If I Could Be Serious For A Moment 03.31.09: We're on a RoHd to Nowhere
Posted by Chris Lansdell on 03.31.2009
Why RoH on HDNet is doing more harm than good.
Greetings, humanity! Welcome back to If I Could Be Serious For A Moment, your weekly dose of intelligent wrestling discourse with me, Chris Lansdell. After a brief creative break last week I was all set to bring you the first in a short series of articles this week, but events in wrestling conspired to change my topic. Nonetheless, I'm sure it's one you'll enjoy. Ready?
BANNER!
A RoH-lling stone gathers no viewers
Note – It's going to be a week of bad puns for section headers, I'm afraid
We're two weeks in to the new RoH on HDNet show, and already it's being hailed as the greatest thing to ever happen to the relatively young Bristol, PA company. By some, at any rate. A quick browse through the comments section on this very site will show you that the show has its detractors, mostly people who either didn't watch the show or who watched it with the wrong expectations. I have watched both shows, and I am an unabashed RoH fan. Is having a national TV deal (albeit with minimal penetration) the start of RoH's rise to success, or is it their death knell? What are they doing right and wrong?
Definite PRoHgress
Increased exposure - Let's start at the beginning: there is no doubt that bringing RoH to a larger audience is the only way they can hope to succeed. Although they were doing fine with PPVs, DVDs and shows they were never going to take their company to the next level without a TV deal. There is also something to be said for the "K-Money Phenomenon", that is to say the feeling that a promotion means nothing if you can't see it on TV. With a deal in place RoH can now make the argument to be taken more seriously.
Presentation - A big question from the time the show was announced was "How will RoH handle the transition to HD?" Without meaning to offend anyone, RoH has never looked good. They took a step forward around about the time that The Wrestler was filmed, with entrance ramps, better lighting and more of a focus on presentation, but they merely went from "awful" to "poor". With the exception of the Hammerstein, they also taped their shows in old and often run-down ugly buildings that held under a thousand people, because they were cheap. If you don't get or have never seen HDNet, it is beautiful. It puts the HD versions of the major networks to shame and is a perfect example of the difference between HD and standard digital cable. On the face of it these two would seem to be a match made in hell (with no reference to Sergeant Slaughter, Hulk Hogan or the Iron Sheik). However, almost from the first minute it became apparent that RoH and HDNet were aware of this potential issue and had worked to minimise (and almost eliminate) it. The in-ring action is brightly lit and looks beautiful, but the arena lights are so dimmed that nothing behind the first 2 or 3 rows is easily visible. This has worked wonders to hide the arena from the viewers and bring the focus to the ring, which is where RoH normally shines (more on that later).
Introducing the talent - One of my concerns going into the show was how they would introduce the main players. Wrestling only works if the viewers care about the wrestlers, and it's hard to make them care about a bunch of wrestlers they've never heard of before. The introductory mini-vignettes for each wrestler, along with a micro-bio before each match did a good job of that without really detracting from the match. They also looked good, which didn't hurt.
Middle of the RoHd – Match Selection
One of the most important aspects of making the show a success from day 1 was always going to be the choice of matches for the first couple of shows. Anyone who has read A Brace For Impact will know that I do not read spoilers, so going into these shows I had no idea of what to expect. Some of the matches were great choices, while others still have me scratching my head in confusion.
Jerry Lynn – Delirious: I thought this was a great choice to lead off – a name with which most old-school fans will be familiar against a long-time RoH guy who can put on a good match with anyone. They delivered a solid match that showed off the RoH focus on action over all else, and it served as a perfect introduction to the product.
Kenny King – Sami Callihan: I seriously had to read some recent RoH reports to see if Callihan was being pushed as a big deal and I missed it. Nope, he isn't. I get that King is one of their bright future prospects, and that they didn't want to put him up against anyone else who they were building. As a new show, putting Callihan there to lose to King in a competitive match was as good as any other guy because they're all unknowns to the new viewer. The first problem I had with it was that the very first show seemed a weird place to put a rising star vs a jobber. King could have been held until the second or third show, and Danielson or Aries (or BOTH) could have got this spot. The second is that Callihan is, well, weird. His promo before the match was the first I had seen of him, and his look is not exactly what RoH fans have come to expect, nor does it represent what makes RoH different. Now it could have been a nod to the new sports entertainment-ish direction they want to go, but it left me cold. It wasn't a bad match by any means, and it showcased King while not making Callihan look bad, it just seemed incongruous to me. One problem, though...when are new fans who tune in to see Kenny King actually going to see him again? The TV format they have doesn't really allow for rotating talent, and I saw precisely 0 shills for DVDs or PPVs.
