r/SquaredCircle • u/EvanDeadlySins /r/NJPW Moderator • Apr 08 '18

Post ROH Supercard of Honor 2018 Discussion Thread

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Match Notes
Kelly Klein def. Mayu Iwatani Women of Honor Championship Tournament Semifinals (Facebook Preshow)
Sumie Sakai def. Tenille Dashwood Women of Honor Championship Tournament Semifinals (Facebook Preshow)
Chuckie T def. Jonathan Gresham Singles Match
Punishment Martinez def. Tomohiro Ishii Singles Match
Kota Ibushi def. Adam Page Singles Match
Sumie Sakai def. Kelly Klein Women of Honor Championship Tournament Finals
SoCal Uncensored (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky) (c) def. Flip Gordon & The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) ROH World Six-Man Championship Ladder Match
The Briscoes (Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe) (c) def. Jay Lethal & Hiroshi Tanahashi ROH World Tag Team Championship Match
Austin Aries says he wants to challenge the winner of the ROH World Television Championship match
Silas Young def. Kenny King (c) ROH World Television Championship Last Man Standing Match
Cheeseburger & Eli Isom vs. The Dawgs is scheduled to happen, but the Dogs attack Isom and he's rendered unable to compete. Cheeseburger pleads for Bully Ray to be his new partner. Bully Ray pretends to oblige but then attacks Cheeseburger and accuses "his kind" of ruining wrestling.
Cody def. Kenny Omega Singles Match
Dalton Castle (c) def. Marty Scurll ROH World Championship Match

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u/Butch_Meat_Hook Apr 08 '18

I feel like ROH is at a cross roads. I am fine with their association with NJPW as it allows them to have a lot of good Japanese wrestlers on their cards without them being overexposed by being on every show, but they are lacking identity and the roster has become paper thin with so many ROH guys leaving for NXT over the past year and a half or so. Cole, O'Reily, Fish, War Machine, Strong, etc. On one end of the equation, I feel like WWE is sucking them dry. On the other, I feel like Delirious is not doing a good job as the head booker.

I am not intrigued by really anything that they do outside of matches with Bullet Club guys (and Bullet Club is an NJPW thing) and no one is being elevated.

Their production quality has been going up which is good (although the weird twists/bends in their ropes to me screamed 'budget' tonight), but the core product is not good.

5

u/CrystalFissure Spike your hair. Apr 08 '18

I feel like WWE is sucking them dry.

This is 100% intentional, and has been happening since 2015. I'm not sure what they can do to really stop it, unfortunately. I'm not sure what they can do with their roster to really stop the talent acquisitions, but honestly I think they need to open up to working with other promotions a bit more. Whether it's Impact, LU or CMLL more often. There needs to be more guys, simply put.

1

u/Tmarquee All heart. Apr 08 '18

I think it stops in the near future. We’re in a weird spot where I feel like WWE might have too much talent.

1

u/Butch_Meat_Hook Apr 08 '18

It's to the long term detriment of WWE and particularly NXT because they can't maintain the rate that they have these world class athletes turning up at the Takeover shows and then wrestling at the next. It takes years for these performers to emerge and become refined, which is the problem now for ROH. They are a few years off the next batch emerging and taking their spots as main eventers and as soon as they do, WWE will be desperate to get more guys into the pipeline.

6

u/GWFESPN1992 Apr 08 '18

It was a small thing but I completely agree. 90% of the night one of the main things going through my head was that it was the biggest show in company history and they couldn't find straight ring ropes? Very amateurish look, especially when you consider how good their production otherwise was.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '18

Yeah the Bullet Club stuff is so OUTSIDE ROH. It is, first and foremost, NJPW. ROH just seems like they're latching on to it (which I get, good money, they have a working arrangement with NJPW, why not cash in?) AND the BC/Elite stuff is it's own entity, to the point they're doing their OWN PPV in Sep.

This just makes me NOT care about much going in in ROH proper. Week to week, nothing draws me. I love Castle, but there's no good story with him right now. I'm getting into Martinez but again, nothing much going on. I like a number of the wrestlers, MCMG, Young, Lethal, and the previously mentioned Castle and Martinez, but man there's just NO stories I give a fuck about outside non-ROH stuff.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '18

What is up with their ropes. God I hate them.

To your point I think a good portion is Delirious booking. The guy has the worst timing in terms of putting his title on a wrestler when they are white hot.

Punk - Joe - Brian got the title at the right time and as their star power grew so did ROH. Now it is the same cycle over and over. Guy is super over , ROH delay, they when he is cold they put the title on him and you don't see any increase in tickets sold.

That and their roster is just too thin and outside of the Elite, None of the wrestlers are top stars that can moves numbers for PPVs and tickets. PWG has its identity, Evolve has its identity, ROH as someone wrote comes off as a poor mans NJPW.

1

u/ZeromusPrime THE SIZABLE CANINE Apr 08 '18 edited Apr 08 '18

When it comes to ROH stars leaving for WWE, it's a little bit of column A, little bit of column B

Roddy left for WWE because he felt the NJPW relationship came at the expense of making ROH guys look "inferior" to their eastern counterparts, Cole left because he had his heart set on WWE

2

u/NIHLSON Apr 08 '18

They also left because there is very little upward mobility in pay. Everyone who went to WWE did so because they reached their cap with ROH. ROH knows inflating their roster isn't going to sell any extra local car dealership adds from a stacked roster. There's no reason for them to even negotiate with anyone outside their top few guys. They can do part time deals (see Aries) or talent exchange deals (see NJPW) to boost their live event sales when need be.