With WrestleMania having just passed, It’s only fitting I share with you today Ring of Honor pro wrestling. Founded in 2002, many of todays’ top competitors have passed through ROH‘s ropes including CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Evan Bourne (Matt Sydal), Desmond Wolfe (Nigel McGuinness), and Daniel Brian (Bryan Danielson). ROH has always supported a more straight forward, technical style of pro wrestling that main stream wrestling fans would recognize from guys like Chris Jericho and Rey Mysterio. For the past two years, ROH has been on HDNet television, making them the third most prominent wrestling organization behind World Wrestling Entertainment and Total Nonstop Action. When it began ROH had 5 rules called the “Code of Honor” and in 2004, revamped into 3.
1. Shake hands with your opponent before and after the match – if you respect your opponent.
2. Keep the playing field level.
3. Respect the officials.
Combining pure wrestling styles and the over the top flying action combined with some of the most extreme battles I’ve seen since ECW, ROH has gained an extremely eclectic following of fans. I’ve been lucky to attend several of their events when ROH has come through Florida and feel like I enjoyed the energy almost more than some of the WWE events I’ve been to. Fan interaction has always been big in ROH, almost to the same degree as the old school ECW fans. Though they mainly stick to the Northeast region, ROH generally holds shows in the same town as WrestleMania on the two nights prior to the event. ROH was also the first US based promotion to have its major titles held by all non-US wrestlers when Takeshi Morishima held the ROH World Championship and Naruki Doi and Shingo held the ROH Tag Team Titles.
Now you may be thinking “ROH sounds interesting, but why would I watch a program where I don’t know any of the wrestlers?” Well, they do! Ring of Honor‘s Roster includes former ECW, WWE, and TNA superstars like Jerry Lynn, The World’s Greatest Tag Team (Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas), Homicide, Steve Corino, Colt Cabana, Christopher Daniels, and even the living legend manager Jim Cornette. Combine faces that are familiar with those new faces you don’t know and ROH will keep your attention throughout whether you’re watching a match on TV, DVD or the internet. New faces like Roderick Strong, the Briscoe Brothers, El Generico, Claudio Castagnoli, and Chris Hero will find their way to the top of your “Favorite Wrestlers of All Time” list and in some cases, I think they might even top it. Now April 4, was the last airing of ROH on HDNet as their two year contract expired, but ROH videos are easy enough to find and watch so I implore you to do so and to find out exactly why ROH is really even the number 2 company in US Pro Wrestling, because let’s face it nobody watches TNA. Not even Jeff Jarrett. (Which is spelled J-E-DOUBLE F J-A-DOUBLE R-E-DOUBLE T!)