THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF RING OF HONOR
The Murphy Rec Center in Philadelphia played host to the first event in Ring of Honor’s history on this date in 2002.
The U.S. wrestling landscape was still recovering from the loss of two national promotions, and a fledgling middle class underneath the industry leader, WWE.
One of many mysteries from the year prior was the disappearance of the WCW fan. Where did all those people go that once swelled the Monday night viewing audience into the eight-figure range? The audience that was nurtured on WTBS, Jim Crockett Promotions, and stuck by through multiple regime changes in the turbulent ‘90s?
However, Ring of Honor wasn’t attempting to crack that code and find that specific viewer. They had a narrower focus to find the VHS customer that was plopping down dollars for ECW fan cam footage and needed something to fill the vacuum created when the Philadelphia-based organization ceased operations.
The reaction of many promoters was to look backward rather than forward, it would be an easy quick-fix reliant on booking names from the past, present a product that mirrored the one they missed and run that formula until the wheels fell off. ROH was not looking to create a band-aid solution to sell tickets based on nostalgia and going back, they wanted to invest in a foundation that could be sustainable for the long haul.
Through the growing influence of the independent scene that was populating itself with performers that grew up as fans, and more importantly, had been exposed to a wider palette of pro wrestling – ROH would become a petri dish of emerging styles, seeing performers that you read about in newsletters and catered the product to a niche with hopes of being a growth stock that would pay dividends.
Ultimately, the long-term vision played out, with many of the performers in the early days of ROH going on to become the biggest stars in the business.
On Day 1, they made a statement by placing Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, and Bryan Danielson in the main event and signaling their mission statement.
It was a bold move, given that the company had booked Eddy Guerrero on the show for a match with Super Crazy. Most promoters would not think twice about putting the two names with national television exposure in the main event, including one coming off WWE television months earlier.
The first show was not perfect, and you don’t get to curate your own history. The first segment in the history of the promotion was also the most troubling. The Christopher Street Connection, a gay duo, entered the arena and was lambasted on commentary along with chants of the F-word by the audience before Da Hit Squad attacked the two. It was the most embarrassing, homophobic, and problematic segments that the company ever produced. Thankfully, this is the type of segment that would never fly today and would be called out by both performers and fans. There was no excuse for this and if you’ve never watched it, you’re better off for it.
Ring of Honor cultivated a fanbase on the notion that it would cultivate the best unsigned professional wrestlers in the business and be placed in scenarios to accentuate and build on those reputations.
The company grew with the emergence of its championship with its third champion, Samoa Joe taking it to new heights and becoming the unstoppable force while weaving together a body of work that contributed to the promotional ethos.
The promotion’s buzz was amplified by regular newsletter coverage that was placing a spotlight on the variety of emerging names and crediting Gabe Sapolsky as the visionary that put the pieces together.
In 2004, Cary Silkin came on board and essentially saved the company and would continue to do so on a yearly basis by funding it. Silkin has gone on record noting that ROH never made money as the company found itself clinging to a rapidly changing media market.
When the company launched, it was predicated on selling tapes and some tickets to offset the expenses, but it was the former that was vital. Shortly thereafter, DVDs became the dominant media with the hope of mitigating lag time between a show’s end and having that copy in the hands of a fan across the country, or the world.
No company is perfect, but the on-screen product of Ring of Honor from 2002-07 is a period of immense fandom from some of the most astute and critical fans that exist with compelling match-ups, scenarios, and prestige – a word not often associated with the independents during that era.
Many point to October 1, 2005, as arguably the peak moment of this era when Samoa Joe and Kenta Kobashi met at The New Yorker Hotel and became a tape trader’s dream as both men were coming off historic title runs in their respective home promotions. On the same night, TNA debuted on Spike TV, 800 fans in New York were at the edge of their seats, living and dying with every movement in that all-time classic.
As the product began to dip, the fork in the road for Ring of Honor occurred in October 2008 when it ceased ties with Sapolsky, the man as closely tied to Ring of Honor as anyone and a multiple-time ‘Booker of the Year’ award winner.
