Reilly to do grapplef*ck for thirty minutes every week (although I would totally watch the sh*t out of that). But when you give me something that is supposed to be a big deal like a world title match and it's over in five minutes then I get pissed. Braun squashes don't happen in main events. I want big matches to go at least ten. That's why I never watch MMA PPVs. If I'm paying my hard-earned money to see a match, I don't want want it to be over in three minutes (and especially not because someone got in a lucky punch). That's why Ronda got boring. She was like The Ascension in NXT.
Brock and Joe was THE dream match, and they totally ruined it.

ok, so this is something that I've always argued, when it comes to Box or MMA, any real fighting competition, the real value is in following the whole build up to the match, the training, the promos, the press conference,
and when it comes to the fight, that's just the climax, and sometimes a quick climax like McGregor killing Aldo, followed y McGregor getting killed by Diaz; or Ronda's losses are just incredibly awesome because of the whole build behind them.

So in wrestling, I think sometimes you need the long classics and sometimes, I hate to say it, you need Goldberg beating the shit out of Lesnar in a few minutes. There are some type of wrestlers, or better said, some type of pairings, that just work by having a quick 5 minute explosion. Like Ishii and Shibata, if you're just gonna beat each other senseless, it doesn't need to be more than 8-10 minutes really (hence why I hated Elgin vs Ishii). Now, if all of the Lesnar/Goldberg matches had been two move matches, I've completely agree with you

I totally disagree. I want Goldberg murdering dorks or even midcarders, but not in a match that has been built up that much. Seeing people talk a big game is one thing, but when I put my money down, I want to see something that makes me feel it was worth my money.
And don't get me started on Ishii vs. Shibata. They no matter how hard they were potato-ing each other, they didn't beat each other senseless in kayfabe. I know this because if they were, there would have been some selling.


More than one match? No. But you should have at least more than one angle, even if that angle is as simple as a passionate promo about how much you want to beat the other guy Joe and Brock had less interaction that Connor vs. Mayweather? Fine. But it also had a much shorter time frame in which to get in that interaction, in that we had multiple brawls, plus Joe choking out Brock's manager (who I don't anyone had put their hands on in years. Probably since Punk, and that was because the feud morphed into Punk vs. Heyman after the Brock match, because Heyman cost Punk that match. (And with Connor and Mayweather in particular, I never believed for one moment that they saw this as anything other than a payday.
Maybe it would be best to replace feud with "Rivalry" or to do something like did on ROHWorld last year where we separated "feuds" from "programs."

Connor vs Mayweather is indeed a really unique example that we're dealing with this year, it was a 'real' fight played like a wrestling match with promos where we need to set yourself to believe that these promos being cut are legit sentiments. If we look at it as a wrestling story, it has all the checkpoints checked, one dude calling the other out, several promos, confrontations, the obstacles that they had to overcome to finally get their matches, and a decent match at that.
Yeah, but it wasn't pro wrestling and in no way did I believe it. I can believe some MMA fighters hate each other, but these two guys are almost too good at being heels that I know they're both hamming it up for the angle.

I don't think there is anything that even resembles evidence that Cody has improved, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. He certainly hasn't been better this year than his WWE peak, and any issues with the end of his WWE run are pretty clearly because he got stuck in a horrible place on the card. Now he has the freedom to do what he wants and unlike other guys like McIntyre or Kendrick or Eli Drake or Juice or Justin Gabriel or Emma who go around proving that WWE was wrong to cut them/misuse them so badly that they asked for their release, Cody has gone around and had disappointing matches with top names and showed everyone that his impression of a heel should be is some goofy cartoon character who wastes half his time stalling. If he has the exact same matches in 2017 but no one gives him a f*cking Bullet Club shirt, he isn't getting votes for sh*t other than Most Overrated.... although that's assuming they would have given him the ROH World Title in the first place if he hadn't been part of Bullet Club. The convergence of the Bullet Club/Young Bucks marks and the WWE-style "we're really marks for ourselves" crowds, starting in ROH and now having spread pretty much everwhere in the US and Canada has been the single worst thing to happen to pro wrestling.

