411’s Buy or Sell 12.11.09: BxB Hulk's First US Challenger, Final Battle One Week Away, Jim Cornette's Interview Style, and More!!

Posted by Michael Bauer on 12.11.2009

This week, the 411 Wrestling Staff looks back at the many news items of the past week in Independent Wrestling as Ryan Byers battles Steve Cook in Buy or Sell!

Welcome everyone to Week 136 of BUY or SELL. For those of you who haven't been with us since the beginning, here's the Reader's Digest version of what this column is all about. BUY or SELL is very much like 411's long-running Fact or Fiction column. The main difference is that BUY or SELL focuses on topics like the U.S. Independent scene, Lucha Libre, Japanese Wrestling and pretty much anything else that isn't mainstream wrestling, WWE and or TNA. This allows for these areas to get a bit more press and for you, our loyal readers, to learn even more about the sport of professional wrestling.

Questions are sent out on Monday Night.

BANNER!


(Special thanks to Jasper Gerretsen)

Davey Richards will regain the FIP World Title before leaving Japan.

Ryan Byers : SELL. Logically speaking, what would Davey Richards losing the FIP Title in Japan and then winning it back within two weeks accomplish? Nothing, that's what. If anything, this title change smells like something that was done in order to give a Dragon Gate wrestler (either Masaaki Mochizuki or somebody who eventually beats him for the championship) a ready-made program with Richards for a Dragon Gate USA card or, at the very least, a ready-made program with Richards for an FIP or even EVOLVE show that is being filmed while the Dragon Gate crew is in the states for a DGUSA taping.

Steve Cook : BUY. To be honest, I don't know what's going on with Richards' tour of Japan and haven't been able to keep track of it due to computer issues. But this sounds reminiscent of Giant Baba winning the NWA title from Harley Race only to lose it back to Race at the end of Race's tour of Japan, which happened a couple of times in the 1970s. The drawback in this plan for FIP is that Masaaki Mochizuki isn't exactly a household name in the States, but I think it's just something to help Mochizuki gain credibility with the Dragon Gate fans. I guess the benefit to FIP is they can say "Yay our title changed hands in Japan"...but do people really care about that?

0 for 1.

With so many teams getting swine flu, All Japan Pro Wrestling's Real World Tag League tournament should have been postponed.

Ryan Byers : SELL. Three teams were forced to pull out of the Real World Tag League as a result of at least one of the members contracting swine flu: Osamu Nishimura & Seiya Sanada, TARU & Joe Doering, and Satoshi Kojima & Zodiac. It was fairly apparent from the booking of the early stages of the tournament that the Nishimura/Sanada and TARU/Doering teams were not going to have any sort of impact on the later stages of the tournament. It is true that Kojima and Zodiac were being booked fairly strongly prior to the flu hitting, as they were in the lead of the point standings for the majority of the tournament. However, it is very rare for an entrant in one of these league tournaments to both dominate the initial stages and then win in the finals. As a result, I lean towards the theory that, even though it looked bad on paper, the influenza outbreak did not impact the final result of the tournament. This becomes even more likely when you consider the fact that one half of the winning team, Masakatsu Funaki, will most likley only be spending one year in AJPW. Given the limited nature of his run and his treatment as a main eventer on the level of Keiji Mutoh, it seems to me that they're trying to build him up as much as possible so that he can put somebody over big on his way out. Winning the RWTL plays into that, so, again, the result we got feels like one that could well have been planned all along, and, if that's the case, there was no need to postpone the event.

Steve Cook : BUY. From reading the results it looks like the swine flu completely decimated this tournament, which sucks because the Real World Tag League is usually pretty good stuff. I'm sure that AJPW weighed all their options and decided there was no way they could put off the Tag League until later, but sometimes it's better to wait until you can present a great product than jumping the gun and having a Tag League Final for the sake of having a Tag League Final. Bad move by All Japan here.

0 for 2.

BxB Hulk will face either Yamato or CIMA for his first United States defense of the Open the Freedom Gate title.
This question was asked before Dragon Kid was announced as his opponent.

Ryan Byers : SELL. With both Yamato and CIMA having lost in the finals of the tournament to crown the first champion, it does not make much sense for them to be positioned as the first challengers for the new title unless they have first done something to "requalify" as contenders. Instead, the first title shot should go to an individual who has been successful in key matches on the first two pay per view events. That way, the first championship defense will come off as an important event against a worthy adversary and not just something that was re-run from the last show because Gabe Sapolsky couldn't think of a better match.

