Bob Ryder: TNA Should Get Aggressive After Unsigned ROH Talent?

[It's Damn Real!]

This from an interview at TNAMecca:

We have had talks at various times to see if ROH would want to do business with us. They weren’t interested at the time. Maybe we should get aggressive and go after some of their unsigned talent? That would be interesting.

Depending on how much stock you put into reports that hit sites like this, it seems TNA reached out a few times to work with ROH, who wanted nothing to do with them. This seems to have caused another rift between the two companies despite airing back-to-back on the same network, adding to a long tenured history of aggression and hostility between the brands.

I'd be interested to see who exactly isn't contract at ROH before I could really say one way or another who makes sense as a target, but let's not pretend this is TNA's first rodeo in this game. They did it with Kenny King and Davey Richards reached out to both O'Reilly and Fish just a year ago. They also tapped into ROH years ago pulling in Joe, Styles and Daniels among others.

What I do know is if they do manage to pull this off, it could serve as a replacement to the type of "invasion" angle they reportedly tried to run with ROH. Especially since in a way, unknowingly, ROH has already fired the first shots by picking up Styles, Lethal, Bad Influence and other now ex-TNA stars in the last little while. If they can manage to convince ROH talent to sign, you may yet still see a competitive exchange of talent going on, albeit unofficial and fueled by anger.

 

[Rayne]

Well, Bob certainly does have a view from the inside on this one.

Right now we're in a period where ROH appears to be steadily growing, while no one's sure what TNA's business plan is for three months from now. What does TNA have to offer to be aggressive with ROH's unsigned talent? At this point, ROH is distributed into more homes than TNA, rendering the old 'exposure' argument nil. Money is a tough sell in this instance; how much do you have to pay someone to get them to burn their bridges with one company to work for another which may not even be around next year?

Previously, talent moved from ROH to TNA (in the same fashion as WWF to WCW) since it appeared then that at the time, TNA was a better career option than ROH. That incentive is gone now, and we're starting to see the backflow of performers to ROH now. Bob Ryder can mention being aggressive in interviews all day, but right now he's the 120 lb. kid who's soaking wet and spoiling for a fight.

 

[Lowdown]

I haven't heard of too many stars at ROH considering going to TNA. It's true that ROH had been steadily growing the last few years, and greater things look to be on the rise with Lethal winning the championship. With TNA, we really don't know if the company is gonna be around much longer with the rumors floating around the way they have been. However, I world like to see a joint venture of some kind, even if it's wishful thinking.

 

[Seosa]

But why would any ROH talent want to join TNA?

 

[Thriller Ant]

Especially since in a way, unknowingly, ROH has already fired the first shots by picking up Styles, Lethal, Bad Influence and other now ex-TNA stars in the last little while. If they can manage to convince ROH talent to sign, you may yet still see a competitive exchange of talent going on, albeit unofficial and fueled by anger.

Calling that firing shots is quite a stretch. All of those guys were either lowballed by TNA, unwanted by TNA, or the wrestlers themselves wanted nothing more to do with TNA. If anything, those guys are examples of why ROH should avoid doing business with TNA: ROH is the preferred landing spot for guys when they want nothing more to do with TNA (and, for this, I am lumping GFW in with TNA for reasons that should be obvious).

 

[TDFG]

Until TNA's tv deal situation is cleared up, tv tapings aren't months in advance and they start running house shows again you would be mad to take up a contract offer with them.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Calling that firing shots is quite a stretch. All of those guys were either lowballed by TNA, unwanted by TNA, or the wrestlers themselves wanted nothing more to do with TNA. If anything, those guys are examples of why ROH should avoid doing business with TNA: ROH is the preferred landing spot for guys when they want nothing more to do with TNA (and, for this, I am lumping GFW in with TNA for reasons that should be obvious).

Hence the "unknowingly" part.

They unknowingly, or unintentionally ruffled the feathers of the company those guys used to work for by picking them all up and then negotiating a deal with the same network TNA is on.

I'm not saying that they went into this with some grandiose master plan to do so. I'm saying that whether they intended to or not, that's the appearance.

Look at it from TNA's perspective. Regardless of why those talents left, they left, and all went to a company who are now in direct competition with them, who refused to work with TNA (rightfully, mind you). Of course it has the appearance of shots fired.

 

[Hayabusa]

ROH is where TNA was 10 years ago. Hot product, growing promotion, PPV, & TV. TNA has seemingly lost all of that in the past 5 years. Out of top ROH/indy talent, how many have bypassed TNA? Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, & Based Referree Drake Younger. How many ROH/indy guys have went to TNA in the last 5? Aries and the Wolves? Kenny King had promise, but look at him now. Who knows what he's doing in TNA, I don't watch that shit.

