Looking at Five Things ROH Should Change in 2011

[Travicity]

As of this past weekend, Ring Of Honor has finished their 2010 season and, while they had their ups and downs, overall they had a terrific year that saw them come off a rebuilding year in 2009 that saw them have to adjust to a lot of major changes. They came on strong this year with probably four of the best events in the history of the company (both in terms of the in-ring wrestling and the build to the show) with their series of iPPVs, branched out into some new markets, booked two amazing, year long feuds in El Generico vs Kevin Steen and Briscoes vs Kings Of Wrestling, and were lucky enough to see two former main eventers in Christopher Daniels and Homicide return to the company to help lend some credibility to a main event scene that had become depleted following the departures of Tyler Black, Austin Aries, and Jerry Lynn. That only scratches the surface of what they did this year, and a lot of credit has to go to Adam Pearce and Delirious for putting it all together.

But for as good as the ROH product was this year, self-improvement is a continuous process and there are other changes that I think ROH might want to consider going into 2011.

The titles need to be defended more frequently.

This has been a major complaint of mine for the past couple of years, for a number of reasons. First is the fact that ROH was built on the concept of fighting champions, and Samoa Joe didn't get to 21 months by defending the title once every other month, he was defending it on most shows against a wide variety of challengers. Same with Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness, and that's something that the fans came to appreciate and made them get behind these guys, because they came off like the real deal in ways the champions in the other companies didn't. Secondly, while they may not consider it an issue for the broader scope of their business, doing so many non-title matches on house shows makes the people going to these shows feel like the company doesn't consider them important enough for a title defense and when people in a particular market start to feel like the company doesn't care to give them any important matches, attendance is going to start dropping in those markets.

I was okay with the non-title matches at first because it would usually be one title match and one non-title match for each title on a given weekend, but eventually it got ridiculous to the point where the titles were rarely being defended anymore. To illustrate this point, I'm currently in the middle of reviewing the shows ROH did back in July where they hit Louisville, Collinsville, and Chicago Ridge over the course of three days, and even though every champion was on all three shows, there was only one title defense the entire tour. I don't think there's any excuse for that, and I get the idea that having the champion defending the title on every show makes title defenses more special and worth going out of your way to see when they do happen, but I disagree with that because when you're in a business that is largely based on selling DVDs of your shows, you're basically setting up a model where one or two shows per quarter are going to have the good stuff on them and be worth buying, but you'll also end up with a bunch of throwaway shows that you've intentionally held back on to make the other shows stand out more.

Don't misunderstand what I'm about to say, but for as much as I like the Kings Of Wrestling and really do believe they're one of the best teams in the business right now, they've been champions since April and have only made eight title defenses in all that time. When the Briscoes were champions in 2007, they more than doubled that in the same amount of time, and the fact that they were defending the title constantly and beating everyone made them look strong, and even with the matches that the KOW have been having this year, sometimes you forget they even are the champions, especially when the title isn't even a focal point of their match on the biggest show of the year. That's a problem, because by holding back on the title defenses in an effort to make them more important, you're actually going in the opposite direction and making them less valuable because of underuse. That leads me to my next suggestion...

Don't bother with any more rankings systems.

I appreciate the idea behind them and that you want to make wins and losses seem important, but rankings systems only end up handcuffing you in the long run. For example, the Pick Six was a great idea because the theory behind it meant that only the most deserving people would end up in title contention, but for as fun as the idea was, you were in a situation where there were only six guys in the entire company who could challenge for the title at any given time. Because of that, you usually had at least three guys in the rankings that you knew had no hope of winning the title if they ever even got a shot, and the top two or three would be getting a bunch of title shots. Plus, because World Title defenses became so infrequent, the constant cycling of people in and out of the Pick Six meant that most people who got in would get back out without ever getting a title shot.

