CZW - Is everyone else missing a trick?

[Барбоса]

First off, I HATE ultraviolent wrestling. It may have been interesting once when I was younger but watching grown men basically commit GBH without any ramifications quickly became old... and I mean very quickly (about 27secs)

However, it is not the ultraviolent side of CZW that I think that the main feds have failed to pick up on. CZW's annual Best of the Best Tournament has been a great success in showcasing cruiserweights from around the world. I enjoyed Best of the Best II so much that I actually bought the DVD (it helped that two British wrestlers had the match of the night).

The set up of the tournament varies from year to year (either on purpose or due to numbers), keeping it somewhat fresh. A mixture of singles, triple threats and four-ways has been used throughout the 9 tournaments. As with everything, the little things help enormously such as if a title holder enters the competition, every match he has is for his title so if he is to leave with the belt he has to win the tournament.

I think ROH has toyed with a similar concept (correct me if I am wrong) while NWA used a large tournament to crown a new champion.

Occasionally, we see a "tournament" bracket in WWE or TNA and of course the King of the Ring was around for several years but would a larger annual tournament based PPV focused solely on the lower-mid card work for either or has it become the preserve of smaller wrestling companies that do not have regular television exposure and PPVs?

 

[SK]

Im gonna copy a post I made in our recent Debaters league about CZW not being just mindless violence, I'll post it below and I think it agrees with you here especially about the Best of the Best tournament aspect.

CZW is NOT just mindless hardcore violence.
Yes, CZW may be ran by a bunch of idiots, it’s fans may be sick people just wanting to see blood and the death matches may be brutal and dangerous. However, this does NOT make the wrestling just hardcore mindless violence. CZW has had some amazing wrestlers pass through its ranks, the wrestlers use just about everything as a weapon including light tubes, glass, barbed wire, fire, cheese graters etc. The death matches always have blood and wrestlers cutting themselves, but ask yourself this, if it was just mindless violence, why haven’t they been closed down? Why have a lot of their roster gone on to find success? And how has there been no serious injuries?

The answer is that the CZW wrestlers are skilled performers who can entertain the fans with or without weapons. If you haven’t watched much of CZW, you may not believe me. However, unfortunately for CZW, their reputation precedes them, they are only known for their hardcore death matches and nothing else. This brings me to my first point…


CZW‘s quality wrestling matches are ignored.
CZW have an annual event know as ‘Best of the Best’, this tournament offers brilliant technical wrestling matches with very little use of weapons, don’t believe me? Have a look yourself;


Now, whilst there were hardcore matches at the event, none of them were in the actual tournament. So far there has been 9 ‘Best of the Best’ tournaments, all showcasing technical wrestling, however, CZW don’t get recognised for this, people only focus on their hardcore death matches.

CZW has been graced with some of the best high flyers and pure wrestlers in America, showing off fantastic athleticism and innovation, if CZW focussed more on this, they would be competing with ROH and Dragon Gate, because their high flyers really are something to behold. It’s a shame that CZW are known solely for their death matches, but even though they are, this doesn’t make it hardcore mindless violence because…


CZW’s Hardcore and Death matches take skill to perform and perform safely.
Have you ever taken a light bulb shot? A cheese grater to he head? Ran into barbed wire? Gone through a pane of glass? Actually I have done that last one, when I was 4 and I’m still scarred. Now when you think about it, it’s amazing that these wrestlers aren’t dying or seriously hurt, they would be if they were just performing mindless violence, but their not. There’s a huge amount of skill when doing a hardcore match, obviously people get hurt and cut, but the wrestlers have to make sure their opponents are safe and not at risk of serious injury or even death. Now let me ask you, how could they possibly be protected if CZW was just mindless violence? They couldn’t, to perform a high quality and relatively safe hardcore match it is necessary that you have…


High Quality performers.
CZW has been graced with some of the best wrestlers in the business today, including the current World Heavyweight Champion in the WWE. Here’s a short list of some of the alumni of CZW;

A.J. Styles, Alex Shelley, Amazing Red, Charlie Haas, Chris Sabin, CM Punk, Homicide, Hernandez, Jay Lethal, Justin Credible, Juventud Guerrera, Lance Hoyt, Low Ki, Petey Williams, Sabu, Sandman, Sonjay Dutt, Spike Dudley, Tajiri, Tatanka, Tommy Dreamer.

What an impressive list of wrestlers this is. Considering CZW has only been around 10 years, that’s a very impressive alumni list of very skilled performers, who had what it takes to entertain, not only in CZW, but in bigger promotions such as TNA or WWE. This is the reason CZW is NOT hardcore mindless violence, the impressive athletic skilled wrestlers. Now whilst CZW was ran by a total idiot in John Zandig who cared about nothing but violence and shocking people, if he had focussed more on his impressive roster of gifted wrestlers and their ability to thrive in and OUT of hardcore matches, CZW may be competing with the bigger indy’s like ROH or Dragon Gate.


Closing thoughts.
I don’t see how people can just call CZW mindless violence, I can understand that at times they have too many of these matches, it still takes a huge amount of skill to perform in one of these matches. CZW might be more well known for blood and gore and hardcore matches, but there is no doubt in my mind that they’ve had quality matches without weapons, considerably in the ‘Best of the Best’ tournament.

