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Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:03 pm
by AlexROH
The YB usually do great interviews, but this one with Rolling Stone has been one of my favourites reads in a long time:

- http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/feat ... ng-w511667
I never got into the business wanting to main event a WrestleMania. I wanted to do cool things with my brother. I hate when most wrestlers say when you get into wrestling, your main goal should be to main event WrestleMania. No, it shouldn't be, because that's fake. No one does that. Only a certain amount of people do that. It's like winning the lottery. If you get into wrestling thinking that you might be able to do that, let me cut your dream off right away and tell you it's not happening.
Cody leaving the WWE and eventually joining the Bullet Club was a huge deal for that. Are there any other guys you're hoping will work with the Bullet Club?
Nick: Matt and I have been saying this a lot lately: We would love to work with CM Punk. I think it's just a matter of time for him to realize that he's missed so much. I don't think he realizes that the fans would just be so happy to see him back. To be able to work with him would help business even more, wherever that would be. It would be huge if we could get him over at Ring of Honor or New Japan and work something out. That would be one of my main goals, to get him back into wrestling.

Have you reached out to CM Punk about that?
Matt: I talk to him a lot. I bugged him for like, I don't know, a year or two? I was really aggressive and at one point I realized that I should probably let him make his own decisions. He knows that there's an offer there and he knows that I'm the first phone call that he should make if he decides to get back into the business. He's told me that, he says when or if or ever he does decide to possibly get back into it, I'll be the first guy he calls. It'll be interesting. Whether or not he plays on our team or an opposing team, it'd be fun. When we're talking about guys, another guy would be Bryan Danielson [WWE's Daniel Bryan]. I don't see him necessarily joining Bullet Club, but he'd be a fun guy to wrestle or to work with or whatever. Just to have him in the ring with us would be incredible.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 4:53 pm
by famicommander
Godspeed, Young Bucks.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 5:18 pm
by Mr. Mojo Risin
You gotta admire The Young Bucks for doing their thing. Great stuff. Thanks for posting it Alex.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 1:50 am
by AlexROH
It would be an error if ROH decides not to stream Night 1 and 2 of the SOTF live for ringside members. People really want to see these shows and keep asking them on social media every day. If they don't stream the show, when is SOTF going to be available as VOD? We still are waiting for Soaring Eagle Cup and Elite.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:09 pm
by Big Red Machine
famicommander wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 11:02 am ROH will run in California when they have enough TV coverage out there, just like NJPW will move north and east when they feel like they can put together some tours that will draw.
I can't imagine that there isn't some sizable market out (LA, SD, Bay Area) there that they don't have coverage in already.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:15 pm
by famicommander
As far as I know there is no ROH TV in LA, SD, Denver, SF Bay, Phoenix, etc.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:56 pm
by Big Red Machine
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm

This is a never-ending story BRM, you know, I know it ahahaha. You aren't going to change your mind but man, how in the hell can you say ROH is making the same mistakes that TNA did ? Makes no sense for me:

- You say Delirious hasn't replace the guys who left, but he has signed Chuck Taylor (and made Baretta a regular), Bully Ray, Cody, Flip Gordon, Jonathan Gresham, Shane Taylor, Josh Woods and has made Martinez and Coast 2 Coast relevant.
He's replaced them with bodies, yes. There are now other people taking up the spaces where their pictures used to be on the roster page. But he hasn't replaced them in terms of their spots on the card. No one has been brought in or elevated to replace the consistently high workrate and star power (or at least ROH-level star power) lost by the departures of Cole, O'Reilly, Fish, Roddy, and Elgin,(and that's leaving aside guys like Rush, ACH, and Dijak who should have been bigger stars when they left but were hobbled by Delirious' go-nowhere booking). Yes, he's pushed Cody hard, but that's just one guy, and he comes nowhere close to replacing the workrate of any of these guys. I don't think Dalton is that much more over now than he was a year ago, and has only on rare occasions in ROH shown how great he can be in the ring, and while Kenny King has definitely been pushed, the impetus for that was pretty clearly is appearance on The Bachelorette rather than his wrestling and promo ability because if the reason he was getting pushed was his wrestling and promo ability, he would have gotten this push years ago- and even with this push he doesn't feel quite like a main eventer yet.
Whenever Gabe lost a top talent, he had other guys on the rise to take their place. Delirious has not done that. There were definitely guys he could have tried to push into those spots- Taven, Scurll, Shelley, Gresham, Silas, Page- but he didn't. I understand keeping Sabin & Shelley together, but there was no reason to stick Scurll in Bullet Club where he will be at best a fourth banana, no reason to bury Gresham (and Dijak, and Rush) in this go-nowhere stable with MCMG, no reason to continue booking Page as Bullet Club's job-boy, and no reason to allow Silas to once again meander his way down into midcard irrelevance after getting the win in a big feud.
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm - They've been building Martinez well and slow. They have given him some big victories and matches with NJPW talent and top stars. You can dislike The Kingdom, but they are a well-booked heel stable that always get reaction. The only time Taven was "lost" was during O'Ryan's injury! Scurll hasn't done anything, yeah, he has only been TV champ for six months having awesome matches, he has joined Bullet Club and now he's IWGP Jr. Champ. Yeah, KUSHIDA is also a very bad worked and, if you didn't notice, he was IN EVERY SINGLE ROH SHOW when he was TV champ. Page is trios champ and has grown a lot this year too. And yeah, Cedric, Rush and Dijak left bc they hated Delirious, not because they wanted to sign with WWE, how stupid I am.
I highly disagree with a lot of your characterizations in this paragraph. Martinez has been built slowly, yes, but it's been so slow tha the barely even feels like he's going up. You say he's gotten some big victories, but the biggest name he's ever beaten is Ospreay. Aside from a random one-off against Ospreay and a world title match that no one thought he'd have snowball's chance of winning because it was one of Delirious' lazy "take a bunch of random dudes and stick them in a match where the winner gets a title shot later tonight" gimmicks.
Scurll might have been having great matches, but they were almost all against guys who either weren't on the roster or who everyone knew were on their way out the door. His two matches with Lio Rush were the only thing he did as champion that could even generously be called a program. That's very bad for six months of what is supposed to be a major title. As for joining Bullet Club, as I said above, is going to doom Scurll to never being a top guy because he's now stuck underneath Omega and Cody.
As for KUSHIDA, absolutely nothing of his success is anything Delirious deserves credit for, and, like Scurll before him, didn't have any real programs for the belt.
Page is one third of the trios champions? You mean those belts that he and the Young Bucks won from a comedy act, who won them from a team that had a grand total of zero programs for them, who won them when the inaugural champs- three dudes who dress like idiots, call people "Melvin" like it's an insult, and include Vinny Marseglia- had to vacate them due to injury? Those belts don't mean sh*t. I can literally count on one hand the number of times someone has had to win two or more matches in a row to earn a shot at those gigantic paperweights. Hell... when was the last time that, barring a tournament, ROH did an angle where someone simply earned a title shot by winning a few matches in a row? We've got tag champs and a TV champ giving out title shots like they're Halloween candy, one heel champion trying to dodge real challengers, and six-man titles that are defended against completely random trios with no rhyme or reason (including when none of the actual champions are around via the Freebird Rule just so we can have a title match on the card) and the one time when the champs got intentionally DQed to stop themselves from losing the titles- i.e. the one time we did something so that there were now guys that logically deserve a title shot- they never got one.
Page is a great wrestler, but he has been crippled by the way he has been booked. It's like whenever WWE has been beating a guy like a drum for years but decides that they want to push them into the midcard title picture so they give them this big title win and tell us that it's a major turning point in his career, then proceed to take the belt right off of him and treat like a jobber again but always push to us that he's a former champion and expect us to see him like one even though he's lost 90% of his matches since losing the title. That's what Delirious does with Adam Page. They even had him f*cking tap out clean to TV Champion Bobby Fish at GBH last year even though Page was getting a shot at Fish's title two weeks later, and the logical finish for that match would have been either Page beating Fish to set up for their title match or O'Reilly beating Cole to set up for Final Battle.
If you're looking for direct TNA analogues to things like this, I'd point to the attempts to elevate the likes of Chris Sabin and Gunner to main event status only to keep shoving them back down into the midcard, and the stop-and-start pushes if guys like Matt Morgan which totally destroyed the fans ability to take any attempt to push them seriously when TNA tried to go back to them. there is also the issue of not building anyone up to be ready to replace an AJ or Daniels or Joe when they decided to leave, resulting in TNA trying to make Eric Young a serious world champion after spending the vast majority of the previous decade as a comedy jobber.


You say the only time Taven was lost was while O'Ryan was injured. I'd actually be a little more generous to Delirious and give him everything through Taven's ROH World Title shot as not being lost but my response to that is that it still shouldn't happen. Part of a booker's job is adjusting for injuries. Just give them some wins and set them up for a tag title shot against the Bucks and you've got a fine main event either for an episode of TV or a DVD/VOD show. And when I say that I don't mean the half-assed bullsh*t Delirious did where he gave them three wins over jobber teams interspersed with pointless losses against every team they faced that was above jobber level. I mean have them beat Silas & BCB at SCOH, have them beat MCMG at Unauthorized, swap them with Silas & BCB at WOTW: Toronto so that BCB & Silas can do the job for Naito and give the Kingdom rather than The Briscoes the win in the three-way (which, since the Briscoes are the six-man tag champs, also builds up to them inevitably getting another shot at the six-man belts when O'Ryan returns), and if you actually want to put some real thought into it, change around the card in Chicago the night before their title shot so that they get a win instead of doing pointless singles jobs to Cabana and Bully- maybe have them beat two members of The Rebellion so that the stable that is about to be forced to break up is doing a job to guys about to get a title shot rather than going over the trio that is about to get a shot at the six-man tag titles on PPV later that month?