ROH has tried other rankings systems in the past, such as the #1 Contender's Trophy and the petition system, but both of those died quick deaths because they were difficult to keep interesting and...that's right, they only served to cost the booker freedom when they had stories they wanted to tell. It's simple enough to just say "this person has been undefeated for seven months, they deserve a title shot" or "this guy has spent the last seven months counting the lights, no way he's even allowed in the same building as the champion" without needing anything unnecessarily complex. Even though wrestling at least tries to present itself as a real sport, there's some stuff that just doesn't translate.

No more leaping enziguiris!

Maybe this is me nitpicking, but I've noticed a pronounced pattern throughout ROH history of wrestlers being reliant on certain moves to the point where they're all over every show. As Mike Epsenhart pointed out at last year's Final Battle, there were about a million superkicks in every match, and of course everyone remembers how people felt about Nigel McGuinness and his overuse of the lariat. 2010's Most Overused Move Of The Year award goes to the leaping enziguiri by a landslide. When you spend as much time as I do recapping ROH TV and reviewing ROH DVDs, you tend to pick up on certain patters, so this weekend I made a point of keeping a running tally of how many leaping enziguiris were performed, and when Final Battle ended I counted a grand total of 25 leaping enziguiris just over the course of those two shows. Roderick Strong, Eddie Edwards, and Davey Richards are by far the top offenders and were probably responsible for about 75% of that number. I understand it's a cool looking move and normally I'm not one for handcuffing the wrestlers, but it's just too much, and it makes the company and the wrestlers look one dimensional, especially when three of your top guys are the main ones doing it.

Draw more eyes to SHIMMER.

Now that ROH has recently put a new emphasis on women's wrestling, something that had been almost entirely done away with since late 2008, I think this move would be only natural. ROH used to heavily co-promote with both SHIMMER and FIP, and while the FIP relationship fell apart, Dave Prazak is still very much a part of ROH and there's no reason not for both sides to take advantage of the relationship. I don't know what kind of numbers the SHIMMER DVDs have been doing since women's wrestling got pushed to the back in ROH, but I have to believe they're not what they were a couple of years ago. Daizee Haze and Sara Del Rey are two of the girls most closely identified with SHIMMER and with both of them being major players in ROH, it makes sense to me that ROH would, for example, want to show us more of what Sara's doing when she's not hanging out at ringside during Kings Of Wrestling matches and let people see what an awesome wrestler she is. Bring in different SHIMMER talents, have the SHIMMER Title defended in ROH, and try to have at least one SHIMMER match on each ROH show. The more eyes get on them and see what these girls can do, the more likely you are to sell those SHIMMER DVDs and that's one more attraction you have on ROH shows instead of just doing Sara vs Daizee for the eight millionth time.

Find new ways to make use of their video library.

After nearly nine years, Ring Of Honor has put together a pretty substantial video library, and there's a lot of great stuff in there. Problem is that the way it stands now, what you can buy is pretty much limited to DVDs of more recent shows and rohvideos.com, where you can download and burn DVDs of older events. While that's all well and good for dedicated fans who want to own everything, that's an awful lot of back footage to try and wade through to figure out what you want. There's so much that for newer fans it can be really hard to get a handle on what's important to own and what isn't, and even if there's a particular show that has one killer match on it (say, Joe vs Kobashi) then they might not want to drop the money for the entire show just to see that one match.

What I think ROH needs to do is start mining their video library and pick out things to put together compilation discs, and while they've already started to do that by bundling bonus discs like Tyler Black's best matches and the entire history of the Joe vs Punk feud in with releases of new shows, it's a concept I think they can run with and really make some money on. For example, if fans heard how good the CZW feud was but weren't there to see it and don't want to buy six months' worth of DVDs to see everything, you can do a DVD set that just focuses on that feud. Same goes for the Summer Of Punk where he held the ROH Title hostage, the Danielson-McGuinness feud, and so on. It's a great way for the fans to catch up on the best storylines and matches in ROH's history while not having to sit through a million Dunn & Marcos vs Outcast Killaz and John Walters vs Xavier matches, while also finding a way to make money off of existing footage that you probably won't get the same return on in its current form.