Brent Albright – Rhett Titus: Now this is more like it. The match wasn't great, but it showcased another semi-known name in Albright against one of the best gimmicks in RoH in Titus. What little offence Titus got seemed forced though, almost as though the bookers didn't want anyone getting totally squashed. It seemed to fit the bill of goofy gimmick guy losing to serious wrestler guy, but in this case Titus can be protected by his tag team with King, who won. The quality of the first three matches was really not that much higher than anything you'd see from WWE or TNA on a weekly basis, and that's not a good sign. It will piss off long-time fans who think ROH is trying to conform at the expense of the wrestling, and it won't attract new viewers who will see right through the thin veil and realise there is no sports entertainment here. The first few shows are about introducing the wrestlers and I get that, but part of what makes the wrestlers so compelling is how they put their all and their characters into their matches. We haven't seen that yet.
Jimmy Jacobs – Tyler Black: While I fully understand the desire to showcase Black, who is almost universally acclaimed as The Next One in RoH, I simply do NOT understand how your first main event does not feature any of arguably the top 3 guys in your company. Your world champion didn't even appear to cut a promo, and you have this as your main. I would not have cut this show from the card, not at all, but I think I would have replaced the King-Callihan match with this and gone with either a Steenerico defense or a McGuinness one in the main. I can't come up with a reason to NOT have one of those matches in the top spot on the first show. The match itself was very good and probably was the best one on TV that week, and Black did a lot to show why he's the future. Which is exactly when we should have seen this match – the future.
Show 2: Eddie Edwards – Kevin Steen: Steen is a hard person to showcase. He's great in his team with Generico, insanely over and has come as close as anyone to beating McGuinness. He's also very good in the ring and has charisma to spare. Unfortunately he looks like a guy who never gets off his couch. Debuting one-half of the tag champs as a singles competitor would seem a silly idea on the face of it, but the commentators did a good job explaining the feud and why Generico wasn't around. I would rather have seen the pair as a tag team vs the Wolves on the first show, but this was OK and Steen going over was correct, especially breaking out the Package Piledriver, a perfect example of how RoH wrestlers have more freedom in the ring. Moves like that should attract the "Holy crap did you see what he did to that guy!" crowd.
Sara Del Ray – Daizee Haze: I was a huge Del Ray fan before she went all psycho on us. Haze I have little to no time for. I seriously question this match's inclusion, as neither lady is holding gold (that would be MsChif right now) and the Women of Honor do not feature heavily on RoH shows in general. I doubt they will be featuring another company's belt on their show, even if that other company IS owned by one of their commentators. With all the names we haven't yet seen (Stevens, Strong, Aries, Danielson, Hero, Davey Richards, Necro...) it's strange that this match would make the cut. We haven't even seen a tag match yet, and RoH's tag division has long been their pride and joy. Oh yeah, and the match was pretty sloppy too. If the idea of the first few shows is to introduce the company and the wrestlers, this match failed.
Claudio Castagnoli – Alex Payne: Really? Alex Payne? We basdically sat through six and a half minutes of Payne taking a beating and kicking out. He got in some offence, which in itself was probably a mistake, but he basically looked like what he is: a greenhorn. RoH isn't exactly flush with jobbers but having Claudio come out and just kill him would have worked much better. They could have used some of this time to re-air Nigel's awesome promo or maybe have Prince Nana introduce his stable instead of talking about them.
