The Rise, Fall, And Rise Again Of Ring Of Honor (Part 1) | partsFUNknown
What are your greatest memories of Ring of Honor during its early years? Let us know in the comments while you follow along with Tempest with this look through the beginning of Ring of Honor!
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What are your greatest memories of Ring of Honor during its early years? Let us know in the comments while you follow along with Tempest with this look through the beginning of Ring of Honor!
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: wrestleshop.com
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
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SportsTranscript
00:00 The story of Ring of Honor is as much tied to the company's identity as it is to anything
00:08 else.
00:10 As I watched AEW Revolution, I was completely mesmerized by the atmosphere generated by
00:15 CM Punk's special one-off Miseria Canter entrance.
00:19 Not only did the song play perfectly into the story of his dog-collar match with MJF,
00:24 but what really pulled me in was the response the song got from the audience.
00:28 The call and response of this hardcore, passionate fanbase singing this obscure AFI song back
00:34 to CM Punk as he looked out to them smiling continued to illustrate just how thoroughly
00:38 Ring of Honor has resonated with those who watched it.
00:42 But it led me to think about why.
00:44 Why did Ring of Honor mean so much to so many people, wrestler and fan alike, for practically
00:50 a decade?
00:51 What was it about this little promotion starting up in the wake of WCW and ECW going out of
00:56 business that captured so many people's imagination?
01:00 Ring of Honor is going through its greatest period of change to date at the moment, but
01:03 it's worth looking back to better understand what made Ring of Honor successful in the
01:07 first place before we look to what might come next.
01:11 I'm Tempest Hailing from PartsFunKnown, and this is the Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of
01:16 Ring of Honor.
01:17 Part 1, The Beginning
01:19 Ring of Honor was launched following the success of APW's King of the Indies tournament in
01:24 2001.
01:25 The two-night show brought together many of the biggest names in independent pro wrestling,
01:28 and was an eye-opener to many that there was enough talent on the indie circuit to sustain
01:33 a bigger promotion.
01:34 Names like Samoa Joe, Frankie Kazarian, Doug Williams, Adam Pearce, Christopher Daniels,
01:40 Brian "Spanky" Kendrick, The American Dragon, Bryan Danielson, Low Key, and some guy named
01:45 AJ Styles all took part in the show, with Danielson knocking off Low Key in the finals.
01:50 Already the ROH fans watching this will know that many of the names I just listed would
01:54 soon become the foundation for Ring of Honor's roster, and this is what many people would
01:58 consider Ring of Honor's greatest success.
02:01 See, Ring of Honor was never going to be this huge moneymaker, at least not at first, but
02:05 what the company was able to do was give young wrestlers another place to work.
02:09 In the wake of WCW and ECW both closing, suddenly there was only one major player in town if
02:15 you wanted to make a full-time living in pro wrestling.
02:18 If you weren't working for WWE, odds are you were struggling.
02:21 The early 2000s were some of the worst years ever to be a pro wrestler, simply because
02:25 there were so few places to make a living.
02:28 That is why many looked at the newly christened ROH with great fondness.
02:32 The number one asset to the wrestling business has always been the talent, and Ring of Honor
02:36 quickly proved themselves capable of identifying, cultivating, and developing talent.
02:41 This would be one of ROH's greatest contributions to the business as a whole, and will certainly
02:45 be a running theme throughout this story.
02:47 The new promotion had a simple business strategy.
02:50 Book hungry young wrestlers on shows designed to attract about 500 people, then sell merchandise,
02:55 and later DVDs of the event, thus breaking even.
02:58 ROH wasn't meant to be a huge moneymaker with this model, but it allowed them to run
03:02 shows and start to build the ROH brand name through word of mouth as a result of their
03:06 own stellar shows.
03:08 And to their credit, that's exactly what happened.
03:10 In the ring, the product was far different from any other wrestling promotion being presented
03:14 in the United States at the time.
03:16 Gabe Sapolsky, former protege of Paul Heyman, was the booker and instituted the Code of
03:20 Honor which saw wrestlers shake hands before and after the match and respect the official,
03:25 establishing the promotion as a more grounded product and creating a built-in way for heels
03:29 to get heat, simply by not respecting the code.
03:32 In addition to the extra rules, the style of Ring of Honor's wrestling was much more
03:36 akin to what was seen in Japan at the time.
03:39 Sports-based presentation with the emphasis put on strong, technical wrestling.
03:43 Not only was the promotion a breath of fresh air compared to the corporate sheen of WWE,
03:47 but the different styles on display gave hardcore fans a promotion that they could latch onto
03:51 with matches that were more like what they were looking to get out of their wrestling
03:54 with promotions like ECW now out of business.
03:57 You had rivalries like CM Punk vs Raven, which was very different from anything WWE was putting
04:03 on television at the time.
04:04 For those who are just now getting their first taste of this blood-soaked, passionate, emotional
04:09 CM Punk, that was Ring of Honor and more specifically, this rivalry with Raven.
04:14 Punk would berate Raven for being handed success and flushing it down the toilet in favor of
04:18 pills and booze.
04:19 Yeah, you could see technical wizardry from Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, and
04:23 a myriad of other great performers, but you could also see a violent dog collar match
04:28 or steel cage match and it helped ROH develop an identity as a promotion with variety.
04:33 If you were a disgruntled wrestling fan upset with what WWE had to offer, odds are you could
04:38 find fulfillment in ROH.
04:40 Unless of course you were just a really big fan of WCW in 2000, in which case don't
04:44 worry, TNA just started up at the same time.
04:46 Ring of Honor was rocked by scandal while it was still in its infancy as owner Rob Feinstein
04:50 was implicated in an online sting operation where he reportedly had made plans to meet
04:55 with a 14 year old boy.
04:56 Feinstein has maintained his innocence through the whole thing and was never charged, but
05:00 in March 2004, ROH released a statement saying Feinstein was gone from the company.
05:05 While this scandal could have easily sunk the fledgling promotion, what came next was
05:08 perhaps their greatest period to date.
05:10 ROH would be run by Sapolsky, Doug Gentry, and Cary Silken, a New York ticket broker
05:16 who would serve as the company's new owner.
05:18 To this day, Silken is remembered as being the man who really gave ROH a chance to spread
05:22 its wings and continues to be thanked and respected for it.
05:26 The Feinstein scandal cost ROH its working relationship with TNA, resulting in stars
05:30 like AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels choosing to work for TNA full time, but that didn't
05:34 stop ROH from experiencing their best years.
05:37 Under Silken, Ring of Honor presented matches and stories that are still talked about to
05:41 this day.
05:42 There are tons of examples to pick from, such as Samoa Joe's historic ROH World Championship
05:46 reign and feud with CM Punk, resulting in two hour long draws, the latter of which being
05:51 ROH's first 5 star match.
05:53 You also had the original Summer of Punk, where CM Punk tricked the ROH fans into thinking
05:57 he had signed with WWE, only to win the ROH World Championship and sign his real WWE contract
06:04 on the belt.
06:05 Samoa Joe faced Japanese icon Kenta Kobashi in one of the best matches to ever take place
06:10 on American soil.
06:11 Bryan Danielson ran the gauntlet as ROH World Champion, having matches with Nigel McGuinness,
06:16 Homicide Kenta and Takeshi Morishima.
06:19 And as the years started to go by, you could make the argument that ROH was the best promotion
06:23 in America.
06:25 The roster would be ever changing, with CM Punk departing for WWE in 2005, Samoa Joe
06:30 leaving for TNA in 2007, and a bevy of talented wrestlers joining the promotions during the
06:35 2000s.
06:36 While ROH started with a roster of the independent circuit's top performers, they were soon
06:40 joined by many more stars like Homicide, Nigel McGuinness, Austin Aries, Davey Richards and
06:45 Eddie Edwards.
06:46 Additionally, the roster was further bolstered by ROH's working relationship with pro wrestling
06:51 NOAH, the top promotion in Japan at the time.
06:54 It was this partnership that allowed top stars like Kenta, Morishima and Kenta Kobashi to
06:59 compete for ROH in their aforementioned matches with Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe.
