Disagreeing with 537

I love FiveThritySeven.  I like stats, and this kind of web site is up my alley.  And when they cross over and talk about wrestling, my head explodes. 

However, this time I want to disagree.  The theme of the article is that the New Era in WWE was born in Japan.  I think they make a few mistakes.  I do want to say it is obvious that the WWE is much more open to other companies existing than in the past and do appear to be recruiting in Japan, but that does not mean that they are letting Japan dictate as much as the article implies. 

First the stat about the winners at Summer Slam and the amount of time they spent in Japan is a little misleading since the article is talking about being born in Japan.  AJ Styles went to Japan and wrestled a lot in Japan, but he was a made man by the time he got to Japan.  Japan has always been where independent wrestlers go to make real money.  Styles was already a superstar, so his matches over there should not really be factored in.  Luke Gallows became a star over in Japan, but had already worked for WWE in the past prior to going to Japan.  He even worked with CM Punk so much that Punk dropped his name in a RAW interview when Gallows got fired.  And it is true that Balor has major Japanese influence in his wrestling, but he did spend the first six years of his career in Britain.  It is there he actually began. 

Just for the record as an NWA fan, it was the NWA that saw potential in so many of these guys first.  In 2007 Balor lost in a tournament for the vacant NWA World Title to Brian Danielson (Daniel Bryan), who was later hurt and pulled out of the finals.  Most believe he was scheduled to win the World title.

So matches in Japan does not equal coming from Japan.

Their biggest piece of evidence is also their worst.  It is the pushes given to outright Japanese wrestlers as they have come over to the WWE.  Nakamura is 25-0 and Asuka is 73-0 and Itami was derailed by injury.  Now this sounds impressive.  Until you realize the problem is that none of these competitors is on WWE main roster TV.  They are all on NXT.  Instead of saying they have won so many matches in a row and thus their push is greater we need to measure how fast they were pushed up to the main roster. 

Kevin Owens was pushed immediately into the NXT title picture and while holding that title beat John Cena at a PPV.  He did all of that before he had his 25th match in WWE.  Now, he dropped that match back to Cena and the NXT title to Balor so he could be full time on WWE main roster before he ever got to 73 matches.  So who really had the better push?  Balor had to finally lose to Joe and drop the title so he could go to the main roster and immediately win the newly created WWE Universal championship before he got to 25 matches total.  Does that mean Nakamura had a better push than Balor?  Of course not.  And it has to be said that people lose more often on the main roster than on NXT.  If Asuka goes 73-0 on the main roster or Nakamura 25-0 with a title then we can talk about amazing pushes.  Right now you would have to say Roman Reigns is getting a bigger push than Nakamura as Reigns is a multi-time WWE World Champ and currently in the US title hunt going on after Balor at Summer Slam despite never winning the NXT title. 

And this remains the point.  Nakamura was the biggest or second biggest star in New Japan.  New Japan is easily the second biggest promotion in the world.  He helped sell out WrestleKingdom over and over again in the Tokyo Dome.  Yet, WWE has him in the developmental system.  He is in the minors.  Not only is he in the minors but is remaining their longer than Kevin Owens who was an ROH man.  Longer than Balor who was from New Japan, and a lesser star there than Nakamura. 

Itami was a big star in Pro Wrestling NOAH where he is a seven time champ.  He invented the move that Punk used, yet when Itami came to WWE he was forbidden to use it (until recently).  Not exactly the marks of a strong push. 

Asuka is an amazing 73-0.  Yet, Baley, whom she has beaten twice now, is on the main roster and Asuka is not.  The Women's Division is much thinner than the men's, but Asuka remains in the minors while everyone around her moves up to the main roster. 

Now it is true that a call up to the main roster does not mean better wrestler.  Sometimes people like Adam Rose get called up or Dana Brooke because you need a mid card comedy act or a flunky to help out the champ, but it is hard to argue for a strong push without making it to the main roster.  I doubt Asuka would think her career good if she went 235-0 without ever wrestling for the main roster.  She would probably consider it a failure.  As would Nakamura. 

So while I can agree that WWE is opening itself up to new things, it is too early to say the New Era is born in Japan and too early to say that the Era is even that new. 

