TV Review - Ring of Honor Wrestling on HDNet
The Indie Promotion from The Wrestler Goes Hi-Def
May 15, 2009
“I used to call our locker room and our guys the land of the misfit toys because we were the wrestlers that the other promotions didn’t want.” That’s how former ECW world Champion TAZ described the promotion’s roster during it’s 1990s' independent heyday. Taz spoke these words in the WWE’s 2004 DVD release The Rise and Fall of ECW.
Now eight years after the original ECW died wrestling’s misfit toys have a new home. It’s Ring of Honor; an independent promotion based out of Philadelphia with an alumni that includes current WWE star CM Punk and TNA standout Samoa Joe.
The Stars of ROH
A perusal of the roster at rohwrestling.com reveals an eclectic line up of wrestlers. There’s the staple gun toting Necro Butcher, who bloodied up Mickey Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson in the 2008 film The Wrestler. Taking to the air is the spindly, masked, would be Luchador be El Generico. Grizzly Redwood is the "Littlest Lumberjack" out to fell much larger foes. And many fans love the rotund heavy hitter, Bobby Dempsey.
ROH also boats a core group of individuals who can really wrestle. Nasty female star Sarah Del Ray resembles that remark as do the "American Dragon" Brian Danielson, the much hated Austin Aries, current ROH champion Jerry Lynn and in your face Englishman Nigel McGuinness.
Ring of Honor the HDNet TV show
With Ring of Honor pay per view events, matches routinely go well in access of 30 minutes, with many near falls and spectacular spots. This obviously wouldn’t work in a one hour TV show looking to showcase a handful of its stars in every broadcast. So on the current HDNet show the early matches are generally short one sided affairs designed to get one partcular star or tag team over.
The main events alternatively are quite competitive and give audiences a small taste of the fast paced technical wrestling featured in ROH pay per views. Onee top of the TV card bout between face Brent Albright and the “Very European” heel Claudio Castagnoli was a highly entertaining throwback encounter. Like a 1980’s bad guy, Castagnoli halted his offence repeatedly to taunt the crowd and his opponent.
One of the best things about Ring of Honor Wrestling on HDNet is just how much action they pack into 60 minutes of air time. They do this by limiting most promos to prerecorded sound bites or a brief back and forth between a wrestler and ROH interviewer Kyle Durden. Additional facts about the program's stars are displayed on the screen during their ring entrance.
The HD aspect of the ROH show is a double edged word. Cameramen positioned right next to the ring get remarkable close ups of the performer’s facial expressions and body language. But the high quality picture also graphically reveals every botched move and less than convincing bump taken by a wrestler.
Growing the Ring of Honor Brand
To attract more fans ROH on the HDNet will have to get into far more North American homes than it is reaching now. It should also move away from presenting frequent lopsided squash matches and main events that end in a draw. These are match booking practices that can wear on audiences after a while.
But the show and ROH as a whole have great potential to grow and diversify their audience. The Code of Honor that gives the wrestling group its name and requires the wrestlers to shake hands at the beginning of each bout, cleverly and clearly defines stars as faces or heels.
The quality of ROH’s wrestling is strong but it’s the diverse roster of characters that is the true drawing card. The promotion should flourish on the back of its stars as long as it can avoid a massive talent raid from WWE and TNA. It was just that sort of raid perpetrated by the now defunct WCW and the WWE that ushered in the end of original, independent ECW all those years ago.
