AJ Styles, Ring of Honor and other wandering thoughts

I posted this about AJ Styles on a message board earlier tonight.

"Where to start about AJ Styles... this is a toughie. If you would have asked me about three years ago, I would have gave him a higher score but in the past two years that I really began to watch his stuff on a more consistent basis, I can safely say he is one of the most overrated workers in the wrestling industry today, second only to Kurt Angle but I'm sure that's gonna be a different story for a different week.

AJ really got his start back when hitting tons of meaningless spots was the cool thing to do, which was around early 00's. He caught on because of the people he would work with. Christopher Daniels, Low Ki when he cared, Jerry Lynn (who was also spot based but he knew how to slow it down) and so on. Most of his X Division work is based upon the fact that it's about no limits and zero psychology most of the time.

Take one of his matches in the X Division and put them up to his stuff against the larger wrestlers in TNA, I always thought his work in the Heavyweight division tore the shit out of his X Division stuff because the bigger guys would at least force him to sell a beat, IE against Abyss which some of his best work was against (Tell me the match at Lockdown 2005 wasn't great.) Did AJ have something to do with it by his ability to sell the beating, yes but regardless.

His work in Ring of Honor was better but not by much. Most of his good stuff came against London and Danielson. His tag team work with the Amazing Red was so spotty, it's a wonder no one died in their series with the Briscoes.

Anyways, in my opinion, his best match came against Christopher Daniels at Bound For Glory 2005. Was it spotty, yes but it had a great story with history behind it and it was well executed. If Styles would preform on a level like that on a consistent basis instead of using that old sprint style that so many wrestlers are using in on the indy scene as well as TNA when they get the chance these days, he'd be better.

So that's what I think about AJ Styles, take it or leave it."

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2008 hasn't been a kind year thus far to Ring of Honor or at least what I've seen. The shows have been lackluster not too mention the Briscoe overkill. You know, it's amazing that in the past year, I've gone from eating out of their hand to barely give two shits about the product. I guess after seeing The Briscoes run through the tag division about five times with relative easy and only a few month vacation from the Tag Belts, it just sours me on everything.

I was excited to get the Wrestlemania weekend shows when they get released but now, I couldn't really care. I'm not saying I'm completely given up on Ring of Honor but it's getting close and I'm gonna stick to getting shows where the Briscoes weren't getting shoved so far down our throats.

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I'm looking to get more into other indy promotions now besides Ring of Honor. Been looking through Smart Mark Video and I'm really liking some of the DVDs they have, mostly from IWA Mid South and CHIKARA. If I come across some money soon, I think I'll get getting The Best of CHIKARA 2007 which looks like an amazing three disc set along with the 2004 and 2006 TPI Tournaments from IWA Mid South. It'll be around $100 when it's all said and done but there are like more then ten discs combined from those two shows and the best of disc which is pretty awesome.

But eh, only time is gonna tell how everything is gonna go as far as indy wrestling is concerned for myself. I've been trying to get back into the 'E but I can't sit through a full episode of Smackdown without wanting to change the channel. Since I have no cable, I really can't view Raw or ECW and TNA IMpact for that matter. Oh well... guess I'll just stick to going places to use wireless and downloading random matches.

Just keep on watchin'!