After various tries to market big shows over the years, Ring of Honor takes the biggest step, with a live PPV show on 6/22, for “Best of the World 2014" from the Fairgrounds in Nashville.
No details of the show have been announced, but the names announced are Matt Hardy, Kevin Steen, Mark & Jay Briscoe, champion Adam Cole, Michael Elgin, Jay Lethal and Maria Kanellis. A.J. Styles is booked in Japan for the 6/21 New Japan PPV show at the Osaka Furitsu Gym so won’t be available at this point. It is possible because of the time change to work on Osaka on one night and in Nashville the next, and when the big stars worked Japan in the past, it wasn’t that unusual to do it. You can’t do it the other way, in the sense work on 6/20 in the U.S. and 6/21 in Japan.
The show will air in the traditional Sunday at 8 p.m. time slot. It’s a weekend with no major PPV competition, but in a loaded month as UFC runs 6/14, WWE runs 6/1 and 6/29 and TNA runs 6/15.
The show is expected to be carried by inDemand, Dish and DirecTV. It’s well known that the cable industry was looking for a new partner in PPV and was offering a better deal than in the past, to make up for, depending on the system, expected declines or outright dropping of the WWE product. It is probable that at least two of the big three, if not all three, may not even carry the WWE events by that time.
Right now, it’s a one-time experiment. Those close to the situation have said the expense of experimenting with one show is not a make-or-break situation, because at the end of the day, nothing is make-or-break for ROH these days. When your parent owners are as wealthy as Sinclair are, when the right time comes you can afford to experiment with an open check book. Greg Gilliland (the guy Jim Cornette made out to be the devil incarnate), who put the deal together, is very conservative when it comes to these type of company deals. The belief is they will break even if they can get 10,000 buys, which is not out of the realm of possibility, since years ago, ROH did that with some of its early PPV shows that were taped shows from two months earlier. Some people often forget this but ROH's "Man Up 2007" PPV has more buys then a majority of PPV's in TNA's history, reaching around 26,000 mostly through word of mouth, as it featured the first ever Ladder War and the controversial debut of The Age of the Fall.
If it works, they’ll continue, and if not, then they won’t. Nothing is for certain, but even if it does work, they wouldn’t be doing another for a while, perhaps not until Final Battle in December. The advantage ROH has is it doesn't aim for WWE quality production and its talent costs aren't nearly as high. Despite a roster featuring guys like A.J. Styles, Chris Hero, Matt Hardy, Maria Kanellis and top independent stars such as Kevin Steen, Adam Cole and Michael Elgin, the company actually does quite well when it balances out the books.
ROH becomes one of three new products to attempt PPVs over the next few months, with Bellator on 5/17 and Glory on 6/21, the night before ROH, with a Saturday at 10 p.m. time slot (the UFC regular slot) from the Forum in Inglewood, CA for a show called “Last Man Standing” featuring an eight-man middleweight (185 pound) tournament that would include Melvin Manhoef, a top star from the glory period of Japanese kickboxing and MMA.
It is expected that the ROH show will air both through Ustream as an iPPV as well as a regular PPV. That is depending on the success of Ustream broadcasts of ROH iPPV shows on 5/10 from Toronto and 5/17 from New York, major cards featuring the top stars of New Japan Pro Wrestling. There seemed to be significant interest in both shows with New York being sold out more than a month ahead of time at the 2,800 seat Hammerstein Ballroom and Toronto at this point being a given that it will sell out the 1,900 seat Ted Reeve Arena. Overall, ROH business has been up significantly this year, with a resurgence in fan interest and an overall improvement in the product and presentation.
ROH was on PPV years ago, with taped shows airing on roughly a two month delay. The shows started with 10,000 buys, which for a promotion with no television at the time, was excellent. The number was strong enough to make money on a taped show, but would have been a loser at the time for a live show. That’s why TNA cut back from 12 to four PPVs per year, because they weren’t able to break even.
Numbers varied depending on the line-up for the show, but because it was taped and could be viewed at any time the shows generally sold well. Man Up and Rising Above 2007 both surpassed 20,000 buys, but where ROH fell was its inability to continue interest in shows as the gaps between when they were taped and went to air consistently increased, some taking upward of five months to air and had became rendered almost useless. It ended up being dropped, and the concept changed to live iPPVs. They started with about 1,000 buyers and had generally strong reviews for the shows, peaking at 2,300 buyers for "Best In The World 2011". But one misfire after another doomed them and they got out of the iPPV business because of all the problems and consumer complaints.
Next month will be their first go-around with Ustream, which has only had minimal technical issues broadcasting shows from New Japan, Wrestle-1 and Dragon Gate. However, Ustream did have issues on several occasions doing Invicta PPV shows, where the decision was made to take down the pay wall and refund consumers because of the problems.
Financially this isn't a big gamble for the company. Sinclair can afford these things, if they don't work out they can just say they tried and pump more money back into ROH's budget. It's very clear that they have more backing from their owners then in years past, with upgrades to HD, wider promotion, and as Court Bauer said last week, soon to be better lighting, audio equipment and just general production, if anybody thinks Sinclair doesn't view ROH as a valuable asset they're misinformed. Sinclair has no other assets. They don't own any baseball teams or car firms, they own the most networks in the country and a wrestling promotion.
What ROH is gambling with this is their fans trust. The last few years have been rocky for the hardcore ROH fan. Lackluster product at times, iPPV mishaps, controversy inside and outside the ring, things that ROH fans don't care for because if you're a hardcore ROH fan all you want is wrestling. These next couple of months might be the biggest in its history for making their mark. ROH has influenced every aspect of wrestling today, as can be seen in WWE and its much more free flowing style with certain talents compared to years ago, but the promotion in its current form hasn't had that true attention grabbing moment. They hope this venture into PPV is that, because if any promotion deserves more attention for what its doing, it's ROH.
