Final Battle has always a show about beginnings and ends for Ring of Honor. It’s a show where wrestlers are introduced, or where they bid the company farewell. It’s where storylines culminate, and new ones germinate.
Final Battle 2018 was probably the most tumultuous weekends in the company’s history. In one fell swoop it seems that The Young Bucks, “Hangman” Adam Page, “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes, Brandi Rhodes, Frankie Kazarian, Scorpio Sky, and “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels have all departed from the company.
However, the loss of the majority of The Elite (and the rumored departure of Marty Scurll in April), leaves a massive hole in Ring of Honor’s roster — particularly at the top of the card. These men were all main eventers, big time draws, and one of the company’s best promotional tools.
Ring of Honor has had a history of losing big time talent, but have always found a way to bounce back. However, this is a different Ring of Honor than the days of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, and Bryan Danielson saying farewell. This is an ROH with Madison Square Garden on the horizon, with large venues to fill, international working relationships to uphold, and loftier goals to meet. And confirmed on December 20, The Young Bucks are NOT working MSG (for now) as confirmed by Matt Jackson on Twitter. So ROH needs to move, and move quickly.
This may seem like an insurmountable task to overcome — replacing a core group of top tier talent all while embarking on your most ambitious year to date — but there are ways Ring of Honor could thrive in this post-Elite world.
We will not be there, but I encourage everyone to still go. It’s a historic night for wrestling. https://t.co/kPVEjtTqIa
— The Young Bucks (@MattJackson13) December 20, 2018
1. The Belt Goes to The Villain: It is widely known that “The Villain” Marty Scurll, the lone member of The Elite still in Ring of Honor, has an expiring contract that ends right after the Madison Square Garden show. So why on earth would Ring of Honor want to put the World Title on him?
The Summer of Punk, that’s why. It’s one of the company’s most famous storylines, so famous in fact that WWE used the same storyline in 2011 with Punk when he defeated John Cena at Summerslam in Chicago. For those who aren’t familiar with the storyline: CM Punk signed with WWE in 2005, but had remaining dates with ROH. He defeated Austin Aries for the title — a title which he signed his WWE contract on. He defended the belt and threatened to take the title to WWE, inciting fans and creating one of the biggest drawing angles in the early days of ROH. It remains one of the hottest angles ROH has ever done.
So why not play on the real life situation of Marty Scurll’s expiring contract? He wins the belt and he threatens to leave ROH with the title to go to WWE, or the rumored All Elite Wrestling. Scurll is great on the mic, so have him win and run the same playbook you ran with Punk. He’s got the belt — he’ll defend it when he wants, and most importantly WHERE he wants. In fact, maybe he’ll take that belt and lay it at the feet of Vince McMahon, or Cody Rhodes.
With the newly signed Brody King and PCO as his henchmen, it’d make for a compelling storyline as the “Defenders of ROH” come to take the title from this traitor, but come up short due to interference from Scurll’s men. Scurll could vanquish the likes of Dalton Castle, Jay Lethal, Mark and Jay Briscoe, Chris Sabin, etc. Then he gets to MSG, and he faces the man who will defeat him. The man who should be the #1 guy in the company…which leads me to my second point.
2. Flip Gordon Needs to Be the #1 Good Guy: Flip Gordon needs to become the biggest babyface in Ring of Honor — because in my previous scenario he would be the man to defeat Marty Scurll at MSG. From an in-ring perspective he’s one of the most exciting talents on the current roster. From a PR perspective, he’s everything Ring of Honor and its parent company Sinclair Broadcasting would want as the face of the company: a good-looking, clean cut, proud military veteran who has great charisma and is fairly well-spoken. He appeals to the men with his moves, the ladies with his looks, and to Sinclair’s conservative audience with his charm and military background — which makes him the ideal person to talk on all of Sinclair’s morning and evening shows to promote ROH.
Flip is already a top fan favorite in the company, and established international star. However, ROH needs to put the full weight of their booking and promotional power behind him. From a booking perspective it seems like they’ve already laid the groundwork for this. He’s survived the “Tommy Dreamer” treatment — receiving a brutal caning from Bully Ray. He went through hell and back; bleeding like faucet and proving he can hang with a hardcore legend like Bully at Final Battle. The crowd lived and died with him from the moment he carried the American flag on a Kendo stick to the ring, till he final made Bully quit.
The feud with Bully showed Flip can be a sympathetic character that the crowd feels for. So who better to go defend ROH’s honor, and get beaten down for it by Villain Enterprises than Flip? And who better to be the man to get back up time and time again to keep fighting till he gets his title shot at MSG? His win, if he’s positioned right, would be a huge deal and the pop would be massive.
And with a rumored two-year deal under his belt, ROH will have him around for a while so they could have him drop the belt to someone like a Matt Taven and have him go back on the chase for belt, and giving us more compelling storylines to watch.
