Is Vince Doing To ROH What He Did To ECW?

[ratedrdestiny]

I look around for this thread, couldn't find it anywhere so here goes...
Am I the only one noticing what's going on here? In 1999 back when ECW was starting to get noticed by the masses, WWE signed Taz the ECW World Heavyweight Champion first then signed the Tag Team Champion Dudley Boyz. Now we have ROH getting ready to get a nationally televised show, and we have the rumors all over wrestlezone.com about the kings of wrestling and possibly Colt Cabana signing with wwe. http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/239517-big-update-on-roh-tag-team-to-wwe-hebner-to-undergo-surgery. Now neither of these are champions, but they are pretty popular in ROH. Does anyone think this is a coincidence, or could vince be trying to kill the competition before it gets bigger?

 

[H33LTurn]

Maybe, he is taking their top talent but I dont see it as him wanting to eliminate the competition. Everyone who gets into wrestling at one point or another dreams of being in the WWE. ROH, AAA, and TNA serve as vessels to give the talented wrestlers the experience they need to become WWE quality stars. The ROH guys go over well with the WWE Universe and its just fair that their dreams come true after making a name for themselves out of absolutely nothing. People are such haters of WWE that they fail to realize that WWE is at the top and everybody is trying to work their way up to there. You really didnt think these extremely talented individuals were going to stay in ROH forever, right? This is good for ROH. If their show is truly successful that means that they dont rely on these guys for ratings.

 

[Wonder]

I've thought about that before, just days ago.

It seems like that. Like in the past, WWE "snatched" wrestlers from ECW like Taz and the Dudley Boyz, now WWE has already signed CM Punk before, Bryan Danielson, Tyler Black, KOH and are promoting Colt Cobana a lot, all of them from ROH.

Back in the day, Vince allowed ECW to show up in some Raws and that helped Paul E's promotion a lot. I'm pretty sure that WWE wouldn't let ROH show up on WWE events nowadays but they're are mentioning them on live TV, and now more than ever, publicity is needed, especially when ROH are about to appear on National TV.

 

[vthokie8]

I see what you are saying, and I could see why you would think that. I don't however think that Vince or even Dixie see ROH as competition just yet. If I found out Vince had bought a share of ROH it wouldn't suprise me, he did the same for ECW. ROH is a lot like ECW in the fact that they both have good talent pools to draw from, and the company has done a good job of taking stars WWE and TNA would have probably passed on initially and made them attractive talents. If you look at history though both companies have been signing ROH talent for years. Back in 05-07 WWE and TNA raided ROH. WWE got CM Punk, MVP, Evan Bourne and Colt Cabana, and I think the Briscoes had a number of tryouts around this time as well. TNA also got Abyss, Homicide, Austin Aries, Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, Samoa Joe, Alex Shelley and I think Roderick Strong may have even been on their roster at one point as well. There may even be names I have left out. I know TNA had an agreement with ROH back then though that allowed the old ROH guys like A.J. Styles, Daniels, Samoa Joe and Alex Shelley to still work ROH shows I think Christian may have even worked some ROH shows when he was signed to TNA. I honestly wouldn't put much into these signing though, If Vince seen ROH as anything they would have made a much bigger deal of signing Bryan Danielson and Tyler Black instead of making them come up through NXT and FCW.

 

[Dubbs312]

I honestly don't think that is the case. If you think about a couple years ago where Vince got Paul London, Spanky, Daniel Bryan, and Punk (who he only got because he told TNA to shove it.) Then you could have made a case for it. If I were to say that anyone is trying to shut down ROH. I would have to go with Dixie Carter, if you think about their roster and the guys that "built" the company most if not all of them came from ROH.

 

[PhD]

I think your analogy is useful, but I would add a few qualifiers. First, WWE is perpetually trying to kill their competition, whether by signing away their bigger names to lucrative contracts, counterprogramming, or any other means necessary. The WWE's goal, like all good corporations, is to have a monopoloy, or as close to one as possible.