It was a seismic shift as the company felt the need to go in a different direction as Silkin sought to find a new direction that would widen the base and navigate the promotion toward profitability.
They went through different bookers, landed a deal on HD Net, were featured in “The Wrestler”, and continued to put out top-tier professional wrestling but were not able to break through to the next level.
In 2009, company stalwarts Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness bid farewell as both were bound for WWE, although circumstances would redirect McGuinness to TNA, instead.
In May of 2011, the company was bought by Sinclair Broadcasting, a deal cultivated through the assistance of Jim Cornette and Gary Juster with Silkin giving up ownership but remaining as the ambassador. In newly minted COO, Joe Koff, they had a wrestling supporter backing the new vision of the company with Koff having ties when he was involved with Battle of the Belts special in 1984.
From a popularity standpoint, ROH never reached greater heights than its 2017 to early 2019 run that was backed by the emerging stardom of Matt & Nick Jackson, Cody Rhodes, and a working agreement with New Japan Pro Wrestling that saw a regular rotation of the company’s biggest stars coming over.
Its annual Supercard of Honor event over WrestleMania was a great demonstration of this growth. In 2017, they drew 3,500 people in Lakeland, Florida on the backs of the dream match between The Young Bucks and The Hardys – just 24 hours before the latter would return at WrestleMania 33.
With a well-laid-out program between Rhodes and Kenny Omega, the company drew over 6,000 people to its Supercard of Honor event in New Orleans in 2018 with the biggest yet to come.
ROH booked Madison Square Garden for a joint show with NJPW and sold out the building for its G1 Supercard. After tickets went on sale, the exodus of talent included The Bucks, Rhodes, Hangman Page, Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian, and Scorpio Sky as AEW took form leaving many with questions regarding how ROH would compete without several of their major stars?
Over 16,000 packed MSG on April 6, 2019, but it was a mixed bag of a show with most criticism reserved for the ROH portion of the show and whether this direction would sustain. The company had a rocky year and once a new vision was settled on, the pandemic hit, and the company hit a standstill. It came crashing down last November with talent informed that contracts would not be renewed and finishing the year with its Final Battle card being tagged “End of an Era”.
Today, on its twentieth anniversary, the questions remain but with the knowledge of another Supercard of Honor event coming up in April and the news that touring would continue.
Where Ring of Honor will be on its 21st anniversary is anyone’s guess – Sinclair remains its sole owner and has syndicated networks to feed with ROH having years of content at its disposal.
If there is a legacy to assign ROH, it was being ahead of the curve on many facets with a vision of where wrestling was going. Often, the innovators don’t get to profit from their creations, instead, watching others with deeper resources reap the benefits.
While going through countless permutations, adjustments, near-death, highs and lows, from the Murphy Rec Center to Madison Square Garden, Sapolsky to Pearce to Cornette to Delirious, talent losses, working agreements, television deals, and iPPV disasters, ROH made it to twenty years and the “Era of Honor” continues.
POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live tonight at 10:15 p.m. ET with Wai Ting and I discussing AEW Dynamite from Bridgeport and taking your feedback. As always, live access to our post-shows is available for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**For those in the Toronto area, our own Braden Herrington of upNXT is hosting an AEW Revolution viewing party. The viewing party will take place at the Hard Luck Bar (772A Dundas Street West, 3rd floor). Admission is $15 at the door or $10 in advance. You can buy tickets at Event Brite.
POST DAILY NEWS SHOW
Benno of The British Wrestling Experience and GRAPPL joins Wai & I to chat about:
– AJ Styles’ new deal with WWE
– Friday Night SmackDown ratings
– AEW Rampage ratings
– Kazuyuki Fujita wins the GHC heavyweight title
– Ring of Honor’s twentieth anniversary today
Audio version for POST Wrestling Café members (custom RSS for subscribers)
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW Dynamite takes place from the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut tonight with the company’s first event in the state. They are coming off a poor number for last week’s show on TBS and if it’s a sustained pattern you could be concerned, but it’s hard to react strongly or negatively based on one week’s performance. Below are the matches announced:
*Malakai Black & Brody King vs. PAC & Penta El Zero Miedo
*TBS Championship: Jade Cargill (champion) vs. The Bunny
*Tag Team Battle Royal: The Young Bucks, Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish, FTR, Santana & Ortiz, The Butcher & The Blade, Trent Beretta & Chuck Taylor, The Gunn Club, Private Party, 2point0, and John Silver & Alex Reynolds
**Gabriel Kidd is stepping away from professional wrestling for the time being to deal with his public issues he has shared. Kidd, who has been open about past mental health struggles, did not work last week’s NJPW Strong taping and will not be at the Terminus event on Thursday evening. Kidd posted a message that after thirteen years dedicated to pro wrestling, he needs a rest and stated “I am not well”.
