What's up everyone and welcome to another McPinions column, here on the DOI site. This time I'm going to dabble into another topic as I discuss the meaning of tournaments on the indy scene.

The idea of having a tournament on a wrestling show can be looked at in many different ways. The majority of the time, when a promotion has a tournament, it is meant to make the winner seem prestigious, or make the championship/cup/trophy won seem prestigious. Other times, a tournament is meant to show a wrestlers strength, endurance or character. With a new promotion popping up almost every two weeks, and with more promotions having tournaments, are tournaments becoming cliche? How meaningful is it to win some tournaments when a promotion or prize isn't established? Does winning a tournament mean anything anymore? Are tournaments watered down? Let's take a look at the 3 biggest tournaments, in my opinion on the indies.

I will also grade these tournaments on an A-F scale, as a reference to see what I think of these tournaments. The grade will overall reflect the tournaments value, meaning, participants, history and impact on indy wrestling history.

The ECWA Super 8- This is the premier indy tournament in the American independent circuit. ECWA is one of the most respected promotions by wrestlers and fans alike. With a solid foundation and a rich history, ECWA has been bringing in crowds for 37 years. The Super 8, which recently saw Chris Daniels win for the second time in 2004, is one of the most anticipated tournaments every year. The Super 8 can make or break wrestlers. The Super 8 has integrity and is as prestigious as you can get. With a very loaded history, past competitors include The Hardy Boyz, Billy Kidman, Scotty 2 Hotty, Spanky, Jamie Noble and others. By wrestling in the Super 8, you get noticed by wrestling fans all over, and more importantly by the WWE, as the names I just wrote all recieved WWE contracts. With strong talent such as Ace Darling, Paul London, Simon Diamond, Low Ki, Christopher Daniels among others, all winning the tournament, the Super 8 is the ELITE independent tournament today. The Super 8 easily gets an A+.

CZW's Best of the Best- This is a tournament that is unlike no other. Instead of the standard single elimination in every other 8 man or 16 man tournaments, CZW takes it to a different level with the first round consisting of triple threat matches. The Best of the Best is becoming a must see tournament. It doesn't give you the notoriety that the Super 8 gives, but it does give matches that are on par with the Super 8. I consider the first BOTB the weakest in the short 4 year history of the BOTB, because the second, third and fourth tournaments, won by Trent Acid, B-Boy and Sonjay Dutt respectively, were so good. By doing well in the BOTB, you will get noticed by other indy promotions, but not the WWE. I give BOTB an A-, due to the very successful tournament this year.

JCW's J-Cup- This is another tournament that produces good matches. The J-Cup featured the NJ debuts of AJ Styles, Colt Cabana and CM Punk. The J-Cup doesn't recieve as much attention as it should, and it's probably because the J-Cup is usually held on a Sunday. Past winners include Super Dragon, Jay Lethal, Reckless Youth, Low Ki and Judas Young. The tournament has featured a great crop of north east wrestlers with participants such as Homicide, Slyk Wagner Brown and B-Boy competing. Dave Greco is the only wrestler to appear in all 5 J-Cups, so that might be a good thing or bad thing for JCW. The J-Cup has had MOTY candidates in it, but it's twice as long as the Super 8 with 1/2 of the respect from wrestling fans. The J-Cup gets a B+.

These three tournaments have been around the longest in the northeast. I consider these tournaments as big shows and must-see. But what about all these other tournaments? How many shows have there been in the last few months where we saw 8 man battle for some prize, which will be forgotten in a years time? With so many indy promotions fighting for so little indy fans money, you'd think that most promotions would want different shows from their competitors. By giving similiar tournaments, competing promotions are lowering fan interest. If you can see a tournament one night, then the next night you can see the same tournament with 5-6 of the same guys from the tournament previous, are you going to go to both shows? Most fans probably won't, based on recent attendance figures.

Just look at what tournaments took place this year. Mike Kruel won the NEO Blood Tournament. It did nothing for his career. Grim Reefer just won NYWC's Stengel Cup. Is that tournament really going to get him any extra looks? IHPW had their Diamond Cup Tournament. While the finals between Jay Lethal and Josh Daniels were amazing, will it impact either man's career in the long run? Most likely not. It just seems, in my opinion, that there are way too many tournaments going on today, that devalue other tournaments.

