Ring of Honor Reborn

 In 2019 Ring Of Honor's product struggled, in fact struggled may be an understatement. In trying to rebuild after the Elite and some of their closet associates left for AEW, ROH had difficulty assembling a roster that matched the star power of the Elite. To ROH's credit they never strayed away from their mission of providing quality wrestling above anything else. 

2020 roll's around and the tide started to change. When Marty Scurll resigned he was hired as the head booker and came up with some exciting new initatives. The Free Enterprise show held in Feburary in Baltimore which was free to fans, and the return of the ROH Pure Championship. Then Covid hit, the world changed, and unlike WWE, AEW, and Impact ROH decided to go dark for 6 months. Their weekly programming focused on getting to know individual wrestlers, their accomplishments, goals, and some of their best ROH moments. Marty was then implicated in the #speakingout movement and relieved of his booker position.

Covid and Marty's situation allowed ROH to regroup, and they came back strong firing on all cylinders in September with the ROH Pure Tournament. The tournament was fucking awesome for one, and the company has figured out how to present their product. Not only in the ring, but in getting their roster to come across as real relatable people with goals and aspirations.

They've also benefitted from acquiring some new talent to fresh things up. EC3, Danhausen, the returning Mike Bennett, LSG, Dak Draper, and more. The potential The Foundation has to wreck havoc on ROH and show everyone what real wrestling is and that it's still alive gives me chills.

ROH's weekly programming has been tweaked in ways that I hope they keep. All of the matches have unofficial time limits but it's kept tracked of and acknowledged after a match is over. May be cool to turn that into motivation for wrestlers to win matches and go about receiving title shots. Random match statistics when wrestlers are making their entrance is a nice touch as well.

ROH has never really been big on having too many gimmicked characters, so the recent video packages and sit-down interviews have given their roster opportunites to present themselves and their goals. It also gives the product more of a sports documentary feel.

Wrestling is a medium that is presented in several different ways. In WWE, the E stands for entertainment and they try to cram too many different types of entertainment into their product. Impact Wrestling has their niche of good wrestling combined with outlandish ideas which works for them, at times giving the WWE a run for their money with the entertainment factor.

AEW is still trying to find the right balance. I believe ROH has found their footing once again and is ready to set the standard for real wrestling. Like a Phoenix ROH is reborn and has risen.