Second, I don't think comparing ROH's broadcast deal to ECW's deal with TNN is a totally correct analogy. Simpson broadcasting is in something like 30 markets, and only reaches about a quarter of American homes. Now I'm not sure what TNN's market penetration was in 1999, but given that something like 90% of American homes have cable TV, and TNN was a "basic" cable channel, you'd think it would be something like 80% of Americans potentially having access, at least (I'm thinking that's about what Versus has at the moment).

So, while ROH's deal is big to them, I don't think it has registered much with WWE. They've been poaching ROH's bigger names for quite some time (Punk, Bryan Danielson, Tyler Black, Matt Sydal/Evan Bourne, Cabana during his first run, etc.), and this just seems like a continuation of that trend. If anything, Cabana's signing seems to be due to Punk's growing stroke backstage. Also, Claudio Castagnoli was due to end up in WWE anyday, as he easily has the best "sports entertainment" look of anybody in the company. I doubt you'll see many, if any, other ROH talents making the jump to the big show any time in the near future.

 

[Dude_Love87]

I don't think Vince is trying to squash ROH. IMO he is trying to give them a push. Grant it, this will not turn them into WCW, but I watched their first PPV a few months ago and it was awesome. The old school wrestling fans will go nuts over ROH if they ever make it big, especially with Jim Cornette at the front. The best thing that could happen for Vince is another Monday Night War. The ratings are not what they were when the competition was around, so I think Vince is just trying to give them a little nudge and notice. CM Punk was never leaving to begin with, and Vince could have told Punk to say TNA or some other company but he chose ROH.

 

[Iversen]

I think ROH has just given a start to some fantastic wrestlers. At the moment ROH are nothing like competition to WWE and they cater to a slightly different audience. They focus on wrestling the E focus on entertainment so while most ROH fans would watch the WWE there's a lot of WWE fans who wouldn't understand the appeal of ROH.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

ROH is an independent. Organizations like WWE talent raid the indies for their stars. ROH has a cult following, but WWE knows that it will probably never rival them as a competitor, so it'd be in their interest to not run ROH out of business but continue to raid them for talent.

As for Colt Cabana, I was wouldn't say he's a ROH guy persay. I was just watching NWA Hollywood this weekend and he was getting his ass kicked in the main event. He's scraping together a living around the indy circuit.

 

[xoxo French Kiss xoxo]

Do any of you think that the WGGTT are implants of Vince's to get insider information on which stars in ROH are good which stars are not?
Wait thats crazy complete talk....

but didn't he do the same with some of the now returned WWE stars that went to TNA, Booker T, Christian, Truth, Foley, Nash....? It may sound crazy, buuuuuuuuuuut its very possible

 

[wphchris]

ROH seems to have learned quite a bit from the ECW model. They are developing more quality wrestlers than ECW ever had but are still producing a great in-ring product and managing their growth. The worst that that could happen to ROH would be an sudden explosion in popularity.

There is a key difference from ECW's height. There is only one massive company poaching talent from ROH. While TNA may be sharing and loaning talent, only the WWE has the ability and clout to get wrestlers on exclusive deals. ECW simply could not keep pace with the other two companies in nurturing their own talent. They lost lots of their top tier talent within 6-12 months and any company would struggle to cope with that while facing national expectations.

 

[dperez2006_24]

i am pretty impressed with ROH when they were on HDnet. Use to be a good pre raw show and had a lot of true wrestling, seemed like watching the old AWA reruns on ESPN classic. Now i do think that ROH and WWE are forming a partnership not only to raid talent but to possible bring them to up to TNA level and run them out. Vince probally set up an agreement to help them out with mentions on TV and possible CM Punk defending the WWE Title against Tyler Black or Colt Cabana to help them out when it makes it on to verses. who knows? Like a poster above said every wrestler's goal is make it to the show, WWE is the show to be on. TNA has to much of an old roster to be considered and is not far higher than ROH. If the Kings of wrestling do come to WWE they could possible save the tag team division if done right, they unite Ryder and Hawkins, turn JTG and put him with R-Truth, and Santino and Kozlov with the Usos they have some story lines to run off that. What they need to do is make another TLC like match that will revolutionize the tag team divsion.

