MITCHELL: An Open Letter to Ring of Honor Wrestling Fans... Guys, we have a problem


By Bruce Mitchell, PWTorch columnist

Dear Ring of Honor Fans,

Guys, we have a problem.

It’s not that you’re not smart. You are. In your way, you know more about wrestling than any other fans. You know the holds. You know their special names. You know the wrestlers, their histories, and their personal foibles and habits. You know the components of a wrestling match, almost all the parts it takes to put together that elusive five-star puzzle, and you can make the determination of how many stars a match deserves almost immediately upon its finish.

Most wrestling fans can’t do that.

I mean, you’re about your pro wrestling. Most of you follow the sport day to day and hour to hour. You know the difference between Mark Henry’s and Alberto Del Rio’s groin injury. Chris Hero is as much a star to you as Randy Orton, but not as much as Bryan Danielson.

And you’re passionate about Ring of Honor. It was your passion, your noisy energy that impressed Sinclair TV executives when they explored buying the company and putting its programming on their networks in primetime. That passion fuels every ROH card.

Every wrestler on the show knows you’re paying attention to their every move, knows you pick up on the nuances of what they’re doing, and knows you appreciate them as wrestlers, not as over-written semi-TV stars. You’re in it, chanting and banging on barriers from the opening bell. There’s no comparison between you and the freeloaders at the Impact Zone and the Let’s go Cena/Cena Sux clods at the WWE shows. I’d even argue that you were the spark that ignited C.M. Punk to the top of the Raw card.

In your way, you’re the best fans in professional wrestling.

Now, though, your passion might kill Ring of Honor.

See, here’s the thing: While your passion may drive you to travel hundreds of miles to Ring of Honor shows, drape yourself in ROH gear, and buy their DVDs and order their iPPVs there are simply not enough of you doing it to make the company profitable. If there were, Sinclair Broadcasting would not have had to buy the company from Cary Silkin.

Ring of Honor has to attract new fans to survive and grow. Sinclair isn’t Turner Broadcasting and they won’t put money into a losing wrestling company for long. Ring of Honor has to change and become more accessible to new fans.

ROH officials know that, but they’re worried – about Ring of Honor fans. See, they hear you. They know you’re not happy. They know you see Gabe Sapolsky as the good old days, and it doesn’t help that your all-time ROH favorites Punk and Danielson are getting over in the world of corporate wrestling. They are scared to death that you will turn on them in the crucial moments while they reach out to new ROH fans.

So, look guys. You can’t expect ROH to survive if you keep insisting on:

•Four hour wrestling shows that wear out everybody involved. That’s too damn long for, well, damn near any kind of entertainment – movies, NFL games, concerts, daytime coffee klatch talk shows - particularly when you insist on:

•Pro wrestlers going balls out from the opening match to the main event three-and-a-half long hours later. Every form of entertainment needs pacing, and that includes slow times in the matches and even slow matches. The audience needs time to regain their energy for the important parts of the show, You can’t have a four hour climax. Your palm will go numb banging on the barricade.

Ring of Honor is also going to have identify and promote someone with the charisma to sell tickets to these new fans, and that person may not meet your high standard for works. Successful promotions have made fortunes taking guys like that and surrounding them with good workers to create good matches. You guys need to shut up if and when ROH can pull that off and not turn the guy into ROH Cena.

Then there’s the Briscoe Brothers. You guys love Them Boys from Sandy Fork, Delaware (and I understand why since they have more personality than any one else on the roster), but there’s a good chance the chicken farmers are going to have to go if they continue to insist on giving and taking brutal shots to the head with steel chairs. Wrestling promoters like Jim Cornette and Gabe Sapolsky might look the other way or rationalize around “We told them not to do it” if they think there is a buck in it, but Sinclair Broadcasting has heard of class action lawsuits and won’t go for their crap for much longer.

The good news is, if you stop your selfishness and take ownership in your favorite promotion’s natural growth, you’ll end up watching a better wrestling promotion, and you’ll be providing opportunity for the ring of Honor wrestlers who work so hard and so well to get more compensation for their sacrifice than just your adulation. More fans means more for you, too…

Unless you want to end up more of the same “pulling back the curtain” and “male soap opera” that brought you Dixie Carter and John Laurinaitis.

Your friend,

Bruce Mitchell

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“Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind.” ~ Dr. Suess


Nice Guys Finish Last

Thank you,and have a nice day !

Gee, that's too bad. There's a slight difference between ROH and WWE (besides the obvious): they don't do shows every night. Or even every weekend. They do enough shows that they can do their 1-hour weekly program. When they go out on a tour, they'll hit Detroit, Chicago and maybe Minneapolis for a Friday/Saturday/Sunday sequence. And they were doing that pace under Cary prior to involvement with HDTV.

Are chairs and tables a problem? I don't go to watch chairs and tables. I belong to the Bill Watts school that says jumping from the top ropes are illegal. (Which only means, you don't do it in front of the ref.)

Planchas too are a problem: everyone does it, everyone sells it in a "no-sell" kind of way. What's special about that?!?

In my world, a lot of this traces back to when people decided NOT to sell the DDT anymore. Face it: Jake the Snake's version was a sick-looking move, and its easy to imagine everyone getting one is concussed. But now they get up. And you got wimpy-looking variations also called DDTs. It basically cheapens the move. How about piledrivers? Guys used to be stretchered out for those.

