Maria and Mike can't catch a break!

I’d like to see the Briscos in AEW. PCO and Danhausen could be fun in the right way. Flip Gordon would make sense.

Mike especially really has no value that I can see. Sucks but it's true. He's been buried to death.

Briscoes and Bandido already working for GCW.

I imagine a possible bidding war for Rush. Bandido should be AEW bound but they have guys to play that role. NJPW would be great for him.

I think we will see Briscoes in AEW probably.

Gresham can do anything so I hope it's a great NIPW deal or even AEW. AEW does need a really great black guy tbh and this dude can do it all.

Flip to AEW makes a lot of sense too.

Can't imagine WWE picking up any of the talents except maybe Rush or possibly Bandido.

Especially if the “no indie guys rule” is actually a thing.

I’d like to see the Briscoes in WWE to work The Usos but I don’t think they’d touch them.

Dude, they went broke trying to help everyone.

i think gresham will work with his girlfriend grace at impact.

the briscos have a few money matches with ftr before they go to training.

Once again. They aren't broke. ROH is not an independent company. They are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Corp, the company that owns the channel they run on and a bunch of others. Sinclair is nowhere near broke, they are a fortune 500 company as of June.

We’re starting to see the downside of AEW being in the marketplace. It’s very easy for people to say “It gives people more money and a place to work!” like it’s unequivocally good, but it means others need to keep up their audience and be able to retain talent that know there are multi-million dollar deals with any of the big companies.

Creatively, I don’t know what ROH can do to stay in the game. There will probably be competing offers to purchase it and its tape library. Tony Khan will want a library behind him for streaming deals. It also gives him access to some of his talent’s early work for promotional reasons. Creatively, TK could keep ROH open and use it for an invasion angle or something of the like. He can use it as another place for less experienced talent to work and headline shows with CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and the like.

WWE will probably want the tape library for content’s sake. They don’t really have anyone from ROH they’re pushing anymore — which is weird, because it felt like just yesterday that half the roster had been there. Anyway, Vince can always put an hour of WWE programming in ROH’s place. The return of Jakked!

WWE sacrificed its boutique product to streamline its television content. There’s a place for “artesian” WWE. Probably headed up by Triple H using talent Raw and SmackDown aren’t utilising. Syndication works well for that on a micro level, whereas streaming works well on a global level. It would seriously not surprise me to see WWE announce new content that revolves around targeting the hardcore and lapsed fan. Cover all bases.

artisan, mr. education.

*artisian, i also see?

i am dumb, too.

listen all i know is that artesian has to do with water and i don't think wwe is pivoting into the hydration game.

During his career Triple H spit a lot of bottled water back into the wild. He may have a point.

You've got to wonder with ratings tanking, will AEW be doing the same?

What? Do a water-spitting gimmick? I’ve called for this even before the Saturday night ratings flop!

With Covid it’s even MORE of a great heel entrance.

Phone correction. I don’t claim to be a genius, #fan projects that onto me to try and smash it down. I do the same to him.

it looks like sinclair will still run there shows but not give them any money, i am waiting for cornett to go off i watching for his you tubes.

Fucking Australian education system. :roll:

Wait, are you telling me they're the bastards behind all the FOX Sports regional/big city networks having their names changed to Bally Sports whatever?

When I think of Bally, I want to think in terms of when they were a part of Midway as Bally-Midway Mfg., who of course famously released the arcade game Pac-Man. I know they've done some shit since involving selling fitness stuff and whatnot but I could care less. Anyway, thanks everyone for indulging my quite off-topic rant.

yeah i was thinking pinball that is where bally 1st made there money, when it changed from fox sports to bally.

I had no faith in it until I realised how bad it could be.

I predict ROH is dead, they won't return as an active promotion but may sell of their archives to someone probably WWE.

i wonder if aew and wwe will bid each other up on the tapes.

If AEW wants their own network or channel on HBO or whatever, buying out the ROH library and also adding PWG could be a decent chance a making some money.

i heard cornett on youtube last night, he was talking of tony buying it just for the local tv rights with sinclair for 2 years.

It would make sense for every major player to come to the table. The tape library is valuable to Tony Khan, which means it is valuable to the WWE to block that.

