By Bill Walkowitz
(Update 3-8-2022 @ 12:30 am
The fact that Tony Khan has declared himself to be the booker of ROH makes this article, more valid than ever.
Back in the 90's I wrote a column called "Below The Belt W/Bill" that was printed in several different monthly newsletters such as Evan Ginzburg's Wrestling Then And Now, The Wrestling Edge, among others. So since I helped created this site with Gino Bradley and Donnie Henderson I decided to revive the column, with a new name which as you can see is called "The A**hole In The Room". Since I seem to have then opinions that piss people off anyway and most consider me, the 'a**hole' in the room, it's a fitting title. And since I seem to be the ONLY wrestling writer that has the balls to say it like it should be said, because unlike the Meltzer's, the Scherer's, the Mike Johnsons, etc that are worried that they'll piss off people and they can't wrestlers to be on their podcasts and stuff, We here at WP&P don't have to worry about any of that since we have no interest in that. So since we don't answer to anyone and have no interest in having a podcast or interviewing people, WWEE can say what we want, and how we want. anyone and have no interest in having a podcast or interviewing people, WWEE can say what we want, and how we want.
The topic is pretty obvious by the screen grab that's posted above. Tony Khan buying Ring of Honor.
When I saw the bug eyed Khan make this grand announcement on AEW this week my first thought was, "what did he buy? Not much in reality".
Sure he got a video
library but did he get any of the wrestlers under contract to ROH? Of
course not because there ISN'T ANY wrestlers under contract to Ring
Of Honor. So he bought a wrestling promotion that has no wrestlers
under contract, and a video library. And maybe a couple of wrestling
rings?
"OOOOOOOOO" Hell
of a purchase, hell of an investment. (Rolls eyes).
While Khan HAS been
utilizing guys like C.M. Punk and Bryan Danielson, what about one of
the greatest workers ROH has ever had in Jay Lethal? Where's he? Oh
yes, he's been regulated to the YouTube shows and when he IS on a
main show like Dynamite, he's used poorly.
THAT right there, is all
you need tom know about how Tony Khan underutilizes great talent, and
what ROH might be destined to become. Because seriously, Khan has no
booking experience, is the 'billionaire money mark' who became
Meltzer's 'booker of the year" only because Meltzer (*for the
most part) said so. His shows are mostly a fucking car crash and
logic is a lot of times thrown out the window. So since it's bad
enough he's created a company that for me and many people i know is
hard to watch from beginning to end, what's he gonna do now that
'bought', a company that had a rich history?
My stomach turns at the ways Tony Khan is gonna fuck it up.
Let's look at when other companies have done this, and how badly it's failed WHEN they've done this.
In 1987 Jim Crockett Promotions bought Florida Championship Wrestling. I remember this because we had NWA World Wide Wrestling on TV in Chicago (replaced by NWA Pro which was pretty much the same thing) and Mike Rotunda came into Jim Crocket promotions as a member of the Varsity Club with Kevin Sullivan and Rick Steiner and he was holding the Florida title. As soon as Rotunda became World Television Champion Mike 'gave' Rick the Florida title, but it wasn't really defended nor was it taken very seriously.
And wouldn't you know, it wasn't long after that the Florida title 'mysteriously' disappeared off of Jim Crockett's TV altogether.
So much for buying Florida Championship Wrestling.
In 1985 Crockett bought out Georgia Championship Wrestling and simply took over their time slot on TBS.
In 1987 Crockett bought
out the Central States Territory which was owned by Bob Geigel but
after he claimed it was gonna be run like a separate promotion, was
it? Nope, he simply took over the TV spots there and Geigel wound up
buying it back from Crockett, opening it up again and after
withdrawing from the NWA, starting a working agreement with the AWA.
I remember this because
when I became involved in tape trading and selling I had gotten
several tapes of Central States Wrestling, and guys like Crusher
Blackwell, Sgt. Slaughter came thru the Central States area for
shows.
!987 was also the year
Crockett bought Bill Watt's UWF and it was 'said' that the UWF was
gonna be run like a separate promotion. But when you saw the NWA TV title and UWF TV title get 'unified' you knew, it was just another case of bullshit running a marathon.
You see the pattern here, don't you? Bigger companies buy smaller ones and then those smaller companies are put out to pasture. But wait, the pattern continues.
Remember in 2003 when Vince McMahon bought ECW? I do, and the first thing I said then was "Vince is gonna fuck it up, because he has no clue how to properly push and promote something he didn't create".
As we all saw, that quote of mine, which pissed off 'marks' left and right? Was spot on, 100% correct.
And when Vince created his own 'version' of ECW, to the point of even making himself 'ECW' champion? Remember that fiasco?
Yeah, I do too. It wasn't a pretty
sight.
And let's not forget when Vince bought
WCW. Another one of those "It'll be run like a seperate
promotion" claims that was total bullshit as we all found out.
So after all this, after this long well
proven pattern of bigger companies buying a small coimpany and
literally doing nothing with them, what makes the 'marks' think that
THIS TIME with Tony Khan buying ROH is gonna be different from all
the other times I just showed?
I'm finding it SSOO amusing that the
'AEW Marks' are fawning all over this like this is greatest thing
that's ever happened. I'm like the only one with an I.Q. higher than
a door knob that sees the reality of all this.
I mean seriously, THIS, is your new
owner of Ring Of Honor.
AAHH yep, that sure looks like a guy
who knows what the fuck he's doing, yes indeedy, we can put 'all our
faith' into "that guy" to make Ring Of Honor great again.
(rolls eyes).
How is it people can actually think,
that a billionaire money mark who has no fucking experience booking
anything, is gonna be capable of making a once great company like ROH
viable again?
Is it gonna be like how Ring of Honor
used to be? Even THAT is a mission in itself since there's so many
other NOW well known indie groups who've taken the ROH formula and
actually have done it better than ROH in some ways.
DEFY, Limitless Wrestling, AAW,
Freelance Wrestling, just to name a few have done the Ring of Honor
way better than ROH has, so how is it that the billionaire money mark
gonna make his new acquisition of ROH stand out? Or is it just gonna
be 'just another' AEW show?
Another thing, did Tony Khan get all
the TV slots that ROH was shown on that Sinclair broadcasting aired
ROH on? Probably not. Sinclair was looking to unload ROH as it wasn't
helping Sinclair's bottom line and well? they kinda found a sucker
for it named Tony Khan who probably paid more for it than it was
worth.
So what did he get? Not much? Is he
gonna do great things with it? My gut feeling knowing the pattern I
just wrote about? Probably not.
I'd like to be proven wrong on this but
knowing who owns it, and how he can't even keep his own shows logical
half the time, it looks like I'm probably gonna be right on this as
well.
And if that's the case? Remember I said
it would end up that way, remember I, said it. because the
Meltzer's, etc don't have the balls to say it.
