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86. Tyler Black
Tyler Black is your typical independent wrestling darling. If you like independent wrestling than that statement means you really love Tyler. If you have a visceral hatred for independent wrestling than you will probably really hate Tyler Black. He is the type of wrestler that uses a million different moves in seemingly random order, his grasp of psychology is essentially limited to being angry or hurt and he sounds like a muppet on the microphone with a lisp that would make Jack Swagger jealous.
If all this sounds like I don’t like him, don’t be alarmed, that’s what it sounds like to me, but despite this I really do like Tyler Black. His million different moves are always well executed and look like they can really hurt, he’s very good at his two emotions of being angry and hurt, and he his promos are at least worded cleverly and he does put emotion into them even if his voice is kind of comical. Perhaps why I like him is because the first time I ever saw a match of his was when I saw him live. He’s the first ever wrestler who I saw live before ever seeing him wrestle.
When I saw him live he was at the height of his ROH geek stardom (“Next World Champ! Next World Champ!) and I wanted to dislike him because he was going against one of my ROH favorites. But I couldn’t he’s very good, he’s like a very big diamond in not all that much rough. Perhaps my enjoyment of his is a bit skewed because I’ve seen many of his matches live (including his ROH World Championship win) and its tough not to get caught up in hype when you’re there for it. And if he could knock that rough off by the time he’s on WWE TV Seth Rollins could be a big name… Even if it is a stupid name.
Favorite Moment:
As I have said before Tyler Black’s promos aren’t exactly the best… save at least one. When Tyler Black signed with the WWE he was still the ROH Champion and the fans turned on Tyler in a heart beat (truth is they were turning on him slowly for months before) and ROH’s #1 babyface became one of their most hated villains. Then he cut a promo talking about how his dream was to wrestle in the WWE and how he loved ROH but he had to chase his dream. And he talked about how selfish the ROH fans were to ask him to not go after his dream. It was a beautiful heartfelt promo with a serious heel edge, truly excellent.
Favorite Match:
Nigel McGuinness [c] v. Bryan Danielson v. Claudio Castagnoli v. Tyler Black (Four Way Elimination Match for the ROH World Championship, ROH Death Before Dishonor VI)
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