Rumored Big News

[supersonic]

It doesn't look like ROH is backing down though. According to the North Atlanta Trade Center's website ROH has got another show scheduled for November 21st, the night before Survivor Series in Atlanta.

I really hope these cities appreciate all the events they're getting. Nothing for VAN, SEA, or POR besides dog shit house shows and some WWE TV.

[LJimmy]

I actually hope the NXT/WWN Live thing happens since it would mean we would get more of Gabe in the news. He makes for great entertainment.

[jbroderway]

The WWE shows in Atlanta have all SUCKED. With the exception of a punk vs. Jericho main event a few years back, it has all been garbage. I've lived here 8 years and ROH destroyed every other WWE card I saw live in that time in one night back in February.

Not to mention that the crowd here is starved for wrestling, so most fans would happily go to both shows.

[DXvsNWO1994]

It doesn't look like ROH is backing down though. According to the North Atlanta Trade Center's website ROH has got another show scheduled for November 21st, the night before Survivor Series in Atlanta.

I didn't expect they'd be going back to Atlanta so soon after their show at the end of August. They must be really happy with how tickets are selling for the August show (as well as the turnout from February, obviously).

I actually hope the NXT/WWN Live thing happens since it would mean we would get more of Gabe in the news. He makes for great entertainment.

I mentioned this in the Evolve Thread, but I've seen some people suggest that Drew Galloway being "indefinitely suspended" is WWN preparing for a deal with WWE (since Galloway works for TNA).

[Northwoods_Nightmare]

Everyone is saying that WWE is scheduling all these NXT events in order to get at ROH, which I think is an over-reaction.
All the NXT shows are the weekend of a major WWE PPV. NXT is a quickly exploding, super hot brand. Why on earth would WWE not capitalize on that? It not only helps NXT, but the helps the main show and PPV crowd as well.
ROH are the ones that are taking advantage of the WWE, not the other way around.

In my opinion, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for ROH to capitalize on big WWE shows but in different cities to capitalize on wrestling fans who are pumped up for a big wrestling weekend, but not able to travel to the WWE show. For example, if WWE is running Summerslam in NYC, then ROH runs their big show in Toronto or Chicago.

[WHG]

I agree with Northwoods. Field of Honor is the exception because they ran it last year, but other PPV markets the weekend of the show are fair game. If ROH starts getting hurt by NXT, they need to rethink the strategy...but the WWE has a right to run those markets those weekends as well.

When they start booking competing dates when the WWE has no reason to be around, then we have something to discuss. Until the, it's a simple business decision: do the pros of running in/near a WWE market on a PPV weekend outweigh the threat of competing NXT shows? That's the question they'll need to answer pretty easy quickly.

[jordidebaas]

I agree with Northwoods. Field of Honor is the exception because they ran it last year, but other PPV markets the weekend of the show are fair game. If ROH starts getting hurt by NXT, they need to rethink the strategy...but the WWE has a right to run those markets those weekends as well.

When they start booking competing dates when the WWE has no reason to be around, then we have something to discuss. Until the, it's a simple business decision: do the pros of running in/near a WWE market on a PPV weekend outweigh the threat of competing NXT shows? That's the question they'll need to answer pretty easy quickly.

I guess we'll see that in the coming months

[Sandy Fork]

I know Meltzer is an authority on wrestling. But the moment he started reporting about WWE doing so many apron bumps at Battleground to steal that spot from ROH his reporting on this "war" just got silly.

[WHG]

Yeah, I agree that trying to connect apron spots with a war against ROH is really a stretch. That's also one of those things that he says on an audio show that is based on his opinon that people then spew all over the internet as "Dave Meltzer reported..." as if a source told him that's what was happening.

[monster mafia]

Ring of Honor's All Star Extravaganza VII Weekend will take place on Friday September 18 and Saturday September 19, 2015 at the San Antonio Shrine Auditorium.

