chrom
Backup Wench
Master of the rare undecuple post
Posts: 84,961
Member is Online
|
Post by chrom on Aug 9, 2019 11:39:13 GMT -5
I keep saying this in every ROH thread: when you have a roster that includes Marty Scurll, Jeff Cobb, Rush, Dalton Castle, Jonathan Gresham, PCO, Brody King, Jay Lethal, Bandido, Mark Haskins, Flip Gordon, a returning Alex Shelley, and other pretty solid standouts, there is no reason whatsoever why it should feel like your product has fallen off the face of the Earth. I don't mean that in terms of show quality, as ROH is fully capable of putting on good cards; I mean that you just flat-out don't even hear about ROH's product, it's not at the forefront of anybody's mind. I mean, yes, losing most of the Elite all at once hurt them, it'd have hurt anybody, and ROH certainly was having issues before that with a number of their bigger names being signed to NXT at a rapid pace, but their current roster has more than enough talent on it that, with some decent angles and a couple of hot feuds, they absolutely should be generating enough attention for themselves to be selling tickets to 1,000 seat venues at a brisk enough pace. Instead, it's like they've gone ghost, and it feels like there are multiple reasons why. I don't think it can be discounted how disappointed many people were with ROH's side of the MSG card; while I didn't dislike it that much while there live, it clearly didn't come across well on broadcast, and that was the promotion's big chance to put its best foot forward for 2019 to a wider audience. The bad PR involving Bully Ray and others has clearly done some damage, as well, for obvious reasons. But the simple truth right now is that people are simply not interested in whatever is being booked right now; nobody's attention is being grabbed, despite the roster having more than enough talent to make some noise. I'd never recommend train crash booking or going full metal Russo, that'd just make things even worse, but ROH needs to book something, whether a rivalry or a dynamic feud or whatever, that gets people talking on some level. It doesn't have to be anything ridiculous or anything intelligence insulting or overly edgy, it just has to be a loud proclamation "HERE is why you should buy tickets!" Losing the Elite was big, but New Japan lost the Elite too, and those guys were their connective tissue to the western fanbase. They haven't faltered once, moved new stars into position, and even began to tighten up their presentation to not feel as Americanized on the show they did in Dallas, which was in all ways a straightforward, no-frills G1 night one, and it killed. Losing The Elite hasn't hurt western interest in New Japan nearly as much as people projected it would, and even AEW starting up hasn't taken the wind out of the sails of a white hot G1 this year. The problem is in contrast and how they dealt with losing top guys, in that ROH hunkered down even harder on their worst instincts to favour go-nowhere loyalists over the rest of their roster. I'd compare where they are now ot where they were during the Clone Wars. Cornette booked an era of ROH that was completely out of step with the indie audience, but it was still the big indie name the business hadn't yet evolved to a broader spread of options and superindies and able competitors, so it managed to hold onto what it had and keep going. Nowadays there's just way more stuff out there and so many new, interesting possibilities. From anywhere in the world you have access to the whole of wrestling today. In what's shaping up to be one of the most bizarre and backstage-insane years of pro wrestling in history, all ROH has managed to find buzz for have been a TNA-tier bad idea in the nZo railing jump, and for a fan altercation the company kept finding new and interesting ways to become the bad guy for. Even as of a year ago, ROH was riding the indie boom higher than most anybody stateside. Now, it's leaving them behind at a rapid pace and their response doesn't seem to change course at all Precisely, when AJ, Nakamura and Guns n Gallows left, Omega and others stepped up to fill the slot left by them.
When The Elite left, you're seeing guys stepping up again like Ospreay, Sanada, Archer and others. Despite the talent losses this year, this is the most tickets New Japan has ever sold this year and looking at their most profitable year.
In contrast, nobody in ROH has stepped up to fill the voids when talent heads out the door to NXT. They're banking on hoping that ECW fans will remember Bully Ray and tune in.
|
|
|
Post by HMARK Center on Aug 9, 2019 17:56:29 GMT -5
To be overly fair to ROH on that front, NJPW is certainly in a different situation when it comes to available talent; it's a different ball of wax being the biggest promotion in your country, it's another being a distant second, at best, and now certainly lower than that. It makes rebuilding a lot more of a process once talent leaves.
