Supercard of Honor XII - New Orleans, LA (WM34 Weekend Info)

[AlexROH]

How popular is RevPro exactly in the UK?

What kind of crowds do they draw? Any prospects of a national TV show over there?

RevPro is the biggest/most popular promotion in the UK with PROGRESS Wrestling. They run their big shows in the York Hall with good crowds (Id say 1000 - 1200) and some other events in smaller buildings. The York Hall shows are the ones with bigger matches and superstars and the other ones normally showcase local/british talents.

They started in 2012 and have always bring such international stars. With the NJ alliance they become hotter between the european fanbase (my first live indie show was one of theirs, and I live in Spain haha). Their world champion list has people like Marty Scurll, AJ Styles, Shibata, Zack Sabre Jr o Colt Cabana.

As far as TV show, they use to stream a weeklie show on their YouTube channel, but it only lasted one or two seasons.

[famicommander]

I'm familiar with the product, I just wasn't sure how popular it was in relation to, say, ICW, Progress, etc.

[The Dragon Saga]

Wrestling in the UK is only popular as a means of live attendance. It's a thing people like leaving the house to go see. Any and all attempts to televise it have failed, so there is no point in doing so. It's nowhere near the heights it was once at, despite what the perception is. Millions used to watch it weekly on Sunday afternoons, big difference between millions and a few thousand going on two weekends of the year to see the shows live.

[The Dragon Saga]

People can use the quote of ROH being new japan's bitch and I don't mind if a Jay Lethal, or a Jay Briscoe were to defeat Ishii but Ishii just won the Rev Pro title and he is jobbing to Martinez. Makes no sense. Unless Martinez is being groomed for gold the win is head scratching. Martinez is decent for a big man but he should not be the guy pinning Ishii clean.

So wait a minute, your issue is because Ishii won the fucking REV PRO TITLE, that's right, the cuvitited REV PRO title that he shouldn't lose to Punishment Martinez.

Rev Pro in comparison to ROH aren't a skid mark on the underwear that is the landscape of the wrestling industry.

Martinez deserved to win, should have won, did win and has been showing nothing but tons of potential for the past year.

[BrandenScott]

Easy Dragon, just stating my opinion. Not a big fan of Martinez. I met and saw him work a local indy here and our champion who has only been in the business maybe 2 years was working circles around the guy. This was only a few months ago. I also have seen Martinez botch more than once. Would I be shocked to see him beat Dalton? No. Is he ready to carry ROH? No.

[The Dragon Saga]

Kevin Owens botched on RAW last night. John Cena botched on Sunday. People botch, it's wrestling. Your entitled to your opinions but when you express those opinions others are entitled to render those opinions as stupid, especially when the reasoning is a young guy, with truck loads of potential, who is agile as hell for his size, has a unique gimmick in comparison to everyone else around, defeated a talent from another organization who has a great reputation and is viewed as an upset, shouldn't have because the latter guy won... the Rev Pro title. Rev Pro. Like Rev Pro is a thing that matters in the grand scheme of pro-wrestling. I'm sure Rev Pro were phoning ROH immediately demanding to know how their champion could lose.

[famicommander]

RevPro obviously matters to some degree otherwise they wouldn't be of any value to NJPW, ROH, and CMLL to work with. But I agree Martinez pinning Ishii was the right move, and it's obvious that RevPro is the junior member of the group.

[BrandenScott]

Rev Pro does matter. Dragon is just a bitter prick. He came across the same way to me in the honor club thread which brings down my opinion of anything he says. Look at the list of workers to hold the Rev Pro title. It's obviously a title that matters. Why would NJPW work with a company that is so irrelevant?

[dhads7161]

How do we know this result wasn't the call of RevPro or even NJPW? How do we know that Gedo isn't a fan of Martinez and wants to work with Delerious to start grooming him as a big star?

[Wilson]

Like Rev Pro is a thing that matters in the grand scheme of pro-wrestling.

This is such stuffy (and bait-y) framing. The grand scheme of wrestling is the WWE and one million satellite bodies fighting for the attention of local areas and virality.

Relatively, RevPro definitely matters--they're a partner promotion in the New Japan cross-matrix with ROH and CMLL. Martinez probably went over the way he did against Ishii because that was written in before it was found out that ZSJ had to drop the belt immediately. I didn't like the way the match was agented in general. Ishii was squashed, and it seemed like it was made that way so Martinez wouldn't get exposed or something. It's been underwhelming that his biggest matches have relied on running the ropes spots.

On another note, I didn't like SCOH. I watched it after the high of TakeOver, and the contrast in agenting is so stark. ROH could barely tell a story-heavy match without overbooking it or just dishing out a fuck finish. On their biggest show ever. I've felt flat on the promotion for a while now, but I thought Saturday would be the night Johnston would let the stories pay themselves off.

What was cool to see is that Dalton Castle will run away with the promotion's Most Improved this year. He gave so much more of a shit than Marty, who at times seemed sleepwalking, in that match. Lot of respect for him now. Already my favorite champion since Lethal.

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

Like Rev Pro is a thing that matters in the grand scheme of pro-wrestling.

