Your Champ Sucks: Rating the 'World' Champions

The thing about professional wrestling is... I don't really watch it anymore. I haven't watched it on a steady basis since probably 2006-2007. Even then I was watching mostly Japanese and ROH stuff. I'm just not very interested in the modern "major" pro wrestling scene.

I realized years upon years ago that I had outgrown what they were trying to push on people. I've covered my disillusion with pro wrestling in detail before, so I'll give a a brief rundown before getting to my main topic. The idea that wrestling is a soap opera is foolish. It's a sort of low-brow performance art. It's something fun for pseudo-intellectual types to critique. Or something. What it shouldn't be is 1 hour 40 minutes of talking and developing horrifyingly stupid stories that are an insult to anyone with a shred of intelligence. The way ahead is through amazing in ring action, and all the major companies have forgotten this despite possessing some of the top talent. Ring of Honor is a huge underground hit, Japanese wrestling never changed it's format, and TNA made it's name based on good old fashioned ACTION.

That whining aside I'll mention the greatest goal of all pros, championships. Every promotion has a prize at the top. Over the years there have been several companies that could truly claim "World" title status. Most of them are dead. Like boxing championships there can never truly be one top champion, but instead dozens of titles all claiming to be the most important in the world. Some companies even have TWO top titles... which is very, very unwise. So let's take a look at the current wrestlers at the peak of their profession.

And yes, I know I probably should have written more about the role that championships play in wrestling. That's sort of a given really. They mean the same thing that any "belt" type championship does. In essence gaining a championship means one of three things: you kissed the right ass, management thinks it's the right move, or the fans are outright demanding it. Sadly the last one happens the least. Fans opinions don't count in wrestling. Ever.

On to the champions!


WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (Big Gold Belt, WCW Title, Smackdown champion, Trips belt)
Jack Swagger
Grade = F
I don't even know who the fuck this is. I watched one promo he did and it was awful. He had no emotion, a dumb looking face, and a boring suit.

WWE HEAVYWEIGHT (Spinner Belt, Cena Belt, Ugliest Title in the World, RAW Champ)
John Cena
Grade = C+
I don't like him and he really can't get any better than a passable match. Although by this point he's really got the whole "being a champion" thing down. It's not as bad as it was 5 years ago, but that's just because I've gotten used to him. The idiots really like him, anyway, so he'll always be champion.

TNA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (NewWCW championship, nottheX Title)
Rob Van Dam (Johnny the Asp, Robbie Winkle)
Grade = A
Rob Van Dam gets only his second world title run... ever. For one of the most popular wrestlers of the early 00s this is well deserved. He was perpetually a top candidate for the glass ceiling award, but finally broke through a few years ago and never looked back. For once, good job TNA.

ROH "WORLD" CHAMPIONSHIP (Better 5 years ago Title, Best of Whats Left championship)
Tyler Black
Grade = C-
He's not the worst and he's not the best. He really is just the best of what's left after ROH got picked clean by TNA and WWE. With the likes of Nigel, AmDrag, Punk, Joe, AJ, and others long gone they don't have a lot to work with. I haven't seen the recent ROH product enough to know if this is a good move but I always did like Black. With Christopher Daniels on his way back, however, I don't think he's long for the title.

NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT (Rectangle title, Means Nothing Anymore title)
Adam Pearce
Grade = D+
He's the booker, he's the champ. Not as bad as Blue Demon Jr. (who's energy drink I LOVE), but there are so many independent workers out there that could add their name to this title. It's vanishing act after TNA dropped the NWA was total. With no exposure and no real competition, this title is unlikely to ever be in the spotlight again. Though that's what people said back in 2001...

TRIPLE CROWN (50s looking & barely holding together, Baba's belts)
Minoru Suzuki
Grade = B
Had I written this even a week ago it would have been Ryota Hama... and the grade would've been F-. Luckily he dropped the titles on his first defense to the always hard MiSuzuki. This will inevitably lead to Masakatsu Funaki vs Minoru Suzuki which will be some stiff goodness.