How about tournaments on regular shows? ROH had a successful Pure Wrestling Title tournament, which saw AJ Styles best CM Punk in the finals. The wrestlers in the tournament made the Pure Wrestling Title mean something, before the championship was decided. Despite AJ Styles never having the chance to defend it, due to TNA's problems with ROH, the Pure Wrestling Title is looked at as a prestigious championship in indy wrestling.

One promotion who has done a good job with tournaments is WXW. Instead of going for the cruiserweight/junior weight road, WXW has held tournaments to honor Tag Team and Women Wrestling. While I believe that WXW handles their Women Tournament alot better than their tag team tournament (Then again the Tag Team Tournament just debuted this year) both tournaments have bettered indy wrestling, and made an impact on the sport. Tracy Brooks and April Hunter, two wrestlers who won the Women Tournament have seen their bookings increase, as well as their stock value. Tracy is one of the few women wrestlers in NWA TNA. April Hunter might be the best indy woman wrestler today. She also has alot of international experience as well. Looking at WXW's tag tournament, called the Samoan Cup, the Dirty Rotten Scoundrelz recieved a big boost in their careers, despite losing in the finals. The DRS were so impressive in the tournament, that they became full time wrestlers with WXW and won their tag team titles. The winners of the tournament, The Natural Born Sinners (Boogalou and Homicide) didn't really see much happen to them, as a direct result of winning this tournament. Homicide was already established as one of the best in the USA, and this was just another big win for Boogalou in WXW. WXW definitely does a good job of promoting their tournaments as something special, and has become the home of the most prestigious women and tag team tournaments.

I believe that if a promotion is going to have a tournament, it should mean something and make an impact. Right now there are way too many promotions having tournaments, just to have a tournament. It's pretty surprising that indy wrestling is hung up on tournaments, because they aren't always a guaranteed draw. WWE dropped The King of the Ring Tournament, due to low ticket sales and buy rates, compared to their other pay-per-views. It was determined that most fans would rather see a loaded show, (ROH's 9/11, USA Pro's 9/17 and JAPW's 9/18 shows stick out in my mind) than see a tournament, where they don't know what matches they are going to see. By watching a tournament, you potentially might have to watch a wrestler you don't care for wrestle 3 or 4 times. Alot of fans like to know what they are paying for ahead of time.

Now let's take a look at a different genre of tournaments. Death Match tournaments are always guaranteed to stir up interest and intrigue due to the fact that they are always fucking nuts and bloody. In my opinion, IWA's King of the DeathMatch and CZW's Tournament of Death stand out as the two best Death Match tournaments. Both have featured some of the most elite hardcore wrestlers today. "Legends" in indy hardcore wrestling history, such as Lobo, Wifebeater, Zandig, Low Life Louie, Necro Butcher, Sick Nick Mondo, Mad Man Pondo, Ian Rotten and others have spilt gallons of blood in the name of hardcore wrestling. These tournaments always have these wrestlers take it to the extreme (I know, sounds cliche) and go all out, just for a chance to become the winner of these tournaments. To me these tournaments may not be as prestigious, but defintely test one's manhood more, as it is insane to wrestle 3 or 4 hardcore matches, in front of rabid fans in one night.

Tournaments are usually fun to watch, and it's fun predicting who will do what in it. I just think that some promotions should hold off with their 8 wrestlers, 7 matches, until the promotion can really elevate the participants in the tournament, as well as mean something. If a tournaments' result doesn't mean anything, then there is no reason to have a tournament just for the sake of it.

So in conclusion, I am all for tournaments in indy wrestling, but I just wish promoters and fans alike would treat them as a special event. It seems that many people are just getting into the habit of lazy booking and just having tournaments for the simple reason of "just because." Then again, I'd rather see a tournament decide a championship than a battle royal, which brings me a future column- "Battle Royals in Indy Wrestling."

Look for more updates on the DOI Site throughout the day.

Sean "The MiC" McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com