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When Ring of Honor had its first show back in 2001, it was to fill a gap left behind by ECW. Indeed, the first program featured two former ECW stars, Eddie Guerrero and Super Crazy.
Slowly, ROH developed into its own with a philosophy of sports entertainment. Rather than focus on huge, muscle bound men and the backstage drama segments that both WCW and WWE had made popular, ROH would instead present technical wrestling matches by the most skilled performers, regardless of their size.
People quickly took notice. Ring of Honor developed a reputation as a promotion that valued exciting in ring action and tended to eschew long winded promos, interviews, or skits. This filled a niche left empty by the bigger promotions, who had a 'bigger faster better' philosophy.
Over the years, Ring of Honor has been the home to some of the biggest names in sports entertainment. AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, The Young Bucks, The Briscoes, Kevin Owens and others have gone on to become huge stars in other promotions such as WWE.
While Ring of Honor has enjoyed some success, it has struggled to grow out of its tiny venues and expand its business. Ring of Honor fans are die hard, dedicated, and devoted to the company, but lately the promotion has begun courting a more mainstream audience.
The question is, in search of this bigger audience will they alienate their long time fans? Here are five ways that Ring of Honor could be doing just that.
#1 Hiring wrestlers who don't fit the ROH mold--like Enzo and Big Cass
Eric Arndt and William Morrisey recently 'invaded' the big Madison Square Garden show jointly run by Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling. Invaded is in quotation marks because the entire thing was a worked angle, meaning it had been scripted.
The duo are better known as Enzo and Big Cass, though they legally don't own the rights to those names. After the main event tornado tag team match, they jumped the guardrail and got into a pier six brawl with the Briscoes and Bully Ray.
Due to ROH announcers downplaying the moment, and the fact that the duo appeared to be throwing real punches, made may people believe it was in fact unscripted.
Allegedly, the duo were hired despite the strong objections of some booking officials in Ring of Honor. Enzo and Cass certainly are not top tier technical wrestlers, and do no fit the typical mold for an ROH star. ROH could be driving fans away with decisions like this one.
#2 "Cheesy" gimmicks like PCO's Frankenstein impersonation.
Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Ring of Honor and promotions like TNA/Impact or WWE is their reliance on more grounded, or 'realistic' wrestling characters.
For example, the Undertaker's gimmick wouldn't have been approved previously in Ring of Honor, because it doesn't fit the mold of dedicated professional athletes plying their craft for pride, glory, and money.
But Ring of Honor hired the fifty year old PCO for their promotion, and he has been using a Frankenstein-esque gimmick and character since his debut.
The fandom seems to be split on how to feel about PCO's gimmick, but there's no doubt that it's making some long time ROH fans feel uncomfortable in the least.
Ring of Honor has avoided this type of sports entertainment chicanery in the past, and changing that now could alienate their loyal fan base.
#3 Hiring wrestlers of advanced age
Ring of Honor is a promotion that is dedicated to building stars. While they have been around for long enough to have some long tenured veterans like the Briscoes, most of their talent tends to be on the younger side.
Many of these talents, like Lio Rush and Seth Rollins, go on to larger promotions after their run in Ring of Honor. However, sometimes ROH will hire a wrestler who is well past their physical prime.
This is okay if that aged veteran can perform at the high level that is ROH's trademark, such as AJ Styles or Christopher Daniels. However, hiring Bully Ray, who was never a technical wrestler even in his physical prime, was a real head scratcher and definitely made fans question ROH's leadership.
Now PCO has joined the over forty club, and ROH could be in danger of ending up like WCW during its fading days, when many veterans unable to perform at a high level clogged up the programming while holding down younger talent.
#4 Losing major stars to other promotions
One thing about Ring of Honor during its previous incarnations is that it was a place where wrestlers wanted to work.
Due to the creative control they had over how their matches played out, and the strong emphasis on in ring ability over microphone skills, many wrestlers loved Ring of Honor and made it their long term home even after being offered contracts by bigger promotions.
However, in recent years they have snubbed quite a few talents. Lio Rush and Keith Lee were both once signed to the ROH promotion, but felt that they were being under utilized and jumped ship to the NXT brand of WWE.
This could pose a problem, as ROH fans could find themselves switching channels right along with their favorite wrestlers. This of course will hurt ROH's bottom line.
#5 Trying to compete with WWE
Just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with Ring of Honor holding shows in traditionally WWE territory. Competition is good for the wrestling business, and fans will vote with their dollars.
However, ROH has enjoyed its long existence because of its uniqueness. Rather than trying to emulate what WWE or Impact does, they have carved out their own niche. Trying to get WWE fans to watch ROH events is all fine and good.
Trying to change Ring of Honor into something it's not, however, is not fine and good. Simply put, ROH does not have the resources to put on the same scale of shows that WWE does.
At best, ROH is going to come across as "WWE-lite," which will wind up alienating their traditional fan base and won't do much to bring in new viewers who were raised on the more polished WWE product.
There you have it: Five ways that Ring of Honor could be alienating their long term fan base. Questions or comments? Please leave them after the article and as always thanks for reading!
