Sinclair spending

[Chrisvegas27]

Do you think after what roh is done this year and the recent conference call with the ceo of sinclair they will be spending more money on Roh next year

[Big Red Machine]

I would think so. They definitely seemed to be proud of the MSG sell out and really see the company as something with the potential to compete with WWE- or at least create a an imprint of similar size.

[Chrisvegas27]

It seems by the conference with sinclair ceo they are willing to spend more money on Roh

[WebConn]

Now if they could just get a new booker or a committee

[Chrisvegas27]

It really hasn't been all that bad this year specially the last few months from the way particular talent is getting pushed to the way backstage segments are being filmed even we are not getting much random matches on Roh tv anymore like we did when sinclair first bought the company

[JDE]

The wrestlers that are booked and the storylines are really good IMO. I’ve been to many ROH shows over the last few years and the shows always over deliver. The crowd is always going crazy and have a good time. I watch the tv show pretty much every week and feel it’s the best wrestling show on tv. In ring action aside, I love that the stories are logical and believable. Nothing really happens that insults your intelligence like with WWE or Impact. If there was more money put into the product it would blow away every other show by far.

[Chrisvegas27]

Plus I love that their furthering stories on house shows for talent that hasn't had much t.v. time on their weekly show

[JDE]

Regarding house shows I think ROH is probably the only company that has consistent storyline angles on house shows. Most house shows for other companies don’t have anything that is fresh. ROH seems to always have fresh matches and content on house shows.

[Big Red Machine]

We must be watching different products then, because aside from the Kenny King stuff, I think a general rule over the past few years has been that the longer a story goes on in ROH, the worse it gets. Whether it's bad announcing that seems to introduce contradictions or try to ex-post-facto paste things on to justify the storyline, or whether it's Delirious booking most house shows for cheap pops via babyface wins and/or title switches (I mean "cheap" in the sense that they don't actually mean anything, because wins don't really matter much in ROH nowadays), or just Delirious' general lack of creativity, 90% of stories that go on longer than a month or two starts to suck.
That's because ROH doesn't really have "stories" anymore so much as they have general ideas of feuds, and when all you have is a general idea, you really can't accent it with details (i.e. supporting house show results and non-repetitive build) along the path from A to B to C because all you have is point A and the blow-off match.

[JDE]

If ROH has bad booking or stories then what is an example of good booking and stories? WWE? Impact? Lucha Underground? Can you give examples because I enjoy the majority of everything that ROH does and again, nothing ever insults my intelligence or offends me as a viewer. I can’t say that about WWE or Impact.

[BurningHammer]

With regards to spending ROH needs to invest heavily in Talent, there is a lack of depth in quality and if they just sorted that ROH would be in a much better possition. It's an old roster that needs fresh faces with drawing ability or something that would capture the imagination in matches and story's. This is even more needed if certain faces aren't going to be around so much in the future in an on screen aspect. ROH may even see a dip in a attendance but that's something they will have to take on the chin while they build new talent.

Personally I've felt for the most part house shows are connected to story lines this year esepcially more than most companies, in general I see there are little things that add to each story on house shows and if you watch them all they add to a much bigger picture.

I would say though that these fine details that are there dont result in bigger concepts, or follow ons to the next PPV, a big one for me was not having another Young Bucks and Bricoes match from BITW at DBD, there really should have been another match with a stipulation to it, then in between that and after you can start to add SCU into things. Judging by the TV results coming up and the match at Final Battle there really could have been that extra push in between to make that match coming up that bit more special.

Having said all of that I've felt Flip Gordon has been one of best pushed and developed characters on TV/On Demand Serivce for any promotion, Taven and the Kindom in general have been great to see, the same with Kenny King and SCU. Little burners that are starting to shine through are Gresham and C2C I can see big things from each next year.

[Big Red Machine]

If ROH has bad booking or stories then what is an example of good booking and stories? WWE? Impact? Lucha Underground? Can you give examples because I enjoy the majority of everything that ROH does and again, nothing ever insults my intelligence or offends me as a viewer. I can’t say that about WWE or Impact.

I’m really glad you asked this because it forced me to think about things a lot.