Nigel McGuinness – Jay Briscoe (non-title): Another one that has me scratching the old noggin. Jay Briscoe is one half of one of the best tag teams ever to grace RoH, and possibly one of the best in professional wrestling today. Now the new fans would not have known he was a tag team guy, but Mark came out with him and the commentary constantly referred to them as a great team. You could have given that match to almost anyone, but Briscoe would not have been in my top 5 choices. He's not a bad wrestler, he has charisma and he works stiff, all of which helped show off RoH's uniqueness, but others can do that too.
Enough RoHpe...
The matches being hit-and-miss is something I can forgive. After all, they need to get a lot done in one hour as they are starting from scratch, and they've done a very good job of introducing new characters. Some things are just wrong though, and made absolutely no sense.
Location, location, location - Philadelphia has one of the toughest-to-please crowds in North America. Despite that fact, for some reason promotions continue to hold important events there. RoH needed a hot crowd that could really put over the importance of the event and that would respond to everything in the ring. Chicago Ridge or Detroit would have been a far better choice.
Hogewood - I cannot warm to this guy. I've heard worse, but he got excited in all the wrong places and clearly knew very little about the product. According to Prazak there was a LOT of post-production work done on these shows to even get them to this point. Hopefully he improves but right now, he makes my teeth itch.
Theme music - This is probably more of a personal gripe than anything else, but so much of the entrance music they've used so far has sounded almost identical. I understand that royalties are insanely expensive, but surely they could have found some music that sounded slightly different? You need to have something playing that is easily identifiable with each wrestler, and what they were using hasn't done it.
RoHd to Recovery
It's not all doom and gloom. We're only a few shows in with a taping coming up, so there's plenty of time to fix these issues. And I'm not the type of guy to bitch without suggesting ways to improve.
Star power - OK, they may not be household names yet, but the top 4 guys in RoH are McGuinness, Danielson, Aries and Black, closely followed by Steenerico. At least one of these guys needs to be on the show each week, and we need a tag team match every other week. They also need to have a guy on the show who is known to the wrestling public on the show as much as possible, to ctach the channel surfer.
Realise you're going to have to have some names lose - You can't keep feeding students to your big names. Eventually somebody is going to have to job, and when that time comes it's important to make fans realise you can lose without getting destroyed.
The future is at the expense of the past - I firmly believe in this axiom. Your future stars need to be put over and built up by the ones on the way back down, not by those under them or the ones at the top. Kenny King should be beating Jerry Lynn or Adam Pearce, as an example.
Find the balance - This is the most important thing they can do. There is a balance to be struck between sports entertainment and wrestling, between solid matches and introducing the talent, between style and substance. TNA and WWE have both failed to find that balance, and RoH is off to a bad start. Whereas WWE and TNA tend to go to one extreme or another, RoH seem to be tentatively inching across a log from both ends, and are a long way from meeting in the middle. As a result the product comes off as watery and a bit weak.
In Closing...
The reaction of fans to the shows is an interesting one. The vast majority of RoH fans are so desparate for the promotion to succeed that they are trying to gloss over the glaring problems with the show. The haters weren't going to like the show no matter what, and have plenty of ammunition to use to justify that stance. The more intelligent fans are mostly calling the shows "OK", but you have to wonder how long that will last before they switch off. The problem is that in attempting to attract them, you're alienating your loyal fans too, the ones that have kept the company going for 7 years. If they go, and the TV show fails...where is RoH then?
That's it for this week. Next week we'll get to that series, since I plan on totally no-selling Mania. Unless something big happens...
I think the problem may be that ROH just isn't sure what to do with the show. For the first episode, you had Black vs Jacobs which should have been an intense match considering how they broke up. The match had pretty much no heat or passion at all. It was "decent", but you expect so much more from a big feud.
The first two shows were pretty much just ROH undercard/midcard quality matches with very little crowd interaction. I'm not expecting epic TV matches on a show no one gets, but I don't understand how this is supposed to encourage new fans to buy the DVDs. Nothing really stands out.
Posted By: Anonymous (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 12:43 PM
The main problem with the TV shows is the logistics of the taping itself.
Whilst the TV shows are intended to be ROH 101, they tape 3 shows on one night. That's fine as it saves money etc. However, the main event of the evening is always going to be the third shows main event. In this case, it's Dragon/Aries. And to make sure that the crowd pops for it/isnt dead, they have to tone down the rest of the show(s) anyway.
