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The decision to put the ROH World Title on Jerry Lynn last weekend is a real head-scratcher. Lynn is a good in-ring worker, and makes a good veteran role-player on the roster, but his average-at-best charisma makes me seriously doubt he'll be a draw as champion.

ROH owner Carey Silkin is a fan of Lynn's and has wanted to make him the champion for a while, but I hope he is enough of a businessman to know not to stick with Lynn on top if he doesn't draw. If Lynn doesn't draw and Silkin sticks with him the way Jim Crockett Jr. stuck too long with Dusty Rhodes on top, ROH may not be in business this time next year.

The new champ will take on Brodie Lee in the next TV main event, so here is a look back at Lynn's brief ROH career. Lynn only became a ROH regular in mid-2008, but actually debuted for the company back in 2002 at the fourth ever show.

- The original ROH Title Tournament: In June of 2002, ROH brought in Lynn for a one-night engagement, at Road to the Title, to put over AJ Styles in the first round of the tournament to crown the first ever ROH champion. This was a good use of Lynn because his ECW experience meant the Philadelphia fans knew him, and his short push on WWF TV was still recent enough to give him some credibility.

Lynn's match with Styles was very good, but was overshadowed on the show by three better second round matches (Styles vs. Christopher Daniels, Amazing Red vs. Low Ki, and Bryan Danielson vs. Doug Williams). I posted a full review of this show earlier this week in the ROH Nostalgia Blog.

Besides his match at Road to the Title, Lynn was also involved in some backstage skits with Xavier and The Christopher Street Connection (CSC). The skit with the CSC was arguably one of the worst attempts at comedy in ROH history. Fortunately, it was never followed-up on because Lynn would not return to ROH for a year-and-a-half and, by the time he was back, the CSC were out of ROH.

- Brief return in 2004: Lynn returned to ROH in January 2004 at The Last Stand in Glen Burnie, Maryland. This was very much a B-show leading up to The Second Anniversary Show and the first-ever WrestleMania weekend Supershow (At Our Best), so bringing back Lynn was ROH's attempt to give The Last Stand a selling point.

This was toward the end of Samoa Joe's great feud with the Briscoe Brothers, who were being managed at the time by Jim Cornette (the blow off cage match between Joe and Jay Briscoe happened at At Our Best). As part of the angle, Joe got to pick a series of special tag team partners to challenge the Briscoes for the tag titles, and he chose Lynn for this show. The match was pretty good, but hurt by a poor finish. I felt that Lynn didn't measure up to the tag partners Joe had chosen for earlier matches in the feud, Bryan Danielson and A.J. Styles.

Lynn returned two shows later to wrestle Nigel McGuiness on the undercard of At Our Best. He got the win over McGuiness, who was a newcomer at this point and not yet getting much of a push. This suggests that the plan was to keep Lynn around and give him a singles push, but it never happened because At Our Best turned out to be the last show before TNA temporarily pulled its talent from ROH after the Rob Feinstein controversy.

No offense to Lynn, but TNA's decision ultimately benefited ROH because it opened up spots for guys like McGuiness, Austin Aries, and Alex Shelley to move up the card. These emerging acts helped launch ROH into one of its hottest periods soon afterwards. If Lynn had stayed around, a younger guy would not have gotten as much of a push, and ROH has always been at its most successful when it has been pushing up-and-coming new acts. I hope Carey Silkin and ROH booker Adam Pearce remember this when thinking about how long to keep Lynn on top as champion.

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