GHC HEAVYWEIGHT (...got nothing, Belt of Awesome title matches, Kobashi's belt)
Takashi Suguira
Grade = D+
I'm not against juniors going up a division and winning the top belts, but in this case it just didn't feel right. Suguira really doesn't feel like a top contender to me. Go Shiosaki is awesome, but I don't think he really has the fans in his palm quite yet so the title was taken and given to... Suguira? With so much amazing talent in NOAH I feel like this was just the wrong choice of champion.

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT (Soured by Sapp, Lessened by Lesnar)
Togi Makabe
Grade = A
He was built up pefectly. After years of getting the big wins but failed title shots, a G1 Climax victory and leading his stable to war against Nakamura, Makabe finally earns his championship and it just feel right. It was a classic slow build that just doesn't happen very often anymore. It worked for Makabe.

So there it is folks. What do you think about the current champions, if anything. Or do you just hate wrestling in general. I'll admit I only found out about half of these (mostly the American ones) through Wikipedia. There isn't much of a place for wrestling in my life. Every so often, like today, I'll get in a mood and watch some. Today I watched an FMW and a NOAH dvd. Guess which one was better? Even so, the FMW was fun. Outside of these occasional days I just don't have a lot of room in my life for wrestling.

I honestly challenge you to go and watch an entire two hour episode of WWE or TNA and see if you can get through it without yelling at the screen in disgust. Or changing the channel due to massive stupidity displayed on screen.

Post 200: A Bit of Wrestling

So a quick post for my 200th, and it's about wrestling.

All Japan Pro Wrestling (y'know, that other company in Japan... the one nobody pays attention to) held a show at the Ryogoku Kokugaikan the other day. At this show Satoshi Kojima, otherwise known as the man with one of my favorite names in the world, put his legendary Triple Crown championship on the line. Against who? A giant chunk of fat named Ryoto Hama. Surely it was no contest. Surely Kojima retained his crown against the rookie of only a year. Surely the man who weighed in excess of 400 pounds and tags with Akebono in a veritable buffet of tubby immobility. No. No. Ryoto Hama WON the Triple Crown championship. THIS GUY (on the left).


This guy is fat in ways that Yokozuna only dreamed about. I'm just in absolute shock that he won the title. Although given the fact that AJPW is basically ignored these days, I'm not surprised that Mutoh would pull something like this in hopes of some attention. Some western fans seem to really be into Hama... but I'm unconvinced. This was a big gamble that I'm not sure will play out how they want.

Since I caught wind of this bit of news I started wondering about the rest of the champions around the wrestling world. I can't say that I actually follow this form of entertainment as closely as I used to these days. I check up every now and then out of morbid curiosity more than anything else really. I stopped being a fan of the "genre" of television when I realized that most companies weren't making an appealing product for me. Even a company like TNA which started off on the right foot eventually decided it needed Bischoff and Russo to face fuck it into the ground. So I'm going to take a look at the "world" champions, which I just researched on Wikipedia because I realize I don't know where else to find this information anymore.

WWE
WWE World Heavyweight - Chris Jericho
I think I knew this, but it was still a delightful surprise to see that Jericho was the champion.
WWE Heavyweight - Deacon Bautista
How very ordinary and boring. A weightlifter wins a belt in MacMahon's company.

TNA World Heavyweight - AJ Styles
One of the few people deserving to hold the title on a regular basis. Quite good.

NOAH
GHC Heavyweight - Takashi Sugiura
What? Though he's a good wrestler I don't see the sense in this. Don't see a long reign here with such competition as Morishima, Marufuji, Shiozaki and Rikio. Let's not forget KENTA is almost healthy again.

NJPW
IWGP Heavyweight - Shinsuke Nakamura
My man Shinsuke! Always a contender, always good. This company is gleefully forgetting the Lesnar and Sapp days of 2005-2006.