CZW has had some of the best talent in America work in their promotion, but it also has some amazing young stars to look out for, for example, Drake Younger, Sabian, Chuck Taylor, Carter Gray etc.
They have some of the best hardcore matches in the world, but they also have amazing high flyers that actually leave you saying holy shit. Let me leave you with a video to demonstrate some excellent aerial and wrestling ability in CZW;

 

[Барбоса]

I knew that there had to be something regarding CZW around here somewhere but could not find it for love nor money.

Do you think that a tournament like Best of the Best with all the high-flying and risking taking from smaller guys could work in WWE? We've all heard the calls for the return of the Cruiserweight title and God knows the WWE roster has plenty of extremely talented youngsters and veterans that could fill a bracket. Would Vince be willing to let the smaller wrestlers take a prominent enough role to give them such a tournament? You would have thought that the popularity of Evan Bourne and the success of CM Punk might make Vince more open to the idea.

Personally, I would be more than interested to see a tournament containing CM Punk, Evan Bourne, John Morrison, the Miz, Chavo Guerrero, Bryan Danielson, Jamie Noble, Gregory Helms, Kofi Kingston, Tyson Kidd, Rey Mysterio, Jimmy Wang Yang and some of the FCW roster such as Brett DiBiase. Maybe even throw in Chris Jericho, as he is good at everything and WWE's resident troubleshooting at the moment

TNA could use such a tournament to reinvigorate their flagging X-Division. They certainly have the roster for it - AJ Styles, Alex Shelley, Amazing Red, Chris Sabin, Consequences Creed, Jay Lethal, D'Angelo Dinero, Doug Williams, Daniels, Eric Young, Homicide, Shark Boy, Sheil Abdul Bashir, Suicide

 

[SK]

I knew that there had to be something regarding CZW around here somewhere but could not find it for love nor money.

Don't worry dude, mine wasn't a thread I made, it was just a topic I was given to debate, this thread is fine.

Do you think that a tournament like Best of the Best with all the high-flying and risking taking from smaller guys could work in WWE? We've all heard the calls for the return of the Cruiserweight title and God knows the WWE roster has plenty of extremely talented youngsters and veterans that could fill a bracket. Would Vince be willing to let the smaller wrestlers take a prominent enough role to give them such a tournament? You would have thought that the popularity of Evan Bourne and the success of CM Punk might make Vince more open to the idea.

I personally would love to see a tournament like Best of the Best, but I seriously doubt that we'd ever see it in the WWE. I mean Vince has really cutdown on the more risky moves (piledrivers, 450's, brainbusters, SSPs). In CZWs Best of the Best, we see a lot of high flying flips, diving to the outside and more dangerous moves. Now while I really like Best of the Best I just don't think McMahon would go for it unless it was really watered down.

Personally, I would be more than interested to see a tournament containing CM Punk, Evan Bourne, John Morrison, the Miz, Chavo Guerrero, Bryan Danielson, Jamie Noble, Gregory Helms, Kofi Kingston, Tyson Kidd, Rey Mysterio, Jimmy Wang Yang and some of the FCW roster such as Brett DiBiase. Maybe even throw in Chris Jericho, as he is good at everything and WWE's resident troubleshooting at the moment

The WWE cuiserweights are good, but not really allowed to showcase much of their stuff which is a shame. The problem with having a tournament like this is that the action does have to be exciting and high flying, no-one wants to see Cena vs Orton lite, it has to be really different and risky and I just can't see Vince allowing his wrestlers to risk injury.

TNA could use such a tournament to reinvigorate their flagging X-Division. They certainly have the roster for it - AJ Styles, Alex Shelley, Amazing Red, Chris Sabin, Consequences Creed, Jay Lethal, D'Angelo Dinero, Doug Williams, Daniels, Eric Young, Homicide, Shark Boy, Sheil Abdul Bashir, Suicide

TNA should without a doubt utilise a Best of the Best tournament, it would be wonderful for their X division stars who are capable of stealing the show and should be featured more that they are at the moment. TNA should use a tournament like this and allow wrestlers to take risky moves and be high flyers. Also, if they were to do this, they should 'borrow' some CZW talent like Sabian, Carter Gray or Chuck Taylor who are all great performers. Match them with ex-CZW guys like Shelley, Sabin, Red, Homicide and you've got a recipe for success.

 

[Барбоса]

One of the problems that Vince might have with a high-flying tournament in WWE, aside from the need for more dangerous moves, is that it might showcase how slow and ponderous some of his bigger stars are.

Don't get me wrong, for me there is nothing better than a match with a slow build up that sucks you for the finish. Look at HBK and Taker at Mania. An old school match that stole the show and will likely be Match of the Year. However, it also shows some of the double standard regarding the big stars and the rest. Taker can do a running dive over the top to the outside and Michaels can do moonsaults, yet the guys nearly half their age are limited. We were nearly deprived of Evan Bourne's SSP because of it...

Vince might say that his policy has allowed guys like Taker and HBK to have longer careers than they might otherwise have done but to me it doesn't seem quite right. I think we, the viewing public, are being deprived of something potentially epic

 

[theviolentmessiah]

I completely agree, after the ROH and CZW fued I was a complete CZW-hater, with a passion I'd never despised a company so much, only last year I caved after watching Alex Shelley vs. Bobby Quance, I bought that Best of the Best tournament, I loved it so much I bought the rest. I completely agree that every year CZW puts on a tournament worth watching, the quality may change but it's the best annual tournament in the USA and it puts over great junior heavyweights, not always CZW's own. I think the only crushing blow here would be the BOSJ. Best of Super Juniors is a more complete and bigger tournament, but as for CZW's size I think it's an idea many independant, and of course bigger promotions are missing out on.