ALL PURPOSE CONTRACT STATUS/POTENTIAL DEPARTURES THREAD

[maxx_powerz]

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

All things considered ROH should have told NJPW that they had five matches, ROH had five matches, do what you want. If ROH books the ladder match, does a real Rush/Castle match, does Cobb/Bandido , adds the Briscoes and VE to the six person tag and does the women's title change, it would have been better for them. If you look at the reaction to the card BEFORE the show, NJPW fans were rooting for ROH to fail. Part of the reaction to how "bad" ROH did is from NJPW fans claiming Cobb, Bandido, the Briscoes and VE as part of "NJPW" matches. ROH should have passed on anything inter promotional and focused on making their matches as good as possible.

[Montana]

It’s too bad fans had that perception of the show. It wasn’t NJPW vs. ROH... it was a joint show and more of a celebration/ and accomplishment. I don’t look at the show as Roh matches and njpw matches. There was ROH matches, NJpw matches and joint matches. At the end of the day, there was like five 4 star matches, plus a handful of really good 3+ star matches. Yet fans only point of the negative aspect of a “Run in” or a “segment”. Kind of sad they couldn’t enjoy the show more.

[Lynx]

Well lots of USA NJPW fans want NJPW/AEW partnership to happen and early reporting* led us all to believe that it isn't happening due to RoH. Due to that I think it was natural that they wanted RoH to fail so that NJPW would dump them and start working with AEW. I'd argue that they really enjoyed that RoH did some mistakes that they could talk about.

All this fixation on ticket sales is partially motivated by this as well. People who didn't care about RoH wouldn't talk about RoH's attendance last year at all, but now they are very interested in it.

*Interesting that recent reporting talks more about how NJPW really doesn't like Bucks, Omega and AEW in general. Nobody even brings up anymore that partnership isn't happening due to RoH. If we wanted to be conspirational then we probably could wonder if the early reporting wasn't misleading on purpose.

[kovs27]

Well NJPW did get screwed by the Elite leaving when they had 3 shows in the USA early this year and then ROH had to bail out NJPW by having Marty, Cobb, Brody King and Best Friends basically carry the shows along with Juice and I think David Finley before his injury. Then Trent walked out on a handshake deal that was agreed upon to join AEW. It's speculated he was going to be in the storyline that Jay White was teasing he had another member of Chaos that was working with him and Bullet Club. So yeah, it shouldn't be shocking that NJPW stays working with ROH rather than running to AEW.

[Montana]

NJPW and AEW were also having issues with Moxley.

As the AEW/NXT/WWE war heats up, it would be in NJPW/ROH/CMLL best interest to stay united/strong. Unfortunately NJPW may need to hault/stop the NJPW US expansion temporarily. ROH needs to sink some money into the product.

Not sure if it's possible but i think it makes sense for all three to have one joint streaming service... where all the shows from the three companies are included. So fans could say pay like 9$ for one company, 13$ for two, or 16$ for all three. Then if fans just have the one company plan, they could easily pay per show for the other two. Then as needed absorb other companies like NWA. Similar to how Fite TV works. They could do a lot of cross brand marketing like this, so say if you have NJPW world linked, then they would throw a free ROH or CMLL show once and a while. Either way, you don't want to fight for the same fans.

[Xias]

As the AEW/NXT/WWE war heats up, it would be in NJPW/ROH/CMLL best interest to stay united/strong. Unfortunately NJPW may need to hault/stop the NJPW US expansion temporarily. ROH needs to sink some money into the product.

Why on earth would New Japan halt or stop the US expansion when they are drawing far bigger crowds in the US than ROH in 2019? That doesn't make any sense.

[Montana]

I guess it depends whats NJPW's intent of the US expansion is. I thought originally they were looking for a american brand for NJPW... thus more of their american speaking wrestlers would be more the focus. Now that a lot of their North American talent left (Omega/Bucks) doesn't seem as feasible. They still have the LA Dojo and the american championship. But I'm pretty sure like Moxley can't defend the American title in the US since he's signed with AEW. Then guys like Finlay are currently injured. Juice isn't a draw in the US. GoD is good, but aren't a huge draw either.

Sure they can run a show in Texas and draw 5,000 people or they can run the same show in Japan. Both sell 5,000 in tickets, BUT the dallas show they pay for 30-40 flights, and hotels.... Thus not being as profitable as running in Japan. Obliviously the intent would be to draw in more American fans to NJPW world. If that's what their goal is, than continue and everyone is happy.

My opinion, I know NJPW was hoping for better tickets sales for Texas shows and just seems unnecessary at the moment if your not going to commit to another brand. There is a lot of cost associated with little to gain at the moment.

[Lynx]

I kinda wonder about how profitable this USA expansion is for them. They sure draw more than RoH in USA, but lets not forget that they draw a fucking lot in Japan. And it is not like Mexico where economy is weak and luchadors get way less money despite drawing huge crowds. They probably could add another small tour in Japan and make as much money as all these USA shows this year made them (minus MSG of course) considering that they wouldn't have to fly talent around the world. Do these shows build up NJPW world subs? No idea, but I kinda doubt, again, ignoring MSG their Japan shows draw way more interest than anything they are doing in USA.

As for one streaming service, I would really, really love that.

