|
Ring of Honor is filled with uncertainty after an announcement that they were dropping iPPV, and questions regarding the future of much of the key talent.
Over the weekend, Jay Briscoe (Jay Pugh), 29, the company’s champion, retained his title with wins over brother Mark at the Best in the World iPPV on 6/22 in Baltimore, and then over Matt Hardy at the television tapings the next afternoon at the same Du Burns Arena.
However, at the tapings, an angle was shot. On the first hour of the tapings, Nigel McGuiness announced that Jay re-injured his shoulder and Mark suffered a concussion in their match. In the third hour, after Jay had pinned Hardy, the members of SCUM did an injury angle where Mark took several chair shots with his worked concussion and Hardy came off the top rope stomping on Jay’s injured shoulder. The angle was to explain the Briscoes being gone.
From a storyline standpoint, the story is that Mark is now out of action due to severe head trauma while Jay is out of action with a fractured shoulder and torn rotator cuff. ROH sent out a release saying they don’t know how long both will be out of action.
Both Mark & Jay’s contracts expire on 6/30. They haven’t signed new deals. At one point, it looked like there was a good chance they were going to take a WWE developmental deal, or were allowing their contracts to expire to at least negotiate and consider that possibility.
Right now it is uncertain if they will be signing a new deal based on, more than anything else, what their options would be elsewhere. ROH wrote that an announcement would be made soon regarding the ROH title. In specific, they noted that Michael Elgin was scheduled for a title shot on 8/3 in Toronto. The current plan is that if Briscoes return, that was going to be the date, and it would be Jay vs. Elgin.
If they don’t sign new deals, another scenario would take place, likely leading to the Toronto show.
The question is, exactly what does that mean? There is no issue between ROH and the Briscoes and the decision as to whether they’ll sign new deals or not is up to them. Over the weekend, they indicated no definitive word to the company. It could have been their final weekend with the company if a viable outside offer came. If not, they were expected to return for the Toronto show.
It is known that the Briscoes had been told at one point that they could get WWE developmental deals once they were out of their ROH contracts. However, that was before Jay’s remarks on Twitter about gay teachers and shooting them, which he did apologize for at the next show.
It was known going into the weekend, and actually dating back to before the Briscoe vs. Briscoe match was made months ago, that they were going to take time off over the summer. Why if that was the case that Jay is still champion, is a different question.
It was said that the Jay vs. Mark match was held in what felt like way too early in the title reign because of the feeling if they didn’t do it on the Best in the World show, they may never be able to do it. At the same time, before the Twitter comment, there was the fear, but not the certainty, that they would be leaving for WWE when their contracts expired. The impression was that the Matt Hardy title shot was booked the way it was in the event they weren’t staying, they could do the brother vs. brother match and then Jay could have been injured in his win over Mark and Hardy could take advantage of it. The way the booking was set up, it did seem that Mark and Jay would beat each other up badly, leading to Jay not being at 100 percent for Hardy, who would have a storyline reason in case he would lose the next afternoon. But that didn’t happen.
Jay beating Hardy would seem to indicate they would, at least as of 6/23, think he’s staying, or it becomes a question about the booking in a world champion leaving without dropping the title. One company source said the situation had constantly been changing, but that over the weekend, the Briscoes were talking about leaving for a few months and returning in August, but figured what happens is more likely based on if they have outside options. But if that’s the case, and if there was any question, given that Jay’s contract was up, then Hardy should have won, as a scenario of Hardy getting the cheap win and then losing to Elgin, or whoever the decision was, would have been a good title win for whoever the next champion would be.
The Briscoes aren’t the only ones in the situation. Company officials had expected Mike Bennett would be leaving, but for whatever reason, he hasn’t given notice or told them of a start date with WWE. There was also question with both Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards, when their contracts expire. The problem is that ROH already has less talent depth than at any time in its history, and if they lose a top person, it’s not like there are people on the indie scene of anywhere near their level of ability who can take the spot.
The whole mentality is different from before. A few years ago, most ROH talent were guys that didn’t fit the WWE mindset of what a pro wrestler looks like. They were either too small, or just didn’t have the look. Many also worked a style that WWE looked down on. However, with C.M. Punk, Antonio Cesaro and Daniel Bryan all coming from ROH and Punk and Bryan being two of the company’s biggest stars despite not having the look they want, it opened a lot of eyes.
In addition, when Sinclair Broadcasting purchased the company, the wrestlers were told they would be working a fuller schedule. For a lot of them, it was a chance to be a star on the ground floor of a building promotion as opposed to languishing in WWE developmental, which doesn’t pay much of anything. But few have the idea ROH is going anywhere but either staying at their current level, or perhaps, getting worse.
Right now there is a lack of long-term confidence in both ROH and TNA leading to people looking outward. In both cases, the question is how long will the parent company be willing to fund products that don’t seem to be growing, and if anything, seem to be diminishing in popularity.