Whatever people's reasons for leaving were, Ciampa, Cedric, ACH, and Elgin have all cited Delirious as a major reason for leaving, and Dijak and Kyle have both been so eerily silent on the issue that's pretty clear they were just trying to avoid saying anything that would provoke ROH/SBG into trying to make things more difficult for them. I'm not saying that money wasn't a factor in many of these guys leaving, but to ignore the role Delirious has played in Ciampa or ACH leaving before their contracts were up, Elgin not coming back for the occasional show, is is being willfully ignorant. These are also far from the only guys Delirious has had problems with (Monster Mafia, Rasche Brown, Sullivan, Whitmer, and I think Aries as well). It's also a major mistake to ignore the factor that the lack of upward mobility shown to guys like ACH, Silas, Dijak, Rush, Sydal, and Dalton has played a factor in guys like Keith Lee choosing to go to a booker with a better track record of making stars, or guys like David Starr not being used because they refuse to sign contracts that essentially but their professional lives in Delirious' hands.
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm - "pushing old dudes who suck in the ring because of nostalgia and letting them dominate the show, losing the identity of the promotion" this makes 0 sense. Who is pushing old dudes? The only old dude was Bully, and he was trios champ bc O'Ryan got injured and he has always stayed in the midcard. My god, you are comparing this to TNA making RVD or Mick Foley champ? Has ROH created stables like Main Event Mafia, Fortune or Inmortal with Booker T, Nash, Flair, Hogan or Bischoff in it?
Yes, when I say bringing in old guys who can't work I am mostly referring to Bully, but there are other guys who are either advanced in age and are having bigger roles than they really should based on their talent level (Kazarian), or guys who are younger but were on WWE TV so long that they have that "WWE/TNA cast-off" feel that ROH really should be trying to avoid, and who can't carry the load they're being given in the ring (Cody).
The more important part of that, though, is the idea of losing the identity of the promotion. TNA started to truly go downhill when it stopped feeling like TNA. The six-sided ring and an actual focus on titles and divisions that weren't the world title- particularly the women and X-Division, but the tag division was important as well; there were the things that made TNA TNA. I'm not saying that TNA was well-booked (Mr. Russo saw to that, and those that came after him were no better), but up until about mid-2010, TNA at least felt like something different than WWE.
ROH used to as well. The focus used to be on in-ring action, quality storytelling, results mattering, and longer matches with an emphasis on clean finishes. All of that is now gone in favor of this generic bullsh*t booking where the results barely matter, there are dirty finishes everywhere but management doesn't do sh*t about it, Jay White goes undefeated for eight months and doens't get sh*t while guys with a grand total of zero wins are just coming in and getting titles shots, referees turn a bind eye to anything that should be a DQ becuase LOL it's funny sometimes, Delirious decided that rather than blow-off a feud that had been going for over a year and a half in a Fight Without Honor in a clean finish we needed to turn it into the story of Kevin Sullivan, Boo-Zar Moo-Can, the Golden Spike of the Thirteenth Pyramid of the ghost of Dusty Rhodes or whatever the f*ck and I'm supposed to believe that Punishment Martinez is now the reincarnation of The Purple Haze, Bull James- a guy cut from WWE developmental because he wasn't good enough- gets booked in ROH and totally sh*ts the bed in a match against Adam freakin' Cole and is rewarded by being brought back and put o national television, and guys get over for being funny rather than for having good matches, and we've got fans cheering a heel running in during a PPV main event ROH World Title match. That's not being ROH. That's just trying to be WWE/TNA, and not being very good at it.

And for the record, I had no problem with RVD as TNA World Heavyweight Champion. And if you had an issue with Fortune because Ric Flair was in it, then you missed the entire point of that stable.
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm - "hot-shotting title changes to try to get attention," Other no sense. Daniels won the belt with a big story and then Cody won it at BITW. TV Title --> Scurll, KUSHIDA and King all with good reigns and coronations. Tag Titles --> They only gave The Hardys the titles so fast bc of the problems with TNA and then signing with WWE before expected. Trios title --> only changed hands quick bc of O'Ryan's injury.
Hot-shot/pointless title changes include:
1. Cole to O'Reilly and then back to Cole.
If you only want to put the belt on guys willing to sign contracts then don't put the belt on Kyle if he hasn't already resigned, and certainly don't change the belt right back just to get it off him with the logic being that you're not hurting the title by doing so because you're doing it at the Tokyo Dome. It was a ten-minute match in the middle of the card, and the fact that they put the belt on Daniels so quickly after that contributed to the feeling of hot-shotting even more.

