By Sean Radican, PWTorch columnist

On Saturday, Ring of Honor announced that A.J. Styles is returning to the promotion to face Roderick Strong at their TV tapings on January 4 in Nashville, Tennessee. But, will Styles's return make a difference or impact?

One of the main problems ROH has faced in recent years is the inability to effectively connect with their fans. This has been an ongoing problem since Gabe Sapolsky was fired in 2008. After Sapolsky left ROH, Dave Lagana did an extremely effective job of getting people to talk about ROH during the HDNet era and into the Sinclair era. Mainly, Lagana connected with ROH fans on social media and produced exciting video packages that generated interest in the product. However, since Lagana left ROH, there has been a void in terms of a voice that ROH fans can connect with on a consistent basis to get people excited about the product.

Styles's weekend announcement moved the needle slightly on ticket sales for the Nashville event. On Saturday, 30 tickets could be purchased for the second row. As of Sunday night, only two remained. There were still 30 tickets available for third and fourth row seating. A more effective campaign blitz should have gotten all of those tickets sold by now. So, what’s the issue?

ROH is doing a poor job promoting the event locally. According to sources, there will be no effort made by Sinclair to advertise locally with TV ads and flyers leading into the event in Nashville. It’s hard to imagine the company filling packing the Tennessee Fairgrounds, which can hold 1,500-1,800 fans from what I’ve been told. With Chris Hero and Roddy Piper already announced for the event, you would think floor seating would be wiped out even before the TV taping.

It will be interesting to see how ROH draws with A.J. Styles back in the fold. They still have time to move tickets, but the more important question is whether ROH can use Styles to bring in more eyeballs to their television product, which is clearly the main focus of the company. But, without a voice for fans to connect to online and a lack of advertising on TV, it’s hard to imagine the company being able to drive a lot of new eyeballs to the product using Styles.

Also, it's one thing to draw in existing or lapsed ROH fans through social media. But, to make new fans who might not be aware of ROH's product, but watch pro wrestling on TV (either WWE or TNA), it's worth pursuing a localized marketing effort to make people aware that, "Hey, A.J. Styles might not be doing anything on TNA TV right now, but he's wrestling high-quality matches on our TV." Or, "If you don't know who A.J. Styles is, you're missing out. And here's why..."

If ROH and Sinclair are serious about growing ROH's business, they need to start generating some buzz both online and through regular wrestling fans. A big part of that battle is just getting the name of the company out there. I want to see if the company is serious about their business by investing resources into improving their P.R. department and getting the word out about the company going forward into 2014.

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