Ring of Honor proud to not be WWE
Promotion hits 15 with focus on in-ring action
Christopher Daniels was doing what independent pro wrestlers do when he took a booking on a show called “The Era of Honor” in 2002 in Philadelphia. He was filling dates on his schedule.
“At that point, it was just work,” he says, “but we had a locker room full of talent. Seeing all these guys who I had met on different independent shows throughout the Northeast, it was almost like an all-star show.”
Daniels was in the main event with fellow wrestlers Low Ki and Bryan Danielson (who later became Daniel Bryan). He added more dates with the company, known as Ring of Honor, which had 12 events in its first year. Soon there were a few dates outside of Philadelphia. Then there was a first anniversary show.
“Being in the main event of the first show, at that point we had no idea what we were building,” Daniels recalls. “The first year was a whirlwind of great shows and great experiences. The idea of having the first anniversary is when it hit home that we were going to stick around for a while.”
Or perhaps more poetically, Daniels says, “It wasn’t anything until it became something.”
Ring of Honor will celebrate its 15th anniversary Friday in Las Vegas with a pay-per-view event at Sam’s Town Live (9 p.m. ET). Daniels will attempt to win his first Ring of Honor world title when he challenges three-time champion Adam Cole in the main event.
Though times and talent have changed, one key quality of Ring of Honor remains: It has become an alternative for wrestling fans to what they see from World Wrestling Entertainment. How it has remained such an alternative distinguishes the company in a business that has seen rampant consolidation in the last four decades. The numbers of wrestling promotions that have failed to make a mark — or failed entirely — is almost equal to the number that have attempted to do so.
“Despite all the success WWE has had and the variety to WWEstyle wrestling that they’ve started to embrace, that can’t be the beall, end-all of wrestling,” Daniels says. “We see an opportunity to help continue to help build up Ring of Honor and cement the idea that we are a very viable alternative to what the WWE offers as professional wrestling.”
That alternative concept — from the fans to the performers — goes back to its roots.
“As fans discovered the product, they found something that was, from Day One, different but also featured throwbacks to old school wrestling,” says Mike Johnson of industry news site PWInsider.com, who has followed ROH from its outset. “They made the wins and losses and the titles changing hands mean something. There were very personal promos and stories built on competition. For fans who wanted something that wasn’t WWE story lines in that era, it was refreshing.”
Joe Koff also sees ROH’s growth without straying from what fueled its initial popularity. Koff has been Ring of Honor’s chief operating officer for fiveplus years, since Sinclair Broadcast Group bought the promotion. He also is Sinclair’s vice president of training and development.
Sinclair, which owns the most local TV stations in the USA, bought the ROH from Cary Silkin, who had put up millions to keep the company afloat and was its owner from 2004 to 2011.
Rather than a wrestling company, Ring of Honor is a business unit of a large television company. “Financially, Sinclair was the best thing to ever happen to Ring of Honor,” Johnson says.
With Sinclair, Koff said, ROH’s one-hour flagship program airs 256 times per weekend, including duplication on some stations, in all of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s 81 markets. That doesn’t include Ring of Honor’s syndicated partners in markets such as Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia and regional networks such as NESN in New England and Cox Sports South. Add in Comet, another cable network in 80 million homes including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York; Ring of Honor’s website; and the 35 million views on its YouTube channel, and the footprint continues to grow.
The company does about 40 live events annually, including four to six pay-per-views.
“What I feel the most proud of is, in that five years we have really become part of the narrative of the business,” Koff says, “and to me that’s very complimentary. It’s also basically validation of the work we have done and the strategies we have in place.”
To a man, though, the performers in the ring and the people behind the scenes, all want to talk about the wrestling. The hour weekly show has very few promos — segments when talent argues for themselves or against rivals — and is crammed with matches.
“When you hear complaints about pro wrestling, it’s that there is too much soap opera, too much story line,” Daniels says. “Ring of Honor has put a premium on inring action. What happens between the bells is what Ring of Honor has always been known for.”
Koff says he thinks WWE’s decision to bring back a cruiserweight division and what he has seen from NXT — two products with more of an in-ring focus than WWE’s flagships Raw and Smack
down Live — are directly related to what ROH has done.
WWE “reacted to what we were doing,” he said. “I’d like to think of us as the innovators in the space. I think Ring of Honor has helped the industry in raising the level.”
“We see an opportunity to ... build up Ring of Honor and cement the idea that we are a very viable alternative to what the WWE offers.” ROH wrestler Christopher Daniels