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Drafting wrestlers for a new company
By Zach Arnold | December 27, 2005
Ivan Trembow has an interesting article about creating a Top 50 draft list of who you would select for wrestlers if you were building a new company. Read Ivan’s thoughts here. Ivan picks his #1 choice and…
1. Samoa Joe— As I wrote in my review of TNA’s Turning Point pay-per-view, it’s hard to fathom how anyone’s top two draft picks this year could be anyone other than Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, unless you have absolutely no regard for in-ring work-rate. The reason I have made Samoa Joe my #1 pick is because he is “different” than anyone who has ever come before him. Plenty of other wrestlers have worked the “strong style,” but Joe exudes charisma and toughness in his own unique way. With Samoa Joe, you can’t say, “He’s kind of like so-and-so, but much better.” He is a unique entity unto himself. He’s not “kind of like” anyone.
My choice: 2005 Japanese MVP, Satoshi Kojima. The guy can work against many different opponents with many different styles and has a ton of charisma. Plus he’s not damaged goods.
Topics: Japan, Pro-Wrestling, TNA, WWE, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
it’s hard to fathom how anyone’s top two draft picks this year could be anyone other than Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, unless you have absolutely no regard for in-ring work-rate.
I disagree here. Samoa Joe is my #1 pick and I agree that not selecting him would be moronic. On the other hand while AJ Styles is a terrific in ring worker his lack of charisma is astounding. TNA tries to play him up as the greatest thing since sliced bread but even they don’t have the confidence to give him a real run with the NWA title.
I would rather take someone like Shawn Michaels. Michaels is still charismatic, consistently has the best matches in his company, makes everyone look good and can adapt to multiple styles. For that matter I would rather have Shelton Benjamin. Benjamin’s workrate is right up there with anyone and he can at least cut an interesting promo. Styles is boring on the mic and he looks like every other Indy worker out there… which seems to be the biggest problem with TNA, ROH and the X-Division.
Joe makes my top two but I would take either Michaels or Benjamin well ahead of Styles.
Rp
I love AJ but I have to agree with Robert in that AJ doesn’t have the character of some people with similar ability. However I would hardly class Shelton as one of these people, I would say AJ has more charisma than Shelton and probably a bit better in ring too. I’d put Chris Jericho high on the list of having both in ring and character aspects nailed down, I’d also actually rate James Gibson up there, I find his character very believable and in-ring this year he’s been as good as Joe for me.
Yeah, James Gibson is charasmatic and damn good on the mic, especially for a nasaly redneck. Oh, and I am a huge AJ mark. Same deal for just about everyone mentioned on this thread.
I’d agree with Kojima, as he’s probably one of the most Charismatic main eventers in Japan. As good as Kobashi and Sasaki are they’d have a harder time translating to the American audience, unless they’re working for ROH or some such place.