Every pic of Big Dick Tony is always that of a goober.

Yes I remember the Gunn incident where they had to public fire him. Regardless, ROH isn't so tame and they'd still have to go through it with a fine tooth comb if they can even make out what they're seeing with the horrible picture quality.

TK may have to try a different sales tactic.

I’m hyped for the news and I think the future is bright for wrestling because of this purchase, but I’m having a hard time seeing how the ROH library is a selling feature to any streaming service. If anything, AEW should be the selling point and rights to ROH content should be a sweetener.

I went to YouTube and put on Raven vs CM Punk’s Clockwork Cage Match just for fun. Haven’t watched an ROH match in a long time and wanted to jog my memory before I commented.

Violence and crucifixion aside (most ROH matches didn’t have that), the production is dogshit and I don’t think the commentary team stopped talking for more than 2 seconds the entire match. They would not shut the fuck up. Did you know CM Punk’s dad was an alcoholic? Because they mentioned it 500 times in case you forgot. And the handheld cameras and bad cuts make Kevin Dunn look like Stephen Spielberg.

ROH has not aged well. It was a success in the mid 2000’s because it was the only alternative after the WWE absorbed WCW and ECW. It was the only somewhat accessible indie fed at the time, and they had enough good talent to make it worth watching. But fans don’t need that anymore and aside from us old fucks who want a hit of nostalgia, nobody is going to go back and watch that.

Some of it aged well. The cage matches were always a problem in RoH since they did not really think about seeing into fucking thing. Vince went big bars for a reason, you could stick a camera between the bars.

Also this is what people are considering unwatchable quality (debut show).



This is one of the matches talked about for the greatest match ever.  Production quality is not much different since both were produced for tape.

Quality was an issue with the mics, that can't be disputed. It was awful at times and while it wasn't always excellent camera quality, it was far from unwatchable. But it was a step down from what WWE and TNA were doing in terms of picture. Amazing that alone turned off so many.

Mic are always shit in smaller feds that record sound from cheap cameras and not side chain the mics.  ECW had this problem and WWE still put that shit on DVDs.

Still for HBO or Disney to air the streaming stuff, likely Khan would do it for 15-20 million a year for AEW and RoH, just 10% of what Vince is charing Peacock for streaming rights.  

Compared to the superhero stuff that in rage, Wandavision cost 225 million.  

This is where Tony has his leverage, he can simply under bid people by 90% and get his show on a much larger network with the streaming rights.  Networks get a ton of content they chose to use.  

And frankly, people should support some service putting RoH stuff up as it is very unlikely Tony will keep the Honor Club going.  Then they will become like ECW with most footage sitting in an archive somewhere inaccessible to fans and wrestling loses more of its history.  RoH could not make it profitable enough to avoid a buyout.

Question is, are fans really willing to pay for it? Or pick up an additional subscription because of it?

Isn't the entire library already on YouTube?

The last 3 years, no one cared for ROH anyway. They'll slap " ROH " on Dark and move on to the next shiny new toy.

And if you've never seen a puppy piss itself with excitement, rematch TK announcing he bought ROH.

Nope, library is not free. People pay now 10 bucks a month for access to the library, and it solely includes RoH. But Tony will likely throw in RoH as part of a deal with the AEW library. Trash the ratings all you want, but Tony can charge 20% of what Vince does for about half of the ratings that Vince gets, with only 65% market coverage rate.  Tony is looking to get a national big brand streaming deal and picking up RoH was part of it.

And 3 years is being generous. I would say 10 is a better estimate outside of the short Elite run. WWE signing their top guys, and the fed pushing out Gabe, really hurt them badly.

Also agree, Tony was hilarious nerdy marking out for owning RoH on TV, when really, he basically bought the library of a dead fed that is waiting for someone to take it out behind the shed.

The first few years of ROH have pretty bad production, particularly the sound, but they got a lot better in the mid 2000s. The production throughout Danielson's title reign is pretty good.

The bigger issue is, as NATH45 points out, I seriously doubt there's much demand for the ROH video library. Not a draw.

It may not be a big draw right now, but you know damn well that Tony will be using the library. That MJF promo for instance, if he had this library even last month he would be using Punk's title win promo in the video packages. People seeing the old footage will likely want to check out the matches. Moreso for feuds that started in RoH and continue in AEW. Like say Joe vs Punk when Joe debuts.  Or the Cole vs Elite feud.  

And again, cloud storage is dirt cheap, so does not take much if Tony is realistic with what his product is worth, to break even. 

I got hardcopies of the stuff I liked though, so does not matter to me that much if access disappears for this content.  Just kind of weird that is what people think Tony should do with the library.  

He can use it on AEW programming, I doubt it will make a significant difference. Yeah a dozen fans might go and watch that old CM Punk match/promo on the hypothetical streaming service, whoop de doo.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing, but I don't see how it can be a gamechanger in any way. Tony may prove me wrong. Please do.

It will give him the ability to do history, something he really cannot do with AEW since it is a new fed. Guys in AEW really have no history outside of what Tony booked so far. With the library, he can make up a ton of stories through editing together old RoH stories and reviving them in AEW. Opens a lot of doors for him when like 2/3rds of your roster appeared there.

Let's call it for what it is... money mark wanted memorbilia from his fandom. No different than HHH buying Killer Kowalski's old shit. It's for Big Dick Tony and if it has any use that's a bonus.

Mar 3, 2022 21:09:54 GMT @ness said:

Let's call it for what it is... money mark wanted memorbilia from his fandom. No different than HHH buying Killer Kowalski's old shit. It's for Big Dick Tony and if it has any use that's a bonus.

Yeah, it’s cool. It’s a nice landing spot for RoH, feels right, gives Tony some back catalogue. It’s just, if it’s 40/50 million… jeez. It’s just a lot for Ring of Honor.

It was, but WWE was bidding with others. The library over time creates a lot of value.

A lot of the critiques about RoH were also said about ECW, but people still pay for that shit to this day.

It’s going to be matter of time that TK going to get a streaming service deal the question is with who and when

This is like buying a warehouse of expired Dr.Pepper that was going to be thrown out, and trying to charge people like it's Coca-Cola.

Mar 3, 2022 22:20:24 GMT NATH45 said:

This is like buying a warehouse of expired Dr.Pepper that was going to be thrown out, and trying to charge people like it's Coca-Cola.

Dr. Pepper is giving too much credit to ROH. More like Mr. Pibb.

AEW is Mr. Pibb.

ROH is store brand esque Dr. Thunder.

PW is Faygo Red.

I just hope and pray that Tony keeps both brands separate. No crossing titles between brands. Keep running AEW as AEW and ROH as ROH. Treat it like old school territory.

Mar 3, 2022 22:58:46 GMT Da Gr8t I Is said:

I just hope and pray that Tony keeps both brands separate. No crossing titles between brands. Keep running AEW as AEW and ROH as ROH. Treat it like old school territory.

Don't be silly, TK will book and blow his load all over an invasion angle before the year is out.

The Young Bucks will update their twitter bio with references to the WCW invasion. And oh how smart they will feel.

Mar 3, 2022 22:58:46 GMT Da Gr8t I Is said:

I just hope and pray that Tony keeps both brands separate. No crossing titles between brands. Keep running AEW as AEW and ROH as ROH. Treat it like old school territory.

Well as Deonna Purrazzo pointed out Twitter, things are pretty interesting now for the current RoH women's champion at least.  Let's hope that talent trade is still active.  

Sorry, what? He paid $40 Million for ROH?

Surely not.

God, this entire industry is working this kid out of his money.

Mar 3, 2022 15:16:12 GMT c said:

Mar 3, 2022 13:23:27 GMT Emperor said:

I'm no expert on ROH but I'm pretty sure it's likely to have just as much offensive content, if not more, than WWE. After all, ROH didn't have to answer to board of directors or provide content for a TV show for much of its existence.

Imagine there's a lot of gritty, unsuitable content in ROH's early years. Not as squeaky clean as you're making it out to be.

Nope.  Early RoH was really devoid of storylines.  Their badass heels would refuse to shake hands.  Like that was all it took really to be a super over heel in RoH, just not respecting the Code of Honor.  The RF scandal was a big thing, but that was a very weird legal situation where the police investigated and cleared RF fast because he was in an 18+ erotic roleplay chat focused on ageplay.  Hansen basically prey on people into ageplay and not actual pedophiles which is why almost nothing he did ended up with a person being put in jail.  And well, there was the massive lawsuit after one of the people killed themselves and NBC fired him after being forced to settle out of court.

Post RF era, only gimmick that was remotely edgy was the Embassy, but they portrayed Ghana as a rich and wonderful country.  As far as racial gimmicks go, it is really tame.  Post Gabe era, Cornette is really the most controversial person to appear.  Briscoes a bit towards the end when they went confederate and made some stupid comments publically.  

Now compare this to Chris Benoit murdering his family, likely due to head trauma he suffered in WWE, Jimmy Snuka going insane and killing his girlfriend, the super racist HHH vs Booker program, the entire divas era, particularly Trish's early career before she was known for wrestling, ect.  It is not comparable.  Simply put if RoH did shows like WWE did, Frank Talent would have barred them from the arena like he did CZW.  

I remember a few years back I downloaded 2002-2003 ROH and this was what I was expecting, a sporty wrestling league, I was surprised that yes there actually were quite a few storylines and backstage "scenes" and characters being characters where you could tell they were trying poorly to be like 2002 WWE. It wasn't really anything at all like what I expected. There were tons of hokey storylines and characters and bad acting/promos, so much so that I got burned out watching it and tapped out after the second or third show of 2003. 

If ROH did shows like WWE did, maybe they wouldn't be out of business.

Mar 4, 2022 3:22:15 GMT NATH45 said:

Sorry, what? He paid $40 Million for ROH?

Surely not.

God, this entire industry is working this kid out of his money.

You keep thinking of things he buys as assets.  Likely part of the reason to grab RoH and keep it open is to use it as a massive tax write off while using the fed itself to create assets in the form of new shows.  It is a pretty smart move.  Most people buy real estate and claim a loss with that.  Tony buys wrestling feds.

Mar 4, 2022 4:37:16 GMT c said:

Mar 4, 2022 3:22:15 GMT NATH45 said:

Sorry, what? He paid $40 Million for ROH?

Surely not.

God, this entire industry is working this kid out of his money.

You keep thinking of things he buys as assets.  Likely part of the reason to grab RoH and keep it open is to use it as a massive tax write off while using the fed itself to create assets in the form of new shows.  It is a pretty smart move.  Most people buy real estate and claim a loss with that.  Tony buys wrestling feds.

Tony buys Toys. Shiny new toys. 

Mar 4, 2022 3:24:23 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Mar 3, 2022 15:16:12 GMT c said:

Nope.  Early RoH was really devoid of storylines.  Their badass heels would refuse to shake hands.  Like that was all it took really to be a super over heel in RoH, just not respecting the Code of Honor.  The RF scandal was a big thing, but that was a very weird legal situation where the police investigated and cleared RF fast because he was in an 18+ erotic roleplay chat focused on ageplay.  Hansen basically prey on people into ageplay and not actual pedophiles which is why almost nothing he did ended up with a person being put in jail.  And well, there was the massive lawsuit after one of the people killed themselves and NBC fired him after being forced to settle out of court.

Post RF era, only gimmick that was remotely edgy was the Embassy, but they portrayed Ghana as a rich and wonderful country.  As far as racial gimmicks go, it is really tame.  Post Gabe era, Cornette is really the most controversial person to appear.  Briscoes a bit towards the end when they went confederate and made some stupid comments publically.  

Now compare this to Chris Benoit murdering his family, likely due to head trauma he suffered in WWE, Jimmy Snuka going insane and killing his girlfriend, the super racist HHH vs Booker program, the entire divas era, particularly Trish's early career before she was known for wrestling, ect.  It is not comparable.  Simply put if RoH did shows like WWE did, Frank Talent would have barred them from the arena like he did CZW.  

I remember a few years back I downloaded 2002-2003 ROH and this was what I was expecting, a sporty wrestling league, I was surprised that yes there actually were quite a few storylines and backstage "scenes" and characters being characters where you could tell they were trying poorly to be like 2002 WWE. It wasn't really anything at all like what I expected. There were tons of hokey storylines and characters and bad acting/promos, so much so that I got burned out watching it and tapped out after the second or third show of 2003. 

2003 was not a good year for RoH.  It was not all bad, but not it was not very good either.  Post RF RoH was when it picked up starting with the debut of Generation Next in 2004 and the start of Joe vs Punk.  Generation Next 2004 to Rising Above 2008 is peak RoH.  

Mar 4, 2022 4:45:17 GMT NATH45 said:

Mar 4, 2022 4:37:16 GMT c said:

You keep thinking of things he buys as assets.  Likely part of the reason to grab RoH and keep it open is to use it as a massive tax write off while using the fed itself to create assets in the form of new shows.  It is a pretty smart move.  Most people buy real estate and claim a loss with that.  Tony buys wrestling feds.

Tony buys Toys. Shiny new toys. 

I mean he could just buy resorts like everyone else,  I see nothing wrong with him running wrestling feds as his tax write offs that allow him to move around real assets.  Not sure why it triggers people so much that literally Tony does not need to make a single penny on these feds to get value from them.