Column of Honor: 12.29.10: Final Column 2010 Part Three: The Voice of the People

The Voice of the People on Ring of Honor—and it’s a diverse collection of opinions to be sure.

Every year I like to call out to the internet from on top of a mountain and hear the echoes wash over the range. Occasionally, I’ll hear the echoes of other people calling back to me. The voice of the people…what are they saying about Ring of Honor? Well, it’s time to find out.

I asked three distinct pockets of the online demographic more commonly known as the “Internet Wrestling Community” to contribute their thoughts about the past year in Honor. Participants were free either to write their own piece or to fill out a list of categories and comment as little or as much as desired. These sources are:

1) The Ring of Honor Message Board, a diverse collection of online ROH fans. They are never afraid to let their voice be known, whether positively or negatively about wrestlers, shows or any other issues regarding the company.

2) Writers from Pro Wrestling Ponderings, a fantastic website/ blog that covers the independent wrestling scene from A to Z and even a touch of the mainstream as well.

3) Writers from right here at 411Mania.com, including those who have covered Ring of Honor at least in part during the past year.

Collectively these writers, fans, message board commenters and friends represent The Voice of the People about Ring of Honor. Here’s what they had to say:

taxidriver77:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Booking seems to be improving as does the quality of shows. Some great matches but disappointed that we’ve lost Aries and Steen.

Favorite Show of 2010: Death Before Dishonor

Favorite Match of 2010: Generico Vs Steen Final Battle

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Steen

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Production values.

ChuckyT:

Favorite Show: DBD

Favorite Match: MCMG vs KOW

Favorite Wrestler: KOW

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Commentators. They act like they don’t care a bit, takes away from the matches, hence why I normally watch with none

JigsawVs.Jason:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Great year, maybe the best since 2006. Phenomenal feud with Steen/Generico, and the overall quality of the shows improved significantly compared to the last two years, making almost every show must-see. Good job ROH!!

Favorite Show of 2010: Death Before Dishonor VIII

Favorite Match of 2010: Davey Richards vs Tyler Black – Death before Dishonor VIII

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Bring back Aries, get more NOAH guys over for some special challenge matches and finally give Davey the title, he is the face of the company and I have a gut feeling ROH screwed it up once more sticking to a champion that IMO doesn’t draw anywhere near like Davey does and is just a weak heel champ…maybe a face Strong would be a good champ, I don’t know, but he sucks as a heel quite frankly…and if there is ONE match I really wanna see in ROH: Wolves vs. Guns, please make it happen!

Aedroth666:

Favorite Show: Tie. Death Before Dishonor & Final Battle

Favorite Match: Steen Vs Generico @ FB

Favorite Wrestler: Davey Richards

What to improve: Production Value. Widescreen format hell even HD and better lighting.

ShakeZula81:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: I wasn’t keen on ROH earlier this year with what imo was a weak SCOH and fairly weak WM Weekend shows but maybe its cause I’ve been spoiled with GREAT prior SCOH’s and WM Weekend Shows…iPPV has greatly improved especially with the technical issues that happened at FB 09. I think Delirious has done a much better job than Pearce and I hope he stays as head booker for a long time personally. Elevating future main eventers and its current main eventers ROH has done a awesome job of in 2010 and proved it could survive loosing Danielson. Overall I would give it a full letter grade higher than last year which I was unimpressed with, but their back!

Favorite Show of 2010: Death Before Dishonor VIII and Final Battle 2010

Favorite Match of 2010: Davey Richards vs Tyler Black-DBD 8 and Steen vs Generico-FB10

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Try to get from HDNet to more of a mainstream channel that more people have, basically become more known. Hopefully move back to TV & PPV although there’s no problem with iPPV, the pic quality it slightly affected. I would be a lil pissed if Steen and Aries don’t come back…I really would love to see an El Generico and or Chris Hero World Title reign.

Nigel LikesGuiness:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Best year since 06 and maybe even better.

Favorite Show of 2010: Final Battle 2010

Favorite Match of 2010: Davey vs. Tyler DBD

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Steen/Roddy

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011:Let Roderick hold the belt for most of the year!!!! Put Eddie Edwards in the main event. Add more IPPV’s they are a bargain and keep fans all over the world up to speed with the promotion quicker. Make the DVD turn around A LOT quicker, some companies get there shows out in one day. Why do we wait two to three months? Sign WGTT to contracts and give them the belts. Bring Nigel back to a wrestling company.

The Generic Luchador:

Overall thoughts of 2010: Great year, I enjoyed so many shows this year and loved the fact that there were not 6 shows every month.