You will want to witness these two unique events deep in the heart of the Lone Star State

RING OF HONOR STARS SIGNED TO APPEAR

ROH World & World TV Champion Jay Lethal w/ Truth Martini
ROH World Tag Team Champions The Addiction
“Phenomenal” AJ Styles
Jay & Mark Briscoe
#Reborn Matt Sydal
Roderick Strong
The Young Bucks
reDRagon
Adam Cole
The Kingdom (Bennett & Taven) w/ Maria
Moose
“Unbreakable” Michael Elgin

To witness the build up to these amazing events, be sure to tune into Ring of Honor Television every weekend on your local Sinclair station and Wednesday nights at 8/7c on Destination America.

[Big Red Machine]

Huh. I was pretty sure these would fall out during a New Japan tour. It's great to be able to have AJ and the Bucks for these shows.

[187_Joeism]

I think if there is a time for a El Patron return in on this show.

[WHG]

I would guess that Patron's deal with LU would now preclude him from appearing on ROH TV and/or PPV/iPPV, but I could be wrong. I think he was wrapping up his ROH dates when that all started, but unless his deal is totally different from everyone else's there he's likely not going to appear on these shows.

It'd be a good draw, though, particularly against NXT.

[187_Joeism]

If the show isn´t on TV or PPV i think LU would let him appear, maybe i am wrong. He also could be a free agent by that time if his contract is up.

[WHG]

If the show isn´t on TV or PPV i think LU would let him appear, maybe i am wrong. He also could be a free agent by that time if his contract is up.

You might be right about his status, but I'm pretty sure Friday will be an iPPV (assuming they're still doing those) and Saturday would be a TV taping.

[supersonic]

Observer:

Spoiler: show

The announcement by WWE this past week that Jushin Liger of New Japan Pro Wrestling would be appearing at the 8/22 NXT show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, opened up a political hornet's nest.

Liger will face Tyler Breeze on a show that got off to a pretty remarkable advance sale, and it is possible could sell out. At press time there were 11,000 tickets out in a building that is currently set up for 13,438. The number is phenomenal for a group that has no actual television, even though it is a WWE property. Originally when tickets were put on sale they were only scaling the place for about 6,000, and sold that allotment out almost instantly on the pre-sale. WWE had already sold out both SummerSlam the next night, and Raw the following Monday, in running the same arena three straight nights.

The current WWE plan for the show is to run a three-and-a-half hour live event. They would start with dark matches at 7:30 p.m. From 8-9 p.m. would be a taping for an episode of the NXT show that would probably air on 8/26. The live special would air from 9-11 p.m. Eastern time featuring the main advertised matches on the show that will be pushed on the weekly NXT show.

For the Brooklyn show on 8/22 at the Barclays Center, the top matches will be Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens for the NXT title, Sasha Banks vs. Bayley for the NXT women's title (they did the storyline of Bayley beating all the top contenders, winning over Emma, Charlotte and Becky Lynch at the last tapings to get her title shot), Liger vs. Breeze and Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin. They'll add a few more matches, likely a Blake & Murphy tag title match (they are being programmed with the Vaudevillains right now), on the go-home show that will be taped in three weeks. Although nothing has been announced for them, the atmosphere is going to be unbelievable when Enzo & Cass show up.

The issue is that New Japan has been business partners of Ring of Honor, which is running a competing show in Brooklyn that night at MCU Field. Not only that, ROH has booked IWGP champion Kazuchika Okada, jr. heavyweight champion Kushida, as well as Shinsuke Nakamura for its show.

ROH has announced champion Jay Lethal & Nakamura vs. Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish, Okada vs. Roderick Strong, Alex Shelley & Kushida vs. Mark & Jay Briscoe and the Killer Elite Squad of Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. War Machine of Ray Rowe & Hanson thus far for its show.

ROH sold approximately 1,100 tickets, a figure they were very happy with, right when tickets went on sale for the MCU Field show. The advance was well above what they did for their MCU Field show last year, although that was expected with the New Japan talent and it being SummerSlam weekend.

They were reportedly expecting 2,000, which would be a significant increase over the 1,500 for the show last summer. However, once the NXT show was announced, ROH tickets stalled. Similarly, tickets for Jim Ross' talk show in Manhattan at the Gramercy Theater that were going smoothly, also stalled with the announcement of the NXT show. In both cases, whatever discussions there would have been about moving shows to the afternoon to avoid head-to-head competition were decided against. WWE actually canceled its own house show with most of the major names scheduled in White Plains that night to avoid splitting its audience.

