According to most wrestling fans, since the birth of AEW, ROH was dead and buried. However it would seem the rumours regarding their death have been greatly exaggerated.
Many fans seemed to have predicted that ROH would up and die due to the up and coming new promotion AEW, as they took stars such as the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes as well as Trio known as S.C.U (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian and Skorpio Sky). It seemed many fans seemed to forget that they once boasted and lost talents such as, CM Punk, AJ Styles, Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) Samoa Joe and Adam Cole, and yet the company has managed not only keep going but actually keep improving along the way and so much more. So yes they did loose quite a few of their top stars in the names mentioned above, but ROH has always relied on finding the best young talent and giving them exposure before they would hopefully move on to the likes of WWE.
The big issue was whether or not they could continue to compete with likes of NXT, NWA, MLW and new boy on the block AEW for the top independent talent. While the new up start company unveiled US Independent signings such as Jungle Boy, Joey Janella and Darby Allen as well as International signings such as Mexico’s Lucha Bros and England’s Jimmy Havok. ROH signed the likes of Brody King and Tracy Williams as well as international Stars such as Rush, Dragon Lee, Bandido as well as British stand out Mark Haskins. Being British I can tell you that Mark Haskins is much more highly rated when compared with Jimmy Havok, and in my honest opinion, I feel that the talent signed by ROH is better. So despite a brand new up start company with billionaire backing, the NXT brands and other companies such as TNA, NWA and MLW, ROH managed to sign some of the best independent talent from around the world.
On top of continuing to sign some of the best talent, from both the US and International independent scene, they still had a great partnership NJPW, in which NJPW send many of their stars to compete on ROH cards, talents such as Juice Robinson and David Finlay as well as tag teams such as G.O.D. Together with that promotion ROH managed sell out Madison Square Gardens with G1 Supercard and an amazing event that rivalled All In, put together the year earlier by Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, with the help of ROH and NJPW stars. Unfortunately for ROH, incidents that took place at said event did manage to sour their relationship with the Japanese company which saw them loosing out on continuing to use talents from the company for a limited time which did affect a couple of storylines.
It was souring of the NJPW relationship, that had fans once again ready to get their shovels out to start burying the promotion. On top of this there were rumours of backstage incidents, from threatening fans, leaked emails and rumblings of an unhappy locker room. From the David Star Promo, Allegations from Joey Mercury and sacking of Kelly Klien as well as the lowest attendances in years, 2019 was not a good year for ROH. Going into 2020 things did not look good, as they had a lot of their top stars contracts were due to expire, talents such as Bandido, PJ Black, the Briscoes and Marty Scurll. Everyone expected to see if these talents would leave the company and look for other companies, especially Marty Scurll. He had been a member of the Bullet Club and the elite so everybody had written him of as guarantee to sign for AEW, apparently story lines had been put in place that would see as him as the leader of the Dark Order. To everyone's surprise however, Marty Scurll turned up at NWA and little later he re-signed with ROH on an incredible contract that would see him take over the booking.
This is where the resurrection ROH really started to take shape, on top of re-singing Marty they also managed to resign many of the other top talents started to re-sign, such as Bandido, the Briscoes, Josh Woods and PJ Black. A couple of other stars, such Jeff Cobb and Shane Taylor continue to work with the company on week by week basis. Not just that but ROH brought in more new independent stars such UK standout Joe Hendry and Australian star Slex. But the key factor of the ROH resurrection had to be the decision to hand over the booking of the company to Marty Scurll, over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen massive changes, suddenly the NWA started cross promoting with ROH once again, on top of that it would seem that Marty has smoothed over the relationship with NJPW all due to his connections.
Up coming ROH Events to look forward to;
Free Enterprise Sunday the 9th of February;
*ROH Champion PCO and Marty Scurll vs. NWA Champion Nick Aldis and RUSH.
*Battle Royal – winner challenges ROH Champion PCO at a future date.
*Brody King vs. Rey Horus.
*The Briscoes vs. Flamita & Bandido.
*Slex vs. Flip Gordon.
*Jeff Cobb & Dan Maff vs. ROH Tag Team Champions Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham.
*Joe Hendry & Dalton Castle vs. Vincent & Bateman.
*Sumie Sakai vs. Session Moth Martina.
*Alex Zane vs. Andrew Everett.
Shortly after this they announced two anniversary cards, first of which is the 18th Anniversary show on March 13th, only one match has been announced so far, that will be for the ROH TV title as champion Dragon Lee will face of against Bandido. On top of this ROH will bring back past stars for a past vs present event the next day March 14th. Matches recently announced for the event Doug Williams vs Jonathan Gresham which will be technical master piece, Homicide Vs Brody King as well as the team of Alex Shelly and Matt Sydal Vs Marty Scurll and Flip Gordon. ROH will be showing off their new improved relationship with NJPW at their Supercard of honour show taking place April 4th in which they have already announced many stars for the event, including the return of Kenta to ROH for the first time in over 10years, as well as other bullet club members Taiji Ishimori and El Phantasmo. Just recently announced is former NJPW heavyweight champion Jay White as he will face of against Marty Scurll.
So as we can see the ROH resurrection is in full swing and 2020 should hopefully be great year for the company following their issues in 2019, I am certainly going to be keeping my honourcard membership for time being, Hono
rcard membership is available for $9.99 @www.rohwrestling.com
Andrew More
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