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So who are the best and worst of the identikit intense indie kids? Who most strongly embodies the category, and to whom does it not apply? We'll see. My opening opinions are as follows:

BEST JOHNNY KICKPADS: Low Ki. Arguably should be disqualified for actually having a kick based offence, but he was one of the originators of the style, and embodies much of the archetype. He's tiny. He works pointlessly stiff. He does dangerous spots and has finisher spamming matches. He has had no memorable promos in a near two decade career. But he's also had some bloody brilliant matches in his time. So I'll say he's the best.

WORST JOHNNY KICKPADS: Nobody immediately springs to mind, because they're indistinct and unmemorable. So I'll put Quiet Storm here as a placeholder. Storm Cradle Driver!

MOST JOHNNY KICKPADS: Again tricky, as they blur into one. So I'll pick two, the Spanish Announce Team. Amazing Red made it to TNA twice, Jose and Joel never did. Why? Because they were too Johnny Kickpads.

NOT JOHNNY KICKPADS: Yeah, I'll give Drake Maverick his due. He realised his lack of size obliged him to work a style his body couldn't handle, so he changed his game, adopted the Rockstar persona and ultimately bought about the end of the kickpad era. Before that, he was a Johnny. But then he killed Johnny.

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8 minutes ago, AxB said:

He has had no memorable promos in a near two decade career.

I will say this, once you hear his voice the one time you'll never forget it. 

This also begs the point of who the best/worst Japanese Johnny Kickpads is, because that's where the whole trend came from. 

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After watching that match with Fenix all I remember is him grunting and growling. The announcers even pointed that out. 

Announcer guy: "Did Low Ki just growl?"

Tony Schiavone: "Well they do call him the Pitbull" haha

He did speak before the match. Again, no clue what he said.

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2 hours ago, AxB said:

WORST JOHNNY KICKPADS: Nobody immediately springs to mind, because they're indistinct and unmemorable. So I'll put Quiet Storm here as a placeholder. Storm Cradle Driver!

MOST JOHNNY KICKPADS: Again tricky, as they blur into one. So I'll pick two, the Spanish Announce Team. Amazing Red made it to TNA twice, Jose and Joel never did. Why? Because they were too Johnny Kickpads.

I guess that would make SAT/Red vs Quiet Storm/Chris Divine/Brian XL the most Johnny Kickpads feud ever.

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I don't remember if he actually wore kickpads, but Rapid Fire Maldonado is my vote for Worst Johnny Kickpads.  He definitely wore shiny pants and slapped his leg really obviously when he threw kicks.

SAT is a good contender for Most Johnny Kickpads, but I'd also put in a vote for Ghost Shadow, who had some ridiculously indie-riffic offense and tights that had both yin-yangs and pot leaves on them.

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42 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Poor Hennig. Nobody remembers anything Kaval says but everyone will remember the beginning of the debut of the arising of the genesis of Michael McGillicutty. 

Hennig has a job for life. Ki lasted 4 months. 

 

47 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Can we blame RVD for being a proto-Johnny Kickpads? If so, does that mean we have to paint Jerry Lynn with the same brush?

Absolutely.

 

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4 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

This also begs the point of who the best/worst Japanese Johnny Kickpads is, because that's where the whole trend came from. 

I don’t know about best/worst, but KENTA was every kickpad connoisseur’s favorite wrestler for a good 5+ years there, and so probably deserves a mention. 

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OK, Quiet Storm you're out of here. I've got my proper pick for WORST JOHNNY KICKPADS: Now this might be a little out of left field, and you might think he doesn't fit. But oh, he does. He really shouldn't but he does. ALEX SHANE. See, he's billed at 6'5", 280 lbs. A slight exaggeration, yes, but he generally faced guys who were around six inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter, at least. So you'd expect him to work a big man/ small man match more of ten than not, yeah? Base your career around stealing spots from Undertaker vs Michaels matches. Or if you're a bit more international, base your career around stealing spots from Tsuruta vs Misawa matches. But no, that's not what he wants to do. He wants to base his career around spots stolen from Sabu & RVD vs The Eliminators matches. And oh yeah, he was the booker of the FWA.

Now to me, if you're the booker of an Extreme-style wrestling promotion, it's your job to persuade the other wrestlers to try to do dangerous things. But instead, he volunteers himself to do them. "Oh look, this building has a 20 foot balcony. You lads had better do a good job of catching me LOL". So that's why he's the worst. He had every excuse to not be Johnny Kickpads, every reason to not be Johnny Kickpads, but he really really wanted to be. So much wasted potential. He retired in his early 30s, because he got broken down too soon. But he broke himself down intentionally. God damn you, Alex Shane. You could have been the English Tsuruta. You could have been anything. But you weren't. You were Johnny Kickpads.

Bloody shiny-trousered bastard.

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2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Can we blame RVD for being a proto-Johnny Kickpads? If so, does that mean we have to paint Jerry Lynn with the same brush?

RVD has to take some of the blame, but arguably Tajiri deserves a little more. But neither of them were Johnny Kickpads, because they were both charismatic characters. Besides which, it would be far more fun to say it's all Lance Storm's fault.

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1 minute ago, AxB said:

RVD has to take some of the blame, but arguably Tajiri deserves a little more. But neither of them were Johnny Kickpads, because they were both charismatic characters. Besides which, it would be far more fun to say it's all Lance Storm's fault.

I was going to suggest The Thrillseekers.

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34 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

I don’t know about best/worst, but KENTA was every kickpad connoisseur’s favorite wrestler for a good 5+ years there, and so probably deserves a mention. 

I was thinking about going back even further to Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada, who traded off as best and worst in that category for awhile. That said, good choice. 

Probably the best one currently going (though I haven't seen his work in awhile) is Katsuhiko Nakajima. 

Re: the Thrillseekers, I don't think it's fair to tar (yes, tar) Jericho with the same brush as his buddy. In those days he was young and Cornette wanted a young blowjob babyface team. Jericho showed himself to actually have personality later. He didn't kick a lot, either.

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This thread has sent me down a really delightful wikipedia hole.  I'm remembering indy guys who I have successfully repressed for over a decade (Z-Barr! Silvermane!)

Anyway, Nick Mondo is Most Johnny Kickpad, deathmatch edition.

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No mention of Davey Richards?

ROH's curtain jerker matches for the 04-06 era all seemed to have the same combination of generic Johnny Kickpads guys (Shane Hangadorn, Tank Tolland, Davey Andrews, Pelle Primeu, a couple other guys).

This may fall into 'hot take' category given how beloved he is here, but before he made it big in Japan Kenny Omega was a KJP guy who managed to rise above it.

 

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Would it be fair to knock Ki off the list and say that Daniel Bryan is truly the best Johnny Kickpads guy? I mean he clearly went above that with his talent level, but if you look at Bryan Danielson he was probably the guy that every Johnny Kickpads aspired to be. The difference is that his peers were guys like BJ Whitmer (yuck) or Eddie Edwards, and they never figured it out.

If we are judging a true Johnny Kickpads just to be somebody who never put it together then that burns up that argument and my Japanese question too

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See how we allowed the Sheepherders and the Bushwackers to be on opposite sides of the Can't be Faces/ Can't be Heels duopoly? We can say 'American Dragon' Bryan Danielson was Johnny Kickpads, even though Daniel Bryan isn't.

Johnny Kickpads isn't a state of attire, it's a state of being. A temporary state of being, for some.

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