[cgstong]

For what it's worth, here is the what the latest Observer said about Scurll and Taven's contract:

Champion Matt Taven’s contract is expiring in September in a story first broken by PW Insider. We’ve confirmed that. Those close to the situation expect him to stay with ROH and he is in negotiations to do so. Back in April, when Taven got the title in Madison Square Garden in the ladder match, it was clear the crowd wanted Marty Scurll to win. While Taven’s contract expires before Scurll’s, the reality is that Scurll was under far greater risk of leaving while Taven they wanted to build. They could have gone a few months with Scurll and then, if he was to leave, have him drop it in September but the idea was to build Taven. With business the way it is, you can’t say that it worked, but the business drop is due more to things having nothing to do with who is champion, not that perhaps short term Scurll wouldn’t have been slightly better, but that was the long-term decision to try and build Taven. The idea was to build Scurll to help give the rub to PCO and Brody King. I believe PCO, like Rush, Jeff Cobb and Bandido, all have one-year deals. Not sure on King. For Bandido and Cobb, one of the lures of ROH besides the easier schedule is the access to New Japan. Rush doesn’t care about New Japan as it’s not his cup of tea. PCO got a great offer and at his age, he has to go to the highest bidder when his deal is up. So there are a lot of questions regarding ROH in 2020, and New Japan not sending talent to Global Wars this year and having it be only CMLL outside talent, which doesn’t mean anywhere near as much in this market, is another issue

Sports Illustrated ran that Scurll’s deal is up in November, which was the time frame we’d always heard and it’s been confirmed the team is up at the end of November. His situation will be very interesting. He is in talks about staying. As best we can tell, there is more interest in Scurll from AEW than Taven, and I’d think WWE would love a talent like him in NXT, particularly now. His long-time friends are in AEW and he was basically made a star with BTE and the Villain Club T-shirts by being aligned with the key people who are in AEW. So in his case all three options are viable, but I’ve always heard in this situation not to dismiss the idea he’d go to any of the three options

[kovs27]

I swear it was reported earlier this year that PCO got 2 years.

[monster mafia]

rush too.

[Xias]

I guess it depends whats NJPW's intent of the US expansion is. I thought originally they were looking for a american brand for NJPW... thus more of their american speaking wrestlers would be more the focus. Now that a lot of their North American talent left (Omega/Bucks) doesn't seem as feasible. They still have the LA Dojo and the american championship. But I'm pretty sure like Moxley can't defend the American title in the US since he's signed with AEW. Then guys like Finlay are currently injured. Juice isn't a draw in the US. GoD is good, but aren't a huge draw either.

Sure they can run a show in Texas and draw 5,000 people or they can run the same show in Japan. Both sell 5,000 in tickets, BUT the dallas show they pay for 30-40 flights, and hotels.... Thus not being as profitable as running in Japan. Obliviously the intent would be to draw in more American fans to NJPW world. If that's what their goal is, than continue and everyone is happy.

My opinion, I know NJPW was hoping for better tickets sales for Texas shows and just seems unnecessary at the moment if your not going to commit to another brand. There is a lot of cost associated with little to gain at the moment.

Both this and the other post talking about how NJPW could make more money running tours in Japan than America are of course true. What you're missing is that New Japan is owned by a very large corporation who is very interested in the US market for all of its various brands, not just wrestling. The point of the US expansion isn't just to make short-term money, but to increase New Japan's footprint in the West (not just US but UK too as you saw with Royal Quest), increase foreign subscribers to New Japan World (which are actually UP this year, even with the loss of talent to AEW) and quite frankly to look good to Japanese investors and the business community. Bushiroad just started an IPO this year. Being able to point to your brands and say "we are popular in the West too!" is a huge feather in the cap of any Japanese entertainment company, and something that a great deal of them are always chasing after. I can list many examples, but an easy one is the recent expansion by Japanese arcade chain Round1 in the US.

I can tell you pretty forcefully that any hope of NJPW reducing or halting their US expansion is a false one. There's no chance of it. They're looking to come here more often, if anything. Maybe that will change if they start doing lower numbers, but the idea right now is to be here as often as their Japan schedule will allow.

[Chrisvegas27]

They want to create their version of nxt for the states

[monster mafia]

not really.

[Xias]

They want to create their version of nxt for the states

That was the original plan, to run a separate brand here, but it changed earlier this year into just running US tours like we've been seeing this year. They're going to continue coming with pretty much the full roster in between Japan tours basically, as you see with the Fighting Spirit Unleashed lineup. The just announced New Japan Showdown shows in SJ & LA for November will be the same thing.

[AnHonorableMention]

And now TNA has lapped ROH with the jump to AXS. Amazing how incompetent booking and having ownership from a Trump branded promotion can kill off a great company's chance to grow.

[monster mafia]

fuck tna.

[Chrisvegas27]

I want all wrestling to succeed but it's sad to see that roh us gotten to this point I hope it comes back stronger than ever

[Montana]

And now TNA has lapped ROH with the jump to AXS. Amazing how incompetent booking and having ownership from a Trump branded promotion can kill off a great company's chance to grow.

Ironically i just upped my cable package today to include AXS, and before the announcement i was kind of pissed i didn't have Pursuit (after figuring out what channel they were on now). Glad to hear they should be on AXS soon.

In terms of Impact lapping ROH i wouldn't go there just yet. ROH has about 10 guys i'd rather have on my roster before i take 1 from Impact. In terms of a product, i also prefer ROH and even MLW better.

[Chrisvegas27]

If axs does own roh hdnet footage that means impact now owns the roh footage