I’m going to do this as a list because I think it will be easier than writing it out and getting lost in prose. Good booking does the following things (in no particular order):
1. Good booking treats the titles as important
This means title shots are earned, via winning several matches in a row or maybe some sort of big battle royale or by pinning the champion in non-title action, and such things are followed up on quickly, unless there is a kayfabe reason not to (in which case that reason should be part of the story). Former champions also shouldn’t wait months and months and months before asking for their rematches (again, unless there is a kayfabe reason to do so).
This also means that title shots should be made to feel like major occurrences, not just a thing we do just to have one, or because you’ve got a bunch of undercard guys you’re not doing anything with on a show so you throw them in a #1 contendership match for a title shot later in the night where no one thinks there is going to be a snowball’s chance in hell of the title changing hands. It also means no comedy in title matches. There are important championships in a sport. You don’t see four guys just drop the basketball and start dancing in the middle of an NBA Finals game, do you?

2. Good booking develops characters and gives you a reason to care about them other than just “guy X does cool movez.”
It gives me reasons to care about these people and their journeys, and guides them in directions that change over time. WAY too many wrestlers (and especially talented you ones) have come through ROH over the past few years and gone nowhere because they didn’t have characters so much as Delirious just had a rough idea of what they were supposed to be and that’s it (Rush, Gresham, Dijak, Jay White, Shane Taylor, ACH, I’ll even throw Rhett Titus in here, etc., there was a point when you could have even made this case for Dalton Castle. Even Matt Sydal just came in and did nothing for a year).

3. Good booking is internally consistent
This has several facets to it. Firstly, it is consistent in its own morality. Something can’t be wrong when a heel does it but okay when a babyface does. To pull an example from New Japan, what makes Jay White despicable when he kicks someone in the nuts, but when Yano does it it’s all in good fun? You can’t have the babyface announcer screaming bloody murder when one heel Briscoe helps another, but giggling in mirth when Bullet Club does their stupid “ten boots!” spot, or playing Bobby Heenan when a babyface cheats. If a low blow is dirty when Adam Cole does it to Jay Lethal then it’s also dirty when one of the Boys does it to a Briscoe (BITW 2017). Unless the circumstances are extremely stacked against him/her, someone who cheats is not a babyface.
(Side note: I don’t totally subscribe to the “morality play” theory of pro wrestling. I am perfectly with heels winning clean and heels winning in the end of the feud, but I still firmly believe that one who is a cheater or is in some other way unlikeable is not a babyface.)
Good booking is also consistent in the rules of the promotion. You can’t change the rules in every match (and certainly not during a match) based on what spots the wrestlers want to do. If your promotion has count-outs, you can’t be brawling on the outside forever unless someone is always rolling into the ring to break it up. You could say that this is not a “booking” thing so much as a wrestling thing, but a good booker will order his/her wrestlers to follow the rules, and punish them if they don’t.
(Theoretically you could establish that one ref is more lenient than another on count-outs or something like that, but even then you need to take time developing that and have that stay consistent every time that ref is out there. Things can’t change simply because the plot needs them to change at this exact moment.)
This also means that if something happens in one situation, it needs to happen in an analogous one. If you’re going to have a referee restart a match due to something he didn’t see himself (like Flip’s foot being on the ropes at Honor For All) then you need to also have the referee restart a match in any other situation where someone trustworthy is telling him he blew the call (i.e. every other heel finish ever). Or if management is going to get in such a tizzy about SCU jumping people before matches to that point that they come right out and announce “we’re not going to renew your contracts when they expire” because of it, then they should react that way to all of the heels who jump people. It can’t be a great thing when Jay Lethal takes the belt and defends it overseas but when heel Cody Rhodes does threatens to do I’m supposed to panic because “oh no! What if Cody loses the belt to someone from another promotion?!”

