How about some rare 90's indie wrestling?
http://www.youtube.com/user/indiewrestling/videos
I see a Cactus Jack vs Paul Orndorf match there.
Ithil said:
Hmm, seeing the American Wolves in shockingly NOT a squash on NXT, yeah I think they would be perfect to sign to the tag team division, they fit just fine in the WWE style. Richards might have his problems with no selling but he's not gonna be allowed to do that in NXT, so it's not an issue.
The whole thing with Richards no selling came about because of those matches for the ROH title when he was on top - you listen to interviews with him around the time and it's clear he felt he had a lot to live up to, because guys previously like Danielson, Joe, Punk and Aries had put on all these epic matches and really led the company from the top. So, rather than wrestling a more compact, 15-20 minute match that more suited his style (as Joe mostly did when he had the title), he was having these 30+ minute epics with near-fall after near-fall and, for whatever reason, it just didn't work for him like it did with Bryan or Aries. Also, the faux MMA stuff was a bit much at times and they clearly took things too far with the 'fighting spirit' no-selling, but if you watch Davey's matches in NOAH and New Japan, it shows how smart he can be in the ring when working with more constraints on what he can and can't do. I've no doubt that him & Eddie can do well in WWE, given the chance, and I'd love to see them be a part of a proper tag team revival in the WWE.
FallingEdge said:
and yeah, that has to be the case but even then, I would think that there is still a fair amount of crossover appeal. Back when ROH brought people over from NOAH, there seemed to be a good amount of success. Or is it that times are different now and that there no longer a desire to see that.
I don't think times have changed that much, the ROH style is still pretty influenced by Japanese wrestling, but maybe the audiences have changed slightly. I'm not sure that really matters, though, as I doubt the majority of the audience were familiar with the likes of KENTA, Marufuji & Morishima before they came over and made a name for themselves with the ROH crowd. Although, I think Gabe's insistence of using Japanese talent and the costs involved was one of the reasons ROH got rid of him, irrc.