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How should AEW and ROH interact?

How should AEW and ROH interact?

2K views 41 replies 36 participants last post by  famicommander 
#1 · (Edited)
Simple question. How do you think it would be best for AEW and ROH to interact?

1. Completely separate rosters.
2. A crossover PPV once a year or so but with actual match builds and stories, not just random matches announced via postcard.
3. Keep the current incoherent, jumbled mess with 100 titles and guys no one knows just showing up and then disappearing with no end goal or actual feuds that lead to any kid of a resolution.
4. Keep the tape library for HBO Max or whatever and quickly drop ROH as a current thing that exists.
5. ROH should function purely as a developmental system for AEW.
 
#2 ·
For the vast majority of the time, keep them separated, with two exceptions.

1. Your highest level ROH guys can appear on AEW TV here and there to help promote the ROH show. An occasional match is fine.

2. One special PPV a year that gets special matchups between AEW/ROH guys.

Otherwise, keep them on their respective shows, so I guess option 2?
 
#4 ·
For the vast majority of the time, keep them separated, with two exceptions.

1. Your highest level ROH guys can appear on AEW TV here and there to help promote the ROH show. An occasional match is fine.

2. One special PPV a year that gets special matchups between AEW/ROH guys.

Otherwise, keep them on their respective shows, so I guess option 2?
Yes, occasional appearances by a few top guys people actually know makes sense.
 
#7 ·
In my mind, ROH is a promotion that had a reputation of being the place to go if you wanted to see the future of wrestling. So, I think it would suit the spirit of ROH to essentially be AEW's NXT with a few ROH legends on it for flavor. And the relationship would be similar to WWE's relationship with NXT. You know you call guys up, you send guys down, sometimes ROH guys show up in AEW and vice versa but generally they are separate.
 
#5 ·
Get rid of it, keep the tape library for a future network or to build up past feuds from your main AEW roster. Drop the dumb titles like ROH Pure and combine the rest of the titles with their equivalent AEW counterparts.

ROH is a dead brand and the only people who consistently care about it are the people who are watching your show anyways. Drop the dead weight from the AEW roster and start concentrating on AEW instead of trying to resurrect a company that died on its own.
 
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#12 ·
I think my preferred option would be a cross between 2 and 5

Keep it to a cross-over once or twice a year

but also have it focused on developmental at least half the time - like young guys and girls who needs reps and match time but you don't want to give them time on Dynamite and Rampage yet

think Top Flight, Workhorsemen etc etc
 
#19 ·
Very few crossovers and a mostly exclusive roster for ROH. Each year they could do some kind of trade perhaps, which would be a less obvious way of ROH feeding breakout talents to AEW and freshening things up.

A yearly joint show is a good idea, especially if Forbidden Door with NJPW isn't possible every single year, but they need to establish ROH as something first. You can only sell a show if ROH has a group of stars who can credibly share the same ring as AEW's top stars. This is where Tony Khan's aggressive recruitment could work out, as he may be able to let a few high profile names (some options: Claudio, Andrade, Lance Archer) move to ROH.

A two or three minute ROH Recap segment on Rampage to get people up to speed with what is going on. This is something I'd do if ROH is behind a streaming paywall as it won't be as instantly accessible as if it's on cable.

If ROH has a proper TV or streaming deal, AEW and ROH should be presented as sister promotions rather than ROH being a sub-brand (WWE/NXT). This will make ROH seem more important.
 
#20 ·
I think the best option is to turn ROH into AEW's NXT. Declutter the AEW roster by sending all of the prospects down there, develop them, and see who rises and falls. If they fail to develop, let them go. If they're read for the big leagues, move them up.

My second choice would be to make ROH the 'wrestling' brand for the types who want mindless in-ring action, and make AEW the 'sports entertainment' brand for the wider audience who cares about characters and storylines, but not so much 20-minute Wheeler Yuta matches.
 
#25 ·
It should be developmental. ROH is nowhere near the level it was when they were giving us Danielson vs McGuinness. Nobody cares anymore.
 
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#22 ·
The pandemic killed their crowds. Then their owner dropped them from their syndication deal on their networks.

Letting the contracted talent out of their deals immediately afterwards decimated their roster and the identity of the promotion practically vanished as fast as the wrestlers did.

That is why ROH…died.

Only to raise its zombified corpse up from the grave feeding off the healthy living AEW’s airtime.

I always figured ROH would start up again in some form. The regular use of the ROH brand on AEW time never bothered me because I was always confident that ROH would return as a promotion in some form sooner rather than later. Call me naive.

Even just being on YouTube would be helpful in familiarizing interested people with (ideally) weekly ROH programming.
 
#24 ·
Developmental.

Just like NXT, it can be the show where the future of AEW is moulded whilst also not needed or talent needing a repackage from AEW can be sent to try again, so to speak. If no TV deal, use ROH to replace Elevation and/or Dark.

ROH was built on in ring talent so keep that the focus but also try to experiment with match types, stories and gimmicks.
 
#32 ·
Separate brand with occasional crossover but mostly split rosters, I'm not opposed to bringing ROH wrestlers up to AEW or AEW rosters down to ROH for a match here and there but the way things are now just seems to be confusing people, and while it works for some of us who watched ROH while it was its own thing, clearly it's not everyone's cup of tea.
 
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