4. Good booking never forgets the premise
A professional wrestling promotion is supposed to be a professional combat sports league, and that premise carries with it certain requirements.
Firstly, the results of your matches need to matter. It doesn’t matter how popular the Montreal Canadians are; if they don’t earn a playoff spot and the Arizona Coyotes do, the Coyotes get that playoff spot even though no one gives a sh*t about the Coyotes and Montreal has one of the biggest fanbases in the NHL. There is zero excuse for Jay White being undefeated in ROH for EIGHT MONTHS and not ever getting a title shot. In-ring success should always bring rewards, and one who often fails in the ring should not be getting rewards simply because of his/her history (merely not being released after a bunch of losses in a row is more than enough of an acknowledgement of someone’s years of service).
This also means that the promotion should always do its best to right any wrongs. A dirty finish should be followed up on (and especially if it’s in a title match). There shouldn’t have been a reason for Matt Taven to even have to introduce his own ttile belt or go on these crazy conspiracy rants because ROH should have booked Matt Taven vs. Jay Lethal for the ROH World Title of their own initiative over the summer because Taven is completely in the right when he points out that he did, in fact, pin ROH World Champion Dalton Castle during a title match but the referee was down.
This also means that a promotion needs to act like a real professional combat sports promotion would if something comes up. There is no reason it should have taken MONTHS for Bully Ray to be removed from his position as “ROH Enforcer,” no reason the promotion should be allowing Matt Taven to refuse to wrestle right before his match and substitute Vinny Marseglia in his place in a match with no notice, and no reason the company should seem to just shrug its shoulders every time someone cheats instead of booking some sort of follow-up match in an attempt to correct the injustice. There is also no reason that when someone like The Addiction or The Kingdom come out and whine about a conspiracy against them, that someone from management has never come out and explained to us why the heels claiming to be conspired against are wrong. If such a thing happened in any real sport, the league would immediately put out a statement of some sort.
This also ties in with things like consistent applications of the rules, and things like people actually thinking Brandi Rhodes would be allowed to just put on a referee’s shirt and become a sanctioned referee.

5. Good booking tells its stories in a consistent manner
If something is the story in the beginning of an angle, that story cannot change without some sort of precipitating factor on-screen. For example, this year’s story with SCU has been that Joe Koff announced that ROH would not be renewing SCU’s contracts because they were being giant assholes and attacking people and doing other such horrible things, and thus SCU were trying to win and keep championships so that when their contracts ran out at the end of the year they would have leverage over ROH to force ROH to resign them. Then, at some point over the summer, SCU suddenly started getting cheered and so the angle then became that we all want to see SCU win titles and not lose them so that these wonderful and talented wrestlers aren’t forced to leave ROH, with no one seeming to remember that the story was something else entirely a mere few months ago. These two realities are not compatible. If SCU have changed their ways then why hasn’t Koff come out and said so and said that ROH would be happy to resign such talented wrestlers? Not doing so basically makes Koff a heel authority figure, threatening to not resign guys simply because he holds a grudge against them.
Or take the case of the Gresham/Lethal Ironman match. During the match, the announcers kept trying to tell some sort of story that Gresham hurt his leg in their first match and “Gresham came back too early” for their second match because “you don’t get many chances to face a guy like Jay Lethal” and was thus not at 100% for their second match and this caused him to lose. The problem is that this story did not exist during their second match, as Gresham’s knee was not really mentioned as an issue and it was, in fact Lethal who came into the match with an unhealed injury that Gresham worked over. Furthermore, the idea that Gresham “came back early” for “the chance to face Jay Lethal” is contrary to the evidence because Gresham wrestled several matches for ROH in the month before that during which the injured knee was not an issue for him at all. The story build to the Lethal vs. Gresham Ironman match is thus exposed as something extremely clumsily imposed in hindsight and doesn’t even mesh with the continuity. And stuff like this, where the company either doesn’t think I am smart enough to remember something from a few months ago or they don’t care if I remember it or not and are just too lazy to make sure their own storylines fit the continuity is something that I do find very insulting as a viewer.

6. Good booking follows the rule of “show; don’t tell.”
Pro wrestling- both on the micro level of the individual match and the macro level of big-picture booking- is storytelling, so important rules of storytelling like “show; don’t tell” apply. If MCMG are “mentoring” young guys like Gresham, Rush Dijak, etc. then actually show me segments where MCMG mentor them. If Cody and Scurll’s arguing is supposedly causing problems for Bullet Club then show me it causing an actual problem with actual negative consequences, like causing them to lose a match. If Adam Page is becoming a main-event talent then treat him like a main eventer and actually let him wrestle a singles match main event.
“Show; don’t tell” also applies in other ways that just the obvious. They have been a bit better lately, but if was often the case over the past few years that unless it was a main eventer, we wouldn’t hear the wrestlers cut promos but would instead be informed of their feelings by the announcers. Second-hand promos are never as powerful because not only is it not the wrestler’s own words, but hearing and seeing the wrestler articulate his/her problems helps show us that these feelings are important simply by virtue of it being given the airtime (never mind helping wrestlers develop their promo skills).
Also- this one should be obvious but unfortunately in ROH in the past few years it hasn’t been- the storyline needs to mesh with the visual evidence we are being show. If Colt Cabana is going to turn on Dalton Castle because he thinks Dalton Castle is causing their tag team to lose by spending too much time farting around with Boys during matches, then you need to actually have them lose some matches because Dalton is farting around with the Boys instead of paying attention.