 

[rmp0012002]

No one knows what will become of TNA by the end of the year so why would you leave ROH to join them. ROH has a plan and are owned by a media corporation so they know how to maximize their assets. They want to grow but are doing it slowly and know where their place in the sport is right now. TNA on the other hand wants to be Vince right now and that is not how it works considering where they are right now.

 

[Con T.]

Look at it from TNA's perspective. Regardless of why those talents left, they left, and all went to a company who are now in direct competition with them, who refused to work with TNA (rightfully, mind you). Of course it has the appearance of shots fired.

I'd probably look at it as though some guys which I fired (or made feel that they were not wanted in my company) were getting work elsewhere. Because frankly, that's what it is.

Pro Wrestling festers this really weird atmosphere where the athlete who goes to another promotion, at least to the top brass, is the enemy. Right now, TNA is trying to play both the underdog (in the "fight" to become the top wrestling promotion), and the big bully, that can push around companies like ROH.

Bob Ryder, in turn, is also kind of a douchebag. People wonder how Vince Russo survived in TNA so long, but at least e had success to speak of. Bob Ryder's biggest success was being a (paid) employee for WCW on 1wrestling.com, and being outed for his "reporting" which swayed in WCW's favor. He's always been a ********, with no repercussions for his behavior. In fact, he's pretty high up on the totem pole, in spite of his lack of any real... Talent, let's just say.

Which brings me to the ultimate point; working for TNA, when you work for people like Bob Ryder, can't be really pleasant at all. In fact, TNA seems like a completely horrible place to work, with the only benefit being on national television. Now even that isn't valuable, when you can work for ROH, and be in more homes.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Well, in a way, ROH is the enemy. We know this because they are "rival" competitors who won't work with one another despite being on the same network, and their being on the same network has given cause for concern that DA could be aligning themselves to drop TNA, as has been rumored, in lieu of a syndicated broadcast of ROH. This would allow them to keep wrestling but pay very little for it.

I wish it weren't the case, but you can blame McMahon for all of this. He started this brand wars thing years ago when he decided to push his vision of "sports entertainment" in the manner he did. Wrestling never used to operate in that manner. It operated in territories where talent exchange was a regular thing. That's simply not the case any longer. Wrestling operates today more like how teams in a professional sports league do. They lock up talent. They try to corner markets. They seize assets. They want all the cash and have little interest in sharing with others unless those others can in some manner garner them more money. That's why WWE operates in some manner with ROH right now. They view ROH as an unpaid, unofficial training camp of sorts.

 

[FromGlasgow]

ROH will sadly never gain any kind of mainstream household name success due to the owners penchant for molesting young children, Which is same with RF video, I just can't purchase anything this guy is involved with, Just wish the guy would leave wrestling completely and stop dragging it down with a bad name. He had no talent anyway especially on his shoot interviews his voice drained on me.

 

[rmp0012002]

ROH will sadly never gain any kind of mainstream household name success due to the owners penchant for molesting young children, Which is same with RF video, I just can't purchase anything this guy is involved with, Just wish the guy would leave wrestling completely and stop dragging it down with a bad name. He had no talent anyway especially on his shoot interviews his voice drained on me.

Feinstein hasn't been involved with ROH for over ten years.

 

[Rayne]

ROH will sadly never gain any kind of mainstream household name success due to the owners penchant for molesting young children, Which is same with RF video, I just can't purchase anything this guy is involved with, Just wish the guy would leave wrestling completely and stop dragging it down with a bad name. He had no talent anyway especially on his shoot interviews his voice drained on me.

Is it lonely out there, on 2005's version of the Internet? Or are you just now waking from a ten-year coma and haven't yet been caught up to speed on what's been going on around you?

On a side note, I just found out that the guy who owned my car three owners ago was convicted of child pornography, so I'm going to go drive the thing into a lake. Excuse me.

 

[klunderbunker]

What a nice idea from Ryder. I'm sure it's just another check from Papa Dixie too right?

TNA seems to be having issues paying talent, production crews and pretty much everyone else, but they can afford to have a talent signing spree? It's a nice idea, but right now signing a few talents isn't going to solve their major problems. I understand that they need to fill out their shows, but I'm not sure how wise it is to try to tick off your most serious competition (aside from death) and start a talent war, especially when TNA is running out of bargaining chips. ROH is on the same network plus a bunch of syndicated stations and seems to be going up. Just saying "but we're TNA!" isn't worth what it used to be and it's not the easiest thing in the world to get people to come down to you given how bad things have been looking lately.

It's a nice idea, but it's really not that practical.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

At this point, it's ultimately just throwing money away, which is something that TNA was able to do and did quite vigorously once upon a time, but that was a different time. They're having trouble paying talent, paying talent on time, they've had issues paying the production crew and signing someone from ROH won't help matters. I mean, if reports are true, TNA can really no longer guarantee contracts and it's no longer a haven for former WWE/WCW guys to earn decent pay; the company probably doesn't have the coffers to be able to give indie talent more money than they could make working elsewhere.

Reportedly, TNA's model going forward looks to be doing TV tapings without touring or house shows as a means of cost cutting. If that's true, it'll save some money but what's the point of throwing it away on ROH talents who aren't gonna really be able to improve the bottom line?

 

[The Dragon Saga]

I can honestly say that I wouldn't be surprised if there are more talent in TNA who want to go to ROH, then talent in ROH who want to go to TNA. Dalton Castle for example had two offers on his table a couple of months ago, TNA and ROH and he chose ROH. Why did he choose ROH? Who knows. But the painfully obvious reasons are there. You work more dates, you can be seen in more homes, you're working for a growing company and in ROH your job is more-so to be a wrestler than a character. Granted Castle's character is what makes him stand out, but he's also a great wrestler.

I don't see this as anything to be alarmed about. They tried reDRagon, they apparently tried Roderick Strong and Mike Bennett, if none of those guys are there, then something is up. Either ROH is too good to leave or TNA isn't good enough to jump to. Also never forget that any talent aside Kenny King who has joined TNA from ROH in the last four years has been because of issues within ROH, e.g. The Wolves (Davey fired, Eddie thought WWE was a possibility, he also knows he's worth more as a Wolf than he is as Eddie Edwards), Austin Aries and TJ Perkins. It seems the only way TNA will poach anyone is if that person and ROH have an existing issue.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

I can honestly say that I wouldn't be surprised if there are more talent in TNA who want to go to ROH, then talent in ROH who want to go to TNA. Dalton Castle for example had two offers on his table a couple of months ago, TNA and ROH and he chose ROH. Why did he choose ROH? Who knows. But the painfully obvious reasons are there. You work more dates, you can be seen in more homes, you're working for a growing company and in ROH your job is more-so to be a wrestler than a character. Granted Castle's character is what makes him stand out, but he's also a great wrestler.

I don't see this as anything to be alarmed about. They tried reDRagon, they apparently tried Roderick Strong and Mike Bennett, if none of those guys are there, then something is up. Either ROH is too good to leave or TNA isn't good enough to jump to. Also never forget that any talent aside Kenny King who has joined TNA from ROH in the last four years has been because of issues within ROH, e.g. The Wolves (Davey fired, Eddie thought WWE was a possibility, he also knows he's worth more as a Wolf than he is as Eddie Edwards), Austin Aries and TJ Perkins. It seems the only way TNA will poach anyone is if that person and ROH have an existing issue.

I actually don't think any of this factors in. Not as much as you think.

To me, it's as simple as this: WWE rarely, if ever, hires TNA talent. They routinely pick up ROH talent and have reportedly made it internally clear that they view ROH as a type of pipeline for talent.

That's the only reason you need to see why Dalton Castle, for example, would choose ROH over TNA.

 

[MrHashasheen]

Mhm. Setting aside the problems TNA has, the primary people who would jump to TNA over ROH would be ex-WWE guys first and foremost, or guys on the outs with the major indie groups. That being said, how ROH didn't get their hands on Shawn Ricker is beyond me. That dude is money waiting to be printed.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

That's the only reason you need to see why Dalton Castle, for example, would choose ROH over TNA.

But now, if the reports are true, with ROH on Destination America, WWE will be cautious about hiring ROH talent for the same reasons they're hiring TNA talent. So why would anybody work for TNA if they are already working for ROH? They're on the same network, but they work more dates, so they're probably making more money, ROH at the moment is pumping out more merchandise (t-shirts, action figures, etc), can be seen in more homes, they are also a pipeline into New Japan for anyone who aspires to go that route, they're working in-front of more people and for a company that is growing whereas TNA can either be described as stagnant or reverting in size and definitely reverting in the eye of the public.

So I would say it all definitely plays a factor. Why would anyone in ROH go to TNA? Only reasons are if TNA offered a lot more money, which they most probably won't do, or because that talent is unsettled in ROH. And the one thing every ROH roster member says these days when asked is how together the locker room is, something I never see any TNA talent say ever.

That being said, how ROH didn't get their hands on Shawn Ricker is beyond me. That dude is money waiting to be printed.

He actually had an ROH tryout/dark match at Showdown in the Sun in 2012, so I'm only going to assume here the reason is the management at that time, Cornette and Delirious, didn't think he was good enough. From what I've seen of him, great look, good talker, not good enough in the ring. Moose gets away with it because hes charismatic, has the ex-NFL football player reputation and is scarily athletic.

 

[MrHashasheen]

He actually had an ROH tryout/dark match at Showdown in the Sun in 2012, so I'm only going to assume here the reason is the management at that time, Cornette and Delirious, didn't think he was good enough. From what I've seen of him, great look, good talker, not good enough in the ring. Moose gets away with it because hes charismatic, has the ex-NFL football player reputation and is scarily athletic.

Mhm. Moose is my boy, but I won't hesitate to say that most of ROH could go up shit creek for all I care. The product itself doesn't draw my interest generally, barring the NJPW shows and a few of the regular top guys like the Briscoes (not counting the ex-TNA guys like Styles, Addiction, etc... who seemingly work part-time and make bank elsewhere as well).

 

[The Dragon Saga]

Mhm. Moose is my boy, but I won't hesitate to say that most of ROH could go up shit creek for all I care. The product itself doesn't draw my interest generally, barring the NJPW shows and a few of the regular top guys like the Briscoes (not counting the ex-TNA guys like Styles, Addiction, etc... who seemingly work part-time and make bank elsewhere as well).

Kaz and Daniels work full-time, they've only missed three events since their return last summer which is like 3 in about 30+ shows, which is good, so ROH is their main provider. AJ works all TV tapings, PPV's and iPPV's. Only reasons he missed any of those last year were the G1 and it's the same this year too.

Chris Sabin is injured at the moment but I assume he'll be full-time once hes better.

 

[MrHashasheen]

Kaz and Daniels work full-time, they've only missed three events since their return last summer which is like 3 in about 30+ shows, which is good, so ROH is their main provider. AJ works all TV tapings, PPV's and iPPV's. Only reasons he missed any of those last year were the G1 and it's the same this year too.

Chris Sabin is injured at the moment but I assume he'll be full-time once hes better.

Full-time on the ROH schedule, which is probably what, 100 a year? I mean, AJ finds time to work NJPW, PCW, etc... and I don't imagine Kaz/Daniels don't do something similar. And Sabin's injured again? Let me guess, another knee.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

Full-time on the ROH schedule, which is probably what, 100 a year? I mean, AJ finds time to work NJPW, PCW, etc... and I don't imagine Kaz/Daniels don't do something similar. And Sabin's injured again? Let me guess, another knee.

ROH has ran 2x the amount of events it ran last year, this year, which is a lot more than TNA, which is a lot more than LU which is a lot more than GFW, so ROH outside of WWE is easily the most active wrestling promotion in the US right now. AJ works primarily for ROH and NJPW, I saw he did RPW a few weeks ago but again he doesn't work many ROH house shows/live events unless it's in Atlanta or it's a double-shot in like Milwaukee or Chicago.

Kaz/Daniels work all ROH shows, TV tapings, PPV's, iPPV's, house shows, the lot. They're as full-time as full-time can be, they work for ROH more than they work anywhere else. Sabin's hurt, don't know how hurt but hes been cancelling a lot of indie bookings and he's promoting ROH a lot on his Twitter.

I don't know how we trailed off into this by the way.

 

[Zeven_Zion]

ROH has ran 2x the amount of events it ran last year, this year, which is a lot more than TNA, which is a lot more than LU which is a lot more than GFW, so ROH outside of WWE is easily the most active wrestling promotion in the US right now. AJ works primarily for ROH and NJPW, I saw he did RPW a few weeks ago but again he doesn't work many ROH house shows/live events unless it's in Atlanta or it's a double-shot in like Milwaukee or Chicago.

Kaz/Daniels work all ROH shows, TV tapings, PPV's, iPPV's, house shows, the lot. They're as full-time as full-time can be, they work for ROH more than they work anywhere else. Sabin's hurt, don't know how hurt but hes been cancelling a lot of indie bookings and he's promoting ROH a lot on his Twitter.

I don't know how we trailed off into this by the way.

Well ... what else were they going to do prior to Destination America? They ran iPPVs and had live events. It's not like they had to chug out a full blown television show for a normal network under a normal contract and a normal time slot, maybe tour, maybe do it live, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on production.

Live events is all they could do. It's all indy feds do.

Once they try to up the production, get more people on board, start spending more money, watch how their live events will start to melt a little bit.

Plus, can we please get better arguments as to why ROH is superior? "They do more live events" is not really valid. Even if they do, even if the crowds are bigger, the margin ain't mind blowing.

They're right below TNA, and they're creeping up on them. That I can agree with.