Is Sabin any better than, say, Evan Bourne? I don't see much of a case there.
Far far FAR ahead in terms of promos go. Sabin's style is more unique than Bourne's, even before he came to WWE. And well, it's pretty watered down compared to the "Cyclorama" days. Really, I would only rank a very few guys ahead of Sabin on his own. But I am a big fan, so nobody has to agree with that.

I diagree but I will say that for a guy who sucks at normal matches but excels at hardcore shit he is a lot better than Edge.

I actually think he's a very good normal wrestler, although he's in a bunch of hardcore matches. I hope when he returns to ROH he gets to wrestle more regular matches instead of Black and Necro. But I know what you mean with the hardcore stuff. I just think he's kind of underrated as an actual worker. =/



...why?

I just don't like KO finishers. Same goes with Big Show's punch. And personally I thought his "Best athlete" gimmick can take him farther than That Young KO Kid.

---

How is Sabin's style unique when he wrestles the exact same as every other X-Division guy? Bourne is more unique because hardly anyone else in the WWE wrestles like him.

---

If by best athlete, you're referring to him doing all the antics, shenanigans and flipping about, I think you're wrong. Hero could never be taken seriously back when he had that gimmick, he was just a comedy heel who was less likely to be ROH champ. He was getting face pops everytime and what was his way of countering that? Overkill on the antics, which wasn't working very well and just hurt his in-ring performance.

The TYKOK gimmick is easily the best thing he has going for him right now. He's being taken seriously as a wrestler, cutting excellent promos and wearing a non-goofy attire. He's putting on great matches. To revert to his old ways is just two steps back.

---

This may be an unpopular opinion, I dunno, but right now Hero is probably one of the top 5 wrestlers of 2009 for me.

---

I would support that and put him up for #1 promo cutter in the business right now. Ahead of Punk, Aries and what-have-you.

---

Agree with you two there. I actually hated Hero's Knockout stuff at first but it quickly grew on me as I started watching more and more of his matches. I think he overdoes it just a tad though. As for promos, he's been phenomenal this year and I've never really been that big of a fan of Hero when it comes to mic work. I liked Punk more this year, but I think I might be a bit blindly biased for nostalgic reasons and the fact that he was beating the tar out of Harvey every week.

As for the Sabin thing I said, I didn't mean to say that I think Shelley is bad or that Sabin is necessarily great. I just think Sabin is the better of the two at this stage and Steventon hit the nail on the head a page ago about Shelley (the same can definitely be said about Sabin though, I just think he works matches better sometimes). They're not really the opportunity to have a great match that isn't totally spotty as hell. In TNA they're either given five minute TV matches or thrown into X Division clusterfucks for the PPVs. And then when they're booked on the Indy's it seems like they're expected to be spotty as they can instead of working a sensible match.

I enjoy Sabin more than I do Bourne, especially when you factor in charisma and mic work, though Sabin's not an extraordinary talker either. Bourne's dropped off, but that's not surprising considering how they're using him on RAW. Wish he could get back to ECW, I see nothing for him on RAW & it'd be great to see some Bourne/Christian matches. Maybe then my excitement for Bourne would return.

I probably come off more anti-Jimmy than I mean to (I do really enjoy his hardcore stuff), but what are the really good "straight" matches he's had?

---

Mind you, I'm not a hardcore Indy fan like some of you guys so I haven't seen all of his ROH work (and I haven't seen any of his IWA:MS matches but I've heard some good things), but...

w/ Tyler vs Bryan Danielson and Tyler Black
vs BJ Whitmer - Dragon Gate Challenge
vs BJ Whitmer - In Your Face
vs Bryan Danielson - Unscripted 3
vs Nigel McGuinness - Japan
w/ Tlyler Black vs Naomichi Marufuji and Go Shiozaki
/w Tyler Black vs MCMG (spotty, I know, but it had some great parts)

There's probably lots more, I'm not good at remembering matches like you Steventon (I mean you can remember obscure matches from 2002 and such, I can barely remember matches from two months ago, haha). I didn't include most of his mid-card/under card matches before & during the Jimmy Loves Lacey saga, but those were always fun. I don't consider Jimmy to be an amazing wrestler when it comes to straight/standard matches, but I think people seriously underrate him sometimes. You also don't have a lot of work to look at, honestly, as the last few years (when he's really been good) have been 85% brawling/hardcore matches.

Just throwing it out there... Loads of people like the Jimmy's Dog Collar & I Quit matches with Austin Aries. I personally saw nothing special out of either match. Not sure why, just didn't thrill me, and I'm homo for Jimmy.

Also, I just found this pic:



If that's the look Jimmy's going to then I feel a bit hopeful for Jimmy Jacobs again. Anything but that shit he was wearing a couple months ago, sorry.

---

I wouldn't really count those tag matches because I remember Tyler easily being the best part about them. I remember the Nigel match being awful and one of Nigel's worst title matches.

---