2. Bucks to Hardys and then back to Bucks.
You'll get all of the attention you need merely with the Hardys making their surprise early appearance at Manhattan Mayhem VI. There was no reason to put the belts on them. If you want there to be something for the Bucks to win back, put the stupid "Superkick Titles" that the Bucks were carrying around for months that never went anywhere on the line for the Hardys to win. Or even just have the Hardys be about to win but the Bucks shove the ref to get themselves DQed and have the Hardys lay the Bucks out after the match and take the Superkick Titles that feel they had won, use this DQ victory over the ROH World Tag Team Champions to add the Hardys to the match at the Anniversary Show for the ROH World Tag Titles where The Bucks pin Roppongi Vice so the Hardys are still viable challengers, then have the Hardys offer to return the Superkick Titles to The Bucks if The Bucks are willing to hang the real belts with them high above the ring for a Ladder Match at SCOH.

3. Roddy to Ishii to Fish
There was no reason for this to happen other than to have a title change in Japan and have a New Japan guy walk around with the belt for three months, during which he did nothing of any consequence with it.

In addition to titles, they have also hot-shotted angles that could have been turned into actual stories. The most glaring to me was Cole's departure from Bullet Club. Why tease it at the tapings in March but have everything be totally normal on all of the April shows, only to go back and basically change your mind about it and have them kick him out again on his last weekend in the company? Seems to me like it would be a much better story to have Cole get kicked out of Bullet Club at the March tapings just like they did, then have him spend April being a thorn in Bullet Club's side so that they decide to bring in Scurll- who just beat Cole clean at SCOH to take him out (have Scurll attack Cole after his match with Tanahashi at the PPV to set up their Street Fight at the tapings where Scurll takes Cole out. Scurll would drop the belt to KUSHIDA on the PPV, then KUSHIDA would defend against Sydal at the tapings). This would not only tell an actual story, but also let Cole go out as a babyface (because he's going to get cheered anyway), and avoids having KUSHIDA win the title from Scurll off of a f*cking distraction finish which involved Adam Cole suddenly gaining magical powers. This is supposed to be ROH, not TNA or WWE.
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm - " Yes, they draw a lot of people with Bullet Club" Is it bad that your DRAWS, people that you've build to do that, are the ones that bring people to your shows? I will say it again, Soaring Eagle Cup, 1000 people with no matches and only one Young Buck. You are talking like BC are the only thing over in the company. Cody was over before joinning the BC.
[/quote]
Except that part isn't true. None of Bullet Club drawing has anything to do with the booking. It's all stuff that The Bucks and Omega did on their own in New Japan. They were ahead of the curve and noted how people love goofy things nowadays and love nostalgia so they were goofy and turned Bullet Club into an Attitude Era nostalgia act but with flips and superkicks, and made "Superkick Party" a thing.
Cody had all of two matches in ROH before joining Bullet Club, and one of them no one cared about because it involved that Boo-Zar Moo-Can bullsh*t. He was over at the level you'd expect him to be at coming in for the first time. He explodes in popularity after joining Bullet Club, and would not be anywhere near as over as he currently is had he not joined.
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm - "You could say Silas, but I'm afraid that this will be just like every other push that Silas has gotten, where he just fades into the background afterwards and loses all of his momentum", Silas's current push has nothing similar with his only big push in 2014 when he had the feud with Steen.
And Delirious gave him a big win over Mark Briscoe at Final Battle 2013 and then did nothing with him for the next five months until the Steen feud started. And then there was last year where they gave him the win in the Honor Rumble and put him in a feud with Lethal and gave him a world title match with Cole that went thirty minutes... and the proceeded to do nothing with him for a few months until he started feuding with Fish.
AlexROH wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:00 pm I can understand that you don't like the current booking, but saying is THAT bad and comparing it to TNA is just too much. There's a big difference between don't liking something and hating about everything.
To be clear: I'm not comparing the booking to TNA. ROH right now is like a 4/10, but TNA has been about a 0/10 since about 2010, and wasn't too much better than that before then (like, since D'Amore got replaced with Russo) I'm comparing the general decision-making in the company to that of TNA. They are making the same kinds of mistakes that TNA made that let to TNA's total irrelevancy within the world of pro wrestling. Yes, ROH is growing right now, but they're not doing so out of anything then people in charge of ROH have done. ROH has lucked into Bullet Club the same way that the people running TNA lucked into Panda Energy deciding to buy them, and like with Panda and TNA, things would be looking a lot worse for ROH right now if not for this major stroke of luck.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:02 pm
by Big Red Machine
famicommander wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:16 pm I just want to remind people in general that what we, as hardcore wrestling fans, consider good booking is not always what makes a company popular among the wide audience.