As for the others, I think Braun has improved in that he's not doing the Nia Jax deal anymore where he's not dropping people safely. I think Alexa's timing and match-structure have gotten noticeably better. She would not have been able to have the match she had with Charlotte one year earlier. I see your point on Dream, but I think that winds up in a gray area of him now being able to merge character with in-ring to create something more charismatic from bell to bell, whereas before this gimmick he either didn't have the ability or didn't have a gimmick he was capable of doing it with, so whether he has "improved" or merely had the opportunity to display a skill he previously had but couldn't display is debatable. Ditto for Keith Lee.

so in this case, it seems like Cody and Braun could be seen the same way, two guys that on their previous years, where not allowed to do certain things and now they have more liberty to do them. Also, most of Braun's improvement has been on the charisma/character side, but his matches are still shoulder block posts and his one move,
so we could argue that Cody's improvement has also just been on the character side.

I don't see Cody's character has having improved at all. He's just become more of clown. Braun has at least gotten safer in the ring by executing his moves ore correctly.
I don't think that fits in with the definitions that Dave asks for in underrated/overrated. He specifically asks for a comparison of the person's ability to their push.
not saying that's what dave is asking for, that's what people respond because that's how people reason someone improved/is overrated
Those people should learn how to read Dave's instructions.

I want someone who deserves credit to get it. Either Angle or Shane getting any votes at all is ridiculous because they were TERRIBLE.
I don't disagree, but when the only thing you watch is WWE and you're one of those that see the AE or the RAE with nostalgia glasses, you may actually think Angle and Shane are good, or at least better than the rest
Maybe it's just me, but I can't see someone who subscribes the Observer having such glasses on. Surely they've at least heard that Jim Cornette did some stuff in TNA, or have sought out LU, right? Or at the very least vote for freakin' Regal!



I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that Dave should proofread his sh*t before he puts it out. I know that I make typos, too, but I'm not getting paid, nor asking people to pay money to read my stuff... and I do go back and correct them when I can
You might want to go back and watch the NXT shows in Orlando and Chicago.
As for G1... I thought Omega vs. Naito was a better match, but as far as memorability goes, I thought Omega pinning Okada was much more memorable.

LOL is a really passive aggressive way to suggest Dave should proofread. but anyway, those NXT shows were for the most part 2-match shows, to which I could easily pull up several NJPW/PROGRESS/PWG shows that were arguably better all round. And you could probably do the same with wXw and RevPro.
I thought they were a lot more than two-match shows. More in the range of four or five matches, and on a card with fewer misses than PROGRESS, PWG, or especially New Japan & RevPro.

I actually don't think a lot of people remember Omega pinning Okada that much to be honest, it was overshadowed by the other Omega/Okada matches and having Naito/Omega so soon afterwards.
See... I don't understand that at all. How do people not remember the third match in a progressing story in a major spot just because it wasn't as good as the other two. Flair/Steamboat and Joe/Punk both had their third match as their weakest, too (and the other matches in those feuds are all of comparable quality to their counterparts in the other trilogies), but everyone still remembers them, even though the Flair/Steamboat had a post-match angle that kicked off the Flair/Funk feud and Joe lost the best to Aries in his next defense. The Okada/Omega match was a major step in their story together, that had been told throughout the eight months of the year (and why I think it was totally wrong not to have their blow-off at KOPW or the Dome). Omega vs. Naito was a one-night thing.





I don't think Smackdown was better than Raw for more than maybe a month. It had the three worst feuds of the year, the worst promotional tactics, it's storylines often went nowhere/recycled the same old crap for months and made zero sense, the babyface authority figures (especially Shane) were often insufferable hypocrites... how the hell was this better than Raw? Length can't be the reason because more people hated 205 Live and that was shorter than this, and I'm certain fewer people were watching that than SD.
RAW and Smackdown turned around after the 'shake up' post-wrestlemania and it wasn't day and night, it was progressive. Just go back and check out the titles of your reviews from Jan to June-ish, and at least you thought that Smackdown was better than RAW, or at least not as bad.
Smackdown definitely got progressively worse throughout the year and the Superstar Shakeup was something of a turning point, but even before the Shakeup, Smackdown had Bray vs. Orton dragging it down. Raw had some bad segments, but Smackdown was terrible week in and week out, basically from the beginning of the MITB build onwards. Smackdown was literally giving us the same sh*t over and over and over again, every month. Raw did that in one division, Smackdown did it in ALL of them, with only the men's midcard title (which they often just forgot existed) having anything resembling a justification to keep it going.