With ROH, there seems to be no way they can make money just running a wrestling business. The fact is, the old school business of live gates, merchandise and other revenues carrying a company may be a thing of the past. Every successful promotion, and virtually every successful major sports franchise relies on television revenue as the key revenue stream. The future of ROH, for a long time, has and will depend on Sinclair’s mentality as to whether the losses are worth it to provide its local stations with a weekly program airing on Saturday nights that does the ratings ROH does, which seems to be in the 1.0 range. Even if the numbers are better than the stations usually do in that time slot, you have to factor in that ad rates for wrestling are so much lower than most programming. In addition, the value of live sports, and ROH does do good ratings from a sports standpoint, is negated by the idea by not being live, it’s not as valuable in the “DVR proof” value that has skyrocketed the value of live sports. Plus, it’s not viewed as sports to begin with.
In the case of the Briscoes, they’ve been with ROH since the start, but they are no longer teenagers in high school or just out. Both Mark and Jay are married. Jay has two children and a third on the way. Mark has two children. At 29 and 28, with families, making money becomes more and more important than having more creative freedom to do the kind of wrestling that you enjoy. The flip side is with WWE, they’ll have to be in Florida full-time and either be away from their families, or move their families to the Orlando area, which would be a huge lifestyle change.
Richards has constantly talked about retiring and leaving. Those in and around the company have noted Richards has given dates that he was leaving and dates that he was retiring in the past, but the dates come and go. There is also the feeling, no matter how talented he and Eddie Edwards are, that they would not do well in WWE because, unlike Punk and Bryan, neither of them is that good on promos.
Even though the wrestlers are paid better per appearance than they were in the past, and taken care of in other ways better, it’s a struggle to live full-time on the money because of so few dates. And there isn’t going to be a turnaround. Sinclair from the start has not given the company the kind of backing to produce a television show that looks comparable to TNA. From a budget standpoint, with Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas gone, with the exception of Hardy, they have nobody who would be known to anyone but their own fan base, making expanding that fan base difficult. And even with Hardy, when someone from the outside is brought in, they are met with so much negativity they can only be used as a heel because the fan base resents outsiders.
Even if they wanted to hold up the title and do a tournament, Jay should have been stripped of it for a storyline reason at the TV tapings, and not have to do a tournament when the champion simply doesn’t come back, especially the top champion.
One story that does make no logical sense is the idea both brothers weren’t going to be renewed from the company standpoint, given the talent depth and that the Briscoes and Kevin Steen have been the only acts that seem to consistently get over in every city.
One thing not uncertain is the future of iPPV. ROH will continue, but no longer air the big shows live due to problem after problem with transmission. At Best in the World, there were glitches regularly throughout the show. Watching live, it was enough to make the experience not that much fun as key parts of matches were missed, including two finishes. There were also questions regarding the handling of the situation to the public. ROH made no statements during the show, or after the show.
It wasn’t until two days later when the company issued a statement regarding the problems, stating they would no longer stream live:
“This past weekend at `Best in the World’ in Baltimore, MD, Ring of Honor proved once again from top to bottom why our talent is truly the best in wrestling today. Unfortunately, there were some issues with the live iPPV stream that wound up distracting from the energy and action in the ring. For this, we sincerely apologize to all fans that encountered problems.
“Because of how much we value the support of our fans, and understand the imperfections of the live streaming technology, `Best in the World’ will be the last iPPV stream that we will be broadcasting live. All future main event shows will now be offered as a Video On Demand, which will allow Ring of Honor to present a flawless show and truly depict the excellence of our product.
“From now on, fans can watch ROH Wrestling on TV, VOD or DVD, however, there is still nothing like seeing Ring of Honor in person. We thank you for your continued support and are excited to be moving forward.”
The new policy goes into effect for Death Before Dishonor XI, which takes place on 9/20 in Philadelphia. As much as the new policy has its hindrances, this is the first time I can recall watching an ROH iPPV and having the TV that followed and having no idea the direction they were going for the major big show matches.
Realistically, doing 700 to 1,500 orders means about $5,000 to $10,000 in gross company income per show. That’s more than the costs of doing it, but it’s significantly less than the live gates for these shows. Perhaps ROH had the potential to grow to several thousand orders. The cards weren’t interesting enough of late. Being No. 3 in a business where people don’t even support No. 2 is hard no matter what the product is. And the technology issues killed growth. The inability to fix the problems after so many attempts left people without confidence. And it’s still perplexing how ROH had problem after problem, and they aren’t the only ones, but other companies, often smaller, streaming shows, don’t have anywhere near the level of issues.
The question is will the fan base order the shows on a day delay. That’s going to rely on word of mouth, and perhaps a super strong show will get a buzz going. But that mentality of people buying because the show is great and word gets out sounds great, but it never has worked out that way in real life. And if a show gets the buzz that it’s average, it’s going to be far more difficult to get anyone but the most loyal company fan. And with all the changes, there’s very much a question of the loyalty of that group.
The show drew 800 fans live.
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
