ALL PURPOSE CONTRACT STATUS/POTENTIAL DEPARTURES THREAD

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

Taven leaving makes sense. Nothing left for him to accomplish. While I have a certain fondness for Taven, he has no legs after this title reign. It's not like he's anywhere close to Roderick Strong in the ring who could have a great match with anyone on the roster.

[BurningHammer]

Even as someone who's been enjoying the actual content of the Taven Title Run, this contract situation is deeply funny and embarrassing. Like, what if he actually fucking leaves? ROH's PPV main event "star" status this year have relied on Lethal, Taven, Cobb, and Scurll--three of which have contracts expiring at the same time and one who's suffered serious main event fatigue. What if those three in question are all gone? Two stables won't have an appropriate figurehead and so much booking this year will ultimately not be parlayed into future material.

Agreed on the embarrasing thing

You have forgotten RUSH who I think is going to be the main guy

Taven is September with Marty and Cobb being there until November, December repsectively and if either one of them do stay you haven't cooled them off totally. It's also enough time to get a lot out of them and for either of them to get someone new over if needed.

It seems that's really the whole point of the World Title tournament, it gives them that immediate challenger after whoever wins the title.

Rush is clearly being set up to be the next main event star, but, to my point (even though it's pretty semantic), he hasn't been one of the few PPV main event players since this time last year and he hasn't had a blowaway singles match yet either. I guess if all three have expiring contracts, that Taven seems the most likely to stay, so some of their thinking kind of makes sense. But other than that, what an utter nonsense idea to not give the title to Scurll at MSG. Though attendance has dropped so low that I'm not even sure if all three leave it'll make much more of an impressionable dip.

***

Okay, whacked-out conspiracy time: So, Taven and Cody had a feud in early 2018. Most people thought it was ROH putting this program together because they were trying for the 34th Taven push. But was this maybe Cody's idea? Taven hasn't been in any BTEs, but maybe he's better friends with Cody or the Bucks than any of us knew?

Taven has now checked all of the major boxes in ROH. If he stays he'll probably continue to do pretty well as a singles performer and will make a comfortable living. Though, if he wants to go to the WWE this is probably the make-or-break stage for him succeeding there at this stage in his career and he's also got the Mike Bennett connection, so he has a rock-solid infidelity storyline set up for him if he wants to make the jump.

I think the fact that Taven has checked all the boxes of an ROH career while unfortunately not proving a success in numbers means it isn’t the worst time to leave. Do I think Marty should have got the belt to not have this struggle, yeah for sure, but I think ROH needed to get away from a AWE environment with its main event title no matter how bad it has got. They have given enough time to RUSH for him to be positioned as a star while being a guy fans want as champ, which I think has been a huge issue for Taven, heel or not fans did not feel they chose him I’d imagine. I credit ROH for being able to create a scenario where if Taven didn’t sign then there was a healthy back up plan. He’s match quality might be an issue but I think he could have a similar impact as Samoa Joe if he continues to improves his selling, English and isn’t so CMLL with certain aspects of his matches. It also strengthens the relationship with CMLL which could prove important in the short term.

I think he’s WWE bound, he’ll be one of those guys that gets a little fresh coat of paint that NXT tend to give a guy and fans over there will except him as that’s just what they do. I think Taven is at age where he needs to get paid or just become a Naito like guy creating a very strong higher midcard in ROH.

[AnHonorableMention]

Hahaha hahahaha. All time low if this is not one of those Sinclair leaks of "fake news"

[cgstong]

Scurll's contract being up in Nov just begs the question as to why they didn't put the title on him

[alexsmellzzz]

Scurll's contract being up in Nov just begs the question as to why they didn't put the title on him

Because they are dumb as hell.

Delirious is probably not that close of friends with Marty, but he's probably close to Taven. I would guess it's something personal like that, since business-wise, it literally makes ZERO sense to not have Marty win.

If Marty wins that ladder match at MSG, maybe people wouldn't be so down on ROH for the last few months. That was really the point where everybody just gave up. There's no reason for Marty to lose that match. It was time.

[supersonic]

A decade from now, it will not just be a consensus, but UNANIMOUS among all viewers that belting Taven instead of Scurll at MSG is one of he most laughable decisions any company has ever made. It’s gonna be a blunder that lives in infamy.

It’s in the same conversation as belting Lynn instead of Rollins for now. But at least Rollins was still under contract for long enough to get him his reign, even with it being significantly late. That ain’t happening with Scurll.

[Lynx]

If Marty wins that ladder match at MSG, maybe people wouldn't be so down on ROH for the last few months.

Enzo/Cass, Allure and terrible singer/Bully segment would have still have happened. Compared to Enzo/Cass situation barely anyone even talked about Taven or Marty.

[monster mafia]

I forgot about that bully segment

Damn

[maxx_powerz]

Scurll's contract being up in Nov just begs the question as to why they didn't put the title on him

Because they are dumb as hell.

Delirious is probably not that close of friends with Marty, but he's probably close to Taven. I would guess it's something personal like that, since business-wise, it literally makes ZERO sense to not have Marty win.

If Marty wins that ladder match at MSG, maybe people wouldn't be so down on ROH for the last few months. That was really the point where everybody just gave up. There's no reason for Marty to lose that match. It was time.