Liger does have the ability to book himself between tours all over the world, but there are always limitations. For example, there would be no chance at all that Liger would be able to work a AAA show in Mexico City on a Friday night against CMLL.

New Japan, at a press conference on 7/18 to promote the G-1 Climax tournament, listed ROH along with the NWA, GWF, CMLL, Revolution Pro (in the U.K.) and wXw (in Germany) as its international business partners, and did not list WWE in that category. But those close to the situation note that the only business partner New Japan is loyal to is CMLL. It was noted that even when it came to being offered an international superstar like Rey Mysterio, New Japan nixed discussions because he appears for CMLL's rival promotion in Mexico.

This puts ROH is a really bad position. The usual reaction would be to say that your business partner double-crossed you and to end the relationship. And that could happen, although if so, it would not take place until September because they aren't going to do anything prior to the Brooklyn show that could threaten those bookings. But the New Japan relationship is very beneficial to ROH in making it come across as a major league promotion. It not only opens doors to the top Japanese stars, but it allows them to work more harmoniously with talent like A.J. Styles, The Young Bucks, Roppongi Vice, and other regular New Japan Americans who augment big events. But still, it is hard to trust New Japan at this point if you are ROH, no matter what would be said about it publicly.

Working with New Japan is a mixed bag. It's great for the prestige of the company, but it is not as great always for the bottom line, which is one of the reasons that at one point ROH was only looking at a few New Japan wrestlers for the May tour. However, they expanded from two shows to four. The midweek shows in Philadelphia sold out, and the company would have otherwise never run those shows.

One of the key aspects of getting talent to ROH, and keeping talent from going to places like TNA or if another group comes up, has been the New Japan connection. It's not only the chance to work with the Japanese wrestlers in the U.S., but the chance to be booked on major shows in Japan. The connection makes things smooth politically to use A.J. Styles, The Young Bucks, Karl Anderson and other New Japan stars as well as the Japanese names, but also has allowed ROH to retain key talent because it opens the doors for lucrative Ne Japan bookings on major shows. Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly and Matt Taven & Michael Bennett have both held tag team titles in Japan over the past year, Michael Elgin is in G-1 and other ROH names were expected to work for New Japan before the end of this year.

In addition, the television shows on Destination America, between the two airings, that involved New Japan talent, averaged 288,000 viewers, and the shows that didn't involve New Japan talent have averaged 204,000 viewers. The sample size is small enough that those figures could be misleading, and I think the New York shoots because of how dark they are, have given ROH a minor league feel in recent weeks which have hurt numbers more than having the lower quality of matches. But that is still a huge difference.

NXT was originally set up for 6,000 seats, but when they went instantly in the pre-sale, breaking the NXT record of 4,700 tickets sold for San Jose the weekend of WrestleMania, they started opening up more sections, which were still selling instantly until they opened up the entire arena.

If WWE sold out three straight nights, NXT, SummerSlam and Raw, all in the same building, which would be a first for the company historically (San Jose was three different buildings that sold out) in the U.S. It also means that it makes sense now for the NXT Takeover shows to be moved from Winter Park, FL, to the night before in the same arena WWE does PPVs. However, the crowd at Full Sail University on 7/16 was very negative about losing "their" big quarterly special, booing all mentions of the show (which will have to be edited) and chanting about how they should have gotten it.

Even though not every market will be like New York, you could clearly sell 4,000 to 7,000 tickets for the Takeover shows as solid ticket prices and run profitable live events in other markets on big PPV weekends as opposed to the 400, much of which isn't paid because the students and workers at the school get in free, at Full Sail. It also helps the perception of the brand greatly for its regular touring shows which will become more frequent.

WWE for years hadn't worked with any groups in Japan, so this looks to open the door between a relationship with the two biggest promotions in the world. But it's notable the deal is for Liger to work for NXT, the "hardcore" brand, head-to-head with ROH, and not to put him on Raw or SummerSlam. ROH was not aware of this until the news broke. Booker Hunter Johnston was still scheduled for meetings in Japan in August regarding future plans between the two groups.

