PWTorch.com - RADICAN: What is Ring of Honor? Can it be defined in 2014? Should they be working their fans via social media? Are they connecting with casual TV viewers? + Random Thoughts on WWE, GFW

RADICAN'S TAKE
RADICAN: What is Ring of Honor? Can it be defined in 2014? Should they be working their fans via social media? Are they connecting with casual TV viewers? + Random Thoughts on WWE, GFW

Oct 9, 2014 - 10:21:59 AM

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By Sean Radican, PWTorch columnist

What is Ring of Honor? It's something that's hard to define in 2014. They have syndicated TV, have found a reliable way to use Ustream to broadcast iPPVs through their own website, and had a successful debut on cable PPV in June. The company is set to return to cable PPV in December with "Final Battle 2014."

Many people in ROH would tell you they're a TV company first, but shouldn't their TV be used to push other revenue streams? The company barley mentioned their last iPPV "All-Star Extravaganza VI" on TV. There was little indication of a feud brewing between ROH World Champion Michael Elgin and challenger Jay Briscoe for the upcoming iPPV in the weeks of TV leading up to the iPPV.

Tension behind the scenes led to Elgin dropping the title to Briscoe on the iPPV, but fans watching the product on TV had no idea the title has switched and Elgin continued to defend the title successfully on TV for several weeks until it was briefly mentioned one week that he had lost it to Jay Briscoe.

ROH fell victim to circumstances in a case of what was essentially presenting stale TV because everything airing in September had been taped in August, but the issues are deeper than that.

ROH is a TV company with capable producers on hand. Couldn't the company have had announcer Kevin Kelly film a segment immediately after "All-Star Extravaganza VI" to air on TV in the coming week or two to alert fans of the title switch?

The company seems to have an odd fascination with catering to hardcore fans, as there was much more done to hype their last iPPV on Twitter than there was on TV.

Then there is ROH booker Delirious's fascination with working angles revolving around roster drama on Twitter. Silas Young, Matt Taven, Tommaso Ciampa, and now Michael Elgin have all been used in angles pushed through Twitter.

The Twitter angles essentially do nothing positive for ROH. They certainly don't grab new fans, which is something the company should be focusing on the most.

The angles barley even register among their hardcore fans after a day or two when people simply move on to the next thing.

ROH should be doing a better job of syncing their TV product with their storylines and iPPVs. No casual fan is going to care that Matt Taven opted not to resign with the company only to show up as a surprise as a member of The Kingdom or Michael Elgin got stuck in Canada because of a clerical error and now he's mad at management.

ROH even tried to work the severity of Silas Young's knee injury when they claimed he broke his leg when Young originally thought he had tweaked his knee, but now he is set to have surgery for a torn ACL and is going to be out for 6 months. In this case the plan was for Young to make a surprise return, but the severity of the injury turned it into a shoot. Fans should be able to trust the information ROH gives them on Twitter, but the company had damaged that trust by constantly trying to work their hardcore fan base.

So what is ROH? They say they are a TV company, but the problem is they do very little to connect with the casual viewer watching at home that doesn't care about roster drama and just wants a good alternative wrestling product. As for the hardcore fans, they just want good wrestling and don't care about worked shoot drama either. That's something Delirious needs to consider going forward, but management needs to step in as well so there's not a great split catering to hardcore and casual fans and instead deliver a united presentation of the product to all fans.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I'm down on how the Ambrose-Rollins feud has evolved in recent months with several cartoonish elements mixed in like the Double Dare inspired green goo spraying out of the MITB briefcase when Ambrose left it in the ring for Rollins and then the hot dog stand coming into play at the end of Raw last Monday. Stuff like that doesn't make money and with John Cena thrown in the mix, it makes me wonder if we're even going to get a true resolution to the Ambrose-Rollins feud. I see Cena winning the right to face Rollins in the HIAC match at the HIAC PPV... Raw has been awful since SummerSlam. I feel like I've watched some iteration of the same match and same feud play out over and over and the undercard is dreadful these days. Some might point to the losses of Reigns, Bryan, and Punk, but I blame creative. Outside of The Rock making a surprise appearance this week, there's been nothing exciting to make viewers want to continue to tune in each week. Where's the WWE Champion by the way?... With Global Force Wrestling set to air NJPW's "Wrestle Kingdom" in January under the GFW banner, it seems like an exciting proposition on the surface. NJPW puts on an incredible product and the prospect of their biggest show of the year airing in the US with English commentary sounds great, but the question is how is it going to be promoted. The biggest barrier to entry for people that want to follow NJPW is the Japanese commentary. My question is with Jeff Jarrett's GFW having no presence on TV to promote the PPV, how are fans going to know this show is available? Hardcore fans of NJPW might even reject this show and instead try to find a way to watch the genuine presentation of the product unless a name line Jim Ross is in the announce booth. I don't even know what GFW is right now. Are they a wrestling a company? A content provider? A PPV marketing marching? Who knows. I will say that NJPW is great, but I'm skeptical about the success of a GFW branded NJPW PPV...

(Sean Radican has watched wrestling for 28 years and has attended hundreds of live wrestling events from WWE and WCW to ROH and many indy events. He has reviewed hundreds of independent wrestling DVDs and major WWE DVD releases on the PWTorch website and for the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter. He has interviewed many wrestlers over the years for his columns and podcasts including Bully Ray, Rikishi, Samoa Joe, Davey Richards, The Road Dogg, Austin Aries, Antonio Cesaro, Christopher Daniels, Seth Rollins, Zach Gowen, Rhino, and Kevin Steen. He has reported on Ring of Honor for Pro Wrestling Torch since its early years along with the DGUSA/EVOLVE brands since their launch in 2009. He shares his expertise and knowledge of the top indy promotions with his VIP exclusive VIP Audio Show, the Radican Wrestling Community, on a regular basis. Follow Sean on Twitter at Twitter.com/SeanRadican or email Sean at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. Visit and like the RWC fan page on Facebook at Facebook.com/SeanRadicanRWC.)