07:04 When you consider that at the time, if you didn't look like John Cena, Batista, Randy
07:08 Orton or Brock Lesnar, you were unlikely to get a call from the big dub, Ring of Honor
07:13 existing to give wrestlers like Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe and CM Punk a platform not only
07:18 endeared them to the fans of the wrestling business, but it allowed them to take this
07:21 collection of tremendous performers who didn't fit the corporate mold and put on some of
07:26 the best shows of the era.
07:27 The highlights of Ring of Honor's early years greatly outweigh their low points as
07:31 the company continued to expand their reach, touring in Japan and the United Kingdom, showcasing
07:35 Dragon Gate talent in 2006 and engaging in a violent promotional rivalry with hardcore
07:40 promotion CZW.
07:42 Despite the fact that they weren't on TV and didn't really have a way of growing
07:45 their audience outside of the hardcore wrestling fanbase they'd been catering to, ROH was
07:50 gaining popularity.
07:51 The problem was, they were losing money.
07:53 Yes, the promotion's original vision of small crowds and DVD sales carrying them through
07:57 may have worked when they were just starting out, but as the promotion grew there came
08:01 a need for Ring of Honor to start doing what all good companies do, make money.
08:05 The problem with that is by 2008, America was going into a recession and it is extremely
08:10 difficult to make money running a wrestling company even at the best of times.
08:13 Especially when you consider that at the time there was no way for smaller promotions like
08:17 Ring of Honor to make their shows available on pay per view like there is today.
08:21 This would be a big part of the second chunk of this title, you know, the fall part, as
08:26 we look toward the 2010s, but what of this first decade of Ring of Honor wrestling?
08:31 Why is it that so many people look back on this era with such fondness that they will
08:35 sing CM Punk's song back to him nearly two decades later?
08:39 Well, as I said at the beginning of this video, the story of Ring of Honor is as much a story
08:43 of identity and during this first generation of Ring of Honor, the promotion's identity
08:48 was never more clearly defined.
08:50 Sure it may not have been as flashy and spectacular as the bright lights of WWE, but ROH was once
08:55 again challenging the idea that you need that to be pro wrestling.
08:59 WWE could be sports entertainment, and TNA could be whatever the opposite of entertaining
09:04 is, but if you wanted a true alternative, you could find it in Ring of Honor.
09:08 This first era had incredible matches, emotional storylines, great promos, and one of the best
09:14 collections of talent the wrestling business has ever seen.
09:17 But even more than that, wrestling fans are a passionate bunch, we're all guilty of that,
09:22 and when Ring of Honor was watched by a relatively small group of fans in the grand scheme of
09:26 things, those fans got to feel like they were part of the identity of the promotion.
09:30 Wrestling fans want to feel like they're part of something, part of a movement, or
09:34 a community, or whatever the case may be.
09:37 During the 2000s, Ring of Honor was that place for a lot of people.
09:40 Ring of Honor was never as rah-rah, anti-WWE as TNA or AEW have been, but fans of the company
09:46 would still fly the Ring of Honor flag very proudly because the show they were watching
09:50 resonated with them.
09:52 Even after the tumultuous years Ring of Honor has had since, which we will certainly get
09:56 to, fans of the classic ROH will still wave that flag, which they should, even if the
10:01 OG Ring of Honor logo is one of the worst things I have ever seen.
10:05 Ring of Honor was special, and they were special during a time where not a lot of promotions
10:09 below WWE felt significant at all.
10:12 If you were someone who would appreciate seeing Kenta Kobashi, Ring of Honor was the promotion
10:16 for you.
10:17 If you were someone who wanted to see long, well-paced stories used in tandem with great
10:21 matches, Ring of Honor was the promotion for you.
10:24 And if you were someone who wanted kick-ass music, then Ring of Honor was certainly for
10:27 you.
10:28 Wrestling is just a concert, and this concert plays Call to Personality, Miseria Cantare,
10:33 and the Final Countdown motherf**kers.
10:35 [Outro Music]
11:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]