 

[willross]

I would not be shocked if Vince or well HHH is in charge of developmental now, starts using ROH as a developmental system. Not go public about it but put some money into it in return for them having first dibs on bringing over some talent to the big time to avoid anyone they may be interested in signing in TNA first.

Guys like Cabana and Claudio could be in negotiations with TNA, but then WWE gets notified and boom matches the offer to get them.

Its a little more complicated then what I have made it seem, but the idea of ROH as a feeder territory like the NBA D-League or AHL.

 

[TUFFY54]

Does anyone think this is a coincidence, or could vince be trying to kill the competition before it gets bigger?

Another bullshit "Evil Vince" thread. What exactly do you mean by "doing to ROH what he did to ECW". He signed some of their talents. Big fucking deal. Lets not forget that TNA signed Desmond Wolfe, Samoa Joe, Generation Me, and Austin Aries. All of those guys were ROH guys. Vince isn't doing anything to ROH. Hell, CM Punk mentioning them on RAW got their name out to MILLIONS of people. Lets look at few things Vince "did" to ECW.

-Vince let Heyman and three of their top stars sit ringside at a PPV event in Philly. He acknowledged them as a local promotion and let them get into a planned altercation with some of his lower card guys.

-Vince gave them massive exposure by allowing them to come on RAW, have matches, and cut promo's the week before their first PPV.

-Vince let Jerry Lawler and Jim Cornette go on ECW television and team up with Sabu and Rob Van Dam as part of an anti ECW faction.

-After the Dudley Boyz went to WWE, Vince let them wrestle at ECW events on more than one occasion to help the promotion.

-When Mike Awesome left with the title, Vince allowed Taz to return to ECW to win the belt. He then had Taz defend the ECW title on Smackdown against World Champion Triple H in a title vs. title match. He even let Tommy Dreamer get involved in the match. Do you realize how huge that would be for a promotion? McMahon stated with that match that the ECW world champ was a worthy challenger to his world champ.

-As stated by the Dudleys and Heyman himself, Vince help ECW pay their bills when they were having problems. Vince was helping Heyman pay his wrestlers while ECW was still a "rival" company!

So you want to know if Vince is doing the same thing to ROH that he did to ECW? For ROH's sake, they should fucking pray he does!

 

[whoopin' ass]

i don't think it is any different than what wwf/wcw did back in the 90's with ecw - you see someone you like, you offer them more money to come work for you. ecw/roh is almost like a development area for them - they just don't run it. tna has taken a number of roh talents too and tna actually did something that wwe never did. with wwe, you work for the wwe and that's it. with tna, they let a lot of the guys work elsewhere too since they weren't doing houseshows (not that they do that many now) so talent was working both tna and roh. then tna laid down the law that no one can work for both even though it had been that way for a long time. in that respect, tna has done more to kill roh since before, roh had talent on a national program even if it wasn't their show. i can somewhat understand tna's position but you need to up your game in that case and tna hasn't really upped the number of house shows they do so what's the harm?

 

[ratedrdestiny]

Another bullshit "Evil Vince" thread. What exactly do you mean by "doing to ROH what he did to ECW". He signed some of their talents. Big fucking deal. Lets not forget that TNA signed Desmond Wolfe, Samoa Joe, Generation Me, and Austin Aries. All of those guys were ROH guys. Vince isn't doing anything to ROH. Hell, CM Punk mentioning them on RAW got their name out to MILLIONS of people. Lets look at few things Vince "did" to ECW.