But that still doesn't excuse having a talent pool like 2019 ROH has and not generating more fan interest. They have a nice balance of main event level talent and midcarders, there should at least be one feud if not two right now that should have people buzzing at least a little bit, but there simply isn't, and that's a major problem.
|
|
|
Post by cabbageboy on Aug 9, 2019 18:20:46 GMT -5
Well, there's something else as well. ROH needs to do something about their TV. Some weeks have a better main event than others but overall it feels like forgettable filler. There's no hard driving personal issues, no real intensity to make you lay down $$, etc. In my area ROH is on a crappy station (WBNA-21) that also shows OVW right before it on Sat. night. Half the time the program has scrambled breakups in it, and occasionally they simply air the previous week's episode again. I heard ROH has a new format for TV but I didn't see it because the station aired the previous week's show again! I haven't seen this sort of fly by night cheesiness since ECW ran repeats because Heyman wasn't paying the bills.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 18:31:48 GMT -5
|
|
Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,135
|
Post by Mozenrath on Aug 9, 2019 18:34:42 GMT -5
Honestly with their audience being mostly connected to the internet wrestling world, sweeping the Bully Ray and Mandy Leon stuff under the rug was the absolute worst decision they could have made. But... the Code of Honor dictated that they must... not... I can't even type that shit with a straight face. What an embarrassment that was.
|
|
Sigma: Current SRW Champ!
Dennis Stamp
Writes about wrestling, does videos about game shows, helps transpeople, loves baseball etc.
Posts: 4,528
|
Post by Sigma: Current SRW Champ! on Aug 9, 2019 18:46:46 GMT -5
That's pretty embarassing. What I'm definitely not a fan of is the prices for this event. $75 for not even front row is insane, especially for a live event. I know someone started to make the AWA in '89 comparisons, but they are getting really close to Pink Room territory. Hell, the Green Screen nonsense from the pilot of the New AWA that's on the WWE Network would have had a better look than they do now.
|
|
|
Post by Natural Born Farmer on Aug 9, 2019 19:21:40 GMT -5
Belt on Matt Taven when Jeff Cobb is also on the roster? That’s a mistake.
|
|
|
Post by corndog on Aug 9, 2019 19:37:52 GMT -5
I've joked that Taven is Justin Credible 2.0 except Justin main evented the 2nd biggest house ECW ever did at Heatwave 2000. Putting the belt on Taven just killed ROH dead at the gate. I can see not putting the belt on Scurll since he obviously has one foot out the door to AEW, but just keep it on Lethal until better options arise. Lethal wasn't setting gate records or anything but he wasn't killing the company either. I do think the whole Bully/Allure thing with the fan has soured people on ROH as well. You don't want it to seem like fans could be pulled aside for simply giving a heel some heat. ROH wasn't doing amazing post MSG this year, but it seems like after that whole fiasco their ticket sales just died beyond belief. The MSG show is a weird thing. I mostly watched it on AXS via the NJPW shows, so I came away thinking it was a terrific show. But I also didn't see most of the ROH only stuff on the show that everyone hated. I think that's the biggest problem ROH has. They went on a major MSG PPV and NJPW came off like a serious major wrestling company, while ROH looked like a bunch of bush league trash. As far as The Elite goes, the only guy NJPW lost that meant anything really was Omega. The others were more or less ROH regulars, so it stands to reason ROH would suffer more. NJPW's tag division hasn't been great, but it wasn't great even with the Bucks in it. Page meant nothing in NJPW. Cody did okay for himself but I doubt NJPW fans are begging for him to come back. I think you hit the nail on the head here. The MSG show soured people quite a bit on ROH, I think if Scurll won and there were less shenanigans in the matches they could have held a much larger portion of the fanbase that left with AEW/Elite. But they still had some fans left until the Bully/Allure incident, then attendance took an absolute nosedive. Also, count me out on the group that things Sinclair is going to stick with ROH at this point. They still spend decent money on talent and without live attendance to support those salaries like before, ROH goes from being cheap TV content to a money pit that provides no value at all. Unless Honor Club is providing more revenue than I thought, but I am betting their subscription rates are about pathetic as their recent attendance. While it is sad to see a constant in independent wrestling go under, with MLW, AEW and Impact not sucking, I think the North American wrestling scene will be more than fine without them. I also believe New Japan are building a small US touring brand supported by the LA Dojo that should give independent wrestlers more work as well.
|
|
BlackoutCreature
Grimlock
The Ultimate Popcorntunist!