Plus, they've also got all those Straight Shootin' shoot interviews they did that are just sitting on a hard drive and I have to think there's something they can do with those, too. I'm not going to kid you by saying that I think the Ken Patera or Jimmy Yang shoots are going to make them tons of money in sales or anything, but maybe they can put them together in packs, like take all three volumes of the Cornette/Heenan shoot and release them in a single unit, or do themed collections like an ECW collection that includes the Funk/Douglas, Raven/Sandman, and Francine shoots, and stuff like that. Maybe they can try it as a limited test run to see how the concept sell before deciding whether they want to commit resources to reviving the concept, but I think it beats letting them just sit there. Even if they don't re-release the entire shoot interview, maybe there's a way they can take footage from the interviews and use them for video packages or whatever in their current product. For example, if some new wrestler were on his way into the company and you've got a bunch of footage of other people talking about him, it might be stuff you can use for a hype package.

* * *

ROH went through a pretty rough adjustment period starting in late 2008 but are on the right track now, and now that they're building momentum, I want to see them continue to do things that will improve both the on-screen product and the business side of the company as well. Every little step in the right direction helps with a company like Ring Of Honor that doesn't have a bottomless money pit behind it, and even though I'm very positive about the product they're presenting at this time, it never hurts to look at other ways to improve.

Speaking of Ring Of Honor, Mike Johnson and myself will be back later today in the Elite section with a hotline discussing this past weekend's Final Battle 2010 event in New York City in great detail. Until then, thanks for reading and see you soon!

PWI

[Smartmark]

I agree with most things there, but the titles also needs to change hands more frequently. At least the TV Title, making some good feud on their TV show.

Banning moves? Nah! Don't turn up like WWE.

Thanx for posting Travis! Great read

[The Mac]

ill post my 5

1. get on a real tv station
2. get more fans
3. get name wrestlers not indy nobodies
4. run something other then a ippv for internet nerds
5. spend more money on the show

[Smartmark]

^^ All that with come, I can assure you.

WGTT signs after new year, and will make ROH's tag team division look even greater.
I hope as the article says that they use Shimmer Divas more often, and hell, why not defend the FH Title and the FIP Title now and then like they used to do?

@ Mac; ROH has many big name wrestlers. Just because they haven't wrestled for WWE doesn't mean they are nobodies.

[Travicity]

No the titles are fine that's what ROH is if the titles changed more frequently they'd mean shit you have other promotions for that. Indy Nobodies and they're big names lol what you want washed up WWE Stars lol?

[The Mac]

^^ All that with come, I can assure you.

WGTT signs after new year, and will make ROH's tag team division look even greater.
I hope as the article says that they use Shimmer Divas more often, and hell, why not defend the FH Title and the FIP Title now and then like they used to do?

@ Mac; ROH has many big name wrestlers. Just because they haven't wrestled for WWE doesn't mean they are nobodies.

yes....yes it does lol

[Swinny]

ROH, and other indys, are proving grounds, basically. To have only wrestlers who competed in the WWE would make absolutely no sense because then how in the hell would those wrestlers GET to the WWE, if they had nowhere to start off? Riddle me that. Unless you'd prefer bodybuilders who are thrown into the ring with no talent rather than actual wrestlers who hone their talent for years before going to the WWE, your argument makes absolutely no sense.

[The Mac]

my "arguement" was a joke

but u saying all wrestlers need to go through roh or similer indies doesnt make complete sense either soem guys r just ready to go fairly early in their career and dont need the indy seasoning

[Smartmark]

^^ I really don't care what Indy haters says. Cause I watch ROH and know for myself that I watch the greatest wrestling in the world

If Cm Punk, Samoa Joe, Austin Aries, Chris Hero, Matt Sydal, KENTA, Kenta, Claudio Castagnoli, Colt Cabana, Christopher Daniels, Homicide, AJ Styles, Motor City Machine Guns, The Young Bucks ++ are nobodies, then you are right. But I think I just made my point

[Travicity]

Uh McGuiness, Danielson, Low Ki, Briscoes, Steen/Generico...