I seemed to hate the Punjabi Prison match less than most others, and while Bliss vs. Bayley was bad (especially for Bayley's character) at least it was short so I'm willing to cut them the benefit of the doubt... and more importantly, the main was over more quickly. Same with Lana vs. Naomi. Elgin vs. Yano wasn't any worse than any other Yano match other than the finish. Yano vs. Suzuki was just plain horrendous. It was guys having a match that not only sucked and was boring, but in a gimmick match where no one had any idea how the gimmick worked.
Mechanically that CMLL match was probably the worst, but I would almost feel bad voting for it because what did you expect form a bunch of old guys (who aren't Atlantis or Ultimo Guerrero or mid-90's Terry Funk)?

Elgin v Yano was also super short, no benefit being cut?
Not with a finish that logic-defyingly idiotic.


I think Dave left last year's Worst Feud honorable mentions up. LOL.
I think you're now just looking for excuses to hate on dave.
I want to know who the honorable mentions were. I want to know if Raw vs. SD or Yano vs. Suzuki or Dar/Fox/Cedric got their just hatred.
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by cero2k » Mar 19th, '18, 08:50

You might have a point there. The next question then becomes "who the hell watched mostly just WWE and PROGRESS this year and voted for Brookes & Lykos over Mustache Mountain?
I didn't vote for either, but I would have, I don't like MM that much.

With the DEFY example I think there is a reasonability factor that should make people factor them out. It's not just about improving over your previous baseline but about doing so in a way that feels important and feels like a major stride for a company that started in the position you started in. I don't know how many people DEFY regularly draws or how that has trended upwards over the course of the year, but ROH set their own gate records in several builds, New Japan had instant sellouts in another country, and PROGRESS did similar (although they partnered with EVOLVE for a lot of it so they had some help). Or a company like PROGRESS or wXw whose relative size in terms of what they draw in their home country wouldn't normally have people paying attention to them, but they've been good enough that they have demanded the attention.
As for TNA... they're still making zero money, and while you could argue that they have improved, the idea that they made any real big leaps in 2017 is hard for me to buy.

Getting rid of Dixie was a huuuge leap, but we could potentially see that leap happen this year, not to become the greatest company ever, but at least a big enough leap product wise, but money wise will still be low

I don't see Cody's character has having improved at all. He's just become more of clown. Braun has at least gotten safer in the ring by executing his moves ore correctly.
Cody's character has definitely gone to another level when it comes to heeldom, the stuff he does in BTE is far more than we've usually seen of him in WWE. Whether it improved or not I think it will depend if you like him.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't see someone who subscribes the Observer having such glasses on. Surely they've at least heard that Jim Cornette did some stuff in TNA, or have sought out LU, right? Or at the very least vote for freakin' Regal!
No one watches Impact because people still think it's the same thing as 2009 (we've already talked about it, but you' still calling it TNA) and since Meltzer or Alvarez don't say you should watch it, then they don't watch it, Alvarez wasn't even watching it because it wasn't on HIS tv. Kinda the same with LU's 3rd season, and in that case, if you're some of those 'killing the business' type of fans, then you're not gonna watch it. Assuming you have access to either.

See... I don't understand that at all. How do people not remember the third match in a progressing story in a major spot just because it wasn't as good as the other two. Flair/Steamboat and Joe/Punk both had their third match as their weakest, too (and the other matches in those feuds are all of comparable quality to their counterparts in the other trilogies), but everyone still remembers them, even though the Flair/Steamboat had a post-match angle that kicked off the Flair/Funk feud and Joe lost the best to Aries in his next defense. The Okada/Omega match was a major step in their story together, that had been told throughout the eight months of the year (and why I think it was totally wrong not to have their blow-off at KOPW or the Dome). Omega vs. Naito was a one-night thing.
exactly, it wasn't as good as the other two, which Taker/HHH match do you remember the most? the good one with HBK and a cell, not a lot of people remember the no holds barred (i had to look it up).
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 19th, '18, 09:10

cero2k wrote: Mar 19th, '18, 08:50 You might have a point there. The next question then becomes "who the hell watched mostly just WWE and PROGRESS this year and voted for Brookes & Lykos over Mustache Mountain?
I didn't vote for either, but I would have, I don't like MM that much.