Favorite Show of 2010: Final Battle

Favorite Match of 2010: Davey Richards vs. Roderick Strong FB

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Roderick Strong

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Establish some new stars and create a fresh new stable similar to Generation Next.

Bobby34:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Okay year, not as strong outside of Steen and Generico as it could have been.

Favorite Show of 2010: Final Battle with great ease.

Favorite Match of 2010: Steen/Generico at Final Battle. Distant second of Kings of Wrestling vs. Benjamin and Haas.

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: El Generico

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Announcers all the way. They use Bryce Remsburg as a referee and I honestly think they’d be better off using him as their regular announcer with Prazak. The guy is great.

SxECanadianFanSxE:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: A fantastic year. A few duds but one of the best years in company history.

Favorite Show of 2010: Death Before Dishonor VIII. Final Battle 2010 was awesome but no. 2.

Favorite Match of 2010: Black vs. Richards at DBDVIII. Steen/Generico is a close 2nd.

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards without a doubt. Steen, Generico and Hero deserve mention, though.

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: New stars.

Chicago1989:

Overall ROH thoughts of 2010: ROH has grown a lot more as a wrestling company this year. They’ve made MANY changes this year – some good, some bad – but they’ve progressed big time and are starting to get some recognition as well.

Favorite ROH events of 2010: Death Before Dishonor VIII & Glory By Honor IX.

Favorite ROH match of 2010: Davey Richards Vs. Tyler Black (Death Before Dishonor VIII)

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards

Improvements for ROH in 2011: Better network, production, and newer faces on the roster. Overall, 2010 was a phenomenal year for ROH. One of the most memorable.

classic-cabana:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: My favourite year since 2007, although its all been about Steen vs El Generico, other guys have really stepped up this year like Tyler, Wolves, Strong and ANX.

Favorite Show of 2010: DBD

Favorite Match of 2010: KOW vs Briscoes from DBD

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: I just hope that ROH keeps the momentum going into 2011, and give ANX some gold! Sort out the audio issues with the DVD releases

Robbo:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Great year. Major improvement on last year. More shows felt like must buys.

Favorite Show of 2010: Big Bang. Normally hard to sit through a 3 hr show no matter how good but this flowed perfectly and had two great ****1/2 matches and a close to 4 star undercard match.

Favorite Match of 2010: Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black , 8th Anniversary. Thought this match was a masterpiece. Psychology and the story being told was fantastic.

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Kevin Steen. Everything he did was awesome.

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: No offence to Homicide or Daniels, but if losing Aries and Steen was to keep them financially I’d wish that were rectified. Let Strong have credible defenses. More non NY i-PPVs. More storylines and feuds. One major feud is not enough. More direction for the tv title. Atleast each title should be defended on a given weekend once if not twice. More love for Friday shows in that regard. Quicker DVD releases maybe.

ThatWrestlingShow (a.k.a. Alex O’Keefe, the man behind many brilliant ROH promo videos):

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Really great year both creatively and for company growth. I think once I get around to watching all the shows (Only have watched the major ones for the most part so far) I will really appreciate the year for the awesome matches as well.

Favorite Show of 2010: Death Before Dishonor VIII with Final Battle 2010 running a close second, DBDVIII was better aesthetically but Final Battle was a really great payoff to such the immense hype it was given. I thought Big Bang! was a really fun show as well, very well rounded.

Favorite Match of 2010: Davey Richards vs. Tyler Black – Death before Dishonor VIII, I think mostly because it capitalized on the style of hype it was given. I really think Davey Richards vs. Roderick Strong was fantastic as well and I think it’s being really underrated. I still have yet to see a lot of DVDs from 2010 so we’ll see how my opinion changes when I have more to create a standard.

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards. I think Davey Richards has been the most consistent wrestler this year, he is beginning to remind me of Danielson, if I saw Danielson on a DVD card than I knew he would deliver and Davey Richards is causing every main eventer to up his game.

That being said, as far as MVP of Honor goes, Steen’s character work in his feud with Generico has carried ROH through the year more than any 5-star match could. ROH owes much of their renewed success in 2010 to the efforts of Kevin Steen and El Generico for creating a storyline that will be talked about for many years to come.

I think because of his departure, Tyler Black will be overlooked but he really stepped up his game and became one of the more memorable ROH champions considering the length of his reign. He has a hopefully bright future ahead of him.

