MLW vs. ROH: A New Wrestling War

Ring of Honor has lost sight of the very thing that made it great.

This is not a critique of any recent news. The creation of All Elite Wrestling has clearly sent the wrestling world into a frenzy, and any company with money is trying to lock its guys down to exclusive deals. RUSH, a rising commodity for Major League Wrestling, has just been plucked out of his feud with LA Park and will be working for RoH exclusively going forward.

This is also not a critique of RUSH. He is a fantastic performer who once entered the ring to Chris Benoit’s WWE theme for the sole purpose of getting heat. How’s that for dedication to the craft? RUSH would have been wrestling north of the border five years ago if I had anything to say about it and I’m glad he’s getting paid.

But in signing Rush, RoH has now built a reputation of raiding MLW for talent, much in the same way the WWE has raided RoH for talent over the years. But make no mistake, these two situations are light years from being one in the same.

RoH was originally known for carrying the very best talent on the independent scene, and skated under the radar for a long time. WWE was hardly fond of signing popular independent talent back in the 2000’s. But for over a decade-long period, if a wrestler held the RoH World Championship, that was seen as a badge of honor, symbolizing you as the very best independent wrestling had to offer. CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness all got over for their lengthy title reigns and physical, high-output matches. Eventually, CM Punk made the jump to WWE and exceeded all expectations, but Punk was a one-of-a-kind promo guy, even turning his inevitable jump into an angle. When Danielson and McGuinness were rumored to sign with WWE in 2009, the thought by many was “this will be the real test to see if indy guys we love so much can translate their talent to a mainstream audience.” Of course, McGuinness never got his chance, failing a physical due to an injured bicep and later went to TNA before contracting Hep B and finding himself in a professional dead end. As for Bryan, he’s the focal point of SmackDown now and one of, if not the top heel in the company.

Seth Rollins, formerly Tyler Black in RoH, similarly had his feet held to the fire years later and passed with flying colors. Mirroring Bryan, he is arguably the top babyface on Raw.

The point to all this exposition is this: to make a football analogy, if RoH were a college team and WWE represented pro teams in the NFL, RoH would be able to say that they have produced two franchise quarterbacks. If the debacle with McGuinness had transpired differently (or he had continued to get over in TNA), then RoH would have produced three. That, my friends, is a massive notch in the belt. If a homegrown talent does manage to have the skills and ability necessary to get a shot and make it in WWE, that should be celebrated, even touted, but not lamented.

This became the Ring of Honor formula for several years and it was tried and true.

Then something happened.

TNA, the perennial No. 2 promotion in North America, had seen its stock take a tremendous hit and the ballbusters over at Sinclair Broadcast Group, the new RoH parent company, saw it as an opportunity to leapfrog TNA and assume the position as the top WWE alternative. In order to make that a reality, Sinclair installed Delirious as the new booker following the failed Jim Cornette experiment and eventually usurped a national TV deal with Destination America out from under TNA’s nose, all while building a working relationship with NJPW and building Jay Lethal up as the heart and soul of the company. Great plan, right?

Actually, not great. Sinclair opted to leave Destination America for Comet upon the expiration of its half-year deal. RoH also became heavily reliant on NJPW talent after the success of Global Wars and Border Wars. Plus, Delirious’ booking has come under major fire from people inside and outside the industry for being too uninspired and unexciting. Yes, guys like Kevin Owens and El Generico had begun to leave for WWE, but the guys still in the room, such as Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly and Michael Elgin, began to use the NJPW relationship to further their careers. I’m not blaming them, but after Cole’s initial heel run pre-Bullet Club, all of these guys and even more became better known for their work in NJPW than RoH, and that’s no coincidence given how hot one company had become compared to the other. RoH had cooled down so much that it had to become increasingly reliant on the Young Bucks and Bullet Club, so it seemed like every top storyline had an NJPW tie-in. And this time when WWE came to pluck all the ripe fruit off of Ring of Honor’s tree, there were no seeds in the ground to replenish the stock.