-Vince let Heyman and three of their top stars sit ringside at a PPV event in Philly. He acknowledged them as a local promotion and let them get into a planned altercation with some of his lower card guys.

-Vince gave them massive exposure by allowing them to come on RAW, have matches, and cut promo's the week before their first PPV.

-Vince let Jerry Lawler and Jim Cornette go on ECW television and team up with Sabu and Rob Van Dam as part of an anti ECW faction.

-After the Dudley Boyz went to WWE, Vince let them wrestle at ECW events on more than one occasion to help the promotion.

-When Mike Awesome left with the title, Vince allowed Taz to return to ECW to win the belt. He then had Taz defend the ECW title on Smackdown against World Champion Triple H in a title vs. title match. He even let Tommy Dreamer get involved in the match. Do you realize how huge that would be for a promotion? McMahon stated with that match that the ECW world champ was a worthy challenger to his world champ.

-As stated by the Dudleys and Heyman himself, Vince help ECW pay their bills when they were having problems. Vince was helping Heyman pay his wrestlers while ECW was still a "rival" company!

So you want to know if Vince is doing the same thing to ROH that he did to ECW? For ROH's sake, they should fucking pray he does!

I find it absolutely hilarious that out of everything i said that's what i said. Stand up comedy is surely in your future. Now my main point was just to throw out a question and get answers. Not for you to assume that I am a vince hater because I'm as big of a wwe supporter that you'll find. The point was to point out similarities in the situation. It wasn't a " Vince must die" thread or a "oh vince is a such a bad guy" thread either. Don't assume. you make an ass outta yourself. Thanks for your response though

 

[TUFFY54]

I find it absolutely hilarious that out of everything i said that's what i said. Stand up comedy is surely in your future. Now my main point was just to throw out a question and get answers. Not for you to assume that I am a vince hater because I'm as big of a wwe supporter that you'll find. The point was to point out similarities in the situation. It wasn't a " Vince must die" thread or a "oh vince is a such a bad guy" thread either. Don't assume. you make an ass outta yourself. Thanks for your response though

I didn't "assume" shit. Look at your original post. All you said was that Vince signed all of ECW's top stars, and now he is signing all of ROH's top stars. You close it by saying "is Vince trying to kill the competition?" . How the hell is that NOT supposed to sound negative. You didn't ask if they had a working relationship, or if ROH was going to gain anything in return.

Your thread is titled "Is Vince doing to ROH what he did to ECW". The last question in your post was "is Vince trying to kill off the competition?" HE DIDN'T TRY TO KILL ECW, HE HELPED THEM FOR YEARS. None of that was mentioned in your post.

Again, I didn't assume a damn thing. Your post clearly says that Vince signed all of ECW's top talent and tried to kill ECW. You can't argue that because it's literally what you wrote. Lets use a little logic. You ask if Vince is doing the same thing to ROH that you think he did to ECW. If you then ask if he's also trying to kill ROH, that means you think he tried to kill ECW. HE NEVER TRIED TO KILL ECW.

 

[3rdworldWRESTLINGfanatic]

i dont think vince is raiding ROH.....i mean cmon ROH is just starting and mostly not everybody knows and watches ROH....some WWE fans dont know about this indy guys unless your an IWC guy......guys like Hero and Castagnoli are just doing whats best for their carers they have paid there dues and held mostly major titles in the indies i think is just best for them to be in the big league like WWE after years in the indys......they are just doing what bria danielson and cm punk did......get the bigger paycheck after working your ass in the indys......and btw i think it would much benefit wwe if ROH gets success in the mainstream.....1st it would create competition it would not just be WWE and TNA now you could watch ROH nationally and it would create buzz in the wrestling business that it did not have in so many years.........

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Everybody, except TNA, knows that they'll never compete with Vince because he has too much market share, too many smart people working for him, too much money, and too much brand recognition. ROH is constantly bringing in new guys. Some better than others, but they will find new guys.

