At the TV tapings today, ROH is doing the first round of a "Decade of Excellence" tournament, honoring some of the wrestlers that made their ROH debut a decade or more ago.
It's an eight man tournament with the finals taking place in January. The winner receives an ROH World Championship match in March.
The matches
Christopher Daniels vs Mark Briscoe
Alex Shelley vs Colt Cabana
Jushin Thunder Liger vs Jay Lethal
BJ Whitmer vs Jay Briscoe
This is a great chance to get a veteran a short title reign. Of the list, only Jay Lethal and Jay Briscoe have ever held the ROH World Championship. In fact, none of the others have held a major world (heavyweight) championship anywhere.
The most obvious winner here has to be Christopher Daniels. He has won a total of 18 championships between ROH/NJPW/TNA, and innumerable indie championships on multiple continents, but never a major world title. He's 46 years old so the clock is ticking, but right now the guy can still hang with the best of them. I'd love to see it. He and Frankie Kazarian haven't quite turned face but they're showing signs of it, showing a bit of respect to certain wrestlers and shaking hands occasionally. I could get behind a victory lap title reign for Daniels. He helped put both TNA and ROH on the map.
Mark Briscoe has to have a singles title reign at some point. Now's as good of a time as any.
Whitmer has been in ROH for a billion years but I don't see him as a world champ.
Liger's not going to win a world title as a part timer. Just having him appear is enough for the fans.
Colt Cabana's recent heel turn has him talking about the title. I don't know if they'll put the strap on him since he's appearing without a contract and has no interest in signing one.
Alex Shelley seems to be doing the whole MCMG stable thing right now, and he's obviously most famous for his tag team wrestling. I don't think Shelley would be a bad world champion at all, but I don't know where that would leave Sabin. Shelley is doing the heavy lifting for the Guns right now; I don't know that Sabin has a lot to do as a singles wrestler. He's already been a world champ in TNA, albeit briefly. And his body is a lot more broken down.
I had hoped back when he was feuding with Matt Taven w/House Of Truth that the end result would have been Mark getting the TV title but going by interviews he is outwardly happy just wrestling and winning a tag title with Jay as he said getting the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Title was a career and personal highlight for him.
A fued between Kyle O and Daniels/Colt is is good either way
1) Christopher Daniels
-in one ROH segment he mentioned this could be the last tour for him and Kaz and what better feud is a face legend telling the young champ that before he hangs them up he needs to be THE champ with said young face guy saying I respect you but I'm keeping this title. I get a chub just thinking about the matches between the two who already had stellar matches against each other as part of their respective tag teams
2) Colt Cabana
-Heel Colt has been great as a smarmy dick and the promos he can cut belittling Kyle who he could make look like the babiest of all babyfaces and imo I think a lot of folks sleep on the fact that Colt can hang with just about anybody because for years he's been CM Punk's life partner/that comedy guy
Switching gears I took full advantage of ROH's annual black friday deals and picked up the following dvds:
A Decade In The Making: The Story of Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer
ACH A Gogo
AJ STyles: There's No Place Like Home
Alex Shelly: Made In Detroit
Bryan Danielson: The Final Countdown & World Champion
CM Punk: Icon
Jay Lethal: A Lethal Dose
Kevin Steen: Hell Rising
ReDRagon: Enter The ReDRagon
Samoa Joe: Don't Call It A Comeback
As soon as Best In The World and Reach For The Sky Tour hits dvd I'm getting those as well, it would be nice if ROH would start producing blu rays since PWG can do it and they don't have a conglomerate behind them