Does ROH Still Deserve Your Support?

It’s been a little over a week since the debacle that caused Ring of Honor to cease doing live internet pay per views. Best in the World 2013 may be looked back upon as a turning point for ROH where fans may have been turned off completely or where the steadfast fan base begins to show its true passion. While we here at PWPonderings have been covering ROH throughout a lot of the highs and lows of their product, and I have been a fan of ROH since its inception, there comes a time where all of us as fans have to consider what we are supporting and how much is it worth to us to spend our hard earned dollars in that support. The words of my colleague Ari Berenstein came to mind while I was experiencing the technical issues while covering Best in The World and I want to repeat them here:

” While ROH has come under fire from many over the years, it has been especially difficult to be a fan of the promotion since ROH came under corporate ownership via Sinclair Broadcast Group. The promotion started to change, in some positive aspects but also in many negative ones….Taking a promotion to task is appropriate when the fault is on them, and the fault is certainly on Ring of Honor, Sinclair Broadcast Group and everyone who was in charge of working on providing the feed and presentation of the show that night. Repeatedly hammering it over and over is necessary because ROH and its staff refuse to accept the criticism. It isn’t stirring the pot. It’s making sure people in the right places get the message that what happened during Border Wars and Death Before Dishonor X is NOT ACCEPTABLE.” (Taken from this article published at WrestlingObserver.com)

You read that last part right. Border Wars and Death Before Dishonor X. Over a year later, we are still experiencing issues, and such bad issues that ROH has decided that they are no longer going to provide live iPPVs but are going the route of tape delayed video on demand. Now I am not here to discuss my feelings on that decision. You can listen to that on the Weekly Newscast or the next Podcast of Honor that will have myself, Ari and Matt Waters on, so they can balance my sometimes maniacal commentary. For now I am merely posing the question to you if you feel that ROH deserves your support in the coming months/years/however long it is in existence. Before I started writing I went back into our archives and wanted to gain a sample of what iPPVs had issues. Here’s a short list of what I found with links back to the reviews:

Border Wars 2012: Major Issues
Best In the World 2012: No issues
Boiling Point 2012: No issues
Death Before Dishonor X (2012): Major issues
Glory By Honor XI (2012): No issues
Final Battle 2012: No issues
11th Anniversary: No mention of any issues

Border Wars 2013 didn’t have any mention of issues either and of course we all know of the snafu that happened during the main event (and a very important part) of Supercard of Honor and the subsequent horrid issues that plagued Best in the World 2013. Since around October of last year, ROH had very few if any issues up until this point. Given that I am a man that appreciates statistics, I can confidently say that I would buy the next ROH live iPPV without any reticence because of the enjoyment that ROH brings to me as a wrestling fan.

But do not mistake this sentiment for delusion. I am more than aware and was one of the harshest voices on the net when it came to the customer service end of ROH and how they mistreated those of us who were trying to watch Best in the World live. Their silence spoke volumes as to how much we mattered on that night and almost every other night that there were streaming issues. For this, I understand that anyone who feels Ring of Honor has lost them as a customer is more than justified in that opinion. There are a myriad of other indie wrestling promotions that deserve your time and money and won’t make you feel as if your time and money don’t matter and your questions don’t need to be answered. Many including Gabe Sapolsky and WWNLive, while admittedly having had many issues in the past, at least acknowledge issues on twitter and facebook to let us know that our voices/tweets are being heard/read and will let us know constantly throughout the night about what is being done when issues arise, albeit not always satisfactorily. Others such as Highspots, SMV (this article was written before the AIW issues but at least SMV seemed to respond, I know Thorne did), and RF Video have all seemingly been very well attentive to customer concerns on social media and responded in kind. The fact that ROH shows little respect to us as customers almost makes me sound foolish for deciding that I will continue to support them. At the end of the day, it’s all about how much grace you are willing to extend to them, and for many I cannot fault you if your patience is wearing thin, or if it has already run out. For me, Ring of Honor has brought me near eleven plus years of awesome wrestling, cutting edge storylines, and probably showcased some of the best wrestlers in the world. While at different points, there are definitely things that I and others have criticized ROH in those different categories, I still feel ROH is one of the top indie promotions(depending on your definition of indie) in the United States, if not the world. I will continue to support them and the talent they bring before me until I feel they are no longer fulfilling their end of the bargain.

You can hear thoughts from our Senior Editor Jerome Cusson, Ari Berenstein, and I on the BITW iPPV issues here on a special edition of the Podcast of Honor.

Feel free to leave a comment here, shoot me an email about your thoughts at cgstong@PWPonderings.com or contact me on twitter at http://twitter.com/cgstong