So I received a press release from Ring of Honor booker Gabe Sapolsky this morning promising a "huge announcement" this Sunday on the company's official web site.
Unlike several wrestling promotions over the years, ROH isn't known for for failing to deliver on promises, so I would guess - and this is mostly speculation - that the announcement will involve the TV deal ROH has been working toward for several years now. I talked to ROH owner Cary Silkin a few weeks back, and he seemed optimistic that a deal would be reached sometime soon.
If that is the announcement, that's a tremendous bit of good news not only for ROH, but for wrestling fans. I know there are loads of wrestling fans that have long heard all the buzz about Ring of Honor, but have never been able to bring themselves to spend money to buy a DVD or a pay per view of a product they have never seen before. I was one of them before buying my first DVD in 2006, and I was instantly hooked.
ROH is to be commended for surviving - and even growing - with such an unorthodox business model, but I think it became rather clear over the last year that a television deal was an absolute must if the promotion wanted to continue its expansion.
Of course, the devil is in the details. A TV deal could mean a Thursday night slot on NBC right after The Office (I somehow doubt it) or it could mean a 2 a.m. Sunday night slot on some obscure cable channel that reaches only a small percentage of homes. Hopefully, it's somewhere in between, and the company gets good support from whatever channel picks them up. Ideally, that would include improving ROH's substandard production quality to give the product a more major league look.
Then again, I could be completely wrong, and the "huge announcement" could be something far less monumental. Maybe Goldberg is turning heel again.
(Photo credit: ROHWrestling.com)
Comments (5)
While I would be interested in seeing ROH with a TV deal, I somehow doubt that they'll make it into that big of a deal. Look no further than their PPV deal. While the shows they have put out have been good, most even great, the way they use it isn't particularly impressive. An edited down, taped show from two months ago, often with a match from another show spliced in is not exactly a great accomplishment. ROH seems perfectly content with thriving on DVD sales and that's it, probably using a TV spot as a nationally televised version of ROHvideos.com. I suppose they are well within their rights tos stay small and successful instead of risking a lot by pushing themselves, but it's frustrating to see a company that probably could make a legit shot at being a big deal and not just another indy fed not take advantage of their opportunities. They have the talent. They have the following. Hopefully they can use a potential TV spot to build PPV the way it should be built and take that next step. Unfortunately, seeing as how it appears ROH and TNA have been negotiating lately (another bad idea for ROH if they ever wanted to be a solid independent entity) I doubt we're going to see much headway in that department.
G4TV maybe?
I only hope whatever announcement it is that it is best for the company. They do have great talent, but they need to step up to keep their talent. Otherwise, WWE and TNA will continue to raid their talent and water them down (i.e. Jimmy Yang, CM Punk just to name a few). The one thing I like about ROH is that there wrestlers look like human beings, meaning they don't looked all jacked on steriods. Bryan Danielson is my size (185 lbs) and was world champion. I think they can erase the stigmatism that has followed professional wrestling for so long. They can also bring some realism back to the sport.
Will they go on T.V. knowing that their ppv a few months back had bomb-scare numbers?
ROH has plenty of wrestlers who are ridiculously jacked on steroids.
Hell, *it was Tank Toland's gimmick*.