ROH is Dead(ish): Where Do the Top Talent Go?

General
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The ROH news is out now, and while it sucks that many people are out of a job, most now have to look to one of the other companies for work. Obviously everyone can’t just go to AEW, so I’m wondering where you see the top talent landing? Or, do you see one or two wrestlers who are a great fit for the remaining major promotions? There’s no need to go through the Wikipedia roster list with a fine-toothed comb, but I’m curious where you think certain performers could land or thrive? For example:

AEW: Brody King and Danhausen. I think, even if you don’t get him, you cant deny how over Danhausen is, and with OC moving back and forth between comedy and contender, Danhausen is a perfect fit for a crowd-pleasing comedic character. And Brody King as a partner or enforcer of Malaki Black isn’t just fantasy booking: they’re the current PWG tag champs. Their looks and styles complement each other too much to not pair them together in AEW.

IMPACT: The Kingdom w/Maria and Jay Lethal. IMPACT is the place that highlights character pieces and promos way more than the other companies. We’ve seen Jay Lethal in this environment before, and with his history of being a Tag champ and multiple time X-Division champ, I think his promo ability and story of wanting to win the big one to be a Triple Crown champ can put him in a main event angle right away, like a Hard to Kill surprise or something. And you can say what you want about Matt Taven, but it would be a shame if he can’t use some of the backlash about killing ROH to his advantage, because he CAN talk and wrestle, he’s just not a top guy. He and Bennett are great together, IMPACT is low on actual tag teams, and Mike and Maria already have a history of being over in IMPACT. This is long enough as it is, but I’ll end by saying that Maria is one of the best women on the mic right now and has a proven track record to elevate segments (the wedding!) and women’s wrestling (the ROH division).

NJPW: Chris Dickinson and Jonathan Gresham. If you’ve seen Dickinson, you should know that this guy is absolutely made for a twenty-minute New Japan G1 match with his stiff striking and intensity. I assume most will see Jonathan Gresham as the biggest prize of ROH’s demise, and I really think him putting on mat classics in New Japan America then showing up in NJPW proper for a BOSJ, Jr Tag League, and a Jr Title or Tag Title spot on the Dominions and Power Struggles is the best way for most of us to see what he does from start to finish, commercial free.

GCW: I don’t know what to say about GCW. They’ve already signed PCO to a deal, the Briscoes are the tag champs, and ROH champ Bandido is already booked for multiple shows before the end of the year. Deppen and Dickinson are already there regulatly. Fuck it, keep being the Wild West of Wrestling, GCW.

AAA: My guess is Rush, Bestai del Ring, Dragon Lee, and Dralistico (not ROH, I know, but still) make this home while being able to appear for any of the above promotions when wanted.

I don’t watch WWE, NWA, or MLW enough to comment on those, but yeah, let’s hear it: where do the top-tier of ROH show up now that most of their contracts are completely done after Final Battle?

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I would think Rush, Bandito, and dragon Lee would be possible AEW signsees.

While they can all have big matches that are great, AEW has a lot of these guys Ian’s a pretty full roster. None of these guys would be a needle movers in the sense that the ratings wouldn’t spike so you have to wonder whether it’s worth it for AEW to pay to bring these guys in. They already have a lot of guys that don’t get on TV every week that are really good.

The other issue will be whether WWE wants Rush since he does fit the mold.

They could also bring in the whole group and make another Lucha house party type team

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I don’t see WWE adding anyone.

AEW should add Gresham and Brody King. I’d like the Briscoes but I think their past homophobic comments will hurt them. But adding them would create even more dream tag matches.

Impact should sign Vincent and that entire Righteous group. He’s basically a low end Bray Wyatt without the WWE stench and would be a lot cheaper. I think it could work there.

Brian Johnson is an incredible talker, I could see him being picked up. I also think Josh Woods could be a good fit somewhere. Jay Lethal and Rush shouldn’t be out of work for long either.

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I’d like to see the Briscos head to AEW, although Impact could use some strengthening to their male tag division. Jay Lethal though I think would do great work heading back to Impact, and Danhausen I feel would be best there. Much of the Lucha talent like Bandido, Rush, and Dragon Lee I’d think would be great in AEW.

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Brody King has been as much of a fixture with NJPW Strong as Chris Dickinson has (who apparently was never signed to a deal and has remained a GCW regular), but if I could pick five ROH contracted talent to go to AEW, it’d be him, Gresham, Lethal, Bandido, and especially Danhausen.

WWE might want to take Josh Woods and maybe Rhett Titus.

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Didn’t the Briacoes go on a homophobic rant or something? Can’t see AEW bringing them in when Vince can easily leak that story

If I recall correctly he threatens to shoot people that support gay marriage or something. He’s a vile human being

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Really? I can’t see that. They had Woods and let him walk. Titus - no way - too small, not enough charisma and too old. I could see Vince being interested in Kaun (the jacked guy from SOS) but honestly that’s it.

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Did they?? I was just thinking they were an excellent team so they would fit in great in that division. I wasn’t aware of the story, I’ve been checked out of ROH for some time

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Yeah Jay Briscoe said on Twitter that he’d shoot anyone who tells his child that gay marriage is ok. Granted it was like eight years ago, but yeah - not good.

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Yes, Kaun would be a good project for them.

I wasn’t aware they passed on Woods, and Titus’ age (like most wrestlers’ ages) slip my mind. I was mainly thinking about their bodies.

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Specifically on Jay Briscoe, I think it was a threat to shoot anyone who attempted to teach his kids about gay marriage. He was ROH World Champion at the time, and he was fined his pay on the next two events following his tweet, and on the first event he had to make a public apology.

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That apology is good enough for me. If he did that and has said no other bullshit since then, there is no reason that should still be held against him. Maybe he still has those thoughts privately, who knows, but if he isnt promoting the hate publicly, I dont see the point in people holding these year long grudges against peoples stupidity.

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I don’t know. I’m not one for cancel culture in general but there are different levels of things and how you say them that matters.

Saying something privately that is leaked from a secret recording - say like Hogan - is a bit different. He didn’t mean to say that publicly. I think if he had a genuine nice apology for that it would be very different, instead he failed to do that which is the biggest problem. However something like that with a proper apology would be forgivable I think by most people. This wasn’t a conscious effort on his part to air his views and attack people. His issue was how he handled the apology part. Hogan didn’t threaten to kill
People or anything. He had extremely hateful speech, but it was private and not violent and could have been forgiven if he handled the back end better after it came out.

This one’s a bit different. Firstly, this wasn’t a private recording but rather him purposely mouthing off on social media for the whole world to see. Secondly, it’s not like he came out and said I don’t like gay marriage or I don’t believe in equality or some thing and then backtracked on it. He literally threatened to shoot people who taught his kids about gay marriage. That’s another level of vile and hate literally inciting violence against those that support gay marriage.

I’m not sure anything like that is defensible or forgivable to the same extent. Yeah he apologized but that apology was more likely caused by his company. It’s just the nature of what he said, and the
public forum which he said it make it far less forgivable in my mind.

AEW has long built itself as a very inclusive place to work. They have Nyla Rose, and many other people that they support. Cody has come out against bigotry many times on Twitter. It would be very counterproductive to hire this guy, and he would be giving ammunition to WWE to attack you over this. Just from a business standpoint they’re not gonna draw that many fans because they’re not that big name, so why take a risk on someone like this? On a personal level I would be happy to see him unemployed for the rest of his life from the big leagues.

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You’re acting like the guy actually murdered someone. Yes, he said something incredibly stupid. Many people say stupid stuff in the world. How do you know that he hasn’t changed his views? Has he done or said anything since then, to show that his views are the same? If so, you are right and he shouldn’t be brought into any company.

Otherwise, he absolutely deserves another chance.

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If he actually murdered somebody he should be in jail.

I don’t know what his current views are on the situation. However what he said was incredibly harsh in comparison to other things people have said over the years. There is a ton of difference between tweeting out that you believe in the sanctity of marriage vs saying you want to kill people who teach and believe in gay marriage.

He literally said he was going to kill somebody that supported gay rights.

To put this in context if I tweeted out something like that I would lose my medical license. There have been people that were recently sanctioned by the Royal College for simply putting out anti-vaccine views. There are friends of mine who are directly disciplined because they made a joke on Facebook about tossing a Molotov cocktail at the ministry when we were embroiled in a dispute.

When you are a professional in any industry there are severe consequences when you cross lines. This isn’t the same as talking about somebody who’s working a desk job at a company. These are public figures sho going to be on your television screen with a huge platform.

There is believing in second chances which means he should be allowed to redeem himself and continue with gainful employment which he has been. He’s had a job and he’s been working in Ring of Honor. That’s not the same as getting a job in AEW or WWE.

I’m looking at it from my point of you. If I had tweeted that I would lose my license and be fired from the hospital. No other hospital would ever hire me. At best I could work in another industry as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company. No one’s going to cry that this is unfair for me because I am an adult who should never have come out on social media and written that.

This guy has it much easier than that. He still had a job in the wrestling industry working for a fairly large company. Now that that company is closed he can certainly work other companies and independents. But if one of the largest conglomerates looks at him and says what he said isn’t really in line with their company values I think that’s completely fair

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You forget that one of the guys they have now getting a big push said he wanted to rape sasha banks soooooo…

What’s really the difference? Sammy apologized and was punished. Briscoe did the same. Give the guy a break

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Sammy was making a joke implying Sasha is super attractive and he wanted to jump her. He objectified her and used very bad language referring to rape.

No where in there is a bigoted comment he’s making about an entire group of people.

He was punished for it. He apologized directly to her. She accepted it.

Imagine Briscoe has said “anyone who teaches my kids about black people being given the same rights as white people I’ll shoot”. Does that sound the same to you? Because that’s basically what he said about another group.

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Yup. It was a while back, which leaves open the possibility that he could do a mea culpa and say that he’s changed but what he said was pretty awful:

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I get the feeling Brody King and Danhausen were in the works for AEW as it is. King makes such a perfect pairing with Malakai Black and Danhausen gives them another Orange Cassidy-like character.

I would like to see Gresham in AEW (personally think he’s the best wrestler in ROH) but I think it’s more likely he goes to Impact since his wife is there. He’d immediately be a world title contender, whereas there’s the danger he gets a bit lost in AEW.

Chris Dickinson will probably get picked up by NJPW since they use him a lot already and he’s had storylines with them.

And I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bring this up: ROH just signed a bunch of women following their tournament to crown a new champion. Rock-C (the champ) was apparently offered a Tier 0 contract with AEW just after ROH signed her. Trish Adora is one of the most respected indie women and was the top rated woman on the PWI 500. (Not saying that’s the holy book of judging talent but it gives an idea of how highly she’s regarded.) Miranda Alize has worked with AEW a number of times. I think AEW should also consider hiring Maria Kanellis as a consultant for their women’s division. She did a great job in very little time with ROH.

Bandido and Rush I think will depend on whether they want t stay in the US or go back to Mexico.

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So if he was joking it would be okay. Got it.