With the DEFY example I think there is a reasonability factor that should make people factor them out. It's not just about improving over your previous baseline but about doing so in a way that feels important and feels like a major stride for a company that started in the position you started in. I don't know how many people DEFY regularly draws or how that has trended upwards over the course of the year, but ROH set their own gate records in several builds, New Japan had instant sellouts in another country, and PROGRESS did similar (although they partnered with EVOLVE for a lot of it so they had some help). Or a company like PROGRESS or wXw whose relative size in terms of what they draw in their home country wouldn't normally have people paying attention to them, but they've been good enough that they have demanded the attention.
As for TNA... they're still making zero money, and while you could argue that they have improved, the idea that they made any real big leaps in 2017 is hard for me to buy.

Getting rid of Dixie was a huuuge leap, but we could potentially see that leap happen this year, not to become the greatest company ever, but at least a big enough leap product wise, but money wise will still be low
This year? Yes. It's possible, assuming Anthem sticks with Team Canada at the helm for the whole year, and it turns out that the previous screwiness when they have been in charge was Jarrett meddling.

I don't see Cody's character has having improved at all. He's just become more of clown. Braun has at least gotten safer in the ring by executing his moves ore correctly.
Cody's character has definitely gone to another level when it comes to heeldom, the stuff he does in BTE is far more than we've usually seen of him in WWE. Whether it improved or not I think it will depend if you like him.
I guess it all goes back to the bigger question of our time, which is what fans are looking for. Do you want to see wrestling or do you want to see guys doing shtick? Because shtick is all Cody is right now, and all he's been since he joined Bullet Club,

Maybe it's just me, but I can't see someone who subscribes the Observer having such glasses on. Surely they've at least heard that Jim Cornette did some stuff in TNA, or have sought out LU, right? Or at the very least vote for freakin' Regal!
No one watches Impact because people still think it's the same thing as 2009 (we've already talked about it, but you' still calling it TNA) and since Meltzer or Alvarez don't say you should watch it, then they don't watch it, Alvarez wasn't even watching it because it wasn't on HIS tv. Kinda the same with LU's 3rd season, and in that case, if you're some of those 'killing the business' type of fans, then you're not gonna watch it. Assuming you have access to either.
The thing with still calling it TNA is TNA's own fault due to the first time they tried to (or did?) introduce such a rebranding. It was back in 2011, when they started randomly referring to themselves as TNA sometimes and Impact others and no one could figure out if they had just renamed the show Impact Wrestling and the promotion was still TNA or what, and then they went and confused people even more by sometimes referring to the belts "TNA" and sometimes as "Impact Wrestling." Then throw in people like Hogan who just said whichever one farted out of their mouth and couldn't even keep it consistent within the same sentence, and people genuinely dind't know what to call it so everyone just called it TNA, and so we all git used to translating "Impact Wrestling" as TNA. If they had called it something totally different and had a clean break, like WCPW did when they changed to Defiant, people would be more apt to call it by the new name.

See... I don't understand that at all. How do people not remember the third match in a progressing story in a major spot just because it wasn't as good as the other two. Flair/Steamboat and Joe/Punk both had their third match as their weakest, too (and the other matches in those feuds are all of comparable quality to their counterparts in the other trilogies), but everyone still remembers them, even though the Flair/Steamboat had a post-match angle that kicked off the Flair/Funk feud and Joe lost the best to Aries in his next defense. The Okada/Omega match was a major step in their story together, that had been told throughout the eight months of the year (and why I think it was totally wrong not to have their blow-off at KOPW or the Dome). Omega vs. Naito was a one-night thing.
exactly, it wasn't as good as the other two, which Taker/HHH match do you remember the most? the good one with HBK and a cell, not a lot of people remember the no holds barred (i had to look it up).
The first one. There wasn't really a progressing story in those,. It was "we're having a rematch and gee golly I'd like to break your Streak this time" as opposed to Okada and Omega where is on a tangible quest and does better every time. And the only thing I remember from the cell match was Shawn ruining it by being a sh*tty referee and not calling for the referee stoppage.
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by cero2k » Mar 19th, '18, 09:41

I guess it all goes back to the bigger question of our time, which is what fans are looking for. Do you want to see wrestling or do you want to see guys doing shtick? Because shtick is all Cody is right now, and all he's been since he joined Bullet Club,
I think it's pretty obvious that most fans want to watch shtick, I think that has been the case more the longest time when it comes to mainstream wrestling.