I don't think he's "raiding" ROH's talent. If nothing else, it's a HUUUGE compliment to have so many of your guys make it to the show. It's like if you were a college baseball coach and you had players leaving their first year of eligibility to go pro. sure it sucks that you won't have them their senior year, but what does it say about YOUR ability to scout and develop?

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Its pretty obvious that ROH will never get to the level of WWE, they are just too big now. Vince is quite rightly looking at the talent pool available in the world of wrestling, correctly noticing that there is an abundance of talent in Ring Of Honor which is likely to be available at a pretty low cost, and signing up some of their stars that he believes have the potential to do well in WWE.

He won't even consider ROH a threat, but is simply acquiring more talent, as he has always done when it is available. Vince just wants to make WWE stronger, I don't think he really worries that ROH are competitors. However, as he stated in an interview regarding ECW's 1st PPV, he thought it was "good for the business" to let ECW appear on his show, so perhaps he could do the same with ROH, knowing that a healthy but small ROH will benefit the wrestling industry, as without fresh new talent coming through, the business will die.

 

[Papa Pillman]

As for the ROH/WWE relationship... if anything, I could see it being similar to the WWF/ECW tradeouts and cross-promoting of 1997 that most notably saw Heyman and RVD get some shine on RAW.

But what I really think is most likely happening:

I think we are on the precipice of a ROH faction in WWE(though I don't think it will be aknowledged as that).

I think Daniel Bryan winning MITB is another part of this storyline.

I expect the faction to look something like this: Punk, Bryan, Hero, Castagnoli, Cabana, Steel, and Black.

With all the dominos seeming to point in this direction(Punk's title win, Bryan's MITB win, the kings of wrestling signing, Cabana and Steel's first row appearance at the MITB-PPV, etc.) I would be shocked if this possible faction wasn't the outcome of this story-arch.

 

[CasualWatcher]

Was discussing this earlier... It doesn't sound SO absurd that WWE and ROH could be working on some kind of partnership, if it isn't kinda worked already? Could be them trying to plant the seeds for it, too.

Yeah, I know, Trips taking over is a storyline, and whatnot. But to me, Tirple H working some kind of agreement with ROH (with Silkin, or with the Sinclair Group... or both) kinda sounds like it could be. Of course, if Vince greenlighted it, I'm sure it's to take over eventually, but something like this could benefit both parties - WWE has talent work at indie level and on tv (as an alternative to developmental), and ROH gets the benefits of dealing with the massive corporation that is WWE.

Why am I thinking this? They've thrown the ROH name out on tv right now, which I don't recall them doing before (at most, a couple mentionings in wwe.com, in those industry news articles, referencing other companies, but never on air). As simple as that, not sure if the 'E would do that if they didn't have something in mind (or up their sleeve).

Hell, it even makes me think of a potential team ROH v team Cena/Trips/Vince/WWE match for Survivor Series - Punk, Colt, KOW and Bryan (not sure they'd bring Rollins in so soon, if they want him in the "next big aired-on-tv NXT", or if they'd use Bourne in this).

Is it SO absurd, like it seems at first?

 

[SecondCitySaint]

If there really is an ROH faction team at Survivor Series, and it involves "Daniel Bryan," please someone let him be "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson. I have no other complaints/nitpicks about this idea. Oh, and call Seth Rollins by Tyler Black. That'd be nice.

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

Probably not. Vince doesn't even need to worry about TNA. ROH isn't even a blip on the radar, and it never will be as long as both WWE and TNA are around. As it stands right now, ROH is the minor leagues, and the WWE is the major league. It's silly to put some kind of blame on the WWE for "stealing" talent as if the ROH guys have absolutely no say in the matter.

Some of you forget this is a business, and it makes more sense in every conceivable way to want to wrestle in the WWE over ROH. There's no such thing as "stealing" talent, and anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid.