If I Could Be Serious For A Moment 05.26.09: State of the Federations - RoH

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 05.26.2009

411’s Chris Lansdell begins his look at the various federations by looking at Ring of Honor!

Greetings, humanity! Welcome back to If I Could Be Serious for a Moment, your weekly dose of intelligent wrestling discourse with me, Chris Lansdell. Having spent the last two weeks talking about what was wrong with wrestling and how I managed to stop myself from walking away, I figured we could continue looking at the state of wrestling, albeit in a slightly different way. That comes right after the


BANNER!

State of the Federations: Ring of Honor

The State of the Federations series will analyse each promotion on three aspects: roster, positioning and booking. We'll start with the number 3 promotion in the country and work up to WWE.


Ring of Honor is often considered by fans as wrestling for fans of wrestling, although in recent months that definition has become less accurate. Since Adam Pearce took over the booking, there has been a decided sports-entertainment bent to the product. With that said, it's still an exciting time for the Bristol, PA promotion. Let's dive in.


The Roster


The RoH roster is an interesting paradox. On the one hand it's the strongest it's been in a while, with the likes of Ric Flair, D'Lo Brown, Jerry Lynn, Sylvain Grenier, Little Guido and now even Lance Storm making repeat appearances and adding name value to the product. They also have a strong core of Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, Austin Aries and Jerry Lynn who control the top of the card, any combination of which seems to be able to put on a stellar match.


In the singles division, the problem comes after these 4 wrestlers. Tyler Black is being positioned as the next big thing, and he stands virtually alone at that level. RoH would like us to accept Claudio Castagnoli, Brent Albright, Erick Stevens, Roderick Strong and Chris Hero as the next tier, but so far it hasn't worked. Claudio was never as over as he was when he was chasing Nigel for the title. His heel turn seemed to drain a good bit of his heat, and although the new character suits him well it hasn't done the trick yet. Albright too was insanely over after turning on Sweet and Sour, but it never took him anywhere and as a result the clamour has died down considerably. Chris Hero also fits under the definition of "lost his heat due to inactivity", although his current 3-0 record on TV is a step towards retrieving it. Stevens is in an interesting position in that he's been over but never top-of-the-card over, but he has the tools that the major companies look for: size, athleticism and a look. If RoH don't use him, it's not impossible that WWE or TNA will come knocking. Roderick Strong has unfortunately had too many failed chances to be considered a legitimate top guy any more. The recent returns of Jimmy Rave and Colt Cabana could shake up the pecking order somewhat, but it's a little too early to decide where they will end up. Stuck in midcard limbo are the likes of Delirious, Jimmy Jacobs, Brodie Lee and Necro Butcher who are still embroiled in a feud that very few people care about any more. The two Kennys, King and Omega, will likely make a splash in singles in a couple of years, but for now one is a jobber and the other is a tag team guy saddled with a comedy partner.


In stark contrast to the singles division, the tag team division is in a strong place right now. With the young (as a team) and impressive American Wolves (Eddie Edwards, who I always thought deserved a shot in RoH, and Davey Richards) recently winning the belts, Kevin Steen and El Generico looking for a rematch, Mark Briscoe due to come back within a couple of months (hopefully by late July...), and the even younger teams of Kenny King and Rhett Titus, the Dark City Fight Club and now the Young Bucks in the mix...the division is not only strong, it also has an assortment of new and veteran teams that makes the transition easier.


It's nowhere near the level of the rosters that had Danielson, Aries, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Homicide, Christopher Daniels, Alex Shelley, Low Ki and up-and-comers like Jack Evans, Matt Sydal, Nigel McGuinness, Jimmy Rave and Roderick Strong. Not many rosters will ever stack up to that one. With that said, Ring of Honor's current roster is a lot stronger than it was before WWE started its cullings and in fact is probably the ideal one for the position in which they find themselves.


Hey look, a segue!


Positioning


A little over 2 years ago, RoH taped their first-ever PPV show. At the time it was considered a mixed blessing for the company, as it brought them into homes for the first time and expanded their reach, but also removed from their shows the little TNA talent they could still use. WWE fans (and TNA ones, to a lesser extent), who had long derided RoH as being "a bunch of nobodies with no TV and no PPV performing in front of 40 fat virgins in a high school gym", were now reduced to complaining about their lack of a TV deal, especially since the live attendance numbers were increasing. About a year ago, RoH set a new attendance record in the Hammerstein ballroom. Then in a major coup, 4 months ago the company announced a TV deal with HDNet. Although the quality of the shows since late 2008, both live and on TV, is questionable to say the least (something we will discuss in depth in the next section), there is little question that RoH is in a very strong position to expand their fanbase. The addition of Ric Flair to the roster as an ambassador has brought some attention to the company that it would not otherwise have got (as long as he stays out of the ring...), and they seem to have learned from their previously aggressive expansion tactics by cutting a number of less-productive locations from their touring circuit.


