Ring of Honor cancels all June events including pay-per-view

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/01/ring-of-honor-cancels-all-june-events-including-pay-per-view/

Ring of Honor has made the announcement that all events scheduled for the month of June have been canceled stemming from the COVID-19 crisis.

After news that the NBA was suspending its season on March 11th, ROH made the call to cancel its pay-per-view two days later in Las Vegas along with their ‘Past vs. Present’ show the following night and have not run since.

It was reported by Dave Meltzer in the April 20th issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that all ROH wrestlers and staff have been paid for missed events along with non-contracted talent:

Besides the contracted talent, ROH has been paying non-contracted talent, whether it be wrestlers booked on a per show basis, ring crew, camera men, referees, etc. that were originally booked for the shows canceled thus far and through May what they would have been paid had those shows taken place.

ROH had cards scheduled for June 5th in Dallas, June 6th in San Antonio, and their Best in the World pay-per-view on June 19th in Baltimore.

The company has not shown any desire to push forward in a state such as Florida, that has provided an opening for national sports promotions, including professional wrestling, to run. In mid-April, we contacted ROH COO Joe Koff regarding the option to run in Florida and he provided POST Wrestling with the following response:

I think it’s great for WWE that they are able to operate how they see fit, or how they may even need to for their business. It doesn’t necessarily change our approach to the pandemic though. The safety of all of our performers, staff, vendors, and fans are the most important thing to us right now and we are continuing to improve our infrastructure and find ways to connect with them during this time.. Are we eager to get back? Absolutely. For now, we will be monitoring day by day.

I’ve not, and will not begrudge any business that does what’s best for them. But I think ROH is running the risk of becoming irrelevant. For the simple reason that WWE, AEW, and Impact Wrestling are finding ways to keep fans engaged, to make people want to watch their weekly shows, even during this crazy time. And they’ve been successful given how there’s been the one positive test (the WWE on-air talent.)

Even without live sports (which I miss immensely), there are still other entertainment options. So why should I bother to watch years-old video which may have cut-off entrances, may or may not be of good quality, of matches from years ago?

As an aside, ROH lost the right to call itself “the best wrestling on the planet,” when they put the world title on a guy whose gimmick came out of 90’s WWE (PCO.)

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I think they were on the path to irrelevancy and were given a stay of execution by naming Marty the booker which many wanted to give them benefit of the doubt because Marty is mostly beloved.

I have been wondering if ROH is able to use their video library for Best if Shows during this time? In theory, they are able to show many of the WWE restore before their time in WWE and presented way better than how WWE presents many of those guys today. Impact probably could do the same, ironically.

Also this,

I recall leaving feedback when it happened, this was a real jump the Shark moment when you think about the lineage of the ROH title. ROH basically paved the way for current WWE roster members while taking a 90s WWE gimick and made him their champion. Tells you exactly how bad ROH fell off in 2019

I respect Marty also. Seems like he wants to maintain good working relationships with other companies. But I feel like Sinclair doesn’t want to spend the money to make the company marketable to the average fan. Not the superfan who subscribes to Honor Club, but the one who actually values weekly TV.

I say that because of all the talent lost, and how even some of these profile shows have had matches of poor video quality compared to today’s standards. That’s a really strong point about guys in WWE who are former ROH champions, the wrestlers they are, then giving PCO the belt.