The Tiger's Take 10.01.08: My Favorite Things Of The '08

Posted by Mike Campbell on 10.01.2008

There's been lots of good stuff this year.

The Tiger's Take
My Favorite Things Of The '08

Time is ticking away as the year 2008 comes to a close, and that means pretty soon all of the match of the year and match of the year candidate discussion is going to start popping up everywhere. It's funny how much one person can change. I used to be all over those sort of discussions, but now I tend to stay away from them. You'd think that with my reputation as being '411's toughest reviewer' that I'd be right there to rain one everyone's parade about why they're favorite matches sucked. But honestly, I find that I much more enjoy general discussion when I'm involved in group discussions, rather than picking things apart like I might for a review. If you go to the Purotopia section of DVDVR, you'll find that my friend 'Ditch' has been doing a lot of MOTY type stuff, I'm more than happy to pop in now and then and suggest certain matches, but I don't partake in any of the voting because (A. I don't have as much free time as I'd like to, and (B. I just really don't see the point in it anymore.

But jus because I no longer enjoy those kinds of things, doesn't mean that I no longer enjoy good wrestling/angles/feuds/etc. So I decided to give the readers a break from reading yet another column by HHH Larry Csonka, and talk a bit about some of the stuff that I've enjoyed from this year. This is by no means exhaustive, I've enjoyed a fair amount of stuff from this year. Of course I've only see so much from this year too, so if I've missed something that you think warrants mention, it's very possible that I've not seen it.

The VIN GERARD SAGA
This has probably been, by far, my favorite storyline of 2008, the full story is long enough for it's own column, so I'll give you the cliff notes verison. Toward the end of the 2007, Chris Hero beat Equinox in a Hair vs. Mask match in CHIKARA. Equinox unmasked and it was revealed that he wasn't really a Luchadore from Tecula, Mexico. He was a CHIKARA Wrestle Factory dropout who lied to get booked. It was similar to the Alex Shelley in ROH storyline in early 2005 when he was booted from Generation Next and nobody wanted anything to do with him. Vin had to get changed for his matches outside, and he entered the ring from the crowd because he wasn't welcome in the locker room. In the months that followed, Vin began to have problems with the Colony and took aim for the Young Lions Cup, which resulted in what's said to be one of the best CHIKARA matches of this year, the Young Lions Cup Tournament Final, Vin vs. Fire Ant. Fire Ant won that match, but Vin would take the Cup from him one month later. In addition to the Colony, Vin also has made enemies with Mike Quakenbush and Jimmy Olsen, while finding some support in the former Shane Storm (now STIGMA) and Colin Delany as 'The UnStable.'

SIMPLY PRICELESS
I've never been shy about my love of tag team wrestling, and my hatred of the fact that WWE doesn't showcase it. That said, the team of Dibiase and Rhodes have really been a bright spot on RAW for me. During a Podcast with Christi Csonka and The Husband way back, I predicted that Cade and Murdoch were going to lose the titles to Rhodes and Holly at Survivor Series, because (A. They'd been champions since June and WWE rarely gave the RAW Tag Champions significantly long reigns, and (B. They seemed like they were pushing Holly and Rhodes. I was wrong about *when* they'd switch the titles, it wound up being on RAW a month or so later. The tag scene wasn't any more interesting than usual, Rhodes and Holly jobbed in non-title matches to Carlito and Santino, Cade and Murdoch, London and Kendrick, etc. and then proceeded to beat them in title matches, but you never got the sense that it was going anywhere. Then Ted Dibaise showed up and made me care.

All Ted really did was talk about how great he was and how he and his partner would win the titles. But the fact of the matter was that it was the first time all year they were making the tag titles into an issue. The PPV came, Rhodes turned on Holly and the rest is history. Have Rhodes and Dibiase set the world on fire? No. Because it goes back to the tag teams not being a WWE priority. But they've cut some very good promos, and I don't think they're association lately with Randy Orton is an accident, because they remind me of Randy Orton in 2003-2004, the brash young punks who run their mouths and probably will bite off more than they can chew, but you know they've got the talent to at least partially back it up.

ALL JAPAN
There's one thing that the fans of the Japanese promotions have been saying for the last couple of years. And that's that the same old, same old is boring and the fans want new faces. All Japan really has taken this to heart this year, and while they're in-ring product may not be as good, their booking has been excellent. Here's just a small listing of who they've elevated this year.

SUWAMA: At this time last year he was nothing more than Voodoo Murders heel doing nothing of note. He's since split from the group, won the Champions Carnival Tournament (in what's said to have been a great final match with Hiroshi Tanahashi), and won the Triple Crown to cement himself as the young ace of the company.

Joe Doering: Joined All Japan last year, seemingly as a token foreigner, but has since rose to be one of the top foreigners. He won the annual Real World Tag League with All Japan owner Keiji Mutoh, and then they lifted the All Japan Tag Team Titles. He's been a consistent presence at the top of the cards, and just recently turned heel and joined the Voodoo Murders stable, and is now more than likely headed toward a Triple Crown challenge to new champion The Great Muta, or to renew his rivalry with Suwama.

Ryuji Hijikata: It seems like people have said for ages that he's one of the most under utilized junior heavyweights in All Japan. But not anymore. Hijikata has become the undisputed junior ace of All Japan. He won the junior tag league in March, unseated Silver King for the All Japan junior title in Apirl, and has defeated former junior ace Kaz Hayashi and the legendary El Samurai. It took NOAH's Naomichi Marufuji to lift the title form him.

In additon to making those three into major players, All Japan has also been working with New Japan, resulting in Hiroshi Tanahashi really making the Champions Carnival into something memorable. And they've also brought in veterans like El Samuari and Osamu Nishimura to spice up the mid card. So all in all, All Japan has been quite interesting this year.

THE JERICHO/MICHAELS FEUD
Do I really need to go into detail. It's been awesome. Great promos, intense matches. Jericho punched Shawn's wife for crying out loud. They've even managed to elevate Lance Cade (at least in the short term) with this feud. I hated their match at WrestleMania XIX, but I haven't hated anything they've done this year. And now it looks to be over The World Title, awesome.

THE WAR OF NEW YORK
I know I already did a column about this, but it warrants repeating. This has been one of the best booked interpromotional feuds in quite some time. And it gives us Upstate New Yorkers a chance to experience what we couldn't during ROH vs. CZW. The best part though is that both sides are playing along. The ROH/CZW feud was about 90% from ROH, but this has had input on both sides. Not as much from NWA Upstate as from 2CW, but that's also because 2CW runs more shows more often. Just recently, Jimmy Olsen lost another bid for the 2CW Title and responded by stealing the belt and weasling his way into another title match. Plus there's a six man tag on the next 2CW show where the losing side's fed can't run a show for the first 90 days of 2009. And the real interesting part here: Both sides have already announced shows within that time. 2CW returning to Albany, NY in February and NWA Upstate running a show in January.

There's plenty of other things that I liked too that I didn't bring up, the rise of Togi Makabe (and GBH in general has really been interesting to me) in New Japan, Dragon Gate briefly going back to feuding BxB Hulk and Shingo Takagi, Taiyo Kea going from a losing streak, to finally pinning Mutoh, to winning the Tag Titles. Santino Marella in general, and lots more. But I'll only throw in that so far my 2008 MOTY is Flair vs. Michaels from WrestleMania.