What’s Next For Ring of Honor?

Now that we know Tony Khan is the new owner of Ring of Honor Wrestling, it’s time to ask some serious questions about the future.  Tony is saying all the right things so far, that he intends on keeping it alive as a brand and all, but the existing circumstances sure paint a less rosy picture than the one he is painting.  As someone who was a fan of ROH until the end and attended Final Battle last December, call me skeptical unless he can answer these questions the right way.

Who will work there?

ROH has let every wrestler contract expire, so they literally do not have a roster right now.  The champions who were holding the belts at the end of Final Battle have been allowed to defend them in other promotions, but that’s all.  The rumors going around have been that when they restarted it would be with short term, limited contracts instead of longer term deals.  But now that no one is under contract, will they try to bring any of the participants from Final Battle back or will they aim to populate the space current AEW wrestlers?  I imagine that some of the most recent ROH roster members would be open to coming back under Khan’s banner, but others may not be.

Developmental or not?

One of the other big rumors going around is that Khan may use it as a developmental territory of sorts, and sprinkle current AEW wrestlers in with whoever comes back into the fold from ROH proper.  There are also AEW guys like Jay Lethal who were just recently in ROH and could slide back over with no problem.  This is an interesting proposal but then what happens with Dark and Dark: Elevation, the two YouTube shows?  Those have been serving as de facto developmental programming with veteran talent mixed in, but with a TV show available do you keep those going or just fold them?  I would imagine the latter because that’s an awfully big ask to expect people to watch Dynamite, Rampage, Dark and Dark Elevation along with whatever this ROH show would be.

What about the tape library?

The most sure thing seems to be the video library, with footage of current AEW wrestlers like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, the Elite, Christopher Daniels, Scorpio Sky, Adam Cole, ReDragon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly), Jay Lethal, Keith Lee, and some others. What we don’t know about is the video quality of some of the earlier footage and how they’ll go about dealing with any music licensing issues that may come up.  The other thing is that the ROH tape library is supposedly going to be a missing piece in the puzzle of AEW making a streaming service deal of some kind, but that begs the question of just how much of an audience is there for that?  For all the archived footage on Peacock the most viewed programming tends to be the current WWE pay per views.

In short, the tape library isn’t quite the bonanza that it’s made out to be.  Can it be put to good use to beef up the bios of current talent?  Sure.  But who does that appeal to outside the current AEW fan bubble?  Will the ROH tape library bring anyone on board who wasn’t already there?  And will it actually be that attractive to an outfit like HBO Max?  Who knows?  The big prize out of this is that Tony Khan and the Elite finally have rights to the video for All In.  (One day you kids should ask just why Ring of Honor had the video rights to what was sold to you guys as an indie show.)  All In of course is the point of origin for what would eventually become AEW.  That is the prize of the video library and not any ROH PPVs from days gone by.

What about TV?

Ring of Honor has been broadcast on syndicated television through Sinclair Broadcasting for several years now, mainly because they were owned by Sinclair Broadcasting.  Sinclair owned and operated them as cheap television programming to run on weekends, and now that they no longer own it will they continue to carry them?  I’m no TV executive but if I was I do not think that I’d be out here paying to run Ring of Honor Wrestling on my television station(s).  Unless Tony Khan has made some kind of deal to keep the show on television then I don’t see how it survives as a promotion going forward.

Likely outcomes

Here’s what I think is most likely to happen.  Tony makes All In available for purchase, and eventually finds a home for the archived footage.  Ring of Honor ceases to exist as it once did, barring some miracle where it stays on TV.  A few people who worked there at the end come over to AEW while the rest find employment where they can be it in Impact, WWE, or somewhere else.  Khan may very well have the best intentions for Ring of Honor but reality likely has a different take.