ROH has had a couple of rough years and adding that to other factors, it all lead to ROH current state and their decision to release all their contracted wrestlers. The future of ROH doesn’t seem great.
A Cold Product
The ROH product has been cold for quite some time, even before the pandemic. There’s a lot of wrestling to enjoy from all over the world, but people were not paying attention to ROH.
ROH not participating on the forbidden door gimmick with AEW, IMPACT and NJPW was not a good idea, especially considering now cold their product was, but they didn’t budge on that one bit.
The booking in ROH has been questionable in some occasions, but ignoring some bad decisions here and there, the product ROH was presenting in 2021 was enjoyable to watch, especially the rise of Bandido to the world championship scene and Jonathan Gresham and the Pure title were good stuff from ROH. Their reboot of their women’s division was good until the recent ROH news.
ROH was presenting a good product, but they didn’t have that it factor like GCW or AEW have with fans right now.
COVID-19
ROH took the pandemic more seriously than anyone and they should be praised for it. Not only did they take the pandemic seriously, they didn’t release anyone during the time they weren’t producing new content, they also took the health of their wrestlers seriously.
Unfortunately for ROH, they don’t have the financial power like promotions like WWE, NJPW, AEW and to an extent IMPACT. ROH was not making money with the lack of crowds and when they returned to touring, things were really bad too. People were barely attending their shows and this goes back to them having a cold product despite producing good content most of the year.
NXT And Losing Talent
The raise of NXT as a super-indie promotion took a hit on ROH in the long term. NXT would always set their eyes on ROH’s top talent and sign them. ROH lost too many of their stars and they didn’t have the time to book new stars considering the the rate in which NXT was signing ROH talent to their roster.
Losing The Elite, their last draws, was the point of no return for ROH and everything went downhill for ROH.
G1 Supercard of Honor 2018
G1 Supercard of Honor was an historic show for NJPW and ROH. They were able to sellout MSG, the mecca of pro-wrestling, but that show was the beginning of the end of ROH and showed signs of the future of the promotion.
It’s important to remember that most people attended that show for two main reasons, NJPW and The Elite. ROH was not a strong selling point for that show, however, ROH did play an important role with helping the show take place thanks to Sinclair’s lawyers stopping WWE from interfering with the show.
Booking on the NJPW side of things was as good as ever and they delivered big time. ROH in the other hand had an all time bad show. From Bully Ray and the Allure stuff, to not putting the title on Marty Scrull (it was the best choice during that period) at the time and not telling NJPW about Nzo and Big Cass showing up after the tag team match for the ROH tag team titles.
Sinclair And Missing The Boat
All In was an historic show for all pro-wrestling and it lead to the formation of AEW down the line. Sinclair never went All In, pun intended, on ROH. For the longest time, ROH was in a way the number two promotion in the US, but Sinclair never invested more money on the promotion or decided to give ROH a shot on prime time TV.
The success of AEW shows what ROH could’ve been with serious backing and an opportunity to succeed. ROH had the talent and the product to be a solid number two in the US wrestling scene, but Sinclair not going All In damaged ROH.
Can ROH bounce back? It’s hard to tell, but it’s possible for ROH if things go right for them if they return next year.