The thing with still calling it TNA is TNA's own fault due to the first time they tried to (or did?) introduce such a rebranding. It was back in 2011, when they started randomly referring to themselves as TNA sometimes and Impact others and no one could figure out if they had just renamed the show Impact Wrestling and the promotion was still TNA or what, and then they went and confused people even more by sometimes referring to the belts "TNA" and sometimes as "Impact Wrestling." Then throw in people like Hogan who just said whichever one farted out of their mouth and couldn't even keep it consistent within the same sentence, and people genuinely dind't know what to call it so everyone just called it TNA, and so we all git used to translating "Impact Wrestling" as TNA. If they had called it something totally different and had a clean break, like WCPW did when they changed to Defiant, people would be more apt to call it by the new name.
except that they straight up changed their name more than a year ago, it's not about confusion anymore, it's just straight punishing the promotion for the mistakes of previous years. While with you it may just be the name, some people go beyond that.

The first one. There wasn't really a progressing story in those,. It was "we're having a rematch and gee golly I'd like to break your Streak this time" as opposed to Okada and Omega where is on a tangible quest and does better every time. And the only thing I remember from the cell match was Shawn ruining it by being a sh*tty referee and not calling for the referee stoppage.
So there are two things here, people definitely remember the progressive story going on, so everyone remembers the story, but that doesn't mean that they remember all the match nor that they think the match was better than Naito's. Progressive story doesn't make the match good, or the match memorable, only the storyline detail is memorable, and in days later, thsi match was put on hold while Naito vs Okada started
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 19th, '18, 09:57

cero2k wrote: Mar 19th, '18, 09:41 I guess it all goes back to the bigger question of our time, which is what fans are looking for. Do you want to see wrestling or do you want to see guys doing shtick? Because shtick is all Cody is right now, and all he's been since he joined Bullet Club,
I think it's pretty obvious that most fans want to watch shtick, I think that has been the case more the longest time when it comes to mainstream wrestling.
In promos, but they were still hot for the matches without it.

The thing with still calling it TNA is TNA's own fault due to the first time they tried to (or did?) introduce such a rebranding. It was back in 2011, when they started randomly referring to themselves as TNA sometimes and Impact others and no one could figure out if they had just renamed the show Impact Wrestling and the promotion was still TNA or what, and then they went and confused people even more by sometimes referring to the belts "TNA" and sometimes as "Impact Wrestling." Then throw in people like Hogan who just said whichever one farted out of their mouth and couldn't even keep it consistent within the same sentence, and people genuinely dind't know what to call it so everyone just called it TNA, and so we all git used to translating "Impact Wrestling" as TNA. If they had called it something totally different and had a clean break, like WCPW did when they changed to Defiant, people would be more apt to call it by the new name.
except that they straight up changed their name more than a year ago, it's not about confusion anymore, it's just straight punishing the promotion for the mistakes of previous years. While with you it may just be the name, some people go beyond that.
But they changed their name to something that was already part of the confusion. If they had called themselves something totally different, ti would have been easier for people to adjust.
As for the other thing... it's not punishing the promotion so much as it is not trusting them because 1) these Anthem execs don't know what's good any more than Dixie/Panda did, and 2) the guys in charge now are also guys who were in charge at times when the promotion had a lot of the same issues that always plagued it, no matter who has been in charge, so unless there is real evidence of change (and there hasn't been too much, IMO) people are going to be reluctant to trust it unless you have someone with a major track record of not just clean finishes and things making sense, but someone who seems to actively despise dirty finishes (which is basically Lance Storm or Gabe, and that's about it. Maybe Excalibur or Prazak would have been able to do it as well, even they aren't as vocal in their disdain for dirty finishes as Lance and Gabe.
I agree that Dave and Bryan (and the Torch Staff and Mike Johnson, and anyone else who wants to be taken seriously as a wrestling journalist) should watch it, but I don't fault any fans for being sick and tired of giving TNA "another chance." It's been almost sixteen years of reboots and new beginnings "Russo/Jarrett/Dusty/Dixie/Hogan/Bischoff is gone now so things will be different," but there has never been any evidence that they have ever been able to sustain positive change.


The first one. There wasn't really a progressing story in those,. It was "we're having a rematch and gee golly I'd like to break your Streak this time" as opposed to Okada and Omega where is on a tangible quest and does better every time. And the only thing I remember from the cell match was Shawn ruining it by being a sh*tty referee and not calling for the referee stoppage.
So there are two things here, people definitely remember the progressive story going on, so everyone remembers the story, but that doesn't mean that they remember all the match nor that they think the match was better than Naito's. Progressive story doesn't make the match good, or the match memorable, only the storyline detail is memorable, and in days later, thsi match was put on hold while Naito vs Okada started
It's not about remembering the entire match so much as the key point of the match, and the idea of Omega finally beating Okada meant a lot more to me than just a G1 final. The G1 happens every year and it's not like it's Naito's first win, either. And it's been put on hold for too long if you ask me, but that's another issue. Hell... it didn't even have to be put on hold. There was no reason not to blow off Omega vs. Okada at KOPW. Omega vs. Naito felt over after Okada won the belt back at Dominion. I think you easily could have convinced people to buy the idea that maybe we would get Naito challenging Omega at the Dome (there is some nice symmetry with it also being the G1 finals and us having established that Naito can beat Omega there).
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by cero2k » Mar 19th, '18, 11:03

In promos, but they were still hot for the matches without it.
of course, but looking at the latest trend of WWE matches, there seems to be a lot of people not caring about the match until they start trading finishers and trading shtick.

But they changed their name to something that was already part of the confusion. If they had called themselves something totally different, ti would have been easier for people to adjust.
As for the other thing... it's not punishing the promotion so much as it is not trusting them because 1) these Anthem execs don't know what's good any more than Dixie/Panda did, and 2) the guys in charge now are also guys who were in charge at times when the promotion had a lot of the same issues that always plagued it, no matter who has been in charge, so unless there is real evidence of change (and there hasn't been too much, IMO) people are going to be reluctant to trust it unless you have someone with a major track record of not just clean finishes and things making sense, but someone who seems to actively despise dirty finishes (which is basically Lance Storm or Gabe, and that's about it. Maybe Excalibur or Prazak would have been able to do it as well, even they aren't as vocal in their disdain for dirty finishes as Lance and Gabe.
I agree that Dave and Bryan (and the Torch Staff and Mike Johnson, and anyone else who wants to be taken seriously as a wrestling journalist) should watch it, but I don't fault any fans for being sick and tired of giving TNA "another chance." It's been almost sixteen years of reboots and new beginnings "Russo/Jarrett/Dusty/Dixie/Hogan/Bischoff is gone now so things will be different," but there has never been any evidence that they have ever been able to sustain positive change.

I completely understand and agree, but in a world like wrestling where fans have this Battered Spouse Syndrome, I think it's far more than just distrust. Distrust is not knowing whether a Suzuki match will have interference or not, but when someone comes back to WWE Smackdown every single week or RAW for the last 20 yrs, that's someone being ok with the abuse, except when it comes to Impact, since it became a joke to hate on it, then haha LOLTNA.