AJPW
Triple Crown - Ryoto Hama
See above...

NWA "World" Heavyweight - Adam Pearce
Holy awful! Why did it go back to him? Oh yeah, because he books himself to win it all the time.

RoH
ROH World Heavyweight - Tyler Black
Probably a good choice but I can't really be sure since I stopped watching before he hit his zenith. He's no Nigel or Danielson, but not bad.

Well, that's my look at wrestling. Don't expect another one for a long time. I'm really not interested in wrestling anymore. Maybe NOAH and NJPW, but nothing domestic.

Animosity

I used to be a fan of wrestling.  Or rather, I still am in general.  But in particular I'm not a fan of the WWE.  While holding many of the best stars of a still struggling industry, they don't properly utlize that talent.  They really don't make the product for the fan of the 'sport' of wrestling anymore.  Indeed, they never really did.  I argue that they are completely ignoring that fanbase now.  I will admit that they have a few top quality matches in a year.  For the most part it's all punches pulled, no move allowed, punch-kick-punch-kick-finisher.  They have a demanding schedule, I know, but put some HEART back into it.

They bombard us with ridiculous plots and insult our intelligence at the same time.  Not to mention that they often only feature 20-30 minutes of actual wrestling on a 2 hour show.  It's frustrating to want to simply watch some mindless, wonderfully worked matches.  Yet when I have to listen to an uncharismatic 6 foot tall steroid addicted idiot jabber on about god only knows what for 10 minutes, then listen to another guy go "nuh uh" for 10 more it kills me.

Fortunately there are still some highlights.  Edge is still crazy awesome.  He can be the mean badass, he can be the comedic clown, and not to mention he can really bring it in the ring.  What has this earned him?  Like six world championships.  Not bad.  CM Punk will always be great.  He'll jump from feud to feud and perform at a top level.  He may never see the world title again, but he had it and that can't be taken away.

I stopped watching for so many reasons.  Degrading the cruiser title by putting on Hornswaggle (then eliminating it completely), Katie Vick, Al Wilson's wedding, Eric Bischoff, pushing untrained rookies hard over veterans (and then firing them in 4 months anyway), and so much more.  It just added up over the years.  Once I realized that I was suffering through more of a show than I was enjoying, it was over.

There wasn't enough there to really be excited about anymore.  I felt like they were deliberately insulting my intelligence.  That's what it was all along, perhaps, and I never saw it because I could enjoy the matches for what they were.  A performance.  The plots that only the most idiotic, dull-brained, hillbilly could get into (or believe!) ruined the whole thing.  When you step outside of a hobby like that for a while and then look back in you find yourself saying "What the hell was wrong with me?"  The utter horror that was the WWE made me just hate wrestling in general for a while.  I got over that.

I am still a fan of the rest of wrestling, however.  NOAH, NJPW, ROH, AJPW, DG, and so many others still produce excellent stuff.  They don't punish you for watching like the WWE (and even TNA).  The wrestlers go out there and do their damndest to put on a great show.  Japanese wrestling will never change. It's about workrate.  Newcomers like Go Shiozaki, Katshiko Nakajima, and Kohei Suwama are respectful of that tradition and give their hearts in the ring.  This leads to a new generation that will flourish like those before them, unlike America.

Attempts to Americanize it have actually been pretty fun.  The ridiculous storylines in promotions like HUSTLE and DDT are so over the top that you can't help but laugh.  They don't take themselves seriously.  That's the problem in America, they put on these terrible shows with awful acting, and off-the-wall stories and expect you to take them seriously!

Professional wrestling is an interesting entity.  Sadly the show must cater to what the average fan wants.  I'm not an average fan.  I just want some god damn wrestling, is that too much to ask for, WWE?  You don't provide it so I don't watch, but you don't care.  I find it in other places at least, so the sport hasn't totally lost me yet.