ROH Pure Tournament

[Chrisvegas27]

They have announced brody king vs castle and brian johnson vs dak draper in a pure rules match for this week tv

[BurningHammer]

The ending to the finals did feel sudden but after thinking about it, that is more realistic. Gresham is a great choice for the title and I liked the respect by each competitor and Jay Lethal afterwards. Williams definitely got made this tournament.

Completely agree. The sudden ending caught me a bit off guard, mainly because I thought they would go 20-25 with all rope breaks exhausted.

I really like the Josh woods vs Pj Black and Jonathan Gresham matches too.

It will be interesting to see what’s next. While yes, it’s great to have a pure division/ takeover. Still a lot of non-pure guys on the roster. Variety is good though. Think booking a tournament is easy. Now it will be tough, especially with half of roster, and trying to gain momentum leading to 2021.

It wouldn't surprise me if the match was edited down a little too much and the full match make more sense.

I think the main problem is that their is almost too much variety in ROH, while also it just isn't good enough, I have no problem with big guys in ROH, high flyers, guys great on the mic, these all help wrestling in general, the fact is what ROH has in place in those departments in quite a few cases just hasn't or wont connect to the fan base. We also can't sit here and say that Deppen, Yuta, Yehi didn't help this tournament a ton and ROH in general would be struggling for true very good wrestlers to fill the tournament and if you want this idea to strong and actually matter having these guys being on your roster kills so many birds with one stone it seems silly not too add them.

I don't know if anyone noticed in the Gresham post match promo but Lethal had his eyes constantly on the Pure title.

[Montana]

Good point about the editing. Probably was a bit.

Also; good point on variety; while i like it; and there are pro's to it; with the position ROH is in; they aren't getting necessarily first round draft picks to be Great in all areas of variety. For the most part; the top ROH guys are really good; then the bottom half are solid. But it doesn't seem like ROH strives to get the best for the lower card. While i really enjoyed Deppen, Yuta & Yehi; I don't think they necessarily move the needle in terms of the product. Certainly help improve the low-mid card. Yes; they help; build some hype for the pure tournament; BUT part of the hype was because they are new. So while i agree all 3 should be signed; I like the signing of guys like Dragon Lee; Bandido; Mark Haskins, Slex; a bit more; as they have upside to get into the upper half of the roster, and future world champ potential. Side note; late 2019-2020 it looked like ROH was going heavy on high flyers like Alex Zayne, Dragon Lee, Rey Horus, Flamita; Andrew Everett and now they are going more Pure wrestlers. The high flyers seem to help highlights/buzz. Think ROH needs that area as well.

I was too busy looking at the red octopus mask man. I'll have to check that out again.

Also - Dalton Castle vs. Brody King is interesting booking for the first non-pure tournament show. Dalton has been doing REALLY good on promos' and i can't help but think; they are working to move Brody King into the main event scene. So if Brody goes over; does something snap in Dalton Castle?? Or Is Castle on his way out?? I really hope we get a comeback story in 2021 for Castle. Hopefully the time off; he's been able to fully recovering from lingering injuries.

Dax vs. Brian Johnson i assume will be a squash.

[Chrisvegas27]

Fightful said ec3 done with impact for now and he will work for roh at least until the end of the year

[BurningHammer]

Good point about the editing. Probably was a bit.

Also; good point on variety; while i like it; and there are pro's to it; with the position ROH is in; they aren't getting necessarily first round draft picks to be Great in all areas of variety. For the most part; the top ROH guys are really good; then the bottom half are solid. But it doesn't seem like ROH strives to get the best for the lower card. While i really enjoyed Deppen, Yuta & Yehi; I don't think they necessarily move the needle in terms of the product. Certainly help improve the low-mid card. Yes; they help; build some hype for the pure tournament; BUT part of the hype was because they are new. So while i agree all 3 should be signed; I like the signing of guys like Dragon Lee; Bandido; Mark Haskins, Slex; a bit more; as they have upside to get into the upper half of the roster, and future world champ potential. Side note; late 2019-2020 it looked like ROH was going heavy on high flyers like Alex Zayne, Dragon Lee, Rey Horus, Flamita; Andrew Everett and now they are going more Pure wrestlers. The high flyers seem to help highlights/buzz. Think ROH needs that area as well.

I was too busy looking at the red octopus mask man. I'll have to check that out again.

Also - Dalton Castle vs. Brody King is interesting booking for the first non-pure tournament show. Dalton has been doing REALLY good on promos' and i can't help but think; they are working to move Brody King into the main event scene. So if Brody goes over; does something snap in Dalton Castle?? Or Is Castle on his way out?? I really hope we get a comeback story in 2021 for Castle. Hopefully the time off; he's been able to fully recovering from lingering injuries.

Dax vs. Brian Johnson i assume will be a squash.

To me all three do have the possibility of moving up, maybe not into the world title picture but enough to get towards the TV title although Yehi if given the ball really could be something. The needle movers that ROH should have gone for are now in AEW, so it's going to be about the next crop that are coming through really. I would say without fans attending but with interest in the product higher especially with TV now is the time to build guys up that might not be known or are starting to make a name. Overall I'm certainly not saying they don't need Lee, Bandido, Flamita or Horus etc they need that balance and quality of course, to me it's not using guys like Titus, Flip, Bruiser, Malonis, Kenny, PCO, Cheeseburger, Castle etc, they are just taking up places that can be used in far better ways. To me seeing Yehi vs Bandido or Lee would be awesome, Deppen vs Horus or Flamita again sounds far more appealing than say Vinny.

I just can't see Castle getting anywhere near where he was, even against Jay he looked in pain and akwardly poor in the ring, it sounds like something is happening with him that could change his character or maybe his in ring style that would help at least get through matches with out much bother.

I hope Dak wins, think he has a huge amount to give to ROH just needs a base to grow from.

[Montana]

Speaking of bottom card guys... ROH dropped the ball on the 2019 Top Prospect Tournament. Using mostly MCW guys with Little to none follow up.

Guys like:

Austin Gunn,
Dante Caballero
Brian Johnson
Joe Keys
Dak Draper
Mkita
Hatian Sensation
Ken Dixon

Seriously... This would have been a great time to throw Dak Draper in there with guys like Tony Deppen, John Silver, Warhorse, Wheeler Yuta, Fred Yehi, DanHausen, Ben Carter, etc etc. ROH had the least Momentum in probably company history from July-SEPT 2019... and they book that TPT. Did they really think those MCW guys would help/draw buzz for the company?? Yikes

[BurningHammer]

If you actually had them do that this year it would have made much more sense considering many of those have tried to build their names outside of the Dojo. Really the last couple of years have been terrible regarding the Top Prospect tournament. It's all been based around people attending the combines, tryouts whatever rather than being anything about talent and actual true prospects. Too see the talent that could have been in has just pretty depressing.

If Dixon didn't have his one tooth look (considering the Bouncers and Jay Briscoe have a limited set already) would stand out and he really has an old school intense style. He's looked pretty good the last couple of times I've seen him for ACTION wrestling.

It was interesting to hear Tracey Willaims in a podcast recently speak very highly of Dante Caballero, I don't know if that means he will have something to do with the Foundation, if he is I hope he get's re-branded in someway because the gimmick, especially his looks just doesn't fit with ROH.

I wonder if they will try it next year, they certainly need another crop of people into the Dojo soon