The Wrestling Bard 06.13.09: Fickle Fans and Middling Messiahs

Posted by Aaron Hubbard on 06.13.2009

Why Tyler Black isn't ready to be ROH Champion, and why the fans will turn on him once he becomes champion.

Gratuitous Plugs!
For those who would rather read something else!

Chambers!
Chin!
Clark!
Eubanks!
Grimm!
Lansdell!
Martinez!
Weyer!
Wilcox!

Gratuitous Match!
For the sake of context if you would rather read this!





I certainly hope you watched that if haven't seen it yet. Even if you have seen it, it's probably not going to be a waste of your time to watch it again. However, it sets the stage for what I'm discussing here today.

I am a fan of Ring of Honor, but I am by no means an ROHbot. I still love WWE. I have never been to an ROH Show. My collection of ROH DVDs is probably miniscule for someone who claims to be a fan. Perhaps that's why I have so much trouble understanding the very vocal and very spiteful fans that seem to take up most of ROH's fan base. Maybe that's why I can't think of any good reason to hate Jerry Lynn and show him the disrespect that he receives at every show.

Jerry Lynn turned 46 yesterday. And yet, he still wrestles like he's in his mid-thirties. Other veterans in their forties are certainly putting on great matches. Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had what will likely end up being the Match of the Year at Wrestlemania. Taker has defied the odds and gotten better with age. And while Michaels' ability to tell a story has grown to a point where he may very well be in a class all his own, his workrate isn't half of what it was in his prime. Lynn on the other hand, has hardly skipped a beat. Were it not for a few more wrinkles on his skin and a little more white in his hair, the Jerry Lynn of today is almost indistinguishable from the Jerry Lynn of a decade ago. Oh, and he's added new moves, like the TKO and the Air Raid Crash, to his already impressive repertoire, and gotten less sloppy. So you could probably make a case that the Jerry Lynn who currently holds the ROH World Title is at his peak as a worker.

Ring of Honor caters to the "smart" crowd. While Ring of Honor treats its titles like they are the most important thing in the company (most of the time), it is only for the sake of kayfabe. The most important thing in ROH is the quality of the in-ring action. In kayfabe, the competitors are trying to win so that they can get revenge, move higher on the card, earn title shots and win the titles. But in reality, the workers are trying to have a great match and further the storylines that they have to work with. The best workers will be the ones that move up the card, because match quality is what is most marketable to ROH's core fan base.

One needs look no further than the two former Ring of Honor champions in the match above. Austin Aries captured the ROH Championship faster than anyone (aside from Low Ki, obviously) after his debut. The reason he was propelled so fast was that he is an unbelievable worker. His pace is fast, his knowledge expansive, his execution nearly perfect, and his psychology sound. His ability as a worker, and to a lesser extent his intense personality, caused the fans to rally behind him. Putting on a seventy-minute plus clinic with Bryan Danielson certainly didn't hurt things. And that's why he still has fan support, despite coming up with an arrogant, cocky character that has done away with many of his crowd pleasing maneuvers and lightening fast pace in favor of cheating and shenanigans. We know, underneath the character, Aries is still one of the best workers in the business.

Bryan Danielson is another case entirely. If Indy Wrestling was a religion, Bryan Danielson would be the God that is worshipped. While a vocal minority of Indy fans chant overrated, the facts are simple: no other wrestler on the planet has a repertoire that reads like a wrestling encyclopedia. No other wrestler in the world has worked up such a reputation that he can go to the top company in another country and win the most prestigious championship in his weight division. No other wrestler has made more of an effort to constantly evolve his in-ring style. No other wrestler has put out the incredible body of work that Bryan has since his debut, against the variety of opponents he has. And nobody has captivated fans with only his in-ring work more completely than Bryan, to the point that anyone could beat him and it would not lower his stock. At only 28 years of age, Danielson has a legacy. And he still has time to go to WWE should he choose to pursue it.

