Ring of Honor has had a dreadful year.
Between PR disasters, near-empty arenas, and the rise of yet more competition, it has been a trying time for the promotion. The question is, is there any way for them to stage a comeback?
Once upon a time, ROH was the internet’s favourite wrestling promotion. It offered western fans something that none of the other companies at the time did, something more akin to the hard-hitting Japanese Strong Style. It was a breath of fresh air and for a good while, they drew rave reviews and fairly large crowds. Now they are a pale imitation of what they once were. The modern-day ROH almost mocks the original incarnation by bastardising everything it stood for. Hope is not entirely lost though, there are a few things that can be done to make the promotion viable once more.
The most obvious of these changes would have to be firing the current management and bringing in people who actually have a clue what they’re doing.
It is fair to say that the current higher-ups are a shambles. The team, most notable amongst them being Joe Koff, have come under fire repeatedly of late for their mismanagement of talent and negligence. The negligence side of the accusations stems from an apparent lack of transparent concussion policy. Whilst Koff has said that they do have one, Kelly Klein pointed out that talent are not aware of it and have not seen it. This is especially dangerous considering what we now know about concussions and their potentially life-altering effects.
Klein suffered a concussion in the UK back in October at an ROH event and alleges that she received no medical attention from ROH appointed staff upon arriving backstage. Instead, she was fortunate that the venue had their own team and she was advised to head to the hospital for evaluation and treatment. This simply should not happen in a somewhat major company.
After speaking out about these issues and others, Klein was released from her contract with the company whilst still being out injured. They deemed her public dissemination of interactions with higher-ups as a breach of her contract and so terminated their agreement. This action is hard to view as anything other than a petty act of aggression towards a talent who had the bravery to speak out about an unsafe and poorly managed work environment.
Then there is the fact that Greg Gilleland admitted on a leaked text message exchange that he had forgotten to renew Maria Manic’s contract before it expired. He believed that talent would come to him in order to negotiate their renewals and dismissed her as someone who wouldn’t have drawn money for them anyway.
It is clear that a total restructure of management is needed if any progress is to be made by the once stellar promotion. Seeing what Billy Corgan has done for the NWA shows what can happen with the right person in charge.
Once they do have the right person in the head office however, there is going to be the problem of who to push as their top star.
Recently fans of ROH have expressed distaste for the World Title reign of Matt Taven. Despite being a talented individual, he wasn’t who fans wanted to see as their champion and so interest in the product overall dropped. It is fair to say that anyone other than Marty Scurll would have struggled at the time due to the immense popularity of The Villain.
Since then Rush has also had a hard time in getting over as the top guy despite also having a wealth of talent behind him. It seems likely that PCO will also fail to bring back any lapsed viewers or entice new ones. His act is fantastic but without anyone compelling to work with he won’t be drawing big crowds anytime soon.
Part of that has to do with a failure to properly advertise the product. Live shows have had poor attendances as a direct result of this inability to do much more than sticking a few flyers up. There have been instances on Twitter where long-time fans of ROH have missed shows in their towns because of this issue. Fixing this is an important step on the road towards bringing back the electric atmosphere that used to crackle throughout every ROH arena.
It’s the same atmosphere that permeates AEW and NXT’s shows today. Therein lies another problem; the style that ROH got over for is now decidedly commonplace. Their once unique brand of ‘lucha-resu’ wrestling is alive and oversaturated in just about every promotion in the western hemisphere. As such it might be time to look into what the next big thing might be. If they can get out ahead of the curve, then they can be a trendsetter once more and that’ll bring more eyes to them.
Where once they made their name off of battles between the likes of Bryan Danielson, Takeshi Morishima, and Samoa Joe, now they need to find that next generation of talent who can break the mould and usher in a new style. It’d be a welcome relief too as far too many matches look identical to one another not just across companies but on the same cards.
The solution is to listen to the crowd, they’ll tell you who to push if you want more audience engagement, they’ll tell you what style might be the next big thing, and they’ll also tell you when you’ve taken the wrong path like ROH have currently.
If they can get in a better team to run things, one that loves wrestling and cares for the wrestlers then there’s a fighting chance for this once beloved promotion. NWA is proof that from the embers a phoenix can rise, ROH can do the same. All it takes is a little hard work and dedication, something the locker room has in spades.
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You can find the author of this article on Twitter @Impers0nalJesus. Thanks for reading!