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The last show before the announcement came out was Good Times, Great Memories. The show, which was held in Chicago, was built around Colt Cabana's last match in ROH. ROH had already lost Samoa Joe to TNA a month earlier, and now Cabana was on his way out as well after signing a contract with WWE. Unlike a lot of the bigger names to have left ROH over the years, he didn't get a shot at the ROH World Title on his way out, instead spending most of his last few matches going out on his back. He had already put over Delirious, Doug Williams, and Brent Albright leading into this show, but would be given a win over fellow Chicago native Adam Pearce in his last match.
Little did the fans in attendance in Chicago know that Joe and Cabana were just the start, as three other ROH talents finished up that night as well. SHINGO, representing Dragon Gate, had an extended stay in the United States during which time he mainly worked for ROH and its sister promotion FIP, but his stay was coming to an end, and for his last match he was put in the ring with ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima. This was a unique match because, while both men were Japanese, they represented different promotions, as SHINGO worked for Dragon Gate and Takeshi Morishima represented Pro Wrestling NOAH. Even though Morishima had been built up as an unstoppable monster since winning the ROH Title, SHINGO was given a really good run at him, using his power to throw Morishima around in a way that we were not used to seeing. In the end though, he put over the champion on his way out the door.
Also making their last appearances that night were Christopher Daniels and his valet Allison Danger. Daniels went to a fifteen minute, time limit draw with Stevens, and when the fans chanted for five more minutes, Daniels told them they could go screw themselves. He then went on a diatribe about how he had come back to ROH for the sole purpose of winning the ROH World Title, and hadn't even gotten a chance to earn a title shot in a long time. He complained that when he and Matt Sydal held the ROH World Tag Team Title, people acted like the title belonged to Austin Aries & Roderick Strong or the Briscoes, and couldn't wait for them to lose the title. Disillusioned over spending much of the last two years in meaningless four corner survival and opening matches, Daniels felt he was still being punished for the decision he was forced to make three years earlier, but that he would make the same decision in an instant and would easily match his bank statement against Bryan Danielson's. He said he never should have come back, but was correcting that mistake by walking out that night. When Allison Danger tried to stop him, Daniels shoved her down and left her in the ring as he walked to the back.
It didn't take long after this show for word to leak out about the other departures besides Cabana, but if we thought that was the end to the surprises, we were badly mistaken, as about a week before ROH's May events in Hartford and New York, they announced that they had made a deal to start running taped PPVs on several systems. Visions of ECW immediately started flashing in the minds of the ROH faithful, and everybody worried that PPV would be the death knell of ROH as it had been for ECW before them. Fortunately, that was not an issue because unlike ECW, ROH would not be running live PPVs anytime in the near future, so that not only meant that they didn't have to pay the advance to the cable companies that ECW did, and not only did they have to arrange for a live feed, but they were even able to use most of the same footage they would use for the DVD release anyway. Rather than be used to draw money in and of themselves, the PPVs were only intended to spread the word about ROH and expand the company's fanbase, which ROH management felt had grown as much as it would given their previous business model.
It seemed like PPV would work out well for ROH, but making a move like this put them in the position of being competition, however insignificant, to WWE and TNA. While ROH was obviously not using any WWE talent, they were still using TNA contracted talent, most notably former ROH World Champions Austin Aries and Homicide. Within nanoseconds of the news coming out about the PPV deal, TNA immediately pulled Homicide and Aries from all ROH events. TNA also pulled Jim Cornette, who had made several appearances as the commissioner of ROH and had later segued back into a heel manager role.
ROH's roster was now down a lot of talent, so to hang on to the rest of their top talent, ROH began signing its major players to contracts for the first time. ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima, Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, the Briscoes, and several others signed ROH contracts which apparently gave them all small raises and also some form of medical coverage, something that isn't usually offered in wrestler contracts.
With contracted talent in place, it was time for ROH to start rebuilding its decimated main event scene. They already had Morishima in the top spot, and Nigel McGuinness was being groomed to take the title from Morishima down the line, but the Hartford show (aptly titled Reborn Again) featured the return of former ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson, who was making a comeback after taking several months off to heal a shoulder injury he had suffered while champion. He immediately jumped back into the middle of things, squashing both Shane Hagadorn and Adam Pearce in just a few minutes apiece and then leading the remaining members of the Resilience (Austin Aries' group) in a six man tag against the No Remorse Corps, and though they came up short against the NRC, Danielson was obviously the star of the match and didn't take the fall.