Both of these men were pushed to be champions in ROH because they are at a very elite level. Other wrestlers, such as Low Ki, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, James Gibson, and Nigel McGuinness, who are in or very near the same class as Austin Aries, became ROH World Champion for many of the same reason. Yet, there has been a strange phenomenon in ROH. When you aren't champion, fans hype you to the moon and beg for you to became champion. A minority will point out the flaws and the logical reasons why somebody shouldn't be champion, but their voices are buried under the massive amount of support. Then, as soon as a wrestler becomes Champion, the fans are jubilant, only to turn on them a month later, and suddenly, the previous champion becomes revered again.

Samoa Joe is revered as an ROH legend, but during his reign, people were calling him too inexperienced, too overweight, and not nearly good enough in the ring to be champion. Nigel McGuinness had been hyped up by people for almost two years to be champion, but within a month, due to not being able to defend his championship two or three times, the fans turned on him. Bryan was considered the best wrestler not to hold the ROH Championship, and while fans liked him enough not to turn on him, they were almost immediately hyping Roderick Strong as the heir apparent. Towards the end of his run, people were clamoring for him to drop the title to a far inferior wrestler, Homicide. And while the fans were overjoyed when CM Punk and James Gibson won their titles, they immediately soured on the fact that they were given short but effective reigns, because it was common knowledge they would go to WWE soon. And it's happening now, with Jerry Lynn. Despite the fact that he is a proven commodity in the ring, a "name" star that will bring in new viewers, and a person who never seems to be involved in controversy, many, dare I say most of the ROH fan base is clamoring for him to drop the title to their newest messiah, Tyler Black.

Sounds to me that the Ring of Honor fans care a little too much about who has the championship, and not nearly enough about the match quality. If everyone is having good matches, then why should these "smart" fans care so much about who has a piece of gold? Sounds an awful lot like a bunch of "marks" to me.

I'm a huge fan of Tyler Black. I think the kid has great execution, his workrate is fantastic, and he shows a ton of personality in the ring. He has a world of POTENTIAL and if he continues to improve, he will be truly great. However, I will be in that group of naysayers who believes that Black is not ready to be the ROH World Champion.

Tyler has had a series of great matches. However, most of them have been with outstanding workers. If you can't have a great match when you wrestle Nigel McGuinness, Austin Aries, Bryan Danielson, or Jerry Lynn for twenty minutes, you are in the wrong business, plain and simple. If you are teaming with a psychologist on the level of Jimmy Jacobs and can't have stellar matches with the Briscoes, Motor City Machine Guns, Aries & Danielson, or Steen & Generico, you shouldn't be wrestling. As I said, Tyler excels in these situations. And he's also done very well teaming with Bryan Danielson and Jerry Lynn against such teams as Austin Aries & Nigel McGuinness and the American Wolves. And I'm sure his upcoming match with KENTA will be very good as well.

However, when's the last time he had a great match with say, Brent Albright? Claudio Castagnoli? Roderick Strong? Or perhaps even more important, when is the last time he even WRESTLED one of these men? I'll tell you. Claudio last wrestled Tyler Black at the main event of Death Before Dishonor last year, in a match that also featured Danielson and McGuiness. Brent Albright? In an ultimate endurance match where he teamed with Jacobs, Albright with BJ Whitmer, and they also wrestled the team of Aries & Danielson and Rocky Romero & Davey Richards. And in his entire career in ROH, he has never wrestled Roderick Strong.

In fact, as I meticulously worked my way through the past results on ROHwrestling.com, I was hard pressed to find a match he was in that didn't feature Danielson, Aries, Lynn, the Briscoes, Steenerico, or Jimmy Jacobs in some fashion. I've actually lost count of how many times he's wrestled Aries and Danielson. Fun fact: most of the matches not featuring these men were under fifteen minutes. Fun fact #2: most of the matches that feature wrestlers like Necro Butcher, Brodie Lee, and Delirious have been much maligned by the ROH faithful. It seems that, despite being Ring of Honor's chosen one, Tyler cannot elevate the game of other wrestlers or carry them to a **** match.

Ring of Honor has some of the best wrestlers in the world, and Tyler Black has been facing the very best of the promotion since his arrival. His first feud was with the freaking BRISCOES, for crying out loud. And believe it or not, John Cena, Randy Orton, and Jeff Hardy could have **** matches with the likes of Aries, Danielson, Briscoes, McGuinness, Lynn, etc. It seems awfully suspicious to me that Ring of Honor has avoided putting Black in matches where he has to wrestle a lesser talent for an extended amount of time.