Posts: 14,531
Member is Online
|
Post by BlackoutCreature on Aug 9, 2019 20:09:24 GMT -5
I've joked that Taven is Justin Credible 2.0 except Justin main evented the 2nd biggest house ECW ever did at Heatwave 2000. Putting the belt on Taven just killed ROH dead at the gate. I can see not putting the belt on Scurll since he obviously has one foot out the door to AEW, but just keep it on Lethal until better options arise. Lethal wasn't setting gate records or anything but he wasn't killing the company either. I do think the whole Bully/Allure thing with the fan has soured people on ROH as well. You don't want it to seem like fans could be pulled aside for simply giving a heel some heat. ROH wasn't doing amazing post MSG this year, but it seems like after that whole fiasco their ticket sales just died beyond belief. The MSG show is a weird thing. I mostly watched it on AXS via the NJPW shows, so I came away thinking it was a terrific show. But I also didn't see most of the ROH only stuff on the show that everyone hated. I think that's the biggest problem ROH has. They went on a major MSG PPV and NJPW came off like a serious major wrestling company, while ROH looked like a bunch of bush league trash. As far as The Elite goes, the only guy NJPW lost that meant anything really was Omega. The others were more or less ROH regulars, so it stands to reason ROH would suffer more. NJPW's tag division hasn't been great, but it wasn't great even with the Bucks in it. Page meant nothing in NJPW. Cody did okay for himself but I doubt NJPW fans are begging for him to come back. I think you hit the nail on the head here. The MSG show soured people quite a bit on ROH, I think if Scurll won and there were less shenanigans in the matches they could have held a much larger portion of the fanbase that left with AEW/Elite. But they still had some fans left until the Bully/Allure incident, then attendance took an absolute nosedive. Also, count me out on the group that things Sinclair is going to stick with ROH at this point. They still spend decent money on talent and without live attendance to support those salaries like before, ROH goes from being cheap TV content to a money pit that provides no value at all. Unless Honor Club is providing more revenue than I thought, but I am betting their subscription rates are about pathetic as their recent attendance. While it is sad to see a constant in independent wrestling go under, with MLW, AEW and Impact not sucking, I think the North American wrestling scene will be more than fine without them. I also believe New Japan are building a small US touring brand supported by the LA Dojo that should give independent wrestlers more work as well. I said in another thread and I'll say it here, if I was running Sinclair and I saw ROH tanking like this I would seriously consider shutting them down as an active promotion and for the cheap, filler material they seem to want so badly just dig into ROH's nearly eighteen years of archives and air those instead. I hate saying that because I've really liked ROH at times in the past and would really like to see them turn things around (and also because saying "if I was running Sinclair" makes me feel really skeevy), but business be business and Matt Taven as World Champ is not doing business.
|
|
Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,135
|
Post by Mozenrath on Aug 9, 2019 20:26:34 GMT -5
Belt on Matt Taven when Jeff Cobb is also on the roster? That’s a mistake. Agreed. The only thing I can think of is that they were iffy on having the champion in the G1, but even still, it'd have also put a lot of eyes on their champion.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 21:39:54 GMT -5
Belt on Matt Taven when Jeff Cobb is also on the roster? That’s a mistake. Agreed. The only thing I can think of is that they were iffy on having the champion in the G1, but even still, it'd have also put a lot of eyes on their champion. Pretty much. The argument I saw some people making against putting the belt on Cobb was, "You don't want your champion jobbing all over the place," but that'd still be vastly preferable to what they have now since at least the champion would be someone people actually care about in the first place.
|
|
Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,135
|
Post by Mozenrath on Aug 9, 2019 21:45:39 GMT -5
Agreed. The only thing I can think of is that they were iffy on having the champion in the G1, but even still, it'd have also put a lot of eyes on their champion. Pretty much. The argument I saw some people making against putting the belt on Cobb was, "You don't want your champion jobbing all over the place," but that'd still be vastly preferable to what they have now since at least the champion would be someone people actually care about in the first place. I feel like the bigger worry would be if he got hurt or just not having access to them. I feel like NJPW would not have done ROH dirty by having their champion get made to look bad, but then again, Juice walked away from ROH and NJPW hadn't bothered to replace Cody or the like with any other ROH guy like they did when Adam Cole left, so uhh, who knows, really?
|
|
Dub H
Crow T. Robot
Captain Pixel: the Game Master
I ❤ Aniki
Posts: 47,880
|
Post by Dub H on Aug 9, 2019 21:48:21 GMT -5
Hey I just got it that Honor United is
Ring of HONOR + UNITED Kingdom.....
That is all.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 21:50:06 GMT -5
If only we could go back to those feelings of the first ROH shows in the UK. How far we've...fallen, I guess.
|
|
|
Post by Natural Born Farmer on Aug 9, 2019 21:52:41 GMT -5
Agreed. The only thing I can think of is that they were iffy on having the champion in the G1, but even still, it'd have also put a lot of eyes on their champion. Pretty much. The argument I saw some people making against putting the belt on Cobb was, "You don't want your champion jobbing all over the place," but that'd still be vastly preferable to what they have now since at least the champion would be someone people actually care about in the first place. NJPW seems to have been very willing to work with AEW as far as protecting a prominent guy on their roster. Even with their reduced status ROH could probably have asked for the same, and Cobb’s in ring abilities would justify him winning the majority of his matches. The injuries are a real risk, but is that ever not the case? ETA: Didn’t Okada job in the G1 when he was champion? The kind of snarky fans who follow NJPW and ROH know what’s up. May as well embrace it.
|
|
Chainsaw
T
A very BAD man.