**2K has named Machine Gun Kelly as the executive soundtrack producer for the upcoming WWE 2K22 game that will be released next month. MGK will be available as a playable character in the game in a post-launch downloadable content pack. He will also curate the soundtrack for the game that will include songs from The Weeknd, KennyHoopla, Wu Tang Clan, Poppy, Motorhead, and his own music among the tracks.
**WWE 2K22 and Snickers will both be the presenting sponsors for both nights of WrestleMania on April 2 & 3. The WWE issued a release today noting it’s the first time that two brands have served as the presenting partners for WrestleMania. There will be mentions of both throughout the lead-up to the show on WWE programming as well as custom digital and social content on the WWE website and YouTube channel.
**Jonathan Plombon has a lengthy feature for SLAM Wrestling on the late Rick Wilson, who wrestled as The Renegade in WCW. Wilson was brought to the company as a knockoff version of the Ultimate Warrior and won the WCW television title in 1995 from Arn Anderson. He was pushed for a short period and then phased down as he was not a great wrestler and the knockoff nature of the character wasn’t going to have legs. He stayed with WCW until the end of 1998 when he was released and took his own life two months later on this date in 1999.
**GCW has added a match between Tony Deppen and Kevin Blackwood for this Friday’s Welcome to Heartbreak card in Los Angeles and streaming on FITE.
**MLW has added a match between Ikuro Kwon and Ken Broadway for this Saturday’s SuperFight card at the Grady Cole Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
**The Wrap has a story on Nielsen adding streaming data from connected television sets to its media planning tool. The effort is designed to give a better sense of viewership across multiple platforms. It comes after Neilsen has faced great criticism with the charge that the data service has undercounted out-of-home viewership.
**Trey Miguel will defend the X Division Championship against Jake Something at IMPACT’s Sacrifice event on Saturday, March 5th in Louisville, Kentucky, and streaming on IMPACT Plus and IMPACT Ultimate Insiders on YouTube.
**Sinclair Broadcasting, the parent company of Ring of Honor, has named Rob Weisbord as its new chief operating officer and president of its broadcast division. Weisboard is expected to head the operations for all of Sinclair’s television stations including the regional sports networks and its digital/streaming platforms.
**This past Tuesday’s GLEAT card is getting rave reviews, especially the match between T-Hawk and El Lindaman. The show also features Hayato Tamura taking on Takanari Ito with both matches part of the G-REX tournament with the two winners meeting in the main event of the card. The entire card is free on the GLEAT YouTube channel.
**Speedball Mike Bailey will face Nick Wayne at the West Coast Pro event on March 11th at The State Room in South San Francisco and streaming on IWTV. The promotion has announced that the show is sold-out.
**Janai Kai has been added to Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport event on Thursday, March 31st as part of The Collective.
**Pagano has been added to Gringo Loco’s The WRLD on Lucha event on Friday, April 1st, which is also part of The Collective.
**BetOnline has released the following odds for AEW Revolution on March 6th:
*Hangman Page (-250) vs. Adam Cole (+170)
*Dr. Britt Baker (+100) vs. Thunder Rosa (-140)
*CM Punk (-300) vs. MJF (+200)
ON THIS DATE
Hulk Hogan faces Randy Savage for an edition of The Main Event on NBC from the Joe Louis Arena in 1990. It was originally planned for Mike Tyson to serve as the special guest referee but changed after Tyson lost to Buster Douglas earlier that month at the Tokyo Dome and the company landed Douglas as the replacement:
