Hazed & Confused - RoH Call

Good Morning, Afternoon and Evening and welcome back to a delayed return to Hazed & Confused.

This time around, I shall be returning slightly to my usual format of the goings on in the world of US Indy wrestling. Some of you may have read my past articles last year where I gave you quite an in depth look into CHIKARA and CZW. This time I shall be giving you information on what many consider to be the number 1 Indy wrestling company today, Ring Of Honor.

Even if you've never seen a show of theirs, you've probably heard of RoH and may even be aware of some of the wrestlers that currently work there, such as Bryan Danielson, Christopher Daniels, Austin Aries etc.
Also you may have heard of them a few years ago, due to Matt Hardy working for them during his “sacking” from WWE during the Edge/Lita affair and mentions Ring Of Honor live on RAW. Maybe from Mick Foley mentioning them. Maybe from the few appearances of Ric Flair as the commissioner after his retirement from WWE.
You will also be aware of ex-RoH mainstays, such as Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuiness (Desmond Wolfe) and CM Punk.

HISTORY
Officially RoH began in 2002, but our story starts a year earlier in 2001 where Rob Feinstein ran his own DVD distribution company called RF Video. Previous to this, his main seller was a little known company you may have came across called Extreme Championship Wrestling.
When ECW folded, as well as RF Video filming and distributing events by lesser known wrestling companies, Feinstein decided to make his own company and to sell them exclusively through RF Video.

The first ever event took place on February 23^rd 2002, titled “The Era Of Honor Begins”, taking place in the Murphy Recreational Centre in Philadelphia and featured nine matches, including Super Crazy against Eddie Guerrero and a triple threat between Bryan Danielson, Low-Ki and Christopher Daniels, all of whom are considered to be the “founding fathers” of RoH.

During the first year of business, ROH mainly stuck to Philly, but also ran shows in Pittsburgh, Wakefield and Queens. A year later they expanded into Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland. Also to give themselves some international exposure, they co-promoted an event in London, England with Frontier Wrestling Alliance.

2004 was a big dent in the history of ROH, mainly due to Feinstein being arrested for doing things he shouldn't have been doing and as a result he left the company in June, with his stake in the company being bought out by Doug Gentry.
In the aftermath of Feinsteins stupidity, TNA decided to pull its contracted wrestlers away from ROH, which hit them quite badly.
Also due to Feinstein, RF Video was also shut down. So to get around this, ROH started up their own mail-order and online store which to this day sells DVD's of their events and even “shoot interviews” with their own wrestlers and others from other companies. They also sell merchandise and DVD's of other lesser known wrestling organisations.

In the next few years, everything settled down and normality returned.
Then in May 2007, it was announced that they had signed a PPV and Video On Demand deal which required the airing of a new event every 60 days. Yet again TNA got their knickers in a twist and pulled out Austin Aries and Homicide from all future ROH events. The first PPV event aired on July 1^st and was titled “Respect Is Earned”.

During 2008 they expanded again, holding shows in Orlando and Toronto amongst others. They even set their attendance record on their debut show in the Hammerstein Ballroom.
At the end of 2008, head booker Gabe Sapolsky announced he was leaving the company and his replacement was announced as Adam Pearce, this being the point many fans gave up watching the company for a while as they considered Sapolsky as a god.

The start of 2009 saw ROH announce the signing of a contract with HDNet to air a weekly TV show. Ring Of Honor Wrestling made its debut a few months later. In early 2010 Carly Silkin was named as the owner of the company.

So that's a basic history of RoH out of the way. Now lets look at a few other things of interest about the company.

CODE OF HONOR
Much like CHIKARA using Lucha-Libre rules, RoH established a set of rules loosely based on Japanese wrestling and dictated how wrestlers were to act in the ring.
Initially there were five rules that the wrestlers had to adhere to as a “moral requirement”. They were:
*You must shake hands before and after every match.
*No outside interference - no interfering in others' matches or having others interfere on your behalf.
*No sneak attacks
*No harming the officials.
*No purposefully disqualifying oneself; definitive winners by pinfall or submission were expected.

The first three rules were used to get Heels over. Obviously with them breaking these “moral rules” the fans would negatively react towards them.
The fourth and fifth rules were to emphasize ROH's finishes, the vast majority of which resulted in clean pins, submissions, or knockouts. 
On the rare occasion that a match did end with outside interference, a ref bump, or other traditional heel tactics, it was met with a more vocal and negative reaction from the fans than would be seen elsewhere in the wrestling world.

However by 2004, Gabe Sapolsky abolished the Code Of Honor as the last two rules effected the way matches ended. This led to more over-the-top finishes to matches, which by then were accepted by the fans due to the wrestlers that had been established.

The Code of Honor eventually re-appeared as three rules:
*Shake hands before and after the match, if you have respect for your opponent.
*Keep the playing field level.
*Respect the officials.


CHOOSING CONTENDERS – Early Years
Originally RoH had no official way of deciding who would be the number one contender or any other challengers to its World Championship. However a “Top Five Ranking” system was established after Xavier won the title and avoided challenges.
For the “Top Five Ranking”, wrestlers were ranked based on their general win-loss record and the win-loss record against other ranked competitors. The World Champion was automatically placed at the top of the rankings. Wrestlers ranked two to five would face each other in the ring to determine the number one contender.

The “Top Five Ranking” system was abolished at the same time as the creation of the new Code of Honor and replaced by the Contenders Ring, which was a more complex polling system where ROH officials would submit rankings after each show. 
Wrestlers who appeared on more than 75% of the ballots earned them title shots for both the World Championship and the Pure Championship.

In January 2005, RoH got rid of the Contenders Ring. Instead, wrestlers who wanted a title shot had to submit a petition to ROH officials, with a recored kept of quality of opposition, respect shown towards the Code of Honor and inherent skill. These factors determined who would receive a title shot. Despite the petition system, ROH officials retained the ability to determine #1 contenders.

Upon the naming of Jim Cornette as ROH Commissioner in October 2005, RoH management confirmed the return of the “Top Five Ranking” system. The "Top 5" was voted on by Cornette and other ROH officials during the first week of every month only. Voting was based on won/lost record and quality of opposition with a heavy emphasis on the previous month.

In July of 2006, the Top 5 Ranking was again abolished as it was not being used to determine challengers to the ROH World Title on a consistent basis. The champion at the time, Bryan Danielson, had instead been sending open contracts to wrestlers in other promotions around the world to challenge him, ROH officials were also choosing contenders from within the company.

CHOOSING CONTENDERS – Pick 6
The current system used if the “Pick 6”. This was created after Austin Aries began trying to dodge challengers with the "A Double L Double" (Austin Aries Lucky Lottery). Claiming that everyone entered into the lottery was a worthy challenger. However this was obviously rigged as all the challengers were wrestlers that Aries could easily beat and posed no threat to him. 

Soon after returning to Ring of Honor as Executive Producer, Jim Cornette came up with the Pick 6 system. 
Several rules were put in place upon the creation of the Pick 6 to determine who would be in the Pick 6 and how it would be ranked.
*Only wrestlers ranked in the Pick 6 can challenge for the RoH World Championship
*The higher a wrestler is seeded, the more leverage he has in determining when he can get championship matches.
*Wrestlers securing victories in Pick 6 match-ups earn a match bonus.
*Wrestlers can only enter the Pick 6 Standings by defeating a ranked wrestler.
*A ranked wrestler that defeats a higher seeded wrestler assumes that spot in the Pick 6. Anyone below drops a spot.
*An unranked wrestler that defeats a Pick 6 contender assumes that wrestler's spot, and everyone lower slides down one rank, with the wrestler ranked number 6 falling out of the Pick 6.
*If a Pick 6 Ranked wrestler wins the RoH World Championship then he will drop out of the rankings.

CHAMPIONSHIPS
Currently Ring Of Honor has three championships that their wrestlers can compete for.
These are the fore-mentioned RoH World Championship, currently held by Tyler Black, the RoH World Tag Team Championship, held by The Kings Of Wrestling (Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero) and the recently made RoH World Television Championship which has only been held by Eddie Edwards.

RoH also recognises the SHIMMER Women's titles, with the main title being competed for on some RoH shows. As they have a working agreement with SHIMMER, which is looked upon as a “sister” promotion, you may usually see a SHIMMER title match or exhibition match on RoH.

There was also the now defunct Pure Championship. Matches for this were conducted under Pure Wrestling Rules, which are:
*Each wrestler has three rope breaks to stop submission holds and pinfalls during the match. After a wrestler exhausts his rope breaks, submission and pin attempts under the ropes by the opponent are considered legal.
*No closed-fist punches to the face allowed, only open-handed slaps or chops to the face are allowed. Punches to other parts of the body, except for low-blows, are permitted. The first use of a closed fist will get a warning, the second will cause the wrestler to be penalized a rope break. If he is already out of rope breaks, he will be disqualified.
*A wrestler is subject to a twenty count by the referee if the wrestler goes to the floor.
While not a rule itself, it is worth noting that unlike other championships, the ROH Pure Championship could have changed hands on a disqualification or count out.

MATCH TYPES
As well as the usual types of matches, RoH also have had a few unique styles of matches.

Fight Without Honor
This match does not require participants to adhere to the Code of Honor and usually involves no disqualifications and the use of weapons. The more violent feuds in ROH typically end up with this match.

Round Robin Challenge
Three wrestlers or tag teams compete in a round-robin tournament. They each wrestle two different matches (making a total of three matches), with the one(s) with the most victories winning the challenge.

Ultimate Endurance Match
This is an elimination match that typically includes three to four tag teams. The match starts off with a particular set of special stipulations (i.e. falls count anywhere), with the stipulation changing every time a team is eliminated. The stipulations are predetermined and are not limited to any specific type.


So, hopefully you now know more about Ring Of Honor and I hope you have found the above informative and helpful.

Thank you for reading this edition of Hazed & Confused and I hope you can join me again soon.

Comments

1. Comment #1

   This article is such a fail! Where are all the "orton got kennedy fired" obsessive repetitions?
   *ends sarcasm*
   Thanks Joosie for yet another awesome indy-wrestling article :D

   Posted by Phenom The Vampire Lord/Henry Fitzroy on Sunday, August 15, 2010

2. Comment #2

   Who's Carly Silkin, and when did the person known for years as the owner of the company called CARY Silkin hand the company over to her?

   Posted by Guy Landau on Sunday, August 15, 2010

3. Comment #3

   Thats his twin sister! She secretly bought the company and gave it to him for Xmas or something.... either that or I made a stupid typo :p

   Posted by Angel Of Desire on Monday, August 16, 2010

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