There are other moves being made by WWE when it comes to ROH that are likely to become evident going forward. WWE has contacted at least one ROH arena with the idea of running shows provided they no longer book ROH. It's not a killer to ROH, but certainly is an annoyance if the deal goes through. While WWE got word out that they aren't going to sign new talent from ROH, that has already changed as far as current top talent is concerned. There are some ROH wrestlers who are not under contract, most notable being Roderick Strong, and a lot of the top ROH talent has contracts that will expire in January.

It is clear on the indie scene that top talent is being steered away from ROH like they were steered away from TNA, and Vince McMahon did stress after ROH got on Destination America and Kevin Owens had an outside action figure deal, that he wanted everyone who has real promise that is a free agent locked up in some form away from TNA or ROH.

WWE has booked an NXT tour with a show in San Antonio on 9/19 at the Aztec Theater as part of a three-day Texas swing, and that it would go head-to-head with both ROH's next PPV show as well as a four-show ROH TV taping in the same city.

ROH is actually doing two straight nights at the Shrine Auditorium in San Antonio on 9/18 and 9/19, billed as "All-Star Extravaganza," its next major shows after the Brooklyn show. The first night will be a live Friday night PPV show. ROH rushed out the announcement of the show when hit with the news WWE was running NXT against them, but at press time did not publicly announce it was the next PPV card (which was not scheduled to be announced originally until after the 7/24 iPPV show). WWE will be running an NXT show 75 miles away in Austin, which for shows where the main audience is hardcore fans who are willing to travel, is also head-to-head competition.

The key angles for the ROH "All-Star Extravaganza" PPV are scheduled to be shot this coming weekend, but the main talent will be Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, Frankie kazarian, A.J. Styles, Mark & Jay Briscoe, Matt Sydal, Roderick Strong, The Young Bucks, Bobby Fish, Kyle O'Reilly, Adam Cole, Michael Bennett, Matt Taven, Maria Kanellis, Moose and Michael Elgin.

It has been hard without competition for ROH to draw in the same building two straight days. With the exception of Toronto with the New Japan talent, most of the time they've done the major show followed by a TV taping, that the TV taping is a tough draw.

Even in New York last month, the day after the last PPV they struggled at the TV taping, and that's not with head-to-head competition from NXT.

NXT is scheduled on 9/17 in Houston at the Bayou Music Center, 9/18 in Austin, at the Austin Music Hall. WWE's Night of Champions PPV takes place on 9/20 in Houston at the Toyota Center.

It's notable that New Japan has no real loyalty to any promotion but CMLL, as noted when sending Kushida to GFW even though they just finished a tour with ROH. However, it's one thing to send Kushida to GFW that is running a week after ROH is in the same market. It's another to send Liger to a show that is not only head-to-head in the same city on the same day as an ROH show, but an ROH show with three New Japan stars on it. Liger is unique in the sense that he can book himself, but New Japan has promoted Liger's appearance on their web site.

Even by pro wrestling standards of little ethics, having Liger work a competing show against one of your promotional partners in the same market on the same night when it's well known it's a major head-to-head rivalry, was a pretty major double-cross.

We do know that New Japan wasn't happy that ROH hadn't used Takaaki Watanabe regularly until recently, let alone pushed him, and he's been living in New Jersey, hardly working when they had hoped he'd be a full-time ROH guy with something of a push, to get him ready for a return to Japan as somewhat who was successful in the U.S. Plus there were all the changes when it came to talent booked, unbooked and then rebooked and the May tour that kept changing and communication issues.

[WHG]

Really nothing significant or new from Meltzer, except that ASE7 is going to be a PPV.

As someone who has watched the FOH ticket situation on the Cyclones ticket site since they went on sale, I actually find what he's saying there to be wrong. The was a surge of sales the weekend after the NXT show was announced and I'd venture to guess that more than 25% of what's been sold happened after the NXT announcement. They have been a bit slow since NXT tix went on sale, though, but still faster than last year at this time from what I recall.

[jordidebaas]

Was that the "big news"?

[DXvsNWO1994]

So is ASE 7 going to be a PPV, or an iPPV?

[Northwoods_Nightmare]

NJPW has shown that they'll work with pretty much anyone. The benefits of working with NJPW for ROH far outweigh any negatives. The negative really isn't even a negative, since Okada/Nakamura/KUSHIDA/KES trumps Liger.