Match A Day 03.17.10: Week 48 - Wrestlers Who Don't Deserve Their Pushes

Posted by Jake Chambers on 03.17.2010

Some wrestlers win titles, main events shows year after year, and earn the spotlight given to them by the company they work for… but I don’t care about them! This week I watch matches featuring some of those wacky wrestlers who have a gotten ‘pushed’ by their company but definitely were way too lame to deserve it!


Previously on Match A Day:

- Wow, was Wrestlemania 25 ever bad! After months of theorizing the demise of modern mainstream pro-wrestling in my old column Wacky Wrestling Theory, I decided to stop letting the big companies tell me how and what I was going to enjoy! Sure, I'll never be able to give up watching WWE, in some way, but I'm certainly no longer going to watch it every week and buy into their hype and bullshit! Nope, from now on I'm just watching one match a day. Classic or recent, but on my own terms and at my own speed!

- I revealed to the MAD readers that I am straight edge, just like our pal CM Punk, and that I never drink alcohol, do drugs or smoke cigarettes. And yes, the cliché is true, that makes me better than you!

- At first when my friend from back home, Eddie, move here to Seoul, South Korea, I thought he just wanted to hang out… but then I discovered he was selling his own experimental new drug called Madness!

- I'm not doing the drug of course, but I did fold pretty quickly when I needed some money and Eddie cut me in on his business if I would store some of his stash at my place. So… I may not be better than you anymore… but I am getting rich!

And now MAD Week 48 can begin…

Wrestlers Who Don't Deserve Their Pushes

1. AJ Styles

I think one man can only go so far with a Pele kick and some good vertical leaping ability, and AJ Styles has milked that for as much as he possibly could at this point. I mean, he's been the NWA/TNA champion like 20 times already, and no one seems to have noticed or cared. This column isn't about whether I like said wrestler or not, as in AJ's case I'm a huge fan of his matches, but I'm not sure he's deserved his multiple main event title reigns in TNA.

Mostly I blame TNA's bad booking, as they don't seem to be able to successfully book ‘new' world champions (as in guys who haven't been franchise title holders in other companies before) having botched reigns by Christian, Samoa Joe and the many restarts of AJ Styles. While the AJ of four years ago seemed to be ready to explode, the AJ Styles of 2009 was starting to feel more like a veteran who couldn't crossover rather than a young up-and-comer. So, that's why I don't think he really deserved to get his push (although beating Sting at a TNA Bound for Glory hardly seems like a platform for superstardom at this point anyways) in late 2009.

The closest comparison I can think of to the personality deficient yet stylistically fantastic AJ is Chris Benoit. but he was able to cultivate a dry personality based on his connection to the Four Horsemen and later his full-on competitive nature whereas Styles still continues to struggle with his continually shifting character; is he a chickenshit, is he an adrenaline junky, is he a goofball or a hero? And frankly, I've never been convinced of the success of any of these personalities. So to think that this guy is a franchise performer on the level of John Cena or Randy Orton is silly, since both of those guys started out with less hype and fan interest and in less time turned into exponentially bigger stars than Styles without all the character retooling. How many more times is TNA going to recreate AJ Styles until they have finally destroyed his total worth?

Match #325 – Sunday, February 21st
TNA Title: AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle
[TNA Genesis, January 2010]

Look no further than this match! TNA turned Styles heel along with the un-retired Ric Flair at his side in a surprise so predictable by the end of the match that even the fact that ANT is TNA spelled backwards was not longer amusing. The ‘new' direction of TNA is a joke. The new regime ‘threw out' the format and gave the viewers this re-run main event of the live TNA Impact main event from a week previous, only this time instead of a clean finish they ‘shock' no one with the kind of horribly telegraphed, interference-ending that made WCW infamous. The new Bischoff/Hogan booked TNA has about as much change in it as Obama's America, as this groundbreaking match was a rehash of a pay-per-view feud from two years ago, and it wasn't even that great then! The best thing about the WCW-ization of TNA is that the influx of new old guys will lead the good wrestlers straight into the open arms of the WWE, please come Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels and hopefully AJ too, before it's too late.

2. John Morrison

I've often expressed in this column, when it comes to John Morrison matches, just adding a few twists to your moves does not make for innovation as the WWE announcers would have your believe. While Morrison has had some good matches, his personality is so dull as I think most would concur at this point that The Miz was the pepper to Morrison's salt in that team. Like Jeff Hardy, who is a good comparison, Morrison can bounce and has a slightly flamboyant look yet he doesn't have Hardy's inherent passion for the art of pro-wrestling, specifically his athletic display of a true desire to win. In Morrison's case, I just don't feel like he cares whether he wins or loses, and thus there is no reason to push him as a winner. I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking this, as the much more intense Drew McIntyre won this day's match in order to capture the Intercontinental Title at the TLC pay-per-view.

Match #326 – Monday, February 22nd
Intercontinental Title Match: John Morrison vs. Drew McIntyre
[WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs, December 2009]



3. Mike Quackenbush

This is a tough one, because Mike Quackenbush as the producer, booker, designer and trainer of all things CHIKARA is just an absolute industry hero who has provided so much to the indy landscape in the past few years in the US that it's almost not an indy scene anymore. The man should be absolutely applauded for his contributions to the pro-wrestling world, his boundless creativity and his guidance to a new generation of stars who don't happen to be born (or drugged) to look like bodybuilders. That being said, there is something I just can't get into about his wrestling character. His weird campy speaking voice, his uncomfortably dorky baggy pants and spandex t-shirt combo, his doofy haircut, and his impressive yet patronizing posture, are all detrimental to his near main-event status on that aforementioned indy scene. Compliments to his humbleness, Quackenbush hasn't booked himself as the top star of his promotion, yet still he has an aura in pro-wrestling that doesn't seem to fit his performances. I'm being nitpicky really, because he is good I just don't think he's amazing as a wrestler. Regardless, on this day I watched a pretty great singles match he had against Claudio Castagnoli.

Match #327 – Tuesday, February 23rd
Mike Quackenbush vs. Claudio Castagnoli
[Ted Petty Invitational, 2nd Round 2006]



4. Undertaker (original)

The wisdom to hitch the WWF/E onto the back of the Undertaker has been a wise one, but I didn't think at the time of his initial babyface push that the Undertaker deserved such success. He was slow, boring and had a terrible outfit, although a lot of what was going on around 1993 WWF was pretty wacked out, the zombie gravedigging Undertaker seemed particularly dumb.

While there is no doubting the overall brilliant career of the Undertaker, one does have to question if he is really as big a star as we think he is? With all the maeg-pushes given the Undertaker in his career he has still never achieved the crossover success of Hogan, Austin or The Rock, and that's got to make you wonder if it was worth it? If all that promotional energy had been put into another guy… like say the brilliant Goldust… then maybe they would have hit that rarefied air of mainstream superstardom that the Undertaker has ascended to.

Match # 328 – Wednesday, February 24th
Undertaker vs. Papa Shango
[WWF Invasion of the BodySlammers, 1993]

There was no cooler foil for the early good-guy Undertaker than the iconic Papa Shango, although house show style matches like this one are as good as their small recorded rivalry ever achieved. I think you can see from this match some of what I disliked about the Undertaker back then, he was so, his moves looked awkward, his clothes looked particularly silly, his hair was too red, and he seemed too stiff. And the whole ‘no-selling' gimmick with the power of the urn to revive him was just too wacky to believe it would be popular.



5. Yoshihiro Takayama

The big hulking dullard Takayama has never excited me, even in his prime, but his recent slew of big wins and main events has absolutely dumbfounded me. He recently challenged the fantastic Shinsuke Nakumura in New Japan's Tokyo Dome show, and killed the heat on the companies biggest night of the year, then he won NOAH's 2010 Global Tag Tournament in some of the most underwhelming fashion, along with having reigned for almost half a year as the All Japan Triple Crown champion until finally losing it to Satoshi Kojima in today's match. That is high profile roles in the top three companies in the Japan in less than six months, and all of them sucked! I understand that he had one of the greatest MMA punch-outs of all time with Don Frye, but c'mon, his wrestling matches today are horrible and he definitely doesn't deserve this recent push based on his excitement value or workrate. So I was pretty happy to see him lose the All Japan championship, but out of all the guys on this list this week, he's the one I'm begging while get a de-push!

Match #329 – Thursday, February 25th
All Japan Triple Crown Championship Match: Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Satoshi Kojima
[All Japan, September 2009]



6. Tyler Black

I don't know how one match with Bryan Danielson in early 2007 led to such a massive push for Tyler Black that, even though he lost, he was being touted as the next ROH world champion almost immediately afterwards. That was a good match, but is Tyler Black ready to learn how to be a star as a champion? ROH never booked itself like a developmental territory but putting Tyler Black into the main event scene sure makes it feel that way. He has been in some truly awesome matches, yet so have guys like Delirious, Jimmy Jacobs, Colt Cabana and Claudio Castagnoli, but Tyler gets all the hype and main event push. Like in this match…

Match #330 – Friday, February 26th
ROH World Title, 4-Way: Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black vs. Jerry Lynn vs. Nigel McGuinees
[ROH Death Before Dishonor VII: Night One, July 2009]

Although he didn't win the title here, Black did steal a lot of the spotlight from the other stars who mostly out worked him. While I will give him credit for energizing audiences, they are ROH audiences (and in this case, Canadians!) who cannot be trusted considering they will turn on any smark fan favorite the minute they hit their peak. So to push the still rough draft version of Tyler Black superstar to the sky based mainly on the live reactions he gets from these specific fans seems iffy to me.

7. RVD

Looking back, it's gotta be pretty embarrassing that the WWE sent John Cena into a room full of hostile smark-high ECW fans to lose the WWE Title to this guy. In the end, Cena gets the respect for not showing any intimidation and going with the flow while RVD gets lambasted for being a burnout and resting on his laurels. Unlike Chris Jericho, who for a few years the WWE might have regretted giving the honor of being the first ever Unified World Champion, his comeback and commitment to professional wrestling has proven their foresight in his case to be correct. RVD is a stain upon the legacy of the WWE Title, an out of shape, out-dated gimmick who was given the opportunity of a lifetime and chose to wrestle like it was just another match. And while I don't really care about the subsequent drug case that caused the WWE to take his title, in comparison to Jeff Hardy who also had similar circumstances in his career, at least he always displayed real emotion in his matches and made it look like he cared about winning rather than just getting paid.

Match #331 – Saturday, February 27th
Stretcher Match: Rob Van Dam vs. Sabu
[ECW, August 1996]

On the other hand, there is this match that displayed just why pushing Rob Van Dam… in 1996… was a good idea! He was daring, dangerous and anti-establishment, and was creating an inferno of buzz for an ECW that was in danger of fading away at that time. This Stretcher Match with Sabu was incredible at the time and stands up today as still being pretty extreme, especially since the emotion and respect issue between the two made for such an intense rivalry. I'm sure if this RVD had been involved in 2006 instead of the caricature he became, then the WWE wouldn't be so ashamed of the wasted mega-push they gave him.



This was just a short list of some, ‘wrestlers who don't deserve their pushes.' Check out my Twitter account this week where I will be adding some more names to that list! Join in the fun!

Again… not much to add this week about my personal life. Just another week and a bit more extra cash to call my own. Everything seems to be going smoothly at this point… just waiting for something to go wrong… but so far, it's all good!