The Crystal Ball 7.26.06: OVW Prime 9
Posted by Steve Sullivan on 07.26.2006
The 2nd ever OVW Prime 9! Where being Top 10 material may not be enough to land you on the list!
Welcome one and welcome all back to the OVW Crystal Ball!
First off, before we get started with the 2nd ever OVW Prime 9 Countdown, I have to toot my own horn. Because it's much safer to blow my own horn than someone else's horn.
Horn slobber sucks.
Anyway, earlier this week, I received an email from a producer in New York City. I was invited to be a part of a television taping on the Madison Square Garden Network. The show is called the 50 Greatest Moments in Madison Square Garden history and the topic of this particular show is Wrestlemania. So I'm proud to say that in a couple of weeks, The Crystal Ball and 411mania will be represented in The Big Apple.
End of tooting.
With that out of the way, welcome back to the OVW Prime 9! Where we take in the last 4 or 5 television shows and see who is performing the best in Ohio Valley Wrestling. You may recall this feature last month on June 11th. If not, then here are the original OVW Prime 9:
#1 C.M. Punk
#2 Shad Gaspard
#3 Idol Stevens
#4 Boris Alexiev
#5 The Neighborhoodie
#6 Seth Skyfire
#7 The Miz
#8 Roadkill
#9 Kasey James
OVW has seen an onslaught of new talent recently. Some successful, others not so much. Regardless, there has been a lot of action this summer in what is being called one of the better Summer Sizzler Series in the history of OVW.
With the Prime 9, I feel this is a great way of showcasing some of the top talent in Ohio Valley Wrestling and show wrestling fans the kind of progress the current Ohio Valley Wrestling superstars are making. I will also look for current trends in talent during callups. Does the WWE tend to recruit lower success OVW stars over its higher rated stars? Is OVW pushing some guys that are overrated? Hopefully these questions can be answered with the Prime 9! And maybe one to grow on.
So how does the Prime 9 Work? It's a simple equation really. I developed my own system to track how each OVW star is being promoted on OVW's television show. House show and the Summer Sizzler Series are not being counted. It has to happen on TV. The point system is as follows:
Points are totaled for the last 4 TV shows or, how the wrestler has been portrayed in the last month. If you're in a match, you at least get a point for getting to wrestle on TV. Points are totaled up and the rankings are based on how many points the wrestler has scored. Wrestlers are counted when they are not currently wrestling on WWE TV. For instance, Ken Kennedy is not counted, but The Miz is. The Miz has yet to wrestle and therefore technically does not count.
So where does your favorite OVW Superstar land on 2nd Prime 9? Let's check it out!
Honorable Mention- Shawn Spears- 7 Points
Despite only having 1 win under his belt during the 5 week session the Prime 9 looked at, Spears is consistently making television appearances. Despite all the losses, the TV time and the effort adds up. That's how the barely Canadian Spears barely missed out on his first Prime 9. He's impressed a lot of fans lately. He has mounted two upset wins in his short 2 month career in OVW, defeated Smackdown stars The Miz and Simon Dean. Spears victory over Simon Dean actually lead to the big feud that Dean and Al Snow are currently involved in.
Spears is obviously being seasoned for big things. He's been in the ring with WWE talent. He's beaten WWE talent. He's in the ring nearly every single week. With a couple more wins, Spears could actually find himself among some of the other rookies on the next Prime 9. He's a rising star. He'll be in the top 3 in a few months.
6/18- Lost to Idol Stevens
6/25- Lost To Los Locos, Deuce, & Domino
7/1- Lost to Deuce & Domino
7/8- Defeated The Miz
7/15- Lost to Deuce & Domino
#9 Shad Gaspard & The Neighborhoodie- 8 Points
The OVW Southern Tag Team Champions haven't seen as much TV as they probably should. They did put together a humorous video package. The last humorous video package that came anywhere near this was done by none other than The Heart Throbs. Soon after, they turned face and were called up quickly by the WWE. We all know where that went. Regardless, Gaspard is still making his presence known to Heavyweight Champ C.M. Punk. With Punk preparing for his ECW debut; could this be the time to put the title on Gaspard?
The Neighborhoodie isn't too shabby either. The Hoodie seems to be on his way to TV Title stardom while his partner seeks the Heavyweight title. Their tag team championship run will probably come to an end soon to Deuce and Domino, in which we will hopefully see the best of Shad Gaspard and Smackdown's future big black heel.
6/25- Defeated Club Life
7/8- Lost To Deuce & Domino
7/15- Appeared In Vignette
7/22- Appeared To Interfere
#8 Boris Alexiev- 8 Points
Technically there was a tie here for 8th place, but I gave Boris the tie breaker due to his dominating start in OVW. He hasn't been on TV lately after having his first big test against former OVW Southern Tag Team Champion Chet The Jet. He's still undefeated and still very intense. I'm hoping he gets back on TV soon to showcase more of his intensity and power and give the WWE scouts a preview of their future.
6/18- Defeated Moe "The Mug" Sexton
6/25- Defeated Moe "The Mug" Sexton
7/1- Made Appearance
#7 Elijah Burke- 9 Points
Burke missed out on the last Prime 9 after being out awhile with an injury. Times have certainly changed for the former OVW Heavyweight Champion. He's got a new gimmick and new ring attire as of late, pulling off Lex Luger's old "Patriotic" gimmick. Burke is still huge among the fans but has been showing shades of a new intense Elijah we have yet to see in OVW thus far. Rumors have had it for awhile that Burke will be moving to Deep South. With a Loser Leaves Town Match coming up this weekend with The Miz, this may be the week that Burke leaves OVW, then again, this may also mean that The Miz is preparing for a fulltime wrestling schedule on Smackdown. Regardless, Burke is slowly getting back on track to what we saw when he came to OVW in 2004.
6/18- Defeated Rahim
6/25- Lost To Los Locos, Deuce, & Domino
7/1- Lost to Deuce & Domino
7/15- Lost To The Miz
7/22- Defeated "Bad Seed" Shawn Osborne
#6 Aaron "The Idol" Stevens- 10 Points
Despite the fact that The Idol has been sort of The Idle, Stevens is still doing what he does best. That's winning and delivering promos. Recently, Stevens was involved in the breakup of former OVW Southern Tag Champs Roadkill and KC James. Now James and The Idol are teaming up and ironically, but not so much, James and Stevens were at this week's Smackdown/ECW taping. It seems to me that Stevens has probably been in the gym preparing for a big tag team push on Smackdown. James seems to be a lock also on Smackdown as Stevens tag team partner. With all the Wellness Program suspendees, look for Stevens and James to win the WWE Tag Team Titles at Summerslam. Write it down.
6/18- Defeated Shawn Spears
6/25- Defeated TJ Dalton
7/1- Appearance
7/8- Wrestled In No Contest (Appearance)
7/15- Appearance
7/22- Appearance
#5 Charles "The Hammer" Evans- 11
Kenny Bolin went out and found himself a huge monster in Charles Evans. He's big. So that already favors him in the WWE. He's dominant. He's powerful. He's the next Bobby Lashley or Batista. The fact that Bolin is managing him basically means this guy is going to be a star in the WWE. He's undefeated thus far on OVW TV. At one point, he seemed to be a lock as the new OVW TV Champion when he got into an early feud with Seth Skyfire, but that program seems to be dropped. Now Evans will step into the ring with Jerry "The King" Lawler at the next Summer Sizzler Series. Unless Lawler pulls out fire, I don't think Evans will be challenged too much.
6/18- Defeated Seth Skyfire
6/25- Appearance
7/1- Appearance
7/15- Defeated TJ Dalton
7/22- Defeated Pat Buck
#4 Cody Runnels -12 Points
If you like Old School, you're going to love Cody Runnels. For a young guy, his moves are about as old as Dusty Rhodes. Hmm..Wonder why? Oh that's right. Runnels is another undefeated rookie in OVW this year. He's become pretty popular, mainly with the ladies. Others cheer him for the same reason they listen to Brooke Hogan. He has dug the sleeper hold back out of the same grave as ECW and has been winning with it. How long as it been since you saw someone's arm drop down 3 times? For me, it's becoming every week, and that's a breath of fresh air that was bottled in the 1970's. Runnels certainly has a great shot at making WWE TV with his daddy working backstage. I wouldn't be surprised to see them both involved in a family storyline similar to what the Ortons did last Winter.
7/1- Defeated Vic Devine
7/8- Defeated Eddie Craven
7/15- Defeated Raul of Los Locos
7/22- Defeated KC James
#3 C.M. Punk -14 Points
Kind of hard to believe the Heavyweight Champion is at #3 isn't it? While Punk has been making weekly appearances, he's not making the weekly title defenses or even wrestling weekly as he was during the last Prime 9. C.M. Punk has recently been in a good storyline with the current TV Champ Seth Skyfire. After wrestling two spectacular matches, one which he lost a non-title match to Skyfire, the two are teaming up and look to be headed into a feud with the Tag Team Champions Gaspard and the Neighborhoodie. It's possible we will see a match with all 4 OVW Champions in one match together. One may begin to speculate that maybe this is the end of the road for C.M. Punk in OVW now that his career in ECW is about to take off. Punk still has a few good matches in OVW in him and I would not be surprised to see him in a Match Of The Year candidate when he loses his title.
6/18- Promo
6/25- Defeated Vic Devine
7/1- Lost to Seth Skyfire
7/8- Appearance
7/15- Defeated Seth Skyfire (Championship Match)
7/22- Defeated Deuce & Domino
#2 Deuce & Domino- 16 Points
I'm finding this hard to digest but yes, this is correct. Deuce and Domino, the greasy 50's Fonz impersonators are this high in the OVW Prime 9. In the last Prime 9, Deuce was on his way out of Prime 9 contendership all together. Since then, this tag team hadn't lost until this past Saturday. They have defeated the Tag Champs in a non title match. They've defeated everyone OVW has thrown at them, until last week when they lost to C.M. Punk and Seth Skyfire. Of course, they had help from Shad Gaspard and The Neighborhoodie. It seems like these two are headed for a face turn and a 2nd run as OVW Southern Tag Team Champions very soon. They are truly making a good run at Tag Team Of The Year in OVW, which is wild to believe given their win/loss record prior to June.
6/18- Defeated Roadkill & KC James
6/25- Defeated Roadkill, KC James, Elijah Burke, & Shawn Spears
7/8- Defeated Shad Gaspard & The Neighborhoodie
7/15- Defeated Shawn Spears & Pat Buck
7/22- Lost To Seth Skyfire & C.M. Punk
#1 Seth Skyfire- 16 Points
Once again, this was a tie, but Skyfire gets the tiebreaker because let's face it, he's just been dominant. He has defended his TV Title several times. He defeated OVW Heavyweight Champ C.M. Punk in a non title match that was to put him in a match against Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight Championship a few weeks ago. That match however got rained out and never happened, and never will with the title on Booker T now. He wrestled a hell of a match for the OVW Heavyweight title against Punk and now he's teaming up with Punk to challenge for the Southern Tag Team Titles that he has already held 3 times. Skyfire has been on a huge tear in OVW and I think the tear is only minor compared to the tear he is headed for soon. This is the future of OVW.
6/18- Lost to Charles "The Hammer" Evans
6/25- Defeated Jack Bull
7/1- Defeated C.M. Punk
7/8- Defeated Brent "Gunner Scott" Albright
7/15- Lost to C.M. Punk (Championship Match)
7/22- Defeated Deuce & Domino
And that's your Prime 9! Here they are in order in case you didn't catch that. I'm also going to throw in some fun statistics that I will hold over each time I do the Prime 9 and hopefully down the road, we will be able to track some of the best OVW talent of all time!
Of course, my math may be a bit off, but you get the picture. Now onto everyone's favorite segment of The Crystal Ball! Steve-mail!
Paul was first this wanting to see some OVW wrestling:
Hi,
I've enjoyed your columns but I was wondering where I can get DVDs of OVW TV starting with last year. The little I've seen of Mr. Anderson/Kennedy's OVW stuff is hilarious. I'd also like to see more of Brent Albright, the Spirit Squad guys, C.M. Punk and of course, Maria. She's smokin'!
Paul
Unfortunately Paul, you can no longer purchase OVW DVD's. This is because the WWE purchased the OVW library and stopped OVW from selling anymore videos of its programming. You may get lucky and find something on ebay but your chances of getting every show since last year are slim to none.
And before anyone asks me again because I get at least one every other week or so.
I will not send out tapes of OVW Programming.
Next up is Vicki from here in Kentucky. In my 9 months here, this is the first OVW fan from my area to email me!
I read your article (7/19/06) and have to say that I whole heartedly agree with you about Aaron "The Idol" Stevens and about Shad "Da Beast" Gaspard. I also share your opinion about Elijah Burke. I think that all three of them are long overdue for a call up to the big show.
However, I disagree about Seth Skyfire. Although I haven't been to an OVW show live in a year or better, I do catch it on TV. I think that Seth has plenty of heart, but I think that his former tag partner, Mac Johnson, carried that team. I think that Seth needs to be a bit cleaner in the ring, as far as calling his moves and making his marks.
He's a great high flyer, when he's on. But when he's off, his whole match is off.
As for the graduates that have already been called up, I think the following deserved their chance in spades:
Nick Nemeth
Ken Doane
Brent Albright
Beth Phoenix
Carlos Colon
Mike Mondo
Paul Birchall
Joey Mercury
As for anyone else, I think they should have left them here for a while. Alexis Laree and Johnny Jeter were the two least deserving, in my opinion. Both Alexis and Johnny have the same trouble that Seth does. They both are either hot or cold. There is no "in between" for them, which means there's no saving grace. Johnny was getting lazy here in Louisville, and no one could have been more surprised when he got the call than me. And I can remember watching one match between Alexis and Passion where, because Alexis completely missed her mark, she could have really hurt Passion by dropping her the way she did.
And I think one of the best things that could happen to Idol would be that when he gets called up, they should repackage Simon Dean a.k.a. Nova and reunite them as a tag team. I know that Idol is perfectly capable of carrying a solo career, having been trained by none other than Killer Kowalski, but he and Nova made a great tag team in OVW, and WWE is sorely lacking good tag teams. And everytime they put a good one together, they split them up as soon as they can.
Thanks for hearing me out and thanks for the great column on OVW. They deserve every bit of press that they get because they're working hard for these athletes.
Regards,
Vicki
Thanks Vicki! I'm going to try and break this down paragraph by paragraph on my thoughts here. By the way, you don't know how good it is to hear from someone who follows OVW as much as I do!
I'm glad you agreed with me about Idol Stevens, Shad Gaspard, and Elijah Burke. All 3 men could do wonders on a WWE TV. I will admit that Gaspard needs a little more polishing but I think the WWE stage could really give him the coating he needs to be a big time heel.
I am however sorry you don't agree with me about Seth Skyfire and I strongly have to disagree with you. I will admit that Skyfire's ring work can be off on days, but if he was perfect, he wouldn't be here in OVW. Mac Johnson was a talented wrestler but never did I ever think that he was carrying the tag team of himself and Skyfire. Mac Johnson is not even wrestling anymore. He has retired. Skyfire however is on the top of almost every single card lately. I think the pressure of the main event and the upper cards have really made Skyfire into a much better wrestler. Skyfire was more off when he was with Mac than he is now. He's improved tremendously as a singles wrestler and I will even go as far as saying that Mac Johnson may have been holding Skyfire back. I think Skyfire has a great potential at hand and I expect in the next few years that Skyfire will be one of the top Cruisers or tag team specialists on a WWE show.
As for some of your graduates, a few of those graduated a year or two before 2006. I was only aiming at those who made their first WWE appearance during the year of 2006.
Alexis (Mickie James) and Johnny I will agree can be pretty sloppy and Johnny did get kind of lazy toward the end of his last title reign, but I do feel he was deserving. He's had his moments as a member of The Spirit Squad and hopefully when the group breaks up, Johnny, Ken, and Mike can all be given a chance to shine more. Alexis has improved a little bit but she was pretty wreckless in OVW and has proven herself to be wreckless in the WWE.
I loved The Jersey Shore Crew, which consisted of Idol Stevens, Nova (Simon Dean), and Danny Inferno who now wrestles in Deep South. But I don't think it's likely we will see them reform a tag team. I'd like to see it in OVW, but it looks like Stevens is on his way to getting the call along with KC James to Smackdown. Stevens has been rumored to be joining Smackdown throughout the whole year and I hope this time, it's the real deal.
Awesome stuff. That's going to do it for this edition of The Crystal Ball? Where does your favorite OVW wrestler lie in the Prime 9? Is there anything else you'd like to see here? Do you want to know more about an OVW wrestler? Send me an email and be a part of the next column! Until then my friends…