Black is being protected. Because, as good as he is, and as marketable as he is, and as athletic as he is, he is only good. He is not great, and he is nowhere near perfect.

If you watch the above match carefully, you may notice that Black's offense is considerably lower than the other three men, yet he is always involved in the big spots. So, even though he does less work than the other three, people remember him powerbombing Dragon onto Lynn and Aries, or having Danielson suplex him from the top, or setting up a Phoenix Splash on two men, or being the victim of Dragon's dive into the crowd, or getting the two closest nearfalls of the match, only to have Lynn steal them away. And don't even get me started on the numerous matches he's had with Dragon. Danielson usually controls the majority of the offense, and when Tyler gets his heat segment, a surprising majority of his work is either his signature spots or basic punches and holds. And maybe you haven't noticed this, but I have rarely seen Tyler realistically sell anything. It doesn't matter how much or how brutally you work over Black's legs or his midsection, he has the strength and the stamina to hit all of his highflying offense without a hitch, and only the occasional limp or clutching of a midsection

There is sufficient evidence, based on the fact that Tyler is always wrestling the best ROH has to offer, is almost never wrestling people of equal or lesser talent than himself, and that when he does, the quality of his matches go down considerably, that Black is being protected by the bookers of ROH. I'm not the first one to suggest it, and should Black continue to have amazing matches once he finally faces someone like Brent Albright in a twenty-minute match, I'll gladly eat my words. But it needs to be brought up.

If Tyler Black is world champion, he will not be able to fight Danielson, Aries, Lynn, and McGuinness forever. Guys like Roderick Strong, Claudio Castagnoli, Jimmy Jacobs, Chris Hero, Brent Albright, Necro Butcher, Delirious and Erick Stevens all deserve shots at the belt. Tyler will face workers of differing styles, experience, and ability, and he will be expected to have great matches with them. However, due to his constant involvement with the best in ROH, there is nothing to indicate that Black can have great matches with these wrestlers. Sure, Roderick Strong is amazing and will most likely have a terrific outing, and Jacobs knows Tyler well enough to have a smart match with him, but what about the others? Claudio Castagnoli and maybe Chris Hero and Delirious are the only guys in that group that could pull an equal share of the weight in a twenty minute match.

Fans are behind Black at the moment. However, he is an unproven commodity at this point. He does seem to be "The Chosen One", so I have no doubt he'll be champion sooner than later, and I'm sure the fans will give him an overwhelming amount of support. But once he gets that victory, once his title chase is over, what then? Will the honeymoon be as good as the wedding? And once fans are over their "push this guy to the moon" phase and enter the stage where they start to seriously analyze the champion, will they notice the inexperience, the lack of psychology, the poor promo ability, or the one-dimensional style? My gut feeling says yes. And if they do, they will turn on him in an instant. Ask Nigel McGuinness and Samoa Joe what its like to be a defending champion when the crowd is begging for you to lose the title every time you step in the ring.

This is not an attack on Tyler Black, and should not be taken as anything more than healthy criticism. Unlike some, I have no ill will towards Tyler. I enjoy his work and want to see him succeed. However, more importantly, I want to see him be the quality of worker that is above criticism when he does succeed. He may, and probably will, get there someday, but he's not at that level yet. If he isn't at that level when he becomes ROH Champion, the fans will turn on him just like they have turned on every other champion. The last thing I want to hear is "Fuck you Tyler!" chanted at his title defenses. I fear it will be a reality, however.

And to the fickle, never-satisfied fans of Ring of Honor, I have two requests for you. 1) Don't be a scumbag to Jerry Lynn because he's the champion when your "Chosen One" is chasing it, and 2) Don't turn on Tyler Black once he becomes Champion, even if he has faults, because nobody is perfect. It's not fair to either man.

Script After Today
I was deeply saddened to read that Mitsuharu Misawa passed away today. The man was an absolute legend in his own time. Next week's column will be dedicated to the memory of Misawa. For now, my condolences to his family, friends, and fans will have to do. Rest in peace Misawa.