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Production values. Just buy some new cameras for Christ sakes, the difference between the HDNet cameras and ROH house cameras is astounding. It might look like a big price tag for something seemingly meaningless to the actual wrestling product but mainstream fans won’t give ROH a second look if they stay in the bush-league production quality. A new 3-camera setup would be a great long-term investment.

daniels_55:

Overall thoughts of 2010: The tag division was great all year, mainly focusing on the KOW briscoe feud, which may have gone on a bit too long IMO. The introduction of the TV title helped some shows but the “10 minute hunt” was a failure IMO,I don’t know anyone who really was into it. Too many talented guys brought in, and not used ever again (Joey Ryan, Smash Bros.,Up In Smoke to name a few).The departures hurt IMO, but the returns of Homicide and Daniels helped ease the pain. O’Reilly and Cole showed up late in the year but are the rookies of the year for sure IMO, they really replenished the tag and mid card divisions well by adding these two. Benjamin and Haas’s presence is awesome for ROH but I think 2011 will really be the year they start making an impact on the company. Steen vs. Generico was great, I haven’t gotten into a feud so much since The Rock vs. Austin.

Favorite Show of 2010: DBD8.I was there live, so that helps, but a lot of others have picked it so I just feel really lucky. The main event was great and the Generico and Steen program was really entertaining. The tag match was the best hardcore match I’ve ever seen live, and I think this is a very underrated match. Daniels vs. Omega was awesome as well, I’d love to see those two have another match sometime in the future. Overall I definitely recommend this show to everyone.

Favorite Match of 2010: Steen vs. Generico (Final Battle)I thought for sure all year that I’d say Tyler vs. Davey was gonna be my pick, but Steen vs. Generico blew me away. It could be because I am from Quebec but I really got emotionally invested in this match because it really seemed like it was gonna be the end for one of my favorite wrestlers in ROH. Both these guys showed over the year that they can be main eventers, even carry a company(which this feud did at times this year IMO).Definitely feud of the year(In all of wrestling),and IMO match of the year. I think Generico Will go on to do great things and if Steen is healthy I really hope he’s not gone…but they let go of Aries for no good reason so…

Favorite Wrestler of 2010: Kevin Steen. Had an amazing feud that last all year and was still hot at the end. His promos were the best. I don’t know what the future holds for him but if this really is the end, He’s gotta be up there with the top guys in the company who never held the world title and that’s some great guys.

Improvements for 2011: I know this probably isn’t in ROH’s control, but I think the best things that could improve the company are ROH on HD net goes to 2 hours, and is occasionally live. Also I think ROH should run live shows on HD net on say a Saturday every couple months sort of similar to clash of the champions. I think this would be the next logical step for ROH.I also think they should try running more shows in 2011.I’d like to see more shows in markets they don’t always go to, it seems they’ve gotten into a circuit of the same cities now and I don’t think that’s good, they should keep the cities they have for sure, but also build on the markets they have now they HD net plays in, and maybe do one of their iPPV in an international venue like Japan or England, I think that would be awesome.

Other than those things, I hope in 2011 ROH doesn’t let go of any of their good talent for no good reason. I understand when guys like Black leave,(they have no choice),but in guys like Austin Aries or even somewhat Necro Butcher, you have established talent that can get people over and you let them go when you could use them most. I’d like to see some young guys break into the world title picture this year, it seems Davey, Richards, Homicide and Daniels are going to dominate it ,and I hope that doesn’t mean guys like Eddie Edwards and Kenny King don’t get their chance.

bluepointboy:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: Best year since 2006.

Favorite Show of 2010: DBD

Favorite Match of 2010: Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Black (for ROH) but really enjoyed Strong and Edwards matches in Noah Tag Team Tournament the most.

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Roderick Strong

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: For selfish reasons would love to see change of TV channel, to channel I can get. Would love to see another Japanese invasion.

Adamrocks2010:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: I thought this was a really great year and I really enjoy it.

Favorite Show of 2010: Super Card of honor V

Favorite Match of 2010: Davey vs. Roderick strong Bitter Friends Stiffer Enemies 2

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Tyler Black

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Better production values and try to get the tv show on a website so we can watch roh on hdnet.

guyver3:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010: awesome awesome year best for me so far as i wasn’t into ROH until late 06.

Favorite Show of 2010: DBD 8

Favorite Match of 2010: Tyler Black Vs Kevin Steen : Salvation

Favorite ROH Wrestler of 2010: Davey Richards

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: Getting HDNET on more channels, getting a 2nd hour for the tv show, a feud over the tag titles that doesn’t involve the Briscoes, more new talent, and the return of Steen, A Double, Nakajima, and KENTA.

You can check out the full thread on the ROH Message Board for more responses and discussion here.