Not only that. You can have an Ultimate Seth Rollins special featuring his matches as Tyler Black. Or a thing on "Tag Team Specialists," and discuss Cesaro teaming with Hero. If and when Danielson comes back, you have some of his best matches from ROH, including that banger with Kamala :shifty:. If they stick around, you can do the "Fight Forever" special with Owens and Zayn. There are reasons for WWE to have the tape library that means more than just not letting Khan have it.

Oh, no doubt. I figured it would be way more valuable to them when they had more emphasis on guys like Bryan, Joe and even a guy like Punk if they were going to bring him back into the fold. A guy like Cesaro it serves a function with, but he’s not a big enough star in their sphere that it justifies it on its own, per se, as opposed to just being a convenient consequence.

I honestly forgot about Seth, haha. He’s a big enough star that it would make sense, but then again his WWE run has been so “WWE built” that I don’t know they’d even stress to really bring it up. Sad as that may be.

There is documentary potential there too (as in a ROH history thing), but how do you do that to full potential without Punk and Danielson?

I think the main value could actually be in the syndication spot. The WWE has a conversion issue right now where they have whittled the ticket-buying audience down to hardcores. That works when they’re the only game in town and don’t mind their top faces being booed because they’re receiving professional wrestling pushes. But it makes them a colder ticket than an AEW in certain markets because AEW has that atmosphere that feels more congruent with that fan’s preferences.

SmackDown being on FOX hypothetically helps. But syndication would put them in front of a couple of hundred thousand people who watch and make casual judgments that could push them towards ticket-buying, further television or streaming services.

I think the WWE could use a more grassroots approach in that sense. So much of their marketing seems to be about a global presence. Using a Jinder Mahal makes sense when it comes to getting exposure in India. Even if it doesn’t translate to bigger domestic gates or ratings. As the world moves towards streaming, this makes more sense too — either in securing big deals with already established entities (a Netflix, for example), or helping establish them (a Peacock).

When it comes to the streaming front, I think Vince has kind of conceded that he might not necessarily be the only game in town. He’s thinking with his immediate wallet, and that means jumping into bed with NBC Universal. They seem to have projects on the go with Netflix (only tangentially related to wrestling) that might secure them multi-platform deals that seem to lock out other content providers. But there’s always going to be that Amazon Prime, or that Paramount+, or that ESPN+ that wants wrestling content. And they might pay out the ass for them and leave Vince in an inevitable situation where his stuff is just going to be watched by less people. You can see this in his TV deals in the UK and other parts of Europe.

I think it would benefit the WWE to have the largest non-exclusive library they can have, as well as also producing syndicated content and first-run streaming content, the latter of which could be aimed at the hardcore fan. On an OTT service it won’t need to have its ratings compared with AEW and the like either. This was always a big reason NXT did not go hard against AEW at the start (in my opinion). A streaming alternative could circumvent that appearance issue. But having a ROH would allow them that boutique product that can drown out an AEW without having its dick measured.

I'm not into voyeurism, but I'd watch either of those for the chance to see her yummy, yummy abs. That whole "frumpy nerd girl announcer" shtick is hiding that banging body in ring gear, which makes it a treat to see. It's like that Stanhope joke about the bartender's tits at a strip club being the ones you desperately want to see just because you can't in spite of being surrounded by literally dozens of exposed jubblies.

It appears that Danhausen broke his leg on Halloween. (a joke that writes itself, I hope he gets well bad timing to be getting ready for an AEW run).

good thing it is his mouth not his wrestling that gets him over, he can manage for a bit till he can wressle again.

Nonetheless, he is cursed.

I don’t know how much money Bushiroad has, but they should realistically consider buying ROH as their main US product. Or taking that syndication spot and signing a few guys like Jay Lethal, The Briscoes, Bandido, etc.

From Tony Khan’s perspective, owning ROH could be a giant angle for him. Or provide fresh places for his guys to work instead of jamming them all into AEW. Shows with Punk and Danielson would obviously draw great interest at their level. But you can also send guys like Dante Martin to get more polish. Cody, Cole and Fish are three other guys that could just work really well there.

that's a good idea then they don't have to work with ether aew or impact. i just don't see them putting as much money as vince or tony

You’re right there. They would have to be the only ones wanting it, and I can’t see Vince or Tony whiffing on 19 years of content featuring some pretty recognizable names. I can see New Japan maybe scoring some of the talent from this though, unless, again, Tony opens up the chequebook and just picks up everyone for the sake of having them.