ROH Reflections

by chrisgst on Jun.26, 2009, under Uncategorized

I would like to take this time now to welcome myself, Chris GST to the PWP universe of writings.  I have decided to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the PWP wrestling community. Obviously, a pro wrestling fan of several indy federations and I have been given the task of reviewing most ROH shows and releases alongside give opinions.   For this first shot in the dark writing that I'm putting forth I am going to set the tone throughout my writings right now...

I DON'T BOW DOWN TO THE INTERNET WRESTLING COMMUNITY

I have one major online screen name and under that screen name I post regularly on many wrestling based forums.  Now I have to point out that I've been on message boards since roughly 1997, and not entirely all wrestling forums so through the years the "forum etiquette" has been thrown around and seemingly is non-existent on wrestling forums.  Thus I've been through many a wrestling debate/argument/heated spamming and I do know that I don't always have the proto-typical look at the world of pro wrestling.  I'm warning you now that if you disagree with anything I say, feel free to post it, feel free to rant off on me, as long as you know that it's open grounds for me to rant on your opinion as well.  Lets keep it P.C. and try to stay on topic but fun and ranting has been a staple of the IWC and I'm not going to hinder it.

So for this first debut column, I'm going to bring up the one thing that has been  bothering me, which is a perfect example of how the IWC can be fickle which should be  a given,  about how some of the IWC have stated that they want TNA and WWE to go back to the old school booking style of pure white and black hat characters.  Good guys and bad guys.  Heels and faces.  They want WWE to bring back the style of booking that they we've been conditioned to accept, but then, when it comes to a guy who is booking that old school kind of style in Adam Pearce they will **** all over it.  Let me repeat that, they **** all over it.

Why?  Now I've been a ROH fan since the first show.  Round Robin Challenge 1 wasn't even out on DVD yet from what I knew when I found The Era of Honor Begins in a San Francisco Virgin Megastore discount bin and had heard of ROH from online and PWI magazine.  Instantly bought it and the moment I got home that night, I put it in and have been hooked ever since.    So I'm not a new fan nor am I a ROHbot.  I have criticised them and even had been banned once from the ROH message board until I argued my case and was allowed back after a few months.   So what is it that Pearce is doing that is so different from what a "verbal minority" of the IWC is begging TNA and WWE to do with their booking?

Yes, he has slowed down the paces of the matches, he has made the first half and the second half of the shows seemingly different from the Gabe Era which should be expected.  He's not Gabe and that's not good or bad, it is what it is.  He's openly stated that he is going to book more along the style of the 70s and 80s.   When we actually had clear cut black and white, bad and good characters.  A theme that those of the IWC have been clamoring for the "big two" to take another look at and we have it here in ROH, the arguably third most well known wrestling promotion in the United States,  and you're still not happy.

I'll be the first to admit that Adam Pearce shouldn't sacrifice those of us that have stuck with the promotion from the beginning and totally have revamped what it is that we loved about ROH and that was the hard hitting, almost puro-esque style, and drew us in.  But, in his defense, I'll play devil's advocate and flat out say that sometimes things have to progress and if this new style is easier for newer fans to come into and understand and then it evolves back into the style that ROH started out with then I'm going to sit back and still support ROH.

If you were to give new ROH fans that did see the PPVs or watch the ROH on HDnet eps and got into the product the DVD At Our Best, they may not even like it.  They may not seemingly understand that the talent of those days have now moved on to better things or at the very least have evolved beyond those styles of matches and now want to focus more on in-ring character building than hard hitting, in your face matches.  Is this good or bad?  Can we accept that perhaps now we have to develop characters in ROH in order for it to continue to grow?  That days of being the no nonsense/minimal characters (cause there were always great characters in ROH, even Gabe has stated that in several interviews) has gone by the wayside to now we have a building of clear cut heels and faces...or are we going to continue to expect something different out of ROH than the other two successful promotions and still expect ROH to succeed?