Remember, Vince Russo was booking TNA during its ratings peak.
But how much of that is just an issue of exposure? D'Amore had one year on SPIKE before they replaced him with Russo, and all of that year was spent in a late-night slot, half of it on a Saturday.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:13 pm
by famicommander
Big Red Machine wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:02 pm
famicommander wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:16 pm I just want to remind people in general that what we, as hardcore wrestling fans, consider good booking is not always what makes a company popular among the wide audience.

Remember, Vince Russo was booking TNA during its ratings peak.
But how much of that is just an issue of exposure? D'Amore had one year on SPIKE before they replaced him with Russo, and all of that year was spent in a late-night slot, half of it on a Saturday.
Russo also booked WWF during its most successful period and increased a flailing WCW's ratings while he was there the second time. Not by enough to save them, and he booked some of the worst garbage I've ever seen in all three promotions. He's a bad writer, a bad booker, and a scummy dude in my book but that's three cases of "right place, right time".

Of course there were tons of other factors that contributed to and subtracted from the ratings in all three companies, but that sort of just reinforces my original point: that, good or bad, what we as hardcore fans perceive as good booking doesn't necessarily translate one way or the other when it comes to mainstream popularity. And, therefore, it's really not a great line of attack when criticizing ROH/Joe Koff/Delirious. There are plenty of legitimate avenues to pursue in that regard.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 5:09 pm
by AlexROH
Big Red Machine, we have differents points of view, that's cool. I think you are too catastrophic with everything you say. No disrespect, but I'm not going to answer you with even a longer text like you always do because we are going to do this forever and every time posts will be longer. Thanks for you feedback, I've read it all, but as a non-english person, I don't see myself answering you back with great points and long texts because my english isn't that good.

But I'll say one more time that ROH has evolved. Their in-ring product is still better than WWE or TNA, their product is based on in-ring action and little segments/promos, I don't know why you say they are a bad copy of WWE/TNA. Maybe I'm "too good", but you tell everything like this was pure bullshit without identity and like every decision is the worst thing in the world.

People said everytime that ROH had no buzz and all that kind of things, still, has made more money in 2017 than in any other year of his history. ROH has beaten all their attendance records this year too. More and more people watch and talk about ROH. I understand that your problem is that the ROH everybody is loving isn't the one you love. This is a thing that always happens in wrestling. It's just entertaiment, a show, nothing more. In every post you talk bad about ROH's current model because isn't as good as is used to be. I'm really tired of these kind of arguments.

ROH isn't a company based on Honor anymore, they are an hibrid, a shitty TNA or whatever name you wanna called it. I understand you not linking it, but they are not going to change and go back to their old model because this is capitalism and what matter is making money and now they are making money, Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everything is perfect bc they are making a lot of money and we should all talk great about them and stop complaning. The only thing I'm saying is that the company isn't that bad or 4/10. I dislike some things that I watch. I felt like you watching this year's BITW main event, but then I realized that this is just a show, a show that has evolved (in a good or in a bad way) and offers a differnt product from what they used to do 10 years ago. I watch the shows bc they get me entertained, something you don't have to think that much about everything. Is something most of the wrestling fans do, enjoy what you want to. It's just a show, some of us will like some things and others will like others.

I don't try to make people think that ROH is the best thing in the world, bc it isn't. I just defend it bc you always try to tell us how bad, stupid and shitty the product is. ROH isn't as good as it used to be. ROH doesn't offer the best product in the world. That's bad? Should I complain about it with every show? Is it worth it? I watch ROH like I was Mr. Robot or any other television show. If a show changes from one season to another I'd say, 'ops, it used to be better', I'll try to watch some episodes and then, if I don't like it, I'll watch another thing. With this I dont want to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, I'm just expressing how I see it and how I feel. Just an advice. I'm not a fan of watching something you know isn't gonna change just to bury it and talk how great it used to be and how bad is it now. Is like critics that know that they don't like a cinematographic genre or an actor and then watch all the films so they can hate about it and tell everybody how bad it is.

