By Austin Ginnell@WolfmanAustin13
I was just fifteen years-old when the very first Ring of Honor show was held at the Murphy Recreation Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company debuted in the aftermath of the falls of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling.
At a time when the best alternative for most fans was the short-lived World Wrestling All-Stars, the creation of Ring of Honor helped to fill a void that had been created by the monopolizing sports entertainment tyrant Vince McMahon. When the WWE purchased both WCW and ECW, the moves were brought about due to hubris more than anything else.
Sure, the tape libraries were valuable even back then, but it wasn’t until the advent of the WWE Network that they were truly used to their potential. So what was the major benefit of the purchases, aside from killing the competition? Well, it was supposed to be about the WCW Invasion, but Vince’s reluctance to throw money at the bigger names meant that the invasion would happen with 2000/2001 WCW MVP Booker T leading the charge with a WCW B-Team against the WWE’s best.
When it became obvious that the B-Team Vs WWE angle was floundering, The Alliance was born as many former ECW stars were brought in to join the fun, working with the WCW team against the big bad WWE. Again though, WWE missed the boat by not treating The Alliance members as equals to the WWE superstars. The angle quickly became a convoluted mess being held together by WWE wrestlers taking the top spots on both sides.
Why am I giving you a brief history lesson on the WCW Invasion, subsequent birth of the WCW/ECW Alliance and overall failure of the angle? Well, that’s because while all of this was happening, it was creating the perfect environment for someone else to come in, establish themselves and provide the fans with something more along the lines of what they were wanting to see.
You may now be wondering, if this was a perfect storm, why isn’t Ring of Honor on the same level as WWE today? There are plenty of factors, but the only one I really want to touch on is the internet. 2002 was a very different time, technologically. There were no streaming services to rely on, and if you wanted to watch anything non-WWE, you had to go out of your way to acquire it (unless you lived in an area where a thriving independent promotion operated).
In 2018, you can catch Ring of Honor through the Fite TV app with their television show airing for free and their major events available for a fee. You can also subscribe to the new Honor Club, which gives you access to a large portion of the back catalog and discounts on the major events. It’s easier than ever now to keep up with major independent wrestling companies, but it wasn’t at all like that when ROH launched in 2002.
I would do what many other fans did back then, using the internet to keep up to date on the results of the shows as they happened, and order my DVDs from ROHWrestling.com to build my library. Those were some tough years.
Ring of Honor’s early days were highlighted by performers like Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan), Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles, CM Punk, Spanky (Brian Kendrick) and more. Hell, even Eddie Guerrero stopped by to lend his expertise and tear it up for the wrestling fans before returning to the WWE for what turned out to be an incredible run prior to his passing.
Throughout the years, ROH would undergo many significant changes, revamping their Code of Honor from being a rule to a guideline, obtaining national television clearances, growing and shrinking as major names were established or left the company, and so forth. I’m not saying that ROH would for sure have become a new WCW if they launched with the technological advances of today, but they would have had a much better shot at establishing themselves as legitimate competition to the corporate giant that is the WWE.
ROH is the American home to the worldwide phenomenon known as Bullet Club. The New Japan Pro-Wrestling bad boys regularly compete in ROH, highlighting both their television and live events. Bully Ray, formerly of the Dudley Boyz, can be seen in Ring of Honor, along with the stars of tomorrow like Punishment Martinez, Flip Gordon, Shane Taylor, The Kingdom and more.
It’s hard to dispute that Ring of Honor is the number two wrestling promotion in the United States. They’re a far cry off from the WWE in terms of production value, capital and the crowds they draw (drawing about 6,000 for Supercard of Honor XII, in comparison to roughly 14,000 for WWE’s dismal Backlash event)… but even without the hype train and the money behind them like the WWE operates with, Ring of Honor consistently puts out a product worth watching, giving us stories that make considerably more sense, with characters who react accordingly to new developments.
My coverage of Ring of Honor begins with the upcoming Honor United tour, which sees ROH run three dates in the United Kingdom between May 24 and May 27. The ROH World Championship will be defended on May 26 when reigning Champion Dalton Castle defends against one half of the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, the King of Darkness, EVIL.
Long Live the Honor.