If you had Dragon/Aries on the first show, conversely, would anyone really care much for the other 2 shows? As great as Tyler/Jacobs or Nigel/Briscoe may have (potentially) been, i'm not sure the crowd would have cared much.
It's just an inherent problem with how the shows are filmed. I hope they find a way to sort it out soon though.
Posted By: Cyclorama (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 01:01 PM
I think the subtitle of this piece--Why HDNet is doing more harm than good--is misleading. As you say, most intelligent viewers are saying that the show is OK, just not setting the world on fire. That means it's doing less harm than good.
You did make a number of good points, such as the lack of DVD pimping on the show. If the TV show is advertising for DVD and PPV sales, where's the hype? I also think the presentation was magnificent, and some of the camera work was better than TNA's.
I disagree on a number of things, however. First, I don't really watch ROH, so I don't know the wrestlers, so I'm one of the people they want to draw in. As such, the King-Callahan match was good for that. They both worked hard, and showed more skills than you see in WWE or TNA. The Haze-Rey match also worked for me. I thought that it was one of the best little (wo)man-big (wo)man matches I've seen, because Haze actually tried to avoid Rey and use her speed to stay even. That's better than Rey Mysterio trying to go toe to toe with Batista.
I also think that two of your complaints about match selection are the result of fairly obvious restrictions due to the way the tapings are done. Since the matches are filmed on one day, the bookers tried to meld a one-day card with a three episode format. While each part built to its own climax, the whole thing is building to the climax of the day, which we'll see in the third episode. It may not be the best plan, but it makes sense if you look at it from that point of view.
The other thing is, the bookers seem to be unsure how much they want to advance the stories in this show, and I believe that's in large part because they don't know how many of their fans are actually watching it. RAW and Smackdown can tell stories that lead into the PPVs because they know everyone will watch them. ROH on HDNet doesn't have that kind of exposure, so they're trying to find the right balance to sell the show by itself while still paying respects to on-going storylines.
I don't think it will take them that long to start tweaking the format so they can get more out of the time they have, especially with the feedback they can get from the Net. Getting rid of Hogewood would make things better, and avoiding things like the Castagnoli-Payne car wreck would help, but they have to take time to figure some of this stuff out.
Posted By: Sly Reference (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 01:20 PM
I was there Landsdell, the Philly crowd was hot and loud. The sound mixing is awful. Don't comment on things you don't know.
Posted By: Orest Kindrachuk (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 01:23 PM
Can't wait until ROH goes out of business. It sucks, TNA sucks. Wrestling is fake and doesn't sell, it's all about stories.
Posted By: WWEFan (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 02:27 PM
A comment regarding Philly:
Having attended the tapings for the shows, and then catching the episodes when they air, the problem lies with HDNet not focusing more on crowd noise. It's both a good and bad thing, good because the smarks don't get TV time, but bad because it makes the crowd seem dull when it clearly wasn't. Or at least it wasn't where I was. I hope that the tapings next week go smooth, and with the main events announced so far it looks like a winner. But we'll see.
Posted By: Brian C. (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 02:43 PM
oops... i thought this was eharmony.
Posted By: mike rotundo (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 03:18 PM
I still think introducing the fans to the product by getting us right into the heat of the storylines would've been a better choice. Right now the show looks like one of those old ninja shows that would come on after Saturday morning cartoons. You could still have the announcers go through the story of each feud and put over each wrestler's character and tendencies. Maybe if they had a better announcing team ::coug::cough:: bring back Lenny Leonard::cough::cough::.
Posted By: bighustle (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 04:11 PM
If the crowd was so "hot" then why did they all but eliminate them from the TV Product, and "re-mix" the sound?
Wouldn't you want your TV Debut to come off strong, and HOT? Not just dark, unoriginal and bland?
On a side note, it's funny how we've heard all of these Basement dwellers ogling over Del Rey for AGES, and, as it turns out, she's one big, nasty blob of ugly.
