I haven't been this excited about something in wrestling for a long while, so I wanted to make a thread...

[Mr. JL]

I am surprised Marty Scurll signed with ROH.

Given all the negative press lately with the promotion; lack of direction, qualitative medical care/personnel and just the the fact that its ROH and nobody is talking about ROH these days; at least not positively.

It's WWE, AEW, NJPW and NWA with ROH & Impact trailing immensely.

It makes you wonder about the rumors of Tony Kahn regretting signing big deals for certain guys being legit.

I honestly thought "The Librarian's" gimmick in AEW was simply an already conceived prelude to a Marty Scurll AEW debut.

Then again, a rumoured million dollar deal for 40 days a year definitely seems worth it. He will probably regret the head booker portion of the deal unless he solely wants to make sure his character is protected.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Tom Guycott I feel similarly about them, but my issues are less about their internal struggles and more about when they develop homegrown talent, and they get plucked by greener pastures. It's hard to maintain an identity when you keep having to start over with fresh faces. It's almost the exact opposite of WWE in that WWE has dozens of faces they keep but don't push, ROH has people they push, but can't keep. With the exceptions of Jay Lethal and The Briscoes, pretty much anyone who has stood out has gone to WWE... or elsewhere (and the elsewhere depends on the time frame), but mostly WWE. Hell, half of current NXT consists of noted former ROH guys, up to and including everyone's favorite Keith Lee.

That’s why this deal is very interesting. Bandido signing back up with them too. If someone at Sinclair has finally realized “hang on, if we don’t want fuckers to leave, we need to pay them as good as WWE,” then that is something that is going to change the landscape.

Originally Posted by BigCrippyZ Rock's not going to show up every week or two to a TV taping just to pop a mediocre rating and sell out an arena. He's too big a star to do that for anyone other than himself, unless he's fucking stupid. Newsflash, he isn't remotely close to being that fucking stupid. Rock would basically have a deal even significantly better than Hogan's late WCW TV taping deal, which would also bankrupt any company, even quicker than it bankrupted WCW.

It wouldn’t be every other week, lol. I don’t think he would ever wrestle anywhere. I’m just saying Sinclair could literally back a truck full of money to his house if they wanted. Spend $10 million on the guy for some sort of sponsorship deal and him to launch the show you’re getting for TV rights. You can record him saying nice things and spread interviews and segments with him out over a few weeks. Put him in the intro to the show. Only get him out to do your massive arena shows, like if you want to fill up MSG again.

I’m not suggesting you get him in like it’s 2000, lol. Even just one appearance is probably going to convince over 2 million people to watch, right? SmackDown did 3.8 million with him or whatever. If you get Raw-sized ratings out of it, then that immediately makes you #2. NXT and AEW seem to be getting about $35-50 million out of their deals at under 1 million. You get $50 million for two years and that’s enough to cover that truck filled with money.

I’m sure SB have got the reach to get Rock’s people on the line and at least present the offer. It’s just hard to imagine it because the imagery of The Rock appearing on wrestling outside WWE for millions is surreal. But maybe the idea could even be part of an eventual plan by SB to prepare themselves for a sale to, say, ViacomCBS?

Originally Posted by Mr. JL I am surprised Marty Scurll signed with ROH. Given all the negative press lately with the promotion; lack of direction, qualitative medical care/personnel and just the the fact that its ROH and nobody is talking about ROH these days; at least not positively. It's WWE, AEW, NJPW and NWA with ROH & Impact trailing immensely. It makes you wonder about the rumors of Tony Kahn regretting signing big deals for certain guys being legit. I honestly thought "The Librarian's" gimmick in AEW was simply an already conceived prelude to a Marty Scurll AEW debut. Then again, a rumoured million dollar deal for 40 days a year definitely seems worth it. He will probably regret the head booker portion of the deal unless he solely wants to make sure his character is protected.

That’s another very interesting thing about this. I would honestly pay money to NOT have to book ROH and be charged with bringing it back up to scratch with the means currently there. That’s why I’m suspecting they’re at least willing to budge on ROH’s budget a little bit.

[Tom Guycott]

Originally Posted by Mr. JL I am surprised Marty Scurll signed with ROH. Given all the negative press lately with the promotion; lack of direction, qualitative medical care/personnel and just the the fact that its ROH and nobody is talking about ROH these days; at least not positively.

Maybe there's a feeling that this might be a move to change that perception? A positive shift has to start somewhere. Maybe there's the feeling that this is that catalyst.

Originally Posted by Mr. JL It makes you wonder about the rumors of Tony Kahn regretting signing big deals for certain guys being legit.

I personally think he unintentionally got signed a bill of goods.

What I mean by that is that, at this point, there should have been an influx of underused, disgruntled WWE talent that jumped ship to bolster the roster... but WWE went in a more business savvy (read: petty "toy collecting") direction by not only not doing their usual WrestleMania spring cleaning last year, but holding on to some of the squeakiest wheels (like Sasha Banks or The Revival), adding any injury time to the ends of some of their contracts, throwing more money at them, and starting the shift to 5 year deal contracts. It's also why I think we see some of the same guys on AEW TV all the time: we weren't supposed to, because there was expected to be more talent on the roster well before now.