It is what it is
Posts: 90,480
|
Post by Chainsaw on Aug 9, 2019 21:54:51 GMT -5
Does Sinclair even care if they're failing? What happens now? Nothing? Nope occasionally you'll hear rumors about how Sinclair is ready to invest heavily in ROH (a couple years ago there were rumors of rebranding the Tennis Network as a new sports station with ROH as one of the big shows) but then as soon as that comes out a report comes out about Sinclair then looking at ROH programming and hating what they see. I said it in another thread that I find it Ironic that Anthem I'd doing everything that ROH fans wished and heard Sinclair would do for the company As an indicator for how much Sinclair cares about the ROH product, ROH second runs on one of their other channels, Charge!, all the time, and the commercials that they air for it still have Cody and the Bucks all over it. Hell, our local promos for ROH on our channel feature SCU at the end, and I am not going to tell them it's wrong now (mostly because they'd put the Briscoes on there instead.)
|
|
Chainsaw
T
A very BAD man.
It is what it is
Posts: 90,480
|
Post by Chainsaw on Aug 9, 2019 21:58:43 GMT -5
Losing the Elite was big, but New Japan lost the Elite too, and those guys were their connective tissue to the western fanbase. They haven't faltered once, moved new stars into position, and even began to tighten up their presentation to not feel as Americanized on the show they did in Dallas, which was in all ways a straightforward, no-frills G1 night one, and it killed. Losing The Elite hasn't hurt western interest in New Japan nearly as much as people projected it would, and even AEW starting up hasn't taken the wind out of the sails of a white hot G1 this year. The problem is in contrast and how they dealt with losing top guys, in that ROH hunkered down even harder on their worst instincts to favour go-nowhere loyalists over the rest of their roster. I'd compare where they are now ot where they were during the Clone Wars. Cornette booked an era of ROH that was completely out of step with the indie audience, but it was still the big indie name the business hadn't yet evolved to a broader spread of options and superindies and able competitors, so it managed to hold onto what it had and keep going. Nowadays there's just way more stuff out there and so many new, interesting possibilities. From anywhere in the world you have access to the whole of wrestling today. In what's shaping up to be one of the most bizarre and backstage-insane years of pro wrestling in history, all ROH has managed to find buzz for have been a TNA-tier bad idea in the nZo railing jump, and for a fan altercation the company kept finding new and interesting ways to become the bad guy for. Even as of a year ago, ROH was riding the indie boom higher than most anybody stateside. Now, it's leaving them behind at a rapid pace and their response doesn't seem to change course at all Precisely, when AJ, Nakamura and Guns n Gallows left, Omega and others stepped up to fill the slot left by them. When The Elite left, you're seeing guys stepping up again like Ospreay, Sanada, Archer and others. Despite the talent losses this year, this is the most tickets New Japan has ever sold this year and looking at their most profitable year. In contrast, nobody in ROH has stepped up to fill the voids when talent heads out the door to NXT. They're banking on hoping that ECW fans will remember Bully Ray and tune in.
If anything, Juice took one look at what was going on in ROH after his contract was up, and said "Yep, full time Japan looks real good to me."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 22:03:42 GMT -5
Seriously though ROH right now is in that same sort of place as your typical 'failing promotion on the decline' story. They lose a bunch of big stars in one go, don't know how to rebuild or who to rebuild around, and they fall from their huge peak to new lows. Except the decline happened in like five months. You either die with honor or you live long enough to see yourself become the AWA.
|
|
|
Post by cabbageboy on Aug 9, 2019 22:44:47 GMT -5
This is far more bizarre than the AWA. Who has ever heard of a totally tanking promotion that sold out a venue like MSG (even with NJPW help) and then almost immediately plummet into nothingness? It's not hard to see NJPW cutting ties totally with ROH. It's just a matter of whether they're willing to buck CMLL to work with AEW since AEW is aligned with AAA. Strange bedfellows, indeed.
|
|
|
Post by Mister Pigwell on Aug 9, 2019 22:54:05 GMT -5
I don't keep up with or watch ROH closely anymore so I dunno firsthand, but it seems like this all happened out of nowhere. Like, one week ROH was just sorta there and I'd read comments and it sounded fine and dandy and then I think it was that NJPW cross show where I noticed a shift. I swear it's been bad news and bad juju pretty consistently since that event.
|
|