Pro Wrestling Phoenix Wrestlerama report

Review of the Pro Wrestling Phoenix out of Omaha, NE Wrestlerama show

The show opened with a fun match of Con Ar Tist v. a guy whose name I didn’t catch.  The crowd was very into this match.  Con Ar Tist was a face (who would have guessed) and had a specialized theme song that had people chanting.  He dominated most of the match and hit his Choo-Choo finisher in the corner, and then when the crowd asked him to do it one more time he obliged.  Great opener.  Con Ar Tist was super over with the crowd, and he made a special point of coming back during the intermission to say hello to my 13 year old.  He immediately became my boy’s favorite.

The next match was Dalton Lee Roth and Purple vs. Rising Phoenix Champ and an Australian rule football guy with a very cute manager.  It was kind of an odd match as clearly PWP had been teasing a break up between Roth and Purple, but the heel tag team were not exactly a real tag team.  They smacked each other around.  In the end, the heels won, the Rising Phoenix champ looked strong, and Roth made the heel turn.  I wish the turn had been better executed.  Someone messing something up to give a reason, getting in each other’s way, or just frustration showing through the match. 

Then came Pat Powers, who is running for President.  He got mic time and was pretty good.  He teased a VP pick later, and wrestled a great match against Paco, who may have been a new guy.  Both showed good skill, but Powers pulled an injury card, and after the ref threw up the X sign (to who was a question), Powers hit his finisher on Paco and won the match.  Nice heel tactics, but it took a little too long to pull off.  Good in ring wrestling.

Then was the last match before intermission and it was for the PWP Tag Titles.  The Daniels brothers led by Axel Greece against Guns n Beer.  Guns n Beer are a fun tag team and were also pretty popular.  They did a good job.  One time holding out the whiskey bottle to encourage the stretch for the tag and it worked.  Fun stuff.  The Daniels brothers worked over a hurt shoulder and ended up with the win after manager help.  Nice match with a heel win. 

Opening the second half of the show was KLD (Kenneth Lee Davidson) against the Canadian Hercules.  This was a good story.  Was Hercules strong enough to overcome the very large KLD.  They did the shoulder block test, they did a test of strength (long time since I saw that and it made sense for the match), they did trying to suplex each other bit, and pulled out a very under used kick out at 1.  The wrestling was strong guy wrestling, but it was a beautiful story, and KLD picked up the win in the end with a very powerful looking chokebomb finisher. 

Then was Zac James against Devin Carter.  This was another great story match.  Carter had attacked James last time when teased retiring because of head injuries.  So the story was head injuries.  It played for the vicious nature of James’s opening.  Carter eventually shrugged him into a ring post and it then became a question of would James make the 10 count as he was motionless.  When he was going to make it Carter would go out and bang his head again.  Carter yelled at him to just lay down and quit many times.  It was perfect story telling.  Eventually Carter was overthrown with a sliced bread and was set up for a top rope finisher, but Pat Powers came out and clipped the feet.  This led to a Carter superplex and victory.  Nice match.  Carter is now the VP candidate, which was a little weird, and made the post match promise of revenge in a tag match also a little strange, but great over all. 

This led into the main event with the PWP champ, , putting the belt on the line against local legend Hype Gotti and Unbreakable Michael Elgin.  Elgin and Gotti can really go.  Both men showed great athleticism.  The champ is a bigger fellow and wrestled in that way, so the match of styles was sometimes harsh.  Hit a Vader Splash in the corner on Gotti, which was neat.  Gotti suicide dived on Elgin out of the ring then ran back into the ring and dove out the other side on the champ.  It was a small bar, so it was gutsy stuff.  Elgin showed amazing strength when he picked up the champ on his shoulders.  Of course his chops were awesome and a couple of the lariats I thought were going to take a person’s head off.  They did a superplex, powerbomb out of the corner combo with Elgin doing the superplex, but taking the bomb from the champ leading to the champ hitting his finisher on Gotti to retain.  Harder to tell the story when the three guys in the ring were all faces and it was kind of a one off, but a very good main event. 

Just a quick note on the National Title

I just wanted to post something about Greg Anthony and the National Title.  His home promotion of Mid South is a weekly show, and so he is there defending it often.  But a National title ought to be moving around.  He has gone to some places to defend it, but I have always hoped this would be a way Greg Anthony got around the NWA because frankly he would make a good World champ. 

I did just discover that the Golden One has been defending it in more places than I thought.  NWA Central States has had Greg Anthony out twice now.  I missed this because Central States is not always a very active or regular promotion due in large part to horrible regulations in Missouri making wrestling there difficult.  Still, two successful defenses this summer ought to be noticed.  Here is hoping for more Greg Anthony sightings.