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Hello, and welcome to the 30th edition of the pROHfile! Though it can sometimes be a bit frustrating to write a mostly-regular column about a distant, albeit great, third-place American promotion which a lot of the wrestling audience doesn't follow, I'm very thankful for the chance to write about my favorite part of my favorite pastime on a regular basis, I'm very thankful to Dave, Buck, and Mike for giving me this platform to share my thoughts, and I'm very, VERY thankful to all of you who have been reading my column, whether you were there from the beginning or have just come on recently. I really hope you enjoy what I have to say and I also really, really hope that I've made ROH sound interesting enough that some of you have even decided to check out ROH after reading my column and got hooked on it as well. The guys always say on their Elite hotlines that without you there would be no them, but for me personally, without ROH I probably would not even be following the business right now, so hopefully we have a long time yet of ROH to enjoy and give me something to write about!
So with that out of the way, let me move on to my main topic of the day, which is one of my favorite topics and, I gather, a favorite topic of many others, and that's titles. Specifically, I'd like to talk about whether there are too many titles going around in ROH right now. ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky has often said that he doesn't believe in secondary titles, as he feels they come off as consolation prizes when everybody's main focus ought to be winning the World Title. That's why it took him two years to do a secondary title, and even then the Pure Title had an entire set of rules unique to Pure Title matches. He really tried to set the Pure Title apart as something other than just a straight secondary title, and in many ways established the Pure Title as being equal in stature to the ROH World Title. He even put the title on former ROH World Champion Samoa Joe for several months in 2005, and then when Nigel McGuinness won the title, he went on to defeat most of the same wrestlers that Bryan Danielson was beating during his reign as ROH World Champion, and often had an easier time doing so than Danielson did.
However, even though the Pure Title did main event one or two shows, the main focus was obviously still on the ROH World Title and the Pure Title ended up becoming a secondary title after all, albeit one with unique rules that weren't dependent upon a weight limit. In the end, the Pure Title was unified with the ROH World Title and retired, and we were back to just the ROH World Title and ROH World Tag Team Champions. However, it wasn't long before the Pure Title was replaced by Roderick Strong's FIP Title. Without any major rule differences specifically for FIP Title matches, the FIP Title became even more of a secondary title than the Pure Title was, even though it technically represented an entirely separate promotion.
Now though, two years after the retirement of the Pure Title, we have not only the ROH World Title, ROH World Tag Team Title, and FIP Title, but several other titles have begun popping up in ROH. Bryan Danielson is the GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion and has already defended that title in ROH. The NWA World Title spent several months being defended in ROH and even changed hands twice on ROH shows. The GHC Heavyweight Title has been defended twice in ROH. Now even the FIP Tag Team Title, currently held by the YRR, is getting increasing visibility in ROH. Just looking at the card for Glory By Honor VII from a few weeks ago, the ROH World Champion, ROH World Tag Team Champions, GHC Heavyweight Champion, GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion, FIP Champion, FIP Tag Team Champions, and NWA World Champion all appeared on the show. That's a lot of titles for a company booked by a guy who doesn't like “other†singles titles.
In fact, it's reminiscent of the WWF in 2001 after the WCW buyout. During the InVasion, you had ten separate titles floating around between the WWF and WCW. It got to the point where no more than one or two matches, if any, on each PPV featured some champion or another, and having so many titles devalued all of them. While I think Gabe treats his titles with a lot more respect than most American bookers these days, I do think it's time to trim the championship roll call just a bit. The NWA Title is already gone and Kensuke Sasaki probably isn't bringing the GHC Title back anytime soon, but you still have another eight titles (counting likely future appearaces by SHIMMER Champion MsChif) you have to figure out what to do with.
