Now it is time for the fun part of this series, where I can talk about the numerous positives the company has and some ideas to help focus on these positives. Ring Of Honor has been known as the promotion that features a lot of technical and unique styles of professional wrestling. Not every wrestler is a Bryan Danielson or Davey Richards, but I will be damned if you can name me many ROH guys who can't work. This promotion has an amazing amount of talent and it is unfortunate they are in the position where it is so easy to lose said talent, in the past 3 years they have lost Nigel McGuinness, Bryan Danielson, Tyler Black, Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero. Even with these losses they still have Kevin Steen, The Briscoes (The most entertaining tag team in 20+ years easy), Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, El Generico, Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, Shelton Benjamin, Steve Corino and the hottest WWE Diva of all time Maria Kanellis. Now that is a stacked roster.
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| Not bad Ring of Honor, not bad |
The most impressive thing I can say about that roster is that more guys went from ROH to WWE than went from WWE to ROH. The only Ex-WWE talent currently on the roster would be Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, Maria Kanellis and Jim Cornette (if he even counts) which means a total of two active wrestlers and two non-wrestling performers. Compare that to the guys who get offers from the WWE; CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Evan Bourne (Matt Sydal in ROH), MVP (Antonio Banks in ROH), Kaval (Low-Ki in ROH), Paul London, Brian Kendrick, Claudio, Chris Hero and Tyler Black. Not to also mention the guys who went to ROH and "found themselves" before going straight back up like Eddie Guerrero, Jamie Noble, Jimmy Yang and we should add Lance Storm to that list, if it ever happens!
ROH has a great history and has had arguably the best decade creatively of the large companies in existence. The success that so many alumni have had in the industry also adds to this rich history, earlier I didn't even mention Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Nigel McGuinness, Motor City Machine Guns, Austin Aries, Doug Williams, Colt Cabana, Jerry Lynn and Steve Corino. Consistently amazing.
Another important asset that they possess is the best broadcast team in professional wrestling. Kevin Kelly and Nigel work great together and really remind you of an old school team if they existed in today's environment. It never feels boring but is always right on the mark.
The biggest obstacle that the company faces is it's television production, I truly do not believe any person who may at one point been a wrestling fan, will watch that show and thing anything but poorly of it. The matches could be flawless and the interviews could knock each segment out of the park, but with the presentation given, it is like serving a steak on a garbage lid. What puzzles me the most is that a television broadcasting company bought Ring of Honor and the show production is terrible? Why isn't someone in the Sinclair office watching this show and seeing what we are seeing? If you want this product to succeed then just give it a chance to, you don't have to pour out millions of dollars for washed up talent like TNA, just spend some money on production quality, hire the best people possible.
A few things I would like to point out, watch an episode of any WWE television product, any TNA television product, Ring Ka King's Indian wrestling product even Lucha Libre USA. After you watch them, realize that this is what American wrestling fans are used to in production quality, so when we see something less it just screams minor league.
There is also a suggestion that I feel could help the production issue greatly, that would be to shoot television in a studio similar to the Impact Zone. Although the tapings at the Impact Zone have been lacking serious energy, the use of the Impact Zone in TNA's growth was essential. It provided them with a huge soundstage once used for the somewhat unforgettable television show Nickelodeon's GUTS, before becoming the studio that was used to film WCW Worldwide (First video) and WCW Pro (Second Video).
From the Aggro Crag infested Impact Zone it's WCW Worldwide from November 23rd, 1997:
From the Impact Zone it's WCW Pro from March 9th, 1996:
Notice how fantastic everything in the building looks at all times? ROH would never be lucky enough to get the Impact Zone, but they have in the past used a "studio environment" for television filming. When ROH on HDNet aired it had a distinct production quality that made it stand out from other wrestling shows, at the time I thought it was a negative but after seeing the current television show, it definitely feels like it had much higher production quality.
From The Arena (I think) it's ROH on HDNet from April 4th, 2009:
There is no reason this show shouldn't be seen by everyone on digital platforms, it is 2012 and the methods of distribution are so numerous. My last suggestion/plea to Sinclair would be to attempt to license ROH content to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime or any other digital subscription service. It doesn't have to be the entire tape library, but releasing those DVD compilations that came out in stores a few years ago would be a great start. Other than WWE not one wrestling company has successfully licensed any content out to these services that are immensely popular. Since those DVDs were released by a third party distributor, there would be a much better chance that Netflix would be interested in picking it up. It would be smart to market the "Stars of Honor" disc the most as it has the most mainstream star power of any ROH releases.
