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And I'm back with Part Two of this week's big triple shot of the pROHfile, and this time around, I'm dipping back into the mailbag as I've been promising for way too long. If you have anything you'd like to see me talk about in a future mailbag (which I'd love to do more of), feel free to send your stuff to stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
Okay, on to the letters, beginning with my old pal A. Russo:
What's good? I went to that show in Philly and I agree about being spoiled by ROH. This show was not as good as their last visit at the Armory, which was awesome, but I feel that I got my money's worth. I suppose that is the negative aspect of setting high standards. Going in, with that card in that building I expected something legendary.
This was in reference to something I wrote after attending Glory By Honor VII in the ECW Arena about how I felt like I was disappointed by the show I got, which appeared on paper as if it was going to be an all-time classic show, but ended up leaving feeling unfulfilled. It's funny that I answer this now, because as has been stated, one of Adam Pearce's main goals as the new booker of ROH is to tone everything down a little because the feeling has been that as good as the in-ring action is, sometimes it's just overkill and it all starts to blur together. Word is that the undercards on the Canadian shows were toned down big time, and the big stuff was saved for the final couple of matches. I think this is a great step to take to avoid sentiments like the one I expressed after attending Glory By Honor VII, because now not only will the good stuff really stand out to folks like me who make a point to see every ROH show, but it might also shut up some of the marks in the crowd who bust on Nigel and Danielson for pulling out a lot of the same stuff in all their matches when they're still putting on better matches than anything you'll see for 90% of the year in WWE or TNA.
Next up is Stephen Ground, who seeks my expert insight on a very important topic:
I've been enjoying your stuff on Survivor Series (my favorite PPV next to Royal Rumble) and ROH live events. The reason I'm writing you is because I have an ROH question.
I've asked Buck Woodward in the past where I should start with ROH DVD's. The reason I love wrestling is, well, good wrestling, and that is sorely lacking in the modern WWE. Buck started me with Joe vs. Kobashi, and since about the tag team title match on that card, I've been hooked. All I've gotten since then is the Dragon Gate Challenge II card, which was also amazing (if it wasn't obvious, I'm interested in ROH as well as Japan).
So, since you seem to me like the Ring of Honor expert at PWInsider, I thought I'd ask you where I should go from here? Anything would be great, but I'd prefer whole cards. While the "Collection" type DVD's I'm sure would be great, I love the feeling of that build to something better that seems to be present in most ROH stuff.
A similar question was asked by Sam Freeman:
Hi, My name is Sam Freeman and I have been an elite member since the first day of the sight. Just wanted to let you know that I have really enjoyed your hotlines on the site. I just listened to your hotline on the 14 reasons to watch ROH and you have convinced me to give it a try. I used to follow the promotion about 4 years and I have a few DVD,s such as the best of Samoa Joe, AJ Styles and, Chris Daniels. Can you reccomend a few good shows from the last year or so that could get me familiar with the product again? Thanks for the suggestions and keep up the good work.
The quandary to me when trying to recommend ROH shows is to balance my desire to just show them great wrestling with my desire to show them something up to date so they can kind of tune in better to current events if they decide they want to keep following the product. So to compromise, I'll select two of each. First of all to recommend just great wrestling, I would hands down recommend Glory By Honor V Night Two from New York City, as it is far and away not just the best ROH show of all time, but one of the best shows I've ever seen period, certainly the best I've ever attended. The main event of Bryan Danielson vs KENTA has to be seen to be believed, and there's a lot of other great stuff on the undercard including Nigel vs Marufuji and Aries/Strong vs the Kings of Wrestling. Another great show is Death Before Dishonor III from 2005, which featured CM Punk winning the ROH World Title on what was supposed to be his final night in the company, but ended with him delivering an amazing promo where he turned heel on all the fans who supported him on his way to the title, as well as a surprise at the end. Beyond that, a great match between Low Ki and Jay Lethal as well as a killer brawl between the Carnage Crew and Dunn & Marcos.
As for more up to date stuff, Manhattan Mayhem II was easily the best show of 2007, had a great ROH Title match between Bryan Danielson and Takeshi Morishima that was the starting point for the feud that will be wrapping up at Final Battle 2008, as well as a great 2 out of 3 falls tag title match between the Briscoes and Kevin Steen & El Generico. Also, Death Before Dishonor VI was a great top to bottom show featuring a great four way elimination match for the ROH World Title with Nigel McGuinness defending against Claudio Castagnoli, Bryan Danielson, and Tyler Black. Can't go wrong with that. Hope this helps any aspiring ROH fans!