There are problems, however. With RoH pay per views came contracts for RoH talent, most of which were signed shortly after TNA pulled their guys from RoH shows. Although this was a good and necessary move to protect the investment RoH was making in their stars, the point is that these contracts are now close to expiry. Most notably, Bryan Danielson has not signalled his intention to re-sign. Danielson is the face of RoH and is considered the best technical wrestler in the world (for what that's worth these days) by the RoH faithful. Although the contract status of others from that first batch (Chris Hero, Nigel McGuinness and Brent Albright, off the top of my head) has not been discussed, none of those three would be as big a loss as Danielson. It has been speculated that this is the reason he is being kept out of the title picture for the time being, which makes sense.


The other major problem facing RoH is that despite addressing all of the criticisms aimed at it by narrow-minded wrestling aficionados (they have TV, they have PPV, they have decent attendance, they have name value), they are still dismissed as irrelevant. The cry has changed to "only 12 million homes can see you", "wrestling in front of 500 people" and "spot monkeys with no mic skills". Only it's normally spelled wrong, littered with profanity and followed by some banal remark suggesting the individual's promotion of choice is far superior. The upshot is that RoH is not converting the casual fan, despite the change to a more sports-entertainment style. Rather than win the fans it was seeking, it is starting to lose the fans it had. The loyal RoHbots have become less loyal, with rumblings about CHIKARA, PWG and even the new Dragon Gate USA starting to sneak in. The product is being assailed from both sides, and barring a change in philosophy could end up buckling to those pressures.


It certainly seems like RoH is aware of the issue, because there are signs of change. There are more decisive wins, people like Kenny King are looking like a million bucks even in defeat (the tag match a couple of weeks ago against Steenerico was one of the best tag matches I've seen all year) and RoH is reaching out to recently released talent like Petey Williams, Sonjay Dutt and Shawn (Gavin) Spears. It may not be the future that we foresaw for RoH 2 years ago, but they are in a fairly good position to remain profitable for the next 2 years.


Booking


Up until last October, most wrestling pundits would have told you that RoH's booking was the best of the 3 companies. Then it happened: Cary Silkin shocked the wrestling world by parting ways with Gabe Sapolsky, who had been booking RoH since day 1. Almost overnight RoH went from internet darling to target for scorn as the IWC performed its usual trick of jumping to conclusions and over-reacting. Only in this case, they were largely correct.


A hallmark of sports entertainment is that a match doesn't have to have a conclusive winner. There can be run-ins, countouts, disqualifications, draws...basically anything to prevent one person beating another. For the first 6 years that RoH existed, only the draw was used with any degree of regularity. Under Adam Pearce they are almost commonplace. RoH also made scarce use of enhancement talent until Pearce took over, where once again they are commonplace. There has been a push towards giving people more outlandish gimmicks (Austin Aries in an Austin Starr-like role, Grizzly Redwood, Rhett Titus, Very European Claudio Castagnoli...) as well as a move to shorter matches with fewer spots. Although some of these changes are meant to attract the casual viewer (who by and large found RoH too serious to get into), they have not done that as well as they have chased away the older fans. If Silkin feels that this is the way he has to go, thenm the advice to him has to be the same as it is to Vince: you don't have to sacrifice quality in-ring action to focus on characters and stories.


The biggest booking challenge around RoH right now is "How long can we keep the belt on Jerry Lynn, and then what?". When Nigel held the belt, the widely-held opinion was that he would be succeeded by Tyler Black. That obviously didn't happen and it's not looking like the plan now. Lynn hasn't really been put in a program with anyone, which I think is something that needs to be fixed ASAP.


Strange as it seems with all the changes, Ring of Honor remains the best wrestling available in terms of in-ring action, although Smackdown is catching up fast and Impact nearly always has one stellar match per PPV. Their problem is what comes between.


Moment over.


Well folks, that's my creativity tapped out. I'll see you next week, same time same channel. To make sure you don't miss it, you can follow 411wrestling or me on Twitter, or of course just bookmark 411mania!


Stay Cool, Rock Hard. Lansdellicious – Out.