This is such stuffy (and bait-y) framing. The grand scheme of wrestling is the WWE and one million satellite bodies fighting for the attention of local areas and virality.

Relatively, RevPro definitely matters--they're a partner promotion in the New Japan cross-matrix with ROH and CMLL. Martinez probably went over the way he did against Ishii because that was written in before it was found out that ZSJ had to drop the belt immediately. I didn't like the way the match was agented in general. Ishii was squashed, and it seemed like it was made that way so Martinez wouldn't get exposed or something. It's been underwhelming that his biggest matches have relied on running the ropes spots.

On another note, I didn't like SCOH. I watched it after the high of TakeOver, and the contrast in agenting is so stark. ROH could barely tell a story-heavy match without overbooking it or just dishing out a fuck finish. On their biggest show ever. I've felt flat on the promotion for a while now, but I thought Saturday would be the night Johnston would let the stories pay themselves off.

What was cool to see is that Dalton Castle will run away with the promotion's Most Improved this year. He gave so much more of a shit than Marty, who at times seemed sleepwalking, in that match. Lot of respect for him now. Already my favorite champion since Lethal.

Totally agree. Putting the belt on Castle was the best move they've done in years. He's putting maximum effort into this. Slight tweaks with his character are keeping this from being a flamboyant flash in the pan, into what is the start of hopefully an enjoyable title reign with some substance.

[dhads7161]

While some pld school fans may not like tje current direction of the company I overall thought this show was worthy of being the literal biggest show ever in ROH. Yeah there was the overbooking in the two top matches but this just felt like a major event. NXT Takeover probably was better honestly but SCOH and Takeover both certainly made up for a poopy WM.

[The Dragon Saga]

Like Rev Pro is a thing that matters in the grand scheme of pro-wrestling.

This is such stuffy (and bait-y) framing. The grand scheme of wrestling is the WWE and one million satellite bodies fighting for the attention of local areas and virality.

Relatively, RevPro definitely matters--they're a partner promotion in the New Japan cross-matrix with ROH and CMLL. Martinez probably went over the way he did against Ishii because that was written in before it was found out that ZSJ had to drop the belt immediately. I didn't like the way the match was agented in general. Ishii was squashed, and it seemed like it was made that way so Martinez wouldn't get exposed or something. It's been underwhelming that his biggest matches have relied on running the ropes spots.

On another note, I didn't like SCOH. I watched it after the high of TakeOver, and the contrast in agenting is so stark. ROH could barely tell a story-heavy match without overbooking it or just dishing out a fuck finish. On their biggest show ever. I've felt flat on the promotion for a while now, but I thought Saturday would be the night Johnston would let the stories pay themselves off.

What was cool to see is that Dalton Castle will run away with the promotion's Most Improved this year. He gave so much more of a shit than Marty, who at times seemed sleepwalking, in that match. Lot of respect for him now. Already my favorite champion since Lethal.

Rev Pro runs a show once a month around the corner from where I live.

They don't matter. New Japan utilize them to get their talents overseas dates where Rev Pro has to pay the talent their exterior activity fee, but the fact that someone says Punishment Martinez beating Ishii is wrong because Ishii won the fucking Rev Pro title is laughable.

It's like saying Jonathan Gresham should be main eventing because he was CZW Champion. I'd argue that's more of achievement than being the Rev Pro Champion.

[supersonic]

http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/20 ... leans.html

[dhads7161]

http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/20 ... leans.html

Wonder where else he was during that day? Might he have gone to RevPro, Spring Break, Wrestlecon, Axxess, been at the WM Superstore at the same time as me? They just mention the HOF, figure out his whole schedule before he checked into the hospital too.

[supersonic]

Observer:

Ring of Honor ran the biggest show in its history on 4/7 at the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena, built around the first meeting of Cody vs. Kenny Omega.

The show drew a paid attendance of 5,879 fans, sold out several days in advance, and had more than 6,000 in the building, breaking the company attendance record of 3,500 set in Lakeland, FL, over last year’s WrestleMania weekend for a Young Bucks vs. Hardys ladder match.

The show featured three outstanding matches, but was not a home run by any means. There were a number of problems. The show itself went too long. The main show went nearly five hours and with the preshow it was closer to five-and-a-half hours.

The decision was made to put the ROH title match with Dalton Castle vs. Marty Scurll on after Cody vs. Omega, which led to thousands of people leaving. Then, the title match went 31:39. Similar to the final match at WrestleMania, it was technically a good match, but the lack of crowd reaction killed it. Unlike Mania, where it was a crowd bound and determined to make sure the match didn’t get over, this was a crowd that had already seen the main event, were pretty much spent early on after the Kota Ibushi vs. Hangman Page and ladder match and after getting a second wind for Cody vs. Omega, there was pretty much nothing that could have been done after what had already been such a long show to get them back.

The other issue was the Honor Club streaming platform. For the biggest show in company history, it didn’t work live until late in the show, leading to the most hardcore fans being frustrated. Then, the video on demand was weird as well. There were people able to access the VOD, and others who couldn’t. It took several days before I was able to watch the show, and it wasn’t until the morning on 4/12, nearly five days after the show, that I was able to watch it without constant annoying buffering.