Up next, Joe Guenther addresses a major issue ROH faces when trying to attract new fans:
I wish Ring of Honor had a regular tv show. I watch WWE (good,bad,and awful) because it's FREE. Until ROH gets tv I'll stick with TNA and WWE. I do get WWE 24/7 so I can watch old programs and recent ppvs inexpensively ($7.00 a month) if I so desire. Sorry for the rant but I felt you needed to understand why people don't embrace ROH.
I hear you loud and clear, and if ROH had a TV deal, it would be easier for people like those that asked the previous question to pick up on what's going on and start to follow the product. ROH knows that TV is the next step they need to take to continue to build their company, but it's been a tough road to hoe for them so far. They're at least being smart enough not to just grab the first deal that comes along, or worse, pay for their TV deal like TNA did. At this point, ROH would be wise to heed the lessons of ECW and not jump at any chance for the sake of having a TV deal, because with a company that has the budget of an ROH, the wrong deal could end up sinking them for good like happened with ECW. But if you're one of those people who doesn't want to spend a ton of money on DVDs and just wants to flip to the right channel at the right time, you're probably not going to be an ROH fan until they get a TV deal, so hopefully something comes along soon.
We'll close this one up with a letter from Ronnie Lafollette, who was able to step back and catch himself going down an ugly road a lot of internet fans go down:
Hey man, I just ready our article on pwinsider (the pROHfile) and have to say, I couldn't agree with you more. I have been a wrestling fan for 26 years now (I just turned 30 on WM weekend, so that's quite a bit). I have watched it all: WWE/F, WCW, NWA, WCCW, AWA, UWF, TNA....well, you get my point. My favorite promotion is ROH. My only criticizm is the same as yours: the fans. They (I guess "we") are the whiniest, most annoying fan base anywhere (not just including wrestling). I HATE getting to live event (next week's Cleveland show will be number 15) early and having to stand outside listening to everyone talk. Everyone knows it all, and everyone thinks they are right. And don't even get me started about the ROH message boards (which I an also a member, "ronnie2hotty)
In the early days of discovering the internet. I was just like them: critical, obnoxious, and thinking I knew it all. No match was ever good enough, no push was ever big enough, and all the "good workers" were getting burried by the "no talents". I became disgruntled and dissapointed after every show. I realized though, the problem wasn't the talent, wasn't the show, wasn't the promotion. It was me.
Once I stepped off of my high-horse and joined the "marks" (which is not a derogatory term in my vocabulary, just means you are a real wrestling fan, willing to enjoy yourself at an event and not criticize every headlock, resthold or high spot) in the crowd, I was able to enjoy wrestling for what it is: sport, entertainment, or both.
Thanks for the great article!
You're absolutely on the mark on this one, Ronnie, no pun intended. I sometimes feel like even if all the “right†workers got pushed and all the “talentless slugs†got dropped from the business forever, internet fans would find something to complain about because that's what they've been conditioned to do. I don't know about anybody who has only gotten on the wrestling internet sites in the last few years, but I more or less “grew up†on guys like Chris Hyatte and Scott Keith, who probably found more things to complain about and run down than any politician could ever come up with about their opponent, and these guys ended up setting the entire tone for the internet wrestling community from that point on. But if you really step back and listen to what they say, it's incredibly shortsighted.
Usually their magical solution to every problem facing their company is taking some wrestler with a lot of technical wrestling talent (Chris Benoit, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, whoever) and immediately push them to the World Title and that's that. Okay, great if that's where you want, but what, just put the title on them at the next show? No build? Of course not, because any build means to the internet fans that the guy's being buried because he's not getting the title immediately. But okay, let's say we put the title on Magical Wrestler X first chance we get. Then what? Presumably this person will have to lose the title at some point, but when that happens everyone will get all up in arms about how they're obviously being buried or something like that. It is so frustrating to listen to these total marks give their take on what needs to be done to salvage WWE and push TNA to the top of the wrestling business, because if any of these chumps ever wound up with creative control of either company, they'd be out of business in a week.
Also, there's other considerations to take into account that it doesn't seem like anybody does. For example, all the people who wonder why Mick Foley, Kevin Nash, Sting, Booker T, Kurt Angle, Kip James, and anyone else ever seen in WWE is pushed ahead of Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, and the rest, it's simply because they're trying to build a brand and you can't do that with people who, with all due respect, are nobodies to the national audience. As great of wrestlers as they may be and as wonderful a cult following as they have on the internet, they don't have the name value needed to move ahead with building a brand on a national level, and that’s the simple truth.
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So that’s another mailbag column…um, in the bag I guess. Thanks to everybody who sent in their feedback and if you have anything for me you’d like to see me address in a future mailbag column, feel free to send it along to stupwinsider@yahoo.com, and you can also find me on MySpace at www.myspace.com/stupwinsider. Thanks for reading, and take care everybody.
