ROH Officially Drops GoFightLive

[The Talon]

Via Twitter:

@ROH_World
It has been confirmed that the May 12th 'Border Wars' iPPV will NOT be airing on GoFightLive! #WatchROH

@realkevinkelly
Yes. Not on GFL though, thank God RT @H0D01986: Is Border Wars going to be on IPPV?

This is great news! Though, I wonder, what ROH will use to air iPPV's now. Also, will the new service be able to work with the Roku boxes?

[The Talon]

Here's the official story from PWInsider:

Following the issues with the Showdown in the Sun iPPVs on Wrestlemania weekend, Ring of Honor will be using another Internet PPV provider going forward.
ROH announcer Kevin Kelly confirmed the news via his Twitter, writing, "Yes. Not on GFL though, thank God" to a fan asking if the May 12th Toronto event would be held via iPPV.

Technical problems pretty much destroyed the ROH iPPVs over Wrestlemania weekend, one of the busiest weekends of the year for pro wrestling. One person blamed the issues on new technology that hadn't properly been tested being used on the first broadcast. Issues with the second broadcast were blamed on a pretty major brownout in the Fort Lauderdale area.

In asking around I am told the company is mulling over several possibilities going forward. The most obvious choices would be Hybrid.ent, which handles CZW iPPVs, WWNLive.com (run by Sal Hamaoui and Gabe Saopolsky, who both have long histories with ROH before the sides parted ways, which led to WWNLive.com being created) or the company bringing the iPPV broadcasts in house and running it themselves.

ROH has been running Internet PPVs for several years, popularizing the iPPV concept for independent wrestling promotions. They were expected to move away from Go Fight Live following the Florida iPPVs but Kelly's comments were the first public acknowledgement of that.

[Harthan]

Not sure I like Kevin Kelly's "thank God". I mean, GFL has had its issues, but they're still the people that ROH broke into iPPV with and pretty much revolutionized indy wrestling alongside. They had their share of technical issues, and the WrestleMania weekend issues were inexcusable, but to cast them aside like so much garbage is in poor taste. But, that's Kevin Kelly for you.

It is good news, however, considering the technical issues. It'd be interesting to see if the new ownership can strike a bargain with WWN to broadcast on their platform, but going in house seems like a better idea, and I'm sure SBG has the resources to do it.