3. Make Women of Honor a Priority: The one warning everyone levies against promotions that attempt to run nationally is that they shouldn’t try to emulate WWE. Well, in this case, ROH should try and be more like WWE. What’s the hottest component of WWE’s product right now? Women’s wrestling. The women are not only stealing the shows, but headlining them. It’s adding new dimensions to not only episodic WWE television, but opening doors for new fans.
Ring of Honor needs to take a long, hard look at their Women of Honor division, and realize they need to start making women’s wrestling a priority.
If you look at the company’s website you’ll see 11 competitors in the WOH field. One of those is Brandi Rhodes who’s gone from the company. Another is Tenille Dashwood who is injured. So that leaves you with 9 women. As of right now their current champion Kelly Klein has not officially signed her new contract, and her husband, BJ Whitmer, just quit ROH. So…does this mean they even have a champion?
Now, granted over Final Battle weekend Thunder Rosa, Holidead, and Britt Baker all came in to work, and it wouldn’t shock me if they all signed — but that’s just not enough. We’ve seen these same women fight each over and over and over again. And who’s to say Karen Q or Madison Rayne won’t leave when their deals are up?
WOH needs to start bringing in elite level talent from both the U.S. and around the world. And frankly it shouldn’t be hard to attract talent. Since ROH is in an alliance with Rev Pro and CMLL — look to their rosters and see who you could bring in. Will Ospreay is affiliated with ROH (and rumored to be used more this year), so why not move the heavens to bring in his hyper-talented girlfriend Bea Priestley? Look to all women’s companies like the U.K.’s Pro Wrestling Eve, or Shimmer, Shine, Women’s Wrestling Revolution in the U.S., or Stardom in Japan for talent? Look to any indie company right now and you’ll find at least two women worth bringing in. Women like Viper, Kay Lee Ray, Santana Garrett, Penelope Ford (if WWE doesn’t sign her), Faby Apache, Jessicka Havok would make strong addition to the WOH roster.
Building and cultivating WOH will lead to more stars, new fans, and cards that will feel fresher and different. ROH has branded themselves as cutting edge wrestling but the lack of women on their shows is a glaring mistake they need to fix.
4. Spend Money in Free Agency: Sounds like we’re talking about baseball or football, right? Well, right now it’s literally pro wrestling’s free agency period. Ring of Honor needs to go out and spend some money on securing exciting talent to their roster.
To their credit they have done this in the past month by inking not only Jeff Cobb, Brody King and PCO to deals, but UK star Mark Haskins (who’s incredible), and the Mexican sensation Bandido to exclusive deals. ROH has been using talent such as “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams, Luchasaurus, and PJ Black in limited roles. They should think about adding one if not all of these men to deals to strengthen their depleted roster. Also if you bring in Bandido, you have to bring in his tag partner Flamita — he’s excellent.
Ring of Honor is no longer just an “indie” running armories, and rec centers anymore. They’re headlining Madison Square Garden, so they need to start acquiring big name talent when they become available. However, they also aren’t the promotion every indie guy “needs” to go to. They’re traveling to PWG, Progress, AAW, Evolve, AIW, or WXW (amongst others) instead.
They need to approach name WWE, Lucha Underground, Impact Wrestling, and international talents whose contracts are expiring. They need to make a splash, and if that means throwing serious dollars at someone like a Dolph Ziggler, or AJ Styles for example — they should do it. They aren’t a mom and pop anymore — they’re big time. Plus with contracts being offered by WWE, Impact, MLW, and potentially All Elite, ROH needs to use their financial strength to maximize their talent base.
I've officially signed with ROH. 2019, shit is going to go down. Keep watching. #TheBrass
📷 @Y2jimbob pic.twitter.com/eKB22IlYFP
— The BRASS (@ThisIsHaskins) December 20, 2018
5. Utilizing the Under-Utilized: This applies not only to their own roster but to New Japan’s as well.
Ring of Honor is realizing this now with the recent sustained push of Jonathan Gresham, and the new push of Shane Taylor. However, there’s talent on the current ROH roster, and in the Future of Honor brackets that need to be seriously monitored and used in better ways.
However, ROH can always look to New Japan as a source of much-needed talent. Zack Sabre Jr. needs to be a staple in ROH (since NJPW stop/starts his push constantly) Juice Robinson announced he’ll be heading over more frequently, and if he brings the US Title with him, he only elevates by defending it consistently in ROH. A guy like David Finlay who’s relegated to 8 or 10 man matches, or is the obvious guy eating the pin a tag or six-man match, could desperately use time in ROH. He doesn’t have much exposure in the States or the UK, so instead of having him toiling in obscurity, why not have him work with, and get a push with ROH. The same goes for Chase Owens, Henrae, and the multitude of young boys in NJPW.
ROH needs to take underused talent, develop them, and push them. It’s how guys like Kevin Owens became Kevin Steen. Tyler Black became Seth Rollins. How Bryan Danielson became Daniel Bryan. They were underutilized guys who got the chance to shine in ROH. Hopefully ROH will keep these newly pushed guys and not let them go to WWE like the aforementioned group.