Posted By: Not a RoHbot (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 04:49 PM
On top of the logistics, recording wise, because shows are recorded 6 at a time(2 nights), show 6 of each taping won't go on air till maybe 8 weeks after the recording. This causes a problem with advancing storylines, title changes, Heel/Face turns, new gimmicks etc. This makes it hard to carry on angles on TV. Therefore, the matches will be more random. And shorter than normal due to time limitations.
I don't think main event/midcard guys beating enhancement/opener guys is that big a deal. Anyone remember WWF superstars? ROH still runs it's 8(?) ppv's a year and 40 plus shows which sell on dvd. These bring in ROH's Main revenue. TV is just an addition to this and since ROH makes no dvd revenue from these shows, wouldn't it make sense to keep costs down?
On the negative side, they should really find time on the show to plug their dvd's, ppv's, merchandise etc. And them need to dump Hodgwood and use Lenny Leonard on tv, man!
Posted By: ScottishDragon (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 06:08 PM
"If the crowd was so "hot" then why did they all but eliminate them from the TV Product, and "re-mix" the sound? "
I kinda figured that a lot of it has to do with the fear of profanity-laced chants et al, but I don't know for sure.
Crowd seemed pretty animated during the Steen and Nigel matches too, so I dunno how much the mic-ing is really impacting things.
Posted By: AJP (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 07:51 PM
"On a side note, it's funny how we've heard all of these Basement dwellers ogling over Del Rey for AGES, and, as it turns out, she's one big, nasty blob of ugly."
Finally someone else agrees, truly proves RoHbots have shit taste in just about everything
Posted By: Brad (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 08:45 PM
like i neva watched ROH so i wanna be one of thsoe fans to get into it. the 1st show was ok but i knew nobody not 1 person i knew except jerry lynn. but i agree most of the music sound sthe same like i don't like how the crowd is darken how r people gonna take it seriosuly if they see a lil ass crowd at the shows. the in ring action is way betta than wat you'll find on wwe and tna but ROH needs to eventually start um bigge rnames not like tna and get every reject from wwe or tna but a few hosuehold names to get me to watch i heard cabana is comming bakc once his 90 day is up n maybe petey could go there like don't go over borad wit the big names and keep the top stars rotating n i already starting to like that claudio dude i luv his move and the whole rich european gimmick age of teh fall neva hear of em but from seeing jimmy jacobs they seem to be a bunch of emos which is kind cool if u wanna reach even the goth and emo fans but roh cna improve maybe they can get a tron or sumin to show highlights of that wrestler cuz if peopel don't kno wat they done or can do then whos gonna care how good they r in the ring. i say fix the music,rotate the most over wrestlers,mayeb create a mid -card tv title since they got a tv deal and start creating storylines and interveiw segments not like wwe or tna where its 30 or 40 mins of intevreiws but just 1 interveiw segemnt in the ring would be fine to build the most over fued. the music needs to change cuz they all sound alike in sum ways but i think it s a good show betta wrestling than tna or wwe but if u wanna attract new fans its gotta be entrtaining
Posted By: jamille 5150 (Guest) on March 31, 2009 at 11:30 PM
It's called an ALTERNATIVE, retards.
As much as you WWE sheep want it to be true, not everyone is going to enjoy the WWE product and thus will search for something else in the meanwhile.
I also find it amusing how you call all ROH fans "basement dwellers", and yet here you are in every ROH topic posting the same insignificant shit over and over. Do I have to start quoting the typical nasally-voiced teenaged male whose greatest insults include, "Get a girlfriend"? Sorry to say, but you should heed his advice, and that's just sad.
Posted By: Magnum TOKYO, JP (Guest) on April 01, 2009 at 07:20 AM
WILL THE BOOGEYMAN BE IN ROH SOON?
Posted By: WORM LOVER (Guest) on April 01, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Posted by Brad, "On a side note, it's funny how we've heard all of these Basement dwellers ogling over Del Rey for AGES, and, as it turns out, she's one big, nasty blob of ugly."
Guess you've never seen her without the makeup. I don't care for it myself. She's part of a heel stable now and seems to be trying for the Sheri Martell look, but it doesn't work.
Posted By: nomark (Guest) on April 01, 2009 at 04:39 PM