Not that it makes them look any less dumb, but business-wise I think its easy to see that they've assumed for a long time that Marty was gone this fall while they must have assumed they'd be able to sign Taven to a new deal because everybody else supposedly thinks he sucks. If they knew Taven was leaving before Marty, I agree that it makes zero sense. I just think it's more likely that Taven leaving (if true) caught them by surprise.

[Zhuge1]

Is Taven actually leaving though? The only reports that are out just indicated they hadn't come to terms yet. It took a while for them to work out a deal with Silas Young the last time his contract was up for renewal, but they still worked it out.

[alexsmellzzz]

If Marty wins that ladder match at MSG, maybe people wouldn't be so down on ROH for the last few months.

Enzo/Cass, Allure and terrible singer/Bully segment would have still have happened. Compared to Enzo/Cass situation barely anyone even talked about Taven or Marty.

Those are small blips. ROH has stupid segments every show. Allure is on like every show now. It’s all bad stuff

Taven winning, though, was bad because you had all those people watching that show. All the Marty fans, all the New Japan fans. It was a really big show. Not the show to make a laughable decision like that. And that belt really did mean something back in the day. They could have put over Marty and made everybody look good with that decision. But nope.

Putting the belt on the wrong guy is something that ROH never used to do.

Not anymore, though, All ROH does is make bad decisions now.

[AnHonorableMention]

Scurll's contract being up in Nov just begs the question as to why they didn't put the title on him

Because they are dumb as hell.

Delirious is probably not that close of friends with Marty, but he's probably close to Taven. I would guess it's something personal like that, since business-wise, it literally makes ZERO sense to not have Marty win.

If Marty wins that ladder match at MSG, maybe people wouldn't be so down on ROH for the last few months. That was really the point where everybody just gave up. There's no reason for Marty to lose that match. It was time.

Taven and Delirious aren't close. Taven and Joe Koff however.....

[famicommander]

I honestly don't think Marty winning at MSG would have made a substantial difference. I think most of the Elite crowd is gone either way, and if they had put the belt on Marty I think most of the Elite fans would see that as desperate pandering to recover the fans who left for AEW.

The Enzo/Cass situation was the most embarrassing thing I've seen in ROH. I honestly almost turned the PPV off when they showed up on screen.

[monster mafia]

on screen? i dont think so.

[famicommander]

on screen? i dont think so.

The principle and concept of it.

-Both of them are ridiculously bad workers. This is ROH. Those dudes make Vinny Marseglia look like he belongs here (he doesn't).
-Enzo especially has proven to be toxic and erratic
-They didn't even tell the guys who were performing about the stupid worked shoot
-Unifying the ROH and IWGP tag titles in front of a record crowd should have been a huge moment for the GOD. Instead we get Enzo and Cass and a quick cut to the announce booth.

They made themselves look like Russo-era TNA with that worked shoot nonsense and the Bully Ray/rapper crap and the Allure ruining the women's title match.

Biggest stage they ever had and they decided to portray the exact opposite of what ROH has always been about.

Which is a shame because I think the match quality overall this year has been up in comparison to pretty much every year since 2015.

[famicommander]

If the Dalton/Rush, Bully/rapper, Enzo and Cass, and Allure stuff didn't go down like it did I don't think people would be nearly as down on Taven's win.

[Lynx]

I'm not sure if Dalton/Rush really mattered. Sure, people expected longer match, but in isolation there was nothing wrong with quick squash to start the show and establish Rush as a beast. Enzo/Cass, Allure and Bully/rapper where much bigger problems. And that segment with Juice made no sense to me either, he got taken out so Flip replaced him, but when Shane and Silas appeared suddenly Juice was okay and came to help Flip.

[famicommander]

I'm not sure if Dalton/Rush really mattered. Sure, people expected longer match, but in isolation there was nothing wrong with quick squash to start the show and establish Rush as a beast. Enzo/Cass, Allure and Bully/rapper where much bigger problems. And that segment with Juice made no sense to me either, he got taken out so Flip replaced him, but when Shane and Silas appeared suddenly Juice was okay and came to help Flip.

In a vacuum the Dalton/Rush thing was fine.

But in the context of how the rest of the ROH half of that card went, it's bad. On paper that was a fantastic match, and ROH could have used another fantastic match after all the TNA style shenanigans and the NJPW side of the card delivering so thoroughly. To be clear, I thought the tag title match and the world title match were fantastic too. But it wasn't enough for most people to overlook how most of the rest of the ROH side of the show went down.

[Lynx]

I see your point, with all things that happened RoH could have really used one more high quality match on the show.

[BurningHammer]

If the Rush vs Castle match was isolated and everything else hadn't happened and there wasn't soo much trash from ROH' side it would have worked as it would have had a unique feel to it. Even Taven wining could have actually survived to a point if it was just him vs Lethal but with Marty in there it was just never going to work after everything that had happened before the crowd were dying for a lift, I understand why ROH didn't (to a point) but if you were going to call an audible that was the time. I don't think I have ever felt so deflated yet elated at the same time as a lot of the New Japan matches delivered. One of the strangest wrestling events I have been too and probably ROH at it worst on all levels.