The debut of Ring Of Honor on HDNet is something that I have anticipated for a good while, being a fan of their product over several years. And now that I’m burned out on their show DVDs to the point where I take 3 or 4 sittings to get through one show, even a great show, one hour of Ring Of Honor, or the around 48 minutes it is with commercials taken out, seemed ideal for me as a fan.

A move that ROH were criticised very much for in the leadup to the first taping was replacing long-term announcer Lenny Leonard with HDNet announcer Mike Hogewood. Now, this was a call made by HDNet rather than by Ring Of Honor, and some of ROH’s hardcore audience seemed to think it was akin to them “selling out” – but to me it was a small price to pay for getting on TV.

And I thought Hogewood was fine, despite a lack of wrestling knowledge, the fact that he came across as an enthusiastic guy who put over the athleticism of the people involved harkens back to the “ROH is pro wrestling as a sport” early days but it sounded natural rather than Gabe Sapolsky or Steve Corino on commentary spouting phony marketing terms.

Maybe that’s just me being a bit of a mark for 1980s style wrestling announcing, but the enthusiasm he showed is something you don’t hear from a Todd Grisham or Michael Cole, and he managed it without sounding like a shill or an idiot like Mike Tenay.

In terms of the way the show was presented, I liked the setup of having Hogewood and Prazak in studio in between each match. It’s something that has been done before in wrestling, so for long term fans will look familiar, but since live commentary and making the show seem live even when it’s taped is the norm, it still differentiates ROH from WWE and TNA. It’s a small thing, but having an announce table at ringside and going to Hogewood and Prazak in the arena is what WWE and TNA do and would be seen as copying.

I’m undecided on the camera work. I thought it made the ring look smaller, and on TV that can come across as making the promotion look like a low rent company, which isn’t the image ROH wants to project even if it’s the truth. You can look realistic and gritty and underground without looking amateurish, and I feel the constant camera cuts, and in particular the absence of a hard cam, is something that I feel really hurt the look of the show and the image of ROH as a company that first time viewers would walk away with.

The “1..2…3″ graphics that appeared and the captions for guys as they entered the ring were hit and miss in my view. In theory, they seem like a good idea, but on a couple of occasions the actual content seemed cheesy and something that’d be more likely to turn off a casual viewer or make them laugh than get them interested in the characters, which I suppose would be the point.

One of the things that ROH is best known for are their hot loud passionate crowds. So the decision to mic the audience so poorly and turn the sound down for large stretches of time is a decision I don’t understand. Maybe the crudeness of some ROH fans’ chants isn’t something that HDNet wanted, but that will become clear in the coming weeks. If they want no swearing or classless chants then I understand it, but if they’re just turning down crowd noise and there’s no policy or reason behind it other than they don’t understand that the great atmosphere actually adds to ROH’s matches, then it could be a problem.

I mentioned on my DVD review for The French Connection that I hated Kyle Durden as a backstage interviewer, and the intervening several months had done nothing to change my mind on this issue. ROH should really make moves to get Gary Michael Capetta or Becky Bayless back, as both had previously excelled in this role. I’d even consider using both of them a better idea than just using Durden, Capetta could handle the serious main event angles and Bayless could do interviews with people in comedy/midcard angles.

As for the content of the promos, again it was hit and miss. Tyler Black, as the babyface who went over in the main event of their debut show, really should be expected to hit it out of the park on the microphone. He’s being positioned as the major player, and his interview was barely curtain jerker level. Jimmy Jacobs, on the other hand, cut an excellent promo that got his history with Black across well. I think ROH make a major mistake in booking Jacobs to lose most of his major feuds, as has been the case with both Austin Aries and Black recently. Raven in ECW was just as strong a promo guy and as interesting a character, but if he did jobs all the time he’d never have been as over. Jacobs is an interesting character who can cut great promos and his storylines are always compelling, I’d seriously consider having ROH put the World Title on him.

Whoever had the idea that ROH should have their TV debut and the first time you see an ROH wrestler on screen it’s Delirious cutting a rambling promo in Delirious jibberish talk, is a fucking idiot. It made the company seem amateurish. And then he lost clean to Jerry Lynn in the opening match. So the first guy any new fans would have seen is some comedy geek who rambled something unintelligible then lost cleanly. The match itself was fine, and although I’m not Lynn’s biggest fan it probably helped that he has experience from working short TV matches in the past, unlike much if not all the ROH roster.

But although it was good I still feel it was a mistake for this to be ROH’s first match on HDNet, and especially Delirious cutting the first promo. Ideally, they’d have kicked off the show with The Briscoes cutting a promo about being asskickers who take no shit, then have them come out and beat some tag team jobbers with a load of great double team moves and head-drops. That would be eye-catching and immediately make ROH stand out as something different, as nobody in WWE or TNA work like The Briscoes and have the redneck character to back it up. Then you can have Jerry Lynn and Delirious do their midcard match and Delirious’ comedy promo for some light relief before the serious feud main event of Black v. Jacobs.

The two short matches in the middle of the card were fine, and Rhett Titus showed great potential as a Santino Marella-esque comedy midcard act. Another smart move was the video clip showing various wrestling legends such as Bobby Heenan, Mick Foley, Paul Bearer and Ric Flair making ROH appearances, along with clips of people who worked in ROH and are bigger stars elsewhere today like CM Punk, Mickie James and AJ Styles. It made ROH look like the proving ground for the stars of tomorrow, and that’s always an attractive marketing tool for a company to have, and something I think ROH does well to take advantage of – safe in the knowledge that TNA and WWE would never do it.

The main event was a decent and perfectly fine match, but showing clips beforehand of charishots and of Jimmy Jacobs bleeding all over the place, then having a regular match here kind of fell flat. Surely the crazy hardcore stuff that would catch people’s eyes would have been better placed on the TV debut? If they had a bloodbath here, and the prematch clips had the feud beginning and showing you why they were doing this crazy stuff to each other, then not only would the match have a story behind it that fans could get into, but it would be wild and crazy enough that people are talking about it afterwards. Here, you got Jacobs and Black working a good athletic and entertaining match, but it’s not the kind of match I’m going to be rushing out to tell my friends that they have to watch.

Oh, one final observation – it’s their TV debut, and Bryan Danielson, the best worker in the company by far and most popular babyface is nowhere to be seen, as is the World Champion and top heel Nigel McGuiness. Can you imagine WWE RAW moving channels next week and them leaving John Cena, Randy Orton and Shawn Michaels off the show? Even if it was a promo or a short video package followed by studio comments from Prazak and Hogewood, Danielson and McGuiness should have been on the show somewhere.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com