411’s Buy or Sell 8.15.08: Japanese Tournaments, Kenny King, El Generico, and More!!

Posted by Michael Bauer on 08.15.2008

The 411 staff will look back at last weekend’s Ring of Honor shows and take a look at some Japan happenings as Ryan Byers battles Steve Cook!

Welcome everyone to WEEK Sixty Nine 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.


Week Sixty Nine's Match-Up:
The former TNA Recapper and Best Wrestler of the Week voter Ryan Byers vs. 411 Wrestling's Original Answer Man Steve Cook!

The Young Bucks will not make the finals of Dragon Gate's Summer Adventure Tag League

Ryan Byers : SELL . Nick and Matt Jackson may not be your stereotypical monster gaijin tag team, but, even so, Japanese promotions have a long history of running major tournaments and sending "outsiders" to the last match, oftentimes to lose to a home grown favorite. It's a tried and true method of spinning things so that your tournament winner can be portrayed as getting a major victory in the finals without one of your regular teams simultaneously being dealt a major loss.

Steve Cook : BUY . Mr. Byers makes fine points about typical Japanese tournament booking, but I think it might behoove Dragon Gate to offer up something a little bit different and I don't think most of the teams in the tournament would be hurt with a loss in the finals. The Young Bucks are talented, but I don't think they're quite ready for such a high-profile slot just yet. Of course, I am usually 100% wrong with my Japanese wrestling predictions, so I expect Ryan to be proven right.

0 for 1.

A Ring of Honor team will make the finals of the upcoming NOAH NTV-CUP Jr. Heavyweight Tag League Tournament.

Ryan Byers : SELL, though that in part depends on what you consider a Ring of Honor team. There are only two teams in the tournament that consist of two Ring of Honor regulars, namely Bryan Danielson & Davey Richards and the Briscoe Brothers. However, you've also got several teams involving at least one ROH semi-regular, including Marufuji, Kota Ibushi, Eddie Edwards, and KENTA. If you include all of the teams with semi-regulars, that's six units out of the eight team field, so the odds would definitely be in the favor of an "ROH team" making it. However, if you limit the question to the Briscoes and Dragon/Davey, the odds drop of significantly, both in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of breaking down the booking. I think that one of the slots in the finals will have to go to the reigning GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, Yoshinobu Kanemura & Kitaro Suzuki, while the second will hopefully be used to get some newer team over. The Briscoes have had their run at a high level in the jr. tag team division, and Danielson has gotten plenty of exposure as a singles jr. heavyweight. It's time for somebody else to step up.

Steve Cook : SELL. Yeah, there's only one actual ROH tag team in this tournament, and I don't think the Briscoes are going to make it to the finals. They should because they are awesome, but it'll likely be somebody else, and probably not Danielson & Richards, though they wouldn't be a bad pick. I agree with Byers in that Kanemura & Suzuki will likely make the finals, as for who the second team will be…let's go with KENTA & Ishimori because I like me some KENTA.

1 for 2.

NJPW's annual G1 Climax tournament will be won by an up and comer in Japan.

Ryan Byers : SELL… primarily because there's only one guy in the tournament who I see as an "up and comer," and there's no way that he's winning. Seriously. The tournament's participants consist of Ohtani (an outsider), Kojima (ditto), Yoshie (ditto), Tanahashi (an established main eventer), Nagata (ditto) Nakanishi (ditto), Nakamura (ditto), Tenzan (ditto), Makabe (pretty well set as an upper midcard/tag guy), Giant Bernard (ditto), Yano (ditto), Goto (a perpetual junior heavyweight), and Kawada (a legend). The only guy who even comes close to approaching "up and comer" status is Wataru Inoue, the gentleman who recently dominated the junior heavyweight division and then decided he was going to move up to fight against the big boys. However, that announcement by Inoue was VERY recent, and I see him having more of a slow ascension up the heavyweight portion of the card as opposed to transitioning and almost immediately winning a major tournament. Furthermore, the tournament winner this year is getting an IWPG Title shot against Keiji Muto this year on a major All Japan show, and only a handful of guys are ready for that kind of match. Inoue ain't one of them.

Steve Cook : SELL. For the reasons Byers stated. I guess you could go "buy" if you're a bit more liberal with the definition of "up and comer", but it's tough for me to use that term for any of the people in the tournament, and it's impossible for me to use the term for anybody I would consider picking to win. Is Giant Bernard an up and comer in Japan? Probably not since he's a former tag champ and whatnot. Now that I think about it, all the people I would like to see win probably have no chance of winning. I mean, how can you root against Kawada? I guess it's possible, but I choose not to do such a thing.

2 for 3.

SWITCH~!

Jimmy Jacobs' mystery partner will be someone who has been in The Age of the Fall in some promotion.

Steve Cook : SELL. The ROH Newswire that I read today says the following: "We have learned from the Age Of The Fall camp that this mystery man is a new member of the AOTF and that he will also be in Chicago this Saturday. We have been unable to obtain anymore information." Assuming that the almighty Gabe would never lie to us humble wrestling fans, I assume that we will be seeing somebody new joining Jacobs in his match on Friday night. As for who it might be, I have absolutely no idea, but I really like the idea of it being BJ Whitmer. Too bad it won't be him because of his upcoming hand surgery. I guess I'd settle for Matt Cross, who'd make sense due to his prior connection to Austin Aries and his being from the Cleveland area. I wonder if he's ditched the Fidel Castro look yet.

Ryan Byers : SELL. Excuse my ignorance of other promotions' iterations of the Age of the Fall, but has there even been an AOTF member elsewhere that would not look like a complete joke in Ring of Honor? I like Rain and Mr. Milo Beasley as much as the next guy, but they're the only Age of the Fall "outsiders" I can think of, and I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that their teaming up with Jimmy Jacobs would be a bit of a letdown.

3 for 4.

Editor's Note: This question was originally asked before the Newswire came out stating that it would be someone new.

Kenny King will become a mainstay in Ring of Honor by the end of 2008..

Steve Cook : BUY. I haven't seen enough of King lately to tell you whether he's any good or not (I'm sure my buddy Ryan will fill you in on that), but he's been down in FIP for quite awhile now and they seem to like using him. I remember him being on Tough Enough, but I don't remember what he did on Tough Enough. Was he the one who cried when he was passed over for Linda Miles & Jackie Gayda? Come to think of it, I wouldn't hold that against him…I'd also cry if somebody told me Linda & Jackie were better than me. The main reason I say "BUY" is because ROH can always use new mainstays and King doesn't sound like a bad choice for one.

Ryan Byers : SELL. Yes, Steve, he's from Tough Enough. Yes, Steve, he lost to Linda Miles. (I was one of the only people who thought that was the right move at the time, and, frankly, I still think it was the right move.) King has gone from being a reality show hasbeen to a fairly decent professional wrestler, but I don't think that he's going to be an ROH mainstay anytime soon. Why? It's because the "Kenny King experiment" has been tried a couple of different times in Ring of Honor now, and he's never exactly managed to catch fire. Has he improved since then? He definitely has, but I don't think that it's to the extent necessary to do a better job of winning over the promotion's fans or ascending the card. Besides, if we need any former Tough Enough star in Ring of Honor, it's Ivory. Can you imagine Ivory in her full on peppy, over the top bundle of energy mode against MsChif? It'd be gold. Book it, Gabe.

3 for 5.

Despite the story Ring of Honor is doing, El Generico truly stands no chance of beating Nigel McGuiness.

Steve Cook : BUY . This isn't a knock on El Generico, I'm a big fan of the guy and my appreciation for his wrestling grows every time I see one of his matches. He's been ruling it on the PWG Sells Out DVD and his tag team with Kevin Steen is pure awesomeness. But I don't see the ROH title changing hands on Friday night. Nigel's a fine champion and still has multiple issues with challengers that need settling. Generico's great, but he's not quite on that world title level with the ROH fans yet. He might get there, but it's not his time. And of course, it would be blasphemy for the ROH title to change hands in Cleveland. Cleveland sucks!

Ryan Byers : BUY . Throughout the McGuinness title reign, ROH has taken popular contenders and booked them in angles in which it appeared that they HAD to win in order for there to be a fulfilling end to the story. It happened with Kevin Steen, it happened with Claudio Castagnoli, and now it's getting ready to happen with El Generico. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though. The individual feuds with guys like Steen, Castagnoli, and Generico aren't the angles that are building to big blowoffs in Ring of Honor right now. Instead, the storyline that is being given the slow burn until the eventual explosion is McGuinness' reign overall. The whole point is to constantly feed him guys who fans are convinced are locks until it gets to the point that nobody seems like a lock to beat Nigel. At that point you have somebody unseat him, and you have a brand new main event star. It's that simple, and it's brilliant if it is the way that the company is ultimately going. (Please, please do not put the belt back on Danielson. I beg of you.)

4 for 6!


The Sixty Ninth edition of BUY or SELL finishes at 4 for 6. Stay tuned for next week when two new men will go head to head with a whole new set of topics.