|
While I'm not the biggest fan of him, Bryan Danielson is undeniably a great wrestler. He and Nigel McGuinness had what many reputable reporters are calling the Match of the Year. Danielson can mat-wrestle, he applies psychology in his matches, he can fly when he needs to for big spots, and he can implement a mixed martial arts style into his repertoire. The man is also quite funny, even if he does come with a bland looking image.
Basically, the guy was trained by Shawn Michaels and William Regal, and HBK said that Danielson was one of his best students, and Regal still looks out for Danielson and gives him career advice. If those two men get behind him, he's good enough in my books.
Nigel McGuinness is good when it comes to the mat-wrestling and psychology of matches. He was great during his ROH Pure Title reign. He's in a bit of a John Cena position at the moment, in that the fans are turning on him, and his style has taken on a "lariat, lariat, lariat" flavour. Some explain that away because he was feuding with Takeshi Morishima, and the high impact style was needed in storyline terms to explain how Nigel would knock Morishima the fuck down. He might go back to being great soon.
Jimmy Jacobs and Eddie Kingston cut some fucking amazing promos. WWKD would be able to acquaint you much better with Jacobs than I can. I haven't seen much of Kingston's work, but from what I hear, while it is not great, he's solid enough to let his promos carry him to the status where he is a wanted commodity on the independent scene.
Chris Hero has a lot of fanfare because of his versatility. He's a bigger guy that can work the European style (trained with Finlay, William Regal and Dave Taylor), the luchadore style and he's got a fairly entertaining personality. Claudio Castagnoli is another big guy with the European style (mixed with some high impact stuff, I believe) that is loved for his personality and character. They were great as The Kings of Wrestling. In the same breath as these men, Larry Sweeney deserves to be mentioned. He's the closest you will come to Bobby Heenan in today's wrestling climate. An old-school wrestler with a great character and some fun mic skills.
The Briscoes have been praised with keeping tag team wrestling alive while the WWE and TNA kill their divisions. They have also been accused with being spot monkies, but a lot of reputable critics that originally called them that earlier in their careers have reversed themselves on that decision. The Briscoes presented a lot of MOTY candidates in 2007. The main three I can think of is their GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match against Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin, their match against The Murder City Machine Guns and their Ladder War against Kevin Steen & El Generico. Spotty at times, they are pretty much unanimously considered the best tag team in wrestling currently.
Brent Albright is one of my personal favourites. He's always been one of the more solid talents out there. I heard good things about him before I even knew he was, as I read some interviews with wrestlers listing him as one of their favourite wrestlers to work with. These were under his previous names like Vinnie Valentino, Vance Vain and Slater Vain. He was booked fantastically by Paul Heyman in OVW, so it was very underwhelming when he got called up to SmackDown! as "Gunner Scott." He worked very closely with Benoit during this time, who he looked up to professionally, and I believe he got to further train with Benoit (as MVP also did). He was released because he was "too similar" to Chris Benoit in the ring, which I do not consider a bad thing. His work in ROH and OVW has shown he can be his own talent, though, and I expect the WWE to re-sign this guy soon.
|