ROH has a very strong relationship with Pro Wrestling NOAH, and they made sure to emphasize that connection and the talent it brought at Reborn Again as not only did Morishima appear, but so did two of NOAH's other aces in Naomichi Marufuji and KENTA, who had both made several appearances in ROH throughout 2006 and early 2007. Marufuji defeated Matt Sydal, while KENTA scored a win over Delirious in two amazing matches. In the main event, Morishima teamed with BJ Whitmer to challenge ROH World Tag Team Champion the Briscoes, and the Briscoes cemented their place in ROH by retaining the title over the dominant ROH World Champion and his partner.
As good a start as Reborn Again was in the new era of ROH, the main focus of the weekend was obviously on the PPV taping. The show was titled Respect Is Earned, and indeed the roster of ROH went out of their way to earn the respect of anyone watching, either live or later on PPV. Though not every match on the show would be on the PPV, this was top to bottom one of the strongest cards from a workrate perspective in the history of ROH.
Takeshi Morishima continued to be portrayed as an unstoppable monster, opening the show by squashing BJ Whitmer in about 45 seconds, and then going on to team with Bryan Danielson to defeat Nigel McGuinness and KENTA in the tag team main event of the show. Even though Danielson wanted a shot at the ROH title as much as Nigel and KENTA did, he worked well with Morishima and ended up scoring the win for his team by making KENTA tap out to Cattle Mutilation.
The main eventers had an impressive showing, but as much as Respect Is Earned was designed to showcase the abilities of ROH's performers, it was also the starting point to build up a new crop of talent that would fill the spots opened up by the departed talent. One of the people who would be given a shot at the top was Claudio Castagnoli. Claudio had signed a WWE contract at the end of 2006 and was expected to leave ROH after Final Battle 2006, but things didn't work out with WWE and he ended up staying on in ROH after all. Unfortunately for Claudio, his successful team with Chris Hero had already been broken up, and Claudio was left floating aimlessly for most of the first half of 2007. This changed at Respect Is Earned, as he teamed up with Matt Sydal to challenge the Briscoes for the ROH World Tag Team Title. The match was praised by a lot of people as the best match on the show, and Claudio rode the momentum of that match into a strong singles push which saw him win the Race To The Top Tournament and go on to have two very close matches with Takeshi Morishima for the ROH Title, putting him over as a guy who can hang in the main event.
Also breaking through around this time were Kevin Steen & El Generico, who had a very strong showing against the Briscoes a few months earlier in Philadelphia. The two teams had a close match that instantly legitimized Steen & Generico as a force and earned them regular bookings almost on the spot. After the Briscoes regained the ROH World Tag Team Title, Steen & Generico were brought in and, after a couple of sadistic attacks by Steen & Generico on an injured Mark Briscoe, it was a no brainer putting the two teams together for an extended series. Steen & Generico defeated Jasaon Blade & Eddie Edwards at Reborn Again and then came in to Respect Is Earned and won a four way tag team scramble. Later in the evening after the Briscoes defeated Claudio and Sydal, Steen & Generico came out on the stage and confronted the Briscoes, demanding a title shot. The Briscoes and Steen/Generico had a brutal series of matches over the next few months, culminating in the first ladder match in ROH history which was so brutal that ROH decided to never have another ladder match again. Even in defeat, Steen & Generico got over huge as a result of that feud and remain as one of ROH's top acts today.
Over the next several months, things would continue to change in ROH. More talent departed as Matt Sydal, who had not signed an ROH contract, had remained a free agent looking for the best deal, and ended up signing a WWE deal and left in mid-summer. Also departing was Jimmy Rave, a longtime ROH upper-midcarder/lower main eventer. Rave was unhappy with his position in the company and ended up walking out in July. Fortunately, Austin Aries got out of his TNA contract and returned to ROH after spending just a couple of months on the sidelines, which was a huge help to a company that was really hurting for credible main event talent. Also, Jimmy Jacobs returned from several months on the sidelines due to knee surgery, and soon created the Age Of The Fall, a new faction which soon became one of the focal points of ROH storylines. Joining Jacobs was the returning Necro Butcher and the debuting Tyler Black, who has gone on to have amazing matches with several of the top names in ROH and is pegged by many as a superstar in the making.
Things got rough for a while, and even though they've still got work to do, ROH has come a long way in the last year and has put together an impressive roster that has done a great job of stepping up and filling the void left by the main event talent that had left. They have also continued to grow and build other top talent such as Erick Stevens and Brent Albright. Though they were in a tough spot, ROH has again defied the predictions of their demise and come out as strong as ever.
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