Steve Cook : SELL. He will be facing Dragon Kid, who has looked good in what I've seen from him so far. Should be a hell of a matchup, and I can't wait for DGUSA's ten dollar sale in a couple of years so I can see it.

1 for 3.


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Both the Ring of Honor World Title and Tag Team Titles will change hands at Final Battle 2009.

Steve Cook : SELL. I believe the tag team titles will change hands, as I'm still stumped as to why Davey Richards holds an ROH title belt when he's working with all of their opposing promotions. The Briscoes are always a viable threat to the belts, and their winning would be well received by the NYC crowd. I don't see the World title changing hands though, as Austin Aries can still accomplish a lot with the title belt and Tyler Black hasn't been doing a whole hell of a lot as of late. They've really screwed up his push over the past year, and they need to repair it before making him the champion, or it's just not going to work. Think Samoa Joe's reign as TNA champion, where they waited forever to give him the belt, gave him a half-hearted push to the title, and then left him to die as champion. That's how I think Black's reign would go if he won at Final Battle.

Ryan Byers : SELL. Currently, it's the the Briscoe Brothers challenging for the Tag Team Titles and Tyler Black challenging for the World Title. If I had a gun to my head and had to pick winners in those matches, I would go with the Briscoes over the American Wolves and Austin Aries over Black. In the tag match, I expect a change because Davey Richards has obviously been heavily involving himself in several non-ROH projects over the last several months, from Dragon Gate to Dragon Gate USA to FIP to EVOLVE. Branching out to those other promotions, at least two of which can be considered direct competitors to Ring of Honor, may well have created a situation in which ROH no longer wants to feature Richards in a prominent role. If that is in fact the case, his time holding any sort of gold in the promotion is likely short. Meanwhile, though Tyler Black was the hottest act in Ring of Honor only a few months ago and seemed to be a shoo-in to act as the company's next singles champ, the bloom has long since fallen off the rose. ROH missed numerous opportunities to pull the trigger on a Tyler Black title reign, and he's not nearly as hot of a challenger as he once was. They need to completely remove him from the title picture for a while and attempt to rebuild him, and a loss to Aries here would be the way to begin that process.

2 for 4.

Ring of Honor needs to make Jim Cornette do less TNA bashing during his interviews and promos.



Steve Cook : SELL. It depends on how ROH wants to present Cornette. If he's to be a babyface, nothing will make him more beloved by ROH fans than bashing TNA at every given opportunity. Most ROH fans hate TNA as much as Bengals fans hate the Steelers. Yes, it seems second rate and gets pretty repetitive, but anybody who bashes Vince Russo on an open mic is going to get a good pop. Besides, Cornette needs to get this all out of his system now so it doesn't eat away at him later in life. It's good for the soul.

Ryan Byers : SELL. Why shoud he? He's giving his honest opinion of the TNA product, and, by and large, he's right. I'm never going to stand in the way of somebody speaking his mind when he is both honest and correct.

3 for 5.

Ring of Honor should make every attempt to bring in Rob Van Damn for their show at Wrestle Reunion 4.



Steve Cook : BUY. Now, I'm not saying ROH should throw their whole budget at him, but fans still love them some RVD, especially the type of fans that support ROH's product. There aren't many people that would automatically prompt fans to purchase an ROH DVD, but a rare wrestling appearance by Rob Van Dam would do just that. I see no negative to this idea...unless he asks for way too much money, but if he's working with PWG his price tag can't be that high.

Ryan Byers : SELL. As I asked in response to the question about Davey Richards winning the FIP title back before the end of his current Japanese tour, what would this actually accomplish? Van Dam is a pretty decent wrestler who has received some national television exposure as a result of his appearances with WWE. How does Ring of Honor bringing him in for the proveribal one shot deal benefit them at all? It most likely wouldn't sell any more tickets than an ROH show at Wrestle Reunion without Rob Van Dam, and it wouldn't do much if anything to help their HDNet television product to have him in for one match that in all likelihood would not be airing on TV. It wouldn't even result in a match any better than what ROH could produce with their regular roster, because, no matter how many good bouts he may have had, I don't see RVD as being all that much better than the people who are currently headlining the promotion's cards. The only thing that might possibly happen as a result of an RVD appearance is that the promotion would get one DVD title that might sell slightly better than their other DVD titles. That doesn't strike me as being worth making an extraordinary effort to book the man. If he's there and willing to do the show for a reasonable price, that's one thing . . . however, to say that "every attempt" should be made is going a little bit too far.

3 for 6!!


The 136th edition of BUY or SELL finishes at 3 for 6 as these go 50/50 this week on agreement! Stay tuned for next week as two new people step up to the plate on Buy or Sell!