Does ROH = ECW?

[TUFFY54]

I've been hearing about Ring of Honor for a few years now and stared watching a few months ago. I think it's a great little promotion that puts on a good wrestling show. They have some great talent and the story lines are very well written. Unfortunately, I think their best days are already behind them. Its due to something called the ECW syndrome.

To understand this we have to take a look back at ECW. Twelve years ago there were three major wrestling companies on TV. WWF was at the top of the heap, WCW was good but considered second best by many, and ECW was an exciting small promotion with hardcore fans that got almost zero mainstream press and was hard to even find of TV. ECW had four types of wrestlers: guys that were going to leave for the WWF, guys that were going to leave for WCW, guys that the fans liked but didnt have the talent or appeal to wrestle elsewhere, and guys past there prime that had been in the WWF or WCW before. Paul Heyman ran ECW, and from a purely wrestling standpoint he ran it very well. He obviously had problems with business, but thats an issue I'm not going to focus on here. Pauls problem was simple, he was always going to be the little guy, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was in one of the worst situations in the history of the wrestling business. As soon as he got someone over with the fans, they left. It got to the point were the ECW champion was always on borrowed time. Over a five year period, of the top 20 or so guys in his company, maybe 3 guys with something to offer didn't jump. Three years after ECW really exploded on the wrestling scene, almost every guy that got them there had left. In the end he hardly had a single ECW star that people wanted to see and the company went out of business with a wimper.

Today things are basically the same. The WWF is now WWE, WCW is TNA, and ECW is ROH. ROH has the exact same four types of wrestlers as ECW did. As I said earlier, almost every star I read about in ROH is gone now. CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuiness, Samoa Joe, Kaval, and Evan Bourne are some of the biggest names in pro wrestling today. All of them got started in ROH. All of them left ROH. I first heard that people were worried about ring of honor when Danielson and McGuiness left last year. With their departure, ROH did the same thing ECW did and realized it had to make new stars. Tyler Black was the man they choose to put the company behind. He had the look, the talent, was over with the crowd, and just like in ECW, he signed a WWE contract while still the ROH champion. I belive that is the straw that will break ROH's back. At this point they know that whoever is best is next to leave. Sadly, its not their fault and theres nothing they can do about it. Any wrestler making probley 800 dollars a match in ROH wouldn't be able to say no to a six figure contract if it was dropped in their lap.

Since things do change with time, I'll give you a couple reasons why things might be diffrent. First, wrestling as a whole isn't nearly as popular as it was twelve years ago. The big two certainy have their eye out for talent, but they aren't snatching up every wrestler that has a few good matches. Secondly, the WWE already has its own developmental teritory. Back in the 90's Vince had Paul Heyman on the payroll because he knew he was using ECW as his farm team. With this being the case, they are more likely to see who they already have in training before they start snatching up all the wrestlers from other organizations.

So what do you think, is ROH on a downward path? Will they get better, stay the same, or eventually fold from lack of top talent and fan intrest.

 

[Adalam]

I don't think ROH and ECW are similar enough. I'll grant you the departures are serious, but ROH is smart enough to always be on the lookout for new talent as well. They're just like any other company, trying to maintain a full roster. At the very least, they can keep a guy around by the fact that there's storylines that don't look as if a kid took a crayon and doodled on a page. WWE and TNA have had their occasional diamonds in the poop, but that doesn't mean that they are good with storylines. WWE has proven to be the most selfish of the two, forcing new guys to change to a name that WWE can trademark, like Tyler Black becoming Seth Rollins. All because they want the money. They want to cripple the name value of any guy they bring in to avoid them making companies like TNA and ROH bigger. Bad storylines and marketing jipped, that's what ROH doesn't have and that's part of how they'll avoid the bad luck of dying like ECW.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I've never been able to watch ROH. I've heard mostly good things about it but without watching it, there is at least one major difference between ROH and ECW on the surface. ECW tried to go mainstream and ROH really hasn't. ECW had a lot of extreme violence and language in their shows and most of that stuff simply isn't going to make it onto prime time television, at least at that particular time. In order to even get their stuff on television, ECW had to be watered down considerably and that's what most of the fans of ECW wanted. Heyman also hooked up with The Nashville Network and even though the overall programming format had changed in terms of shows, it was still extremely, extremely conservative. It just simply was not a good match. To make it all worse, Paul Heyman was absolute shit as a businessman. Factor in all that with talent leaving and ECW was simply doomed.