7 Good booking follows up on events in a logical manner.
This obviously overlaps with some of the things I’ve said above, but, for example, if the Young Bucks are clearly trying to kick Cody out of Bullet Club at Supercard of Honor XII then there needs to be some follow-up with Cody and the Bucks that explains how Cody is still in Bullet Club. If the Briscoes try to choke Daniels to death with a chain, then there should be some sort of gimmick match booked. If Matt Taven is claiming to be the real ROH World Champion and attacks Jay Lethal from behind on a PPV, then Lethal should be demanding a match with Taven to get his revenge.

8. Good booking answers as many questions and closes as many logic holes as possible.
Just like in any non-comedic storytelling endeavor, the fewer times I am saying “wait, this doesn’t make sense because X,” the better job you are doing. If you get paid to book a wrestling promotion, you should be doing a good enough job that things aren’t jumping out at me as not making sense on a frequent basis. And this goes for everything from what matches are being booked to why SCU would voluntarily put the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Titles on the line against The Kingdom when their angle is that they need to remain champions to have leverage to force ROH to resign them (and why they never tried to use their rematch clause, or any other number of things).

9. I don’t really have a good heading for this one and you seem to be a newer fan so you might not realize it, but over the past few years, there have been a lot of stories that either kept dragging on without ever going anywhere or ideas that got pretty quickly recycled. This Cheeseburger vs. The Dawgs feud the Josh Woods vs. Shane Taylor, and the Rebellion vs. Seek & Destroy feud are examples of the former, while examples of the latter include “Cody is a free agent and him winning the title would be bad,” Shane Taylor “changing his ways,” the entire existence of The Cabinet and The Rebellion (they spent months saying they were “protesting” not being given opportunities by ROH but never once did they elaborate on this, or did anyone from ROH ever try to argue that they were wrong with concrete examples), or heels complaining about a “conspiracy” against them (first The Addiction, and now The Kingdom). That sort of meandering on such a frequent basis is, to me, the sign of a struggling booker.


In summation, I guess I would say that while for the most part ROH does not insult fans' intelligence the way WWE or Impact do, that doesn't make them good by default. It just makes ROH better than those other two.

[JDE]

Thank you for the lengthy and detailed answer. You are definitely knowledgeable about ROH and make some good points but a lot of what you said is based on your personal opinion and preferences.

I personally think that the good in ROH outweighs any of the bad so much that any flaws are hard to notice. Now this is my own opinion as a fan who watches to enjoy and not to overly critique. You are definitely a different type of viewer than myself and I respect that.

Are there any wrestling companies now or in history that follow these guidelines that you laid out? I’m serious with this question because I can’t think of any company that has or does adhere to your guidelines? Definitely not WWE, Impact or the old WCW.

[Laviemarg]

As someone that has been watching ROH for awhile with an eye within the Sinclair universe-
Will Sinclair spend more money on ROH in 2019? No, probably not. Perhaps incrementally to increase some production elements. Sinclair rarely spends money on products that they own, period. They will spend to acquire assets but then manage those assets as cheaply as possible once acquired. This isn't a good or bad thing, it's just the way that they do business. MSG sellout woke senior management up to the possibility that this is an unpolished gem but they aren't necessarily ready to spend the money to polish it.

[Big Red Machine]

Thank you for the lengthy and detailed answer. You are definitely knowledgeable about ROH and make some good points but a lot of what you said is based on your personal opinion and preferences.

I personally think that the good in ROH outweighs any of the bad so much that any flaws are hard to notice. Now this is my own opinion as a fan who watches to enjoy and not to overly critique. You are definitely a different type of viewer than myself and I respect that.

Are there any wrestling companies now or in history that follow these guidelines that you laid out? I’m serious with this question because I can’t think of any company that has or does adhere to your guidelines? Definitely not WWE, Impact or the old WCW.

ROH did for a large majority of it's existence (I'd say the promotion was booked very well from pretty much the beginning up until about late 2015). EVOLVE has also been booked very well since I've started watching it (since mid 2014) as have PROGRESS (I've been watching for about two years now), and wXw over in Germany. CHIKARA was also quite excellent from about early 2007 until the shut-down angle in 2013. I haven't seen either of them, but I'm told that Watts' territory and both Cornette's SMW and OVW were also booked quite well.