I hope this text hasn't sounded rude or anything like that, bc it wasn't my intenttion. Everybody here know that english isn't my mother tongue and sometimes I want to express a thing and it ends having another sense. This is just a reflexion of how, sometimes, we like "wasting" our time watching something we don't like, hating or just compalining about something as simple as a tv show, instead of watching something we like. Wrestling reviews isn't our work. It's great to have mixed reviews here show everybody can see differents points of view, I like that, but having neverending conversations about how bad is something It's a waste of time, IMO.

Again, I have nothing but respect for you, Big Red Machine, and everything you do. I always read reviews in your website and I really like chatting with you here on the forum. You are an active user that always want to talk about things. This post was more of a personal treflexion than an answer to your thoughts.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 6:13 pm
by Big Red Machine
famicommander wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:13 pm
Big Red Machine wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 4:02 pm
famicommander wrote: Fri Nov 10, 2017 2:16 pm I just want to remind people in general that what we, as hardcore wrestling fans, consider good booking is not always what makes a company popular among the wide audience.

Remember, Vince Russo was booking TNA during its ratings peak.
But how much of that is just an issue of exposure? D'Amore had one year on SPIKE before they replaced him with Russo, and all of that year was spent in a late-night slot, half of it on a Saturday.
Russo also booked WWF during its most successful period and increased a flailing WCW's ratings while he was there the second time. Not by enough to save them, and he booked some of the worst garbage I've ever seen in all three promotions. He's a bad writer, a bad booker, and a scummy dude in my book but that's three cases of "right place, right time".

Of course there were tons of other factors that contributed to and subtracted from the ratings in all three companies, but that sort of just reinforces my original point: that, good or bad, what we as hardcore fans perceive as good booking doesn't necessarily translate one way or the other when it comes to mainstream popularity. And, therefore, it's really not a great line of attack when criticizing ROH/Joe Koff/Delirious. There are plenty of legitimate avenues to pursue in that regard.
The difference between most of TNA Russo/first-run WCW Russo and second-run WCW Russo/WWF Russo is that second-run WCW Russo and WWF Russo had someone who has on an equal or higher level to him to filter things out. Those are when he increased ratings (I still won't call most of it "good" but ratings did go up). When was left to his own devices, it was a disaster.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 7:01 pm
by Big Red Machine
AlexROH wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 5:09 pm Big Red Machine, we have differents points of view, that's cool. I think you are too catastrophic with everything you say. No disrespect, but I'm not going to answer you with even a longer text like you always do because we are going to do this forever and every time posts will be longer. Thanks for you feedback, I've read it all, but as a non-english person, I don't see myself answering you back with great points and long texts because my english isn't that good.

But I'll say one more time that ROH has evolved. Their in-ring product is still better than WWE or TNA, their product is based on in-ring action and little segments/promos, I don't know why you say they are a bad copy of WWE/TNA. Maybe I'm "too good", but you tell everything like this was pure bullshit without identity and like every decision is the worst thing in the world.

People said everytime that ROH had no buzz and all that kind of things, still, has made more money in 2017 than in any other year of his history. ROH has beaten all their attendance records this year too. More and more people watch and talk about ROH. I understand that your problem is that the ROH everybody is loving isn't the one you love. This is a thing that always happens in wrestling. It's just entertaiment, a show, nothing more. In every post you talk bad about ROH's current model because isn't as good as is used to be. I'm really tired of these kind of arguments.

ROH isn't a company based on Honor anymore, they are an hibrid, a shitty TNA or whatever name you wanna called it. I understand you not linking it, but they are not going to change and go back to their old model because this is capitalism and what matter is making money and now they are making money, Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everything is perfect bc they are making a lot of money and we should all talk great about them and stop complaning. The only thing I'm saying is that the company isn't that bad or 4/10. I dislike some things that I watch. I felt like you watching this year's BITW main event, but then I realized that this is just a show, a show that has evolved (in a good or in a bad way) and offers a differnt product from what they used to do 10 years ago. I watch the shows bc they get me entertained, something you don't have to think that much about everything. Is something most of the wrestling fans do, enjoy what you want to. It's just a show, some of us will like some things and others will like others.

I don't try to make people think that ROH is the best thing in the world, bc it isn't. I just defend it bc you always try to tell us how bad, stupid and shitty the product is. ROH isn't as good as it used to be. ROH doesn't offer the best product in the world. That's bad? Should I complain about it with every show? Is it worth it? I watch ROH like I was Mr. Robot or any other television show. If a show changes from one season to another I'd say, 'ops, it used to be better', I'll try to watch some episodes and then, if I don't like it, I'll watch another thing. With this I dont want to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, I'm just expressing how I see it and how I feel. Just an advice. I'm not a fan of watching something you know isn't gonna change just to bury it and talk how great it used to be and how bad is it now. Is like critics that know that they don't like a cinematographic genre or an actor and then watch all the films so they can hate about it and tell everybody how bad it is.

I hope this text hasn't sounded rude or anything like that, bc it wasn't my intenttion. Everybody here know that english isn't my mother tongue and sometimes I want to express a thing and it ends having another sense. This is just a reflexion of how, sometimes, we like "wasting" our time watching something we don't like, hating or just compalining about something as simple as a tv show, instead of watching something we like. Wrestling reviews isn't our work. It's great to have mixed reviews here show everybody can see differents points of view, I like that, but having neverending conversations about how bad is something It's a waste of time, IMO.

Again, I have nothing but respect for you, Big Red Machine, and everything you do. I always read reviews in your website and I really like chatting with you here on the forum. You are an active user that always want to talk about things. This post was more of a personal treflexion than an answer to your thoughts.
I think WWE is just as good if not actually better in the ring than ROH. At least Raw certainly is.

Don't worry. You're not coming off as rude at all.
I think all of us would pretty much kill for the chance to book a wrestling promotion- even for free- and so seeing someone who is lucky enough to get paid to do my dream job do such a half-assed or bad job at it really pisses me off, and even more so when the flaws are so obvious to me and yet no one calls them out on it (and it's not just ROH, it's New Japan, PWG, Smackdown, Dragon Gate). As far as I'm concerned, I an outside observer thinking about wrestling in my spare time, should not be able to think up easy and obvious fixes to the problematic booking of someone who is actually getting paid to book full time. I've worked or have known people who have worked in too many places that fail because the people in charge aren't pulling their weight, and no one- either someone whose job it is to do oversight or a coalition of people working underneath that person- make any attempt to do anything about it.

I'm not unwilling to accept change, but radical change simply because it's easier to put out a generic but less artistically satisfying product is not something I'm okay with. ROH was growing in 2015, too, because all of this silliness started with Cole's fake babyface turn, and it was growing in May 2016 before Bullet Club and their antics came in and commandeered the product.
I find it frustrating to hear people tell me that everyone just needs to accept this new change because it's obviously for the best, and when I counter by explaining a way in which they could easily incorporate the old way of doing things into the new system, the people who are telling me that I should accept this change won't even try to explain to me why my idea wouldn't work at least as well as what they are doing now.

If ROH is going to not be ROH I guess I would have preferred some sort of announcement about it. I know that sounds dumb and there is way too much cache in the ROH name for them to ever change it, but I guess I just want them to tell me that it's going to be different from now on rather than changing things with no warning or explanation while insisting to me that it's all the same as it was. I know then TNA or Gabe or whoever will put out a "things are changing" announcement every couple of years it always sounds desperate, but at least in Gabe's case I find it honest and open (TNA has proven time and again that they always just revert to their mean so I never believe them anymore). I read Gabe's e-mail from this week and now I know to expect something different from EVOLVE at next month's shows and I can decide if I like it or not because Gabe has told me that this new way of doing things is going to be how things are going forward. I never got that from ROH, so I've felt compelled to keep watching in the hopes that this is all temporary and that things will change back and I have been given enough false hope along the way that I just haven't hit the point that I hit with TNA this year where I inherently understand that things looking like they're finally changing back doesn't mean that they are actually going to stick to it.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 7:46 pm
by famicommander
Raw better in-ring than ROH?

That's enough internet for one day.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 8:29 pm
by Mr. Mojo Risin
Overall I thought the TV show was much better this year as I felt more time was dedicated to matches. However, I will agree with BRM about lack of clean finishes and wasting talent in go nowhere storylines. Needs to be fixed, but it won't. I use Nigel's run as Pure Champion as a point of reference as how to superbly book a heel as champion. It would definitely work as a blueprint in today's ROH, but Delirious either lacks the creativity or is too fucking lazy to try that.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 2:10 am
by The Dragon Saga
I too will agree that at times, finishes have been too screwy and there needs to be definitive winners to end stories. Has anybody disputed the booking issues? There are booking issues. There were much worse ones, but some are still there, but not as bad as it was this time last year. Now it seems everyone has a little story or direction.

However, to say RAW has better wrestling than ROH's TV show is absolute trash. It doesn't. ROH's TV has been consistently good since late Spring/early summer. Better than anyone elses TV show asides from certain weeks of Smackdown. I'm not going to argue that either.

And Alex basically said everything I've said before. Stop being "wrestling fans" and wake up to the real world. ROH is a business that provides a legitimate alternative to fans that is not WWE branded, with a different look and presentation, with a different cast of characters that is being ran to and is succeeding in making money in a business, that, get what - you're not supposed to make money from. Wrestling is a money losing business, but ROH is making it.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - being a "hardcore ROHbot" or whatever we were back in the day, where our voice mattered because we had Gabe on a forum looking at everything we said, doesn't matter anymore. We're a percentage of the actual ROH fanbase which is much larger now due to ROH's exposure. They no longer cater to nor need to cater to such a small scale audience but instead to a larger one. If Joe Koff or Delirious or Greg Gilliland or hell, David Smith himself said, "forget what will make us money and keep people buying tickets, lets do what these die hard ROH fans who remember the "good 'ol days" want instead of focusing on the bottom line", ROH probably wouldn't be in business, nor would it be as successful nor would it be having the year it is now.

At the end of the day, no matter how long you've been an ROH fan for, or how many shows you've gone to, or how much merch you've bought (I myself am probably in the €1,000+ range) its all irrelevant. None of it matters. If that bothers you, stop watching the product, stop watching the promotion, go follow the next "little indie that might" that people are into for the next six months and see how that goes for you.

Note: if it was Wrestle Circus, sorry about that.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 4:43 am
by monster mafia
Raw better in-ring than ROH? oh god.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 8:56 am
by Big Red Machine
The Dragon Saga wrote: Fri Nov 17, 2017 2:10 am I too will agree that at times, finishes have been too screwy and there needs to be definitive winners to end stories. Has anybody disputed the booking issues? There are booking issues. There were much worse ones, but some are still there, but not as bad as it was this time last year. Now it seems everyone has a little story or direction.

However, to say RAW has better wrestling than ROH's TV show is absolute trash. It doesn't. ROH's TV has been consistently good since late Spring/early summer. Better than anyone elses TV show asides from certain weeks of Smackdown. I'm not going to argue that either.

And Alex basically said everything I've said before. Stop being "wrestling fans" and wake up to the real world. ROH is a business that provides a legitimate alternative to fans that is not WWE branded, with a different look and presentation, with a different cast of characters that is being ran to and is succeeding in making money in a business, that, get what - you're not supposed to make money from. Wrestling is a money losing business, but ROH is making it.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - being a "hardcore ROHbot" or whatever we were back in the day, where our voice mattered because we had Gabe on a forum looking at everything we said, doesn't matter anymore. We're a percentage of the actual ROH fanbase which is much larger now due to ROH's exposure. They no longer cater to nor need to cater to such a small scale audience but instead to a larger one. If Joe Koff or Delirious or Greg Gilliland or hell, David Smith himself said, "forget what will make us money and keep people buying tickets, lets do what these die hard ROH fans who remember the "good 'ol days" want instead of focusing on the bottom line", ROH probably wouldn't be in business, nor would it be as successful nor would it be having the year it is now.

At the end of the day, no matter how long you've been an ROH fan for, or how many shows you've gone to, or how much merch you've bought (I myself am probably in the €1,000+ range) its all irrelevant. None of it matters. If that bothers you, stop watching the product, stop watching the promotion, go follow the next "little indie that might" that people are into for the next six months and see how that goes for you.

Note: if it was Wrestle Circus, sorry about that.
I don't buy your assertion that their is an "either-or" choice to be made here. Are new fans going to be unhappy if there are clean finishes and well-told stories? You're talking as if we can either have bad booking and money or good booking and no money, and that's just not true. Some of the best-selling PPVs of all time were sold on the backs of excellent storytelling (Starrcade 1997 and WrestleMania XXI immediately leap to mind).

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2017 8:58 am
by Big Red Machine
Mr. Mojo Risin wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 8:29 pm Overall I thought the TV show was much better this year as I felt more time was dedicated to matches. However, I will agree with BRM about lack of clean finishes and wasting talent in go nowhere storylines. Needs to be fixed, but it won't. I use Nigel's run as Pure Champion as a point of reference as how to superbly book a heel as champion. It would definitely work as a blueprint in today's ROH, but Delirious either lacks the creativity or is too fucking lazy to try that.
The TV show has definitely been better since BITW than it was in the first half of the year, but it's still nowhere near as good as good as it was in pretty much any non-Cornette-booked point in the history of the show.

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:41 am
by AlexROH
Daniels is tired of all the comments about his table spot in Dallas lol:
When people criticize me or my decisions with moronic comments (not valid critique), I fight the urge to draw attention to a vocal minority of fans, but I will say this: 1) Our business is up, 2) My paychecks are fine, & 3) My career won't be 1 day shorter. NOT. ONE. DAY.
On the bright side, if the Mrs. and I ever get into an argument about who's job is tougher, I suppose I could always ask about the time SHE went though a flaming table. #EndOfDiscussion

Re: Random ROH Thoughts Thread

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 10:25 am
by famicommander
Daniels is a grown ass man and a 20+ year veteran. He understands as well as anyone the risks involved with a spot like that and as long as he wasn't pressured into it, I don't see any problem with it at all.