Well, except for maybe four or five. Turns out Marty Scurll is sticking around and Jay Lethal, along with the Briscoes, are still there, but those latter three have run their course in RoH and can really use a change of scenery. Dalton Castle and Will Ferrara are both excellent, homegrown talents as well, but that’s really all there is. Cody and the Young Bucks, possibly frustrated with the cookie-cutter booking, created All Elite Wrestling, so needless to say they won’t be sticking around. If anything, they’ve become an enemy of RoH because now there are four companies north of Mexico looking to lure wrestlers on exclusive deals and one of them might even be offering healthcare.

All the while, with Ring of Honor hanging in limbo for the last year whilst playing a “will they, won’t they” game with the Bullet Club, MLW has risen from the ashes and succeeded with a similar formula to what I expect AEW to bring: high production values, excellent people on and behind the camera and a showcase of talent from all around the world (with the added benefit of a sports-themed focus). That sounds a lot like the RoH we used to know, does it not?

So it only makes sense for Ring of Honor to big-brother MLW into having to fork over some of its most talented guys. Now presumably fourth in the North American pecking order after falling from an arguable tie for second, RoH needed to ensure it didn’t fall to fifth, even though MLW’s product blew it out of the water this past year.

I think MLW’s Court Bauer, a former RoH employee no less, said it best in an episode of MLW Radio last year: “This is a company that really was supposed to be all about wrestling and not about drama, in the way it was originally envisioned when it was launched in 2002 and you don’t really hear people talking about the great wrestling anymore, you hear people talking about… what’s the deal with them sticking with one booker and not just moving on to other guys, or what’s the deal with this guy leaving or that guy leaving.”

And it’s exactly this that MLW is the antithesis of. To a wrestling historian (or even just a wrestling fan), it has become the new RoH. The problem is the actual RoH is not WWE and far from it, but is now starting to carry itself like it is after years of claiming to be the go-to alternative. The production values are still lacking even after all this time, and the booking still lacks imagination with no signs of future improvement. But in a current wrestling landscape where there is plenty of great wrestling to be found anyway, it’s become plainly apparent that RoH’s top goal is turning a profit as opposed to being a place young wrestlers can shine and prove to themselves and their fans that they’re the best wrestler not in WWE.

As of this writing, Jeff Cobb, Rush, PCO, Bandido, Brody King and Mark Haskins have all signed exclusive deals with RoH and Nick Aldis, Zack Sabre Jr. and Juice Robinson will all be full-time members of the roster (even though the latter two are New Japan entities). On paper, this looks great, but there is a lot of story there that is going to have to be manufactured pretty much from scratch with everybody starting within two months of each other. If the new Ring of Honor is going to get hot it’s going to take…maybe a third of the year to do so. Meanwhile, All Elite Wrestling, though four months out from Double or Nothing, has unprecedented buzz that only seems to growing by the day.

As for Bauer and MLW, they should land on their feet. They still have two of the youngest, most intriguing blue chippers from each gender in Brian Pillman Jr. and Salina de la Renta. But more importantly, they have the vision for what their role can be in this current climate. MLW is now THE place to be if you’re an unproven talent with confidence in your skills. The television deal is particularly attractive to anyone looking to hone all the skills WWE looks for in main roster guys and gals (camera awareness, posturing, etc.) and it would be really cool to see unheralded guys like No. 1 Brian Johnson, Mik Drake and even Jarek120 (if he’s still wrestling) go there and get over organically.

I don’t think I’m supplying new information by saying 2019 is a great time to be a wrestling fan. What I am saying is do not sleep on the developing RoH/MLW rift. This year should be another great year for WWE financially and AEW and Impact appear to be in good hands. But do not let this story get lost in the shuffle because it’s really not like anything we’ve seen yet in the wild world of wrestling.