[JDE]

I have never seen a Progress show except a few matches here and there. Never seen anything from WXW. I really like CHIKARA and have seen CHIKARA live multiple times.

I have seen Evolve but they only run a couple shows a month and everything I have seen comes off uninspired and just there. I really want to like it but it’s just matches in front of a crowd that doesn’t seem to care all that much. I’ve never been invested in any storylines from Evolve at all.

As far as television companies or larger scale companies, ROH is by far the best wrestling show out there.

[Big Red Machine]

I have never seen a Progress show except a few matches here and there. Never seen anything from WXW. I really like CHIKARA and have seen CHIKARA live multiple times.

I have seen Evolve but they only run a couple shows a month and everything I have seen comes off uninspired and just there. I really want to like it but it’s just matches in front of a crowd that doesn’t seem to care all that much. I’ve never been invested in any storylines from Evolve at all.

As far as television companies or larger scale companies, ROH is by far the best wrestling show out there.

EVOLVE was certainly better a few years ago, but everything makes sense now. The crowds care about the matches. They just don't constantly chant random things, which I find a refreshing change at this point.
As far as a good TV wrestling product goes, I've been greatly enjoying both NXT and 205 Live, and I have really enjoyed the small amount of RevPro TV that I've seen. I have other issues with their booking (basically, I think all of those criticisms people were leveling at ROH in the first two years of the NJPW relationship about ROH's guys being doormats for NJPW are actually coming true in RevPro, plus some poor handling of one or two other things), but I do think that everything they do at least makes kayfabe sense, even if I think it's not the best thing to do for the future of the promotion. While ROH is better than TNA or WWE's main roster stuff (I think the booking in NXT UK makes more sense than in ROH, but I can't get into anything they do on that show), I wouldn't go as far as calling ROH "good" at the moment. Maybe it is if you only watch the TV, but the more ROH I try to keep up with, the more the cracks show.

[JDE]

I will check out some recent Evolve and see if I can get invested.

I enjoy NXT but could care less about 205.

Regarding your statement about ROH being a doormat for New Japan wrestlers is something that is clearly not true when you look at the facts. ROH guys have won more titles in New Japan than New Japan wrestlers have won in ROH plus ROH put this article out before Global Wars showing that both companies are pretty much even with wins with ROH actually having more wins over New Japan wrestlers.
https://www.rohwrestling.com/news/globa ... pw-numbers

[Big Red Machine]

I will check out some recent Evolve and see if I can get invested.

I enjoy NXT but could care less about 205.

Regarding your statement about ROH being a doormat for New Japan wrestlers is something that is clearly not true when you look at the facts. ROH guys have won more titles in New Japan than New Japan wrestlers have won in ROH plus ROH put this article out before Global Wars showing that both companies are pretty much even with wins with ROH actually having more wins over New Japan wrestlers.
https://www.rohwrestling.com/news/globa ... pw-numbers

You misread my statement. I said that RevPro's wrestlers were doormats for NJPW. But the "doormats for NJPW" narrative was prevalent- although, in my opinion, overblown- in 2014-2016. The only result I ha a real problem with was Tanahashi beating Roddy when Roddy was en route to a #1 contendership match while Tanahashi's program in New Japan at the time involved him losing cleanly to Yano.
As for the titles thing, that's a misleading statistic because a lot of those ROH guys were New Japan regulars, whereas when (for example) Ishii won the TV Title, he took it with him for three months and aside from two join shows he was already booked on the next week, we never saw it again until he lost it, plus, him doing so felt like it detracted from the Roddy vs. Fish feud, which had been all about the TV Title but now had to be blown off without it.

The thing about the wins statistic is that there is a distinction between the number of wins, and who is getting the wins. Pretty much any time it was top guy vs. top guy, it was ROH's top guys doing the jobs. That's mostly fine if you can time it out right so that they are in a position to take the loss at the time (Cole's loss to Nakamura and Roddy's to Okada in August 2015 are examples of Delirious doing this well), but when you have too much of ROH top guys never getting wins on NJPW top guys (Lethal over Naito is the only one I can think of) while ROH top guys will lose to or need help beating NJPW undercard guys (Lethal vs. Honma, Cole jobbing to YOSHI-HASHI [and as the ROH World Champion, no less] then the companies do not feel equal.