Because of the technical issues, ROH provided $40 coupons for merchandise at their pro shop to the VIP members and $10 for all other subscribers as make-goods.

The action was great but the body toll was scary. The ladder match had so many crazy bumps that you couldn’t even remember them all. There were also scary scenes in other matches, notably Dalton Castle being backdropped on the steps next to the stage and Punishment Martinez doing a running dive over the post, going way over the head of Tomohiro Ishii, and landing on his head on the floor.

Doing all kinds of table spots (and this felt like the old ECW where you had endless table spots in multiple matches) and ladder bumps is the standard for these type of ladder matches now on big stages, and the NXT match was the same. I guess here, just seeing how clearly injured Matt Jackson was (luckily Flip Gordon and Nick Jackson could more than take up the slack) and seeing him still do a few crazy spots was hard to watch. There was also a lot of interference up and down the show because they were looking at creating stories for the future. There’s a balance, because a lot of newer fans are into clean finishes and don’t like interference, and those are the fans who are the backbone of the underground boom. Even with NXT, which in many ways is ROH’s competition, there is interference at key spots when warranted, and limited to only the matches it is necessary in (Zelina Vega in the Andrade Cien Almas match).

Part of it was telling a story, that for some reason Bully Ray was not coming out to stop the interference as in the past, and then leading to the Bully Ray heel turn. The turn itself was well done but it just lengthened the show.

Cody beat Omega in 37:09 when the Young Bucks interference backfired after a ref bump. This was very different from a usual big Omega match. It was less about athleticism and creating the drama of a high-level sports contest and more about 80s territorial face vs. heel. It’s not Omega’s element really, although it still ended up an excellent match. But it was really about Cody as a heel, escaping a loss, getting over his character about being self-centered and not caring that his wife was injured while others, Omega and Flip Gordon did, and then winning. The idea of this was not one-match, but to do a long program, which means you can’t do all your moves in the first match, and the first match is to tell the story to where the face still has something to show and prove in rematches.

[Big Red Machine]

"newer fans are into clean finishes and don't like interference?" No, Dave. It's the older fans who like our finishes clean. Fans who remember what the "Honor" in "Ring of Honor" is supposed to be about. New fans are the ones who cheer for heel Marty Scurll giving heel Cody a chair to use on ROH Founding Father babyface Christopher Daniels in a PPV main event world title match because Bullet Club. Or who cheer a non-finish in a world title match PPV main event because Superkick.

[Wilson]

David Bixenspan of Deadspin writes about ROH's state and growth patterns:
https://deadspin.com/roh-wrestlings-big ... 1825242660

But also this is where trying to figure out the genesis of ROH’s current popularity gets complicated. ROH had already been picking up a new audience thanks to its Sinclair-gifted TV footprint, but interest really picked thanks to the Young Bucks—Matt and Nick Jackson—and the Bullet Club members in their direct orbit becoming the hottest non-WWE act in wrestling. It’s not easy to tell how much of this boom owes to ROH and how much belongs to the Bullet Club itself, in large part because of just how big Bullet Club and Bucks are away from and independent of ROH. In the most basic sense, ROH isn’t in Hot Topic retail stores—The Bullet Club and NJPW are. ROH doesn’t have dozens upon dozens of shirt designs at the Pro Wrestling Tees web store, where design space is allocated based on past sales so much as The Young Bucks do. ROH doesn’t have a viral YouTube show, but The Young Bucks sure do.

That identity crisis was front and center at Supercard of Honor, the promotion’s big WrestleMania weekend show. The top two matches on the card were Cody Rhodes vs. Kenny Omega, the big Bullet Club storyline match, and Castle defending the ROH Championship against the Bullet Club’s Marty Scurll, a promising pairing that didn’t have a big storyline hook. Cody-Omega was the match with he buzz, as Omega has become arguably the biggest non-WWE ticket mover in wrestling, but that match didn’t go on last. Castle-Scurll did. With the show running long and the fans having peaked with the emotional rollercoaster of Rhodes/Omega, this felt like a big a mistake. It looked like one, too, in the sense that it sent a noticeable number of fans running for the exits early. But that order also made a certain kind of sense, both because ROH has always stressed the importance of the big title and because Omega isn’t even an ROH wrestler in the first place. Four of the matches on the card featured NJPW stars, including a ROH tag team title match and the Kota Ibushi (Omega’s tag team partner) vs. Adam Page match that was tied into the Rhodes-Omega storyline. NJPW talent is a huge part of ROH’s major shows, to the point that over-reliance on the working agreement is the most common criticism of the American company.

“I think it will happen naturally,” Koff said of the integration of NJPW wrestlers. “I think it will evolve organically. If there’s a greater need, then it will happen, if there’s a lesser need, then it won’t. I can’t put it into a formula.” As long as the relationship stays strong, he says, he expects the mix to continue regularly, especially now that the usage of NJPW stars has become more story-based and integrated, as it was with Omega.