ROH hasn't really tried to grow all that much beyond what it's been. They don't have a huge budget, they don't have huge names coming into the company and demanding top dollar, they don't have a huge television deal. It's true that the WWE has taken a few of their top guys and it will probably happen again. ROH seems to have found a nice little niche for the time being. They're not trying to become huge overnight and they're not really looking to be in competition with either TNA or WWE at this point. That's probably a good thing and I think the honchos at ROH are smart enough to realize that they'd just get swallowed up right now. Maybe their goals will change in the future, but that's then and this is now. There will always be young stars out there on the indy circuit that will find a home with ROH and that's basically what ROH seems to be about at this time.

 

[RVDgurl]

I agree with the comparison between ROH and ECW. ROH has become the breeding ground for the next level much like ECW was many years ago. TNA and WWE have signed just about everyone who has had main event success in ROH in it's 8 year existence- it's just the nature of the beast that is independent wrestling. ROH, much like ECW did, never has and never will be able to compete with the money and exposure that larger companies can offer the talent.

Historically, ROH has done a fantastic job of bouncing back after one of it's major stars departs for WWE or TNA. CM Punk was probably ROH's biggest loss as far as in ring talent goes and they were at their highest peak right after his departure. ROH has always been a machine that keeps churning out solid talent to pick up where the departed has left off.

With that being said, the machine has been noticably slower over the past 2 years. ROH has suffered the loss of it's 3 biggest stars in a little more than a year with Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness leaving at the same time and Tyler Black following only a year later. However, I think the biggest blow to the company was the departure of Gabe Sapolsky.

As an avid ROH fan, I'm not yet ready to say that the company is on a downward path but I can openly admit that ROH is certainly not the slam dunk it used to be. The shows are shorter and they don't provide the same kind of intensity and passion. The storylines are not as strong and the characters are not as complex. ROH has definately suffered since the loss of Sapolsky and they haven't been able to recover as quickly after talent departures as they did when Gabe had the book.

 

[LSN80]

I dont think that ROH is on a downward path, the've managed to lock up some of their talent, such as the Kings of Wrestling, The Briscoes, and Roderick Strong to long term deals. They've convinced Davey Richards to stay, who, in my opinion, is the best wrestler in the world. They've done a fantastic job of bouncing back from talent losses, and everytime a wrestler leaves, such as Tyler Black, an old performer returns, such as a Daniels, or Homicide.

One of the problems they've had is with their booking. Gabe Sapolsky left in 2008, and Adam Pierce stepped in, only to resign himself. Delirious and Jim Cornette have stepped in, which puts alot of wrestlers in difficult situations, attempting to adapt to different creative ideals and beliefs. Still, the company appears to be holding steady, at the least.

I agree with the comparison between ECW and ROH, at least in terms of breeding grounds. We've seen the obvious, such as Evan Bourne, Bryan Danielson, and Nigel McGuiness leave for greener pastures and more money. But everytime a top star has left, they've been adequately replaced. Roderick Strong, Austin Aieres, Eddie Kingston and Tyler Black all stepped up in the wake of those departures. Now Aieres is gone due to budget cuts, and Black to WWE, but Homicide and Daniels have come in and done great jobs of filling those voids.

So, in essence, that's one way I DON'T see the comparison between ECW and ROH. ECW couldn't replace the Benoit's Guerrero's, and Jericho's when they left, even adequately. ROH has managed to do so, and produce consistently some of the best matches of the year. With a secure deal on HD.Net, I think the promotion will continue to thrive for a long time. Every company deals with budget cuts and losses, even the giant known as WWE. It's an inevitable part of the business. To their credit, ROH has done an admirable job of surviving those cuts and still producing a quality product.

 

[Calderownz]

Obviously in terms of product and "pure" professional wrestlers, no. ROH has far better technical professional wrestlers.

Nonetheless, ECW actually had more success in many regards. Nonetheless, ROH should strive for ECW heights, anyway. ECW failed at the end of the day. ROH is far better run and has a more broadened product that COULD potentially reach more viewers.

Not saying it will happen, however.

 

[Tougie]

As an avid ROH fan it does have its comparasions to ECW, but the companies are two different styles and obviously at a different time period, which in my mind is a huge factor. ECW relied on the hardcore style while still having a good/great mix of technical and high flying wrestlers, and ROH is the opposite. As Calderownz said ROH does have great potential to reach the heights ECW did but their defintely not desperate to reach those heights. Should be interesting to see what ROH does in the next few years.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I don't think ROH is on a downward path. It has retained a good portion of its fans and a lot of people still have a lot of respect for the organization. The only thing it has in common with ECW is that both were the #3 federation at one point in time. Ten years ago it was WWF, WCW, ECW. Today it's WWE, TNA, ROH. In that order. ROH does not equal ECW in any other way because the two are complete and total opposites in every other category.