One of the problems Gabe faces when trying to juggle so many titles is the sheer amount of cross-promotion ROH does. There's a lot of crossover between ROH, FIP, and SHIMMER, as even though they're all technically separate companies, FIP and SHIMMER benefit greatly from the exposure they get through ROH, while ROH benefits since they sell FIP and SHIMMER DVDs on their website. But they also have strong talent-sharing relationships with both Pro Wrestling NOAH and Dragon Gate as well, and titles from both Japanese promotions have also appeared in ROH, including Bryan Danielson as the current GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion. ROH is currently in a position where they have a lot of backs they're trying to scratch, and even though I'm sure it's great that ROH can count on so much outside support, far more than either WWE or TNA has, it's understandable how it could get a little overwhelming trying to return the favors.
The good news is that every title doesn't need to be featured on every ROH show. Even though I was sitting at Glory By Honor VII thinking “Geez, it seems like everybody's coming out with a belt tonightâ€, that show was obviously meant to be a special supercard showcare, and I don't think we're going to be seeing three title matches in the first half of many ROH shows in the near future. I don't know how long Bryan Danielson is going to be the GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion, but I would think ROH would want to milk that for everything it's worth for as long as they have it. Even though the SHIMMER Title is recognized by ROH, it doesn't get defended very often, and in fact we often see the SHIMMER Champion either defending the title on the preshow or accompanying some faction or another to the ring rather than being a star in her own right.
As for the FIP Titles, in general I feel like having the FIP Title and especially the FIP Tag Team Title featured on ROH shows would be like WWE having the FCW Title defended on Smackdown. I don't mean that to necessarily be insulting to FIP as such, but FIP is generally regarded as something of ROH's informal developmental territory, as a lot of talents and matches are given test runs in Florida before being brought up to ROH. I do see the potential of doing more with the FIP connection, and think that if they really want to do something interesting, maybe if they need something to do with a few directionless talents early next year, they ought to to some kind of ROH vs FIP rivalry. It doesn't have to be anything on the scale of the ROH-CZW war, but maybe more of a friendly rivalry. One of the problems I've seen with the promotion of FIP on ROH DVDs is that most of the promotion has centered around what ROH guys are doing there, and not as much trying to garner interest in the FIP talents who have had little or no exposure to the ROH audience.
For example, it's all well and good that Bryan Danielson and Colt Cabana had several excellent matches in FIP, but ROH fans have already seen them wrestle three or four times in ROH, so why would they want to spend money to see them do it some more in, without being disrespectful, a small-time indy promotion in Florida? I think it would be a great idea if they brought in some of the top FIP guys for a short run against the ROH crew, gave them a good showing, sort of dangling the carrot, and then telling them that if they want to see more of these guys, to check out the FIP DVD section on ROHwrestling.com. Not only would this possibly help more some FIP DVDs, but it would also be a good way of testing which guys might work in front of the ROH audience down the line if they were to be brought in on a more regular basis. I know that we do get occasional appearances by FIP guys like Jerrelle Clark or the YRR, but I think clearly designating them as FIP talents would help get the FIP brand over more and maybe educate the ROH audience on what exactly FIP is all about outside of the occasional FIP Title defense on ROH shows.
But getting back to ROH's title situation, I would say that for now, I would say that they should definitely feature the SHIMMER Title more often, especially given the recent popularity of WWE's and TNA's women's divisions, they should feature no more than one outside title defense per show. Now that they've expanded their schedule to the point where they always run two shows on each weekend they run, they can easily get away with having four non-ROH Titles being defended a month without overdoing it. I absolutely think it's a great thing that ROH has the relationships they do and can bring in the talent and titles that they do, but they have to be careful of not overdoing it too much and turning the title scene in ROH into the InVasion.
Thanks for reading, and as usual I hope you enjoyed the column. I'd like to do a feedback column in the near future, so if you've got anything relating to ROH that you'd like me to discuss, whether it be related to topics I cover in the pROHfile or not, please send it along to stupwinsider@yahoo.com and I'll get it into the next edition of my mailbag. Until then, thanks for reading, and I'll probably be back before the end of the week with yet another edition of the pROHfile, so see you then!