It's not about remembering the entire match so much as the key point of the match, and the idea of Omega finally beating Okada meant a lot more to me than just a G1 final. The G1 happens every year and it's not like it's Naito's first win, either. And it's been put on hold for too long if you ask me, but that's another issue. Hell... it didn't even have to be put on hold. There was no reason not to blow off Omega vs. Okada at KOPW. Omega vs. Naito felt over after Okada won the belt back at Dominion. I think you easily could have convinced people to buy the idea that maybe we would get Naito challenging Omega at the Dome (there is some nice symmetry with it also being the G1 finals and us having established that Naito can beat Omega there).
A lot of that goes into booking, so we should open that door. idk what to say, fans memories are interesting. Do you think Shibata vs Okada would be remember as such a great match if Shibata wouldn't have retired afterwards? or would it be remember as just another great defense in the books for Okada?
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Re: 2017 Wrestling Observer Awards: Spoiler Alert, NJPW Wins Everything

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 19th, '18, 15:31

cero2k wrote: Mar 19th, '18, 11:03 In promos, but they were still hot for the matches without it.
of course, but looking at the latest trend of WWE matches, there seems to be a lot of people not caring about the match until they start trading finishers and trading shtick.
Yeah, but I' ascribe that more to WWE's general lack of story in their matches other than "guys trying to win." I think if you gave people a big Revival-type match, with guys working limbs and stuff, I think people would be more into it.

But they changed their name to something that was already part of the confusion. If they had called themselves something totally different, ti would have been easier for people to adjust.
As for the other thing... it's not punishing the promotion so much as it is not trusting them because 1) these Anthem execs don't know what's good any more than Dixie/Panda did, and 2) the guys in charge now are also guys who were in charge at times when the promotion had a lot of the same issues that always plagued it, no matter who has been in charge, so unless there is real evidence of change (and there hasn't been too much, IMO) people are going to be reluctant to trust it unless you have someone with a major track record of not just clean finishes and things making sense, but someone who seems to actively despise dirty finishes (which is basically Lance Storm or Gabe, and that's about it. Maybe Excalibur or Prazak would have been able to do it as well, even they aren't as vocal in their disdain for dirty finishes as Lance and Gabe.
I agree that Dave and Bryan (and the Torch Staff and Mike Johnson, and anyone else who wants to be taken seriously as a wrestling journalist) should watch it, but I don't fault any fans for being sick and tired of giving TNA "another chance." It's been almost sixteen years of reboots and new beginnings "Russo/Jarrett/Dusty/Dixie/Hogan/Bischoff is gone now so things will be different," but there has never been any evidence that they have ever been able to sustain positive change.

I completely understand and agree, but in a world like wrestling where fans have this Battered Spouse Syndrome, I think it's far more than just distrust. Distrust is not knowing whether a Suzuki match will have interference or not, but when someone comes back to WWE Smackdown every single week or RAW for the last 20 yrs, that's someone being ok with the abuse, except when it comes to Impact, since it became a joke to hate on it, then haha LOLTNA.
The difference between that and Smackdown is that WWE is (unfortunately, in some ways) required to be relate to other wrestling fans because there are fans out there who only watch WWE. The only people out there who only watch TNA/Impact/Whatever are TNAMecca people.
Comparing Suzuki-Gun matches to Impact is like comparing a snowflake to a blizzard. Yes, a few snowflakes are annoying when you don't want them, but we haven't spent years getting dumped on by Suzuki-Gun the way we have with Impact.


It's not about remembering the entire match so much as the key point of the match, and the idea of Omega finally beating Okada meant a lot more to me than just a G1 final. The G1 happens every year and it's not like it's Naito's first win, either. And it's been put on hold for too long if you ask me, but that's another issue. Hell... it didn't even have to be put on hold. There was no reason not to blow off Omega vs. Okada at KOPW. Omega vs. Naito felt over after Okada won the belt back at Dominion. I think you easily could have convinced people to buy the idea that maybe we would get Naito challenging Omega at the Dome (there is some nice symmetry with it also being the G1 finals and us having established that Naito can beat Omega there).
A lot of that goes into booking, so we should open that door. idk what to say, fans memories are interesting. Do you think Shibata vs Okada would be remember as such a great match if Shibata wouldn't have retired afterwards? or would it be remember as just another great defense in the books for Okada?
Maybe not for some people, but I'd wager to bet that those are the people who voted for the various Omega vs. Okada matches as MOTY. To the people like me who voted for Okada vs. Shibata as MOTY, that part was irrelevant. We knew that match was something truly special the moment it ended. The headbutt itself makes it more memorable and more epic; the fact that it ended Shibata's career does not.
(As a side note, has Goto used his headbutt since then? And I think Thatcher has greatly cut down on his, too).
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