You got to sell the moves, otherwise you cheapen the product. Otherwise you got tables and chairs, barbed wired, thumbtacks, broken glass, electified barbed wire, and explosions. And I got news for ya: I was bored all during that. No storytelling. No drama. Meaningless mayhem, and no-selling moves.

And so... because ROH is doing a compelling product, they really should go to doing entire segments of Randy Orton standing in the ring with a mic?!? Because chairs really do cause concussions? And they'll go after Sinclair in a lawsuit? Heh, just like they do the WWE, TNA/Panda Energy, WCW/Turner... See some big names there with deep pockets? Boy oh boy oh boy. Lots of lawsuits there (yeah, there are SOME.)

(Do people wonder why wrestlers aren't employees, but rather subcontractors? Ask your employee to do hurricaneradas as a normal part of his job duties, and watch what happens)

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

5-star post by Beebo. I agree with everything said, especially the DDT part. It seems like Mitchell's articles are either really good or pretty bad, this time he seems to have combined the 2. He started off good, then at the end I don't understand what point he's trying to make and I'm not sure he had one.

- no one is clamoring for 4 hour shows.
- suggests pushing a new charismatic star who can't work, but doesn't suggest anyone or give an example of anyone the fans shit on that was pushed as a top star.
- tells the readers to shut up if and when ROH can pull something off. that's weird.
- Briscoe Brothers. It's Dem Boys, not Them Boys, making his opinions on Dem Boys worthless.
- Is he saying ROH isn't huge because the Briscoes use chairs sometimes? Or that they're going to get sued or both?



It seems like his point is IF ROH pushes some charismatic guy that can't work (and they haven't), the fans will shit on it - so the fans suck, even though this mystery guy doesn't exist. Also if ROH fans stopped being so selfish, the wrestlers would be compensated better.

I have no idea what this means:

"The good news is, if you stop your selfishness and take ownership in your favorite promotion’s natural growth, you’ll end up watching a better wrestling promotion, and you’ll be providing opportunity for the ring of Honor wrestlers who work so hard and so well to get more compensation for their sacrifice than just your adulation."

To me ROH always has been, always will be a great indy fed who got on tv a few times. I don't think they'll ever have a ton more fans, but ROH will always be there. They just are what they are. One thing I definitely can say is the smarky fans really do suck. The last show I went to, I paid for 4th row seats and after the first match I got up and stood by the concession stand or walked around the entire time just because of the annoying fans.

It just seems like Mitchell went to an ROH, got picked on and is taking out his frustration.

One thing I can think of that will help, is these indy guys need to start thinking of better names for themselves. It's your entire identity, so it better be good. My new rule is no more 2 first name, ring names. I know everyone loves Shawn Michaels and if he inspires people that's great, but they need names that don't make them sound like Indy geeks. Vampiro got over in multiple countries without being seen just because of his name. Kimbo Slice was a mega-star, with 0 talent who was super over, just because he has a cool name. None of these names scream star to me no matter how good they are.

Christopher Daniels
Donovan Morgan
Doug Williams
Joey Matthews
Joey Ryan
Michael Shane
Eddie Edwards
Davey Richards
Jimmy Jacobs
Adam Cole
Erick Stevens

a few are real names and work fine: Jerry Lynn, Shelton Benjamin

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SteenForChamp @SteenForChamp
I wonder which friend of @TheJimCornette's will get a payday while @ColtCabana won't be at the 10th Anniversary Show? #RingOfLoyality

I don't know enough about ROH to have a comment here. Shoot?

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It seems like it.

A lot of the ROH guys are pissed Cabana isn't invited to the anniversary show.

Although maybe it'll end up being part of the CHIKARA Invasion angle.

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shoot worked-shoot

there's something going on with Cabana it seems. I saw this a few weeks and didn't think much of it. Was just hoping he had to quit a shoot because he was going back the e, but who knows I'm completely making that up.

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Kayfabe Commentaries sent this in.

COLT CABANA HAS NOTHING FOR "YOUSHOOT"

The recently announced "YouShoot: Colt Cabana" has been cancelled today by producers Kayfabe Commentaries and Colt Cabana. The show was announced this week and the formal submission process began for the popular, uncensored shoot-style interview show, which is conducted entirely by fans. Cabana and KC president Sean Oliver both offered statements today.

"I'm sorry to inform everyone that I'm unable to partake in Kayfabe Commentaies 'YouShoot' series," Cabana said. "I do strongly urge everyone to continue to support the great products and material that Kayfabe Commentaries puts out for the wonderful fans or our business."

Sean Oliver posted a statement to fans tonight on the Kayfabe Commentaries website. "The passion with which you have involved yourselves in the YouShoot series has been the singular, most crucial component in the series' success," Oliver wrote. "It is precisely this passion that deposited literally hundreds of questions and videos in our inbox and social networks for this most recent YouShoot. And it is this passion we so greatly value and respect. That makes it wrenching for us to essentially toss all of that in the garbage can."

Oliver went on to say that he tried to preserve the commitment from Cabana, but to no avail as the performer was firm in his change of heart. "The edginess of YouShoot is not for everyone, and we understand this when we sign guests. Alas, I could not salvage this show, and by proxy, the expectations and work of the wrestling fans we so greatly value. For that we apologize. As always (KC) will learn from each and every experience and will be more judicious with our guest selection."

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ROH put up a free preview of their tv show today. Haven't seen this one yet so can't comment. Almost always a great show, but sometimes a little too WGTT heavy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 1diZ11xxik

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