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Jim Cornette made the public announcement that the ROH TV series will be available for free via the new ROHWrestling.com website, which is being put together as we speak. There are plans for a premium paid version of the site, but what those plans will consist of have not been publicly announced yet.
The TV show itself will debut on Saturday 9/24 on all of the channels owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. If you don't have one of their channels in your area, the only way to see the series will be the online broadcast. The hope is to eventually syndicate the series to other outlets that show interest in carrying the show. I am told there is a multi-year plan for the series and the company going forward and Sinclair knows it will be a slow build. There are plans to begin running some of the markets they will be broadcasting in beginning in 2012. Until then, it's going to be a very specific schedule as the TV show rolls out.
Former ROH champion Nigel McGuinness, last seen as Desmond Wolfe in TNA, is back with the promotion full-time as their color analyst. Kevin Kelly will be the lead announcer going forward.
There's no definitive word yet as to where this leaves SHIMMER promoter Dave Prazak, who had been doing commentary on DVDs and iPPVs. Prazak was at the taping on Saturday and made it clear to the company that he'll be happy with whatever role they want him in going forward.
SHIMMER's official relationship with ROH, however, has ended. Prazak will be handling all SHIMMER business in terms of DVDs on his own going forward.
Jerry Lynn worked the taping as one of the agents backstage alongside Delirious and Jim Cornette. Lynn is not currently signed to a TNA deal, which is how he's able to work for ROH. Daizee Haze also worked in a backstage production aspect.
Dave Lagana also worked the tapings, handling time cues and producing backstage segments. Lagana will continue to work with the company on a social media front as well.
ROH COO Joe Koff and Live Events head Gary Juster were both in attendance.
The new ROH ring was built by OVW owner Danny Davis, who was in attendance at the taping. Others in attendance were Maria Kanellis and Jackie Gayda-Haas.
Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin have new theme music, which I am told was written and performed by a friend of Haas.
There were no injuries coming out of the tapings, which saw four hours taped. Dan Bynum was the director of the TV shoot, which had five or six cameras present. There were three different hard cameras, two cameras at