Kevin Ford:

Overall Thoughts on Ring of Honor in 2010:

When ROH wrapped up 2009, I couldn’t have been more disappointed. While 2009 had its moments here and there, I was very unenthusiastic by what the product had produced since Danielson and Nigel left the company. The one hour draw from Final Battle 2009 between then ROH World Champion Austin Aries and Tyler Black left an ever more sour taste in my mouth. I fell hard from the ROH bandwagon, and it took me quite awhile to watch any 2010 ROH.

Fast forward to July of 2010, when I finally began watching ROH shows from the year. It’s not as if I was boycotting ROH, it’s just that I didn’t get around to watching their DVD’s until this time. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed ROH in the first half of the year. To me, SoCal Showdown, the 8th Anniversary Show, and Epic Encounter III were all very good to great shows that really started to regroup the foundation of Ring of Honor. Although guys like Tyler Black, Davey Richards, Kevin Steen, El Generico, Chris Hero, The Briscoes, and others had been main eventing shows for awhile, I felt they put in the extra effort that was necessary in a post-Danielson ROH world.

You can argue that ROH in 2009 had many filler shows that shouldn’t have even taken place (“Civil Warfare”, “Buffalo Stampede 2”, I’m looking at you), but the one thing I must commend ROH on is that when a show counts, they delivered. Specifically, I am referring to all four iPPV’s this year: “The Big Bang”, “Death Before Dishonor VIII”, “Glory By Honor IX”, and “Final Battle 2010”. The hype for these shows were absolutely tremendous. ROH utilized its YouTube, Twitter, and television show to build the ever living crap out of these shows. Their efforts were such that I wanted to see every one of these shows. For the most part, these shows lived up to the expectations and usually ended up overachieving. The internet PPV is a huge part of ROH in 2009 for me, as they produced top notch shows and usually gave ROH a great amount of buzz.

I find it very interesting that when the book got passed from Adam Pearce to Delirious, ROH was gaining my interest back. The July triple shot (“The Bluegrass Brawl”, “Hate: Chapter II”, and “Salvation”) I thought were a strong string of shows (more so the latter two) and one of the best weekends Adam Pearce had ever produced. The Young Bucks, American Wolves, Kings of Wrestling, Kevin Steen, and Tyler Black all put in awesome efforts and produced some of the top matches for the year. Also, the House of Truth was strongly featured on all three shows, and I love those guys. So when I heard the book was being switched, I was kind of upset. It felt as if the Adam Pearce administration was finally hitting its stride and just got everything taken away. Alas, I was cautiously optimistic about Delirious. I felt that he and Jim Cornette possibly could put together a very good ROH for the future…what I didn’t know is that this change would have big implications for the roster.

The Richmond/Charlotte August doubleshot was flat out bad; on DVD anyways. Don’t get me wrong, I thought both Davey Richards matches were excellent (vs. Steen in Richmond, vs. Tyler in Charlotte) but the rest of the cards were borderline unwatchable. It’s strange, because I was in attendance for the Richmond show, and thought it was a great show. It was so good live it helped reinvigorate my love for ROH. Then when I watched the Charlotte show (which felt like such a chore it took 6 or 7 sittings to watch it), I talked to my friend who was there and he said the same thing. Talking to others who have been to live shows lately, it seems as if the live product is very good but it doesn’t translate to DVD at all. Which is a real shame, since I hear good live reports from ROH for the most part. Needless to say, Tag Wars 2010 is the last ROH DVD I have seen this year.

The rest of the year doesn’t really interest me. Now that Tyler Black, Austin Aries, and Kevin Steen are gone, it takes away a few more wrinkles in the ever dwindling main event scene. Homicide returning is nice and good walk down the nostalgic path, but I am really not interested in seeing him do anything long term in the company. I also despise Eddie Edwards, so I am not at all happy to see him climb up the ladder week after week. Seriously, what do people see in him? He couldn’t be more boring. But alas, we do have some things to look forward to in 2011. Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly are huge coups for Ring of Honor. These guys are nothing but motivated, and are already at a great level given the amount of time they’ve been in the business. The All Night Express have also grown in spades, and I think they will do nothing but become better and better as they progress. Of course, we also have Roderick Strong, Christopher Daniels, Davey Richards, El Generico, The Briscoes, and the Kings of Wrestling who are usually dependable on bringing the goods.

Favorite Show (if applicable):“Death Before Dishonor VIII”

Favorite Match (if applicable): Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards from “Death Before Dishonor VIII”

Favorite ROH Wrestler(if applicable): Kevin Steen, without question.

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011:

ROH needs to figure out who exactly they want to push. When I read that Cole & O’Reilly beat The Bravados in Canada, then the Bravados beat Cole & O’Reilly in Louisville, it’s frustrating. Parity booking does not work. ROH needs to figure out which guys are going to be pushed, then push them. Scenarios like the ones I pointed out need to never, ever happen outside of a regular feud.

The roster needs to replenished and quickly. Outside of the iPPV’s, it’s rare for shows to feel so important that I want to see them. The main reason for that is it seems all the main events and matches are interchangeable. Since ROH can’t really use anyone in DGUSA, nor does it seem like they have any interest in the CHIKARA guys, they need to pick up guys from the West Coast. There’s so many guys in PWG who are bringing it every single time out and I think it’s a shame that they’re limited to the local market. The main event scene can be freshened up as guys progress, but in the mean time they need to fill up their undercard with competent talent who has room to improve.

Basically my main want for ROH is to freshen up their product. Were at a point where a lot of guys in the company have been around for awhile and guys are being cherry picked by the big 2 at a whim. ROH needs to keep a bountiful, interesting roster at all times and figure out how to make their DVD’s come off as well on tape as they do live.

Kevin Ford is the writer of The CHIKARA Special for 411Mania and co-host of the J&K Fun Hour for Pro Wrestling Ponderings alongside Jerome Cusson. Kevin also has the mega awesome compilation CHIKARA blog available as CHIKARA chikaraspecial.wordpress.com.

Chris Gee Soon Tong:

Overall Thoughts on ROH in 2010: 2010 was another year of transition and solidification for Ring of Honor. A new booker towards the end of the year and huge events throughout really took ROH to places that they hadn’t been in years. You saw a great events in Death before Dishonor, Tag Wars 2010, Epic Encounter III, and Glory By Honor IX. You also had ROH show signs of clearly putting more emphasis on entertainment and expanding their audience in my view than ever before. The slowing down of opening matches and clearly trying to create more stars within the company such as Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly are things that I think have improved ROH for the casual fan that perhaps wants to give them a try. International TV deals always helps the bottom line and while DVD sales could be down and revenue not where they would want it to be, I believe that these steps will ultimately prove to be good for ROH in 2011.

Favorite Show: Death Before Dishonor VIII for me was the pinnacle of ROH this year. Huge events in many feuds such as Kevin Steen vs. Generico and the KoW vs. Briscoes was a great match. Obviously my match of the year also comes from this show so overall I’d say this show truly shows what ROH is known for, good matches and great feuds with twists that actually make sense but are not always predictable.

Favorite Match: Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards from Death Before Dishonor VIII was for me a clear match of the year in ROH. I was also high on Austin Aries vs. Tyler Black vs. Roderick Strong from The Big Bang, Davey vs. Omega from Epic Encounter III, and The Briscoes vs. American Wolves from Bluegrass Brawl.

Favorite ROH Wrestler: While I’m sure that Davey Richards will be at the top of many people’s list I am going to go for another tandem that is going to be popular and that is the Kings of Wrestling. They have solidified their status within the company and I believe more so together than apart. Yes Hero has had huge matches outside of ROH and Claudio seems to be as popular as ever with huge stories in CHIKARA and PWG. Their story against the Briscoes has been going on for practically a whole year.

What I think Ring of Honor should improve upon for 2011: One thing for me that should be improved upon is the television show. Yes we are getting to see fresh faces and some very awesome main events. But is that really selling the iPPVs or the DVDs? No current wrestling product truly balances that well enough IMO but I do believe that for a small company like ROH it is more important than ever. Perhaps upping the emphasis on DVDs would help or even the streaming of their DVDs. Those $10 DVD streams are almost pure profit for ROH and really they should be taking advantage of that. The iPPVs also, while enough videos are shown, also need some more emphasis in terms of more events happening on the show that lead to the iPPV matches rather than just video packages. For example we saw some great stuff from Colt Cabana during the Steen vs. Generico war, but his matches on HDNet almost never had anything to do with the feud. Little things such as building the feuds on the TV show as they have between the KoW and the Briscoes are what make the viewing fans feel like they have to watch the iPPV to see the culmination of a feud instead of just feeling like they are being led via video packages and DVD events that they might never see or buy.

Chris GST is a huge component behind the scenes of Pro Wrestling Ponderings and well as the writer of Strikes and Bumps on wrestlingnewssource.com and The Spawnsyxx9 Blog.

Final Column 2010 continues RIGHT NOW with MORE writing and thoughts from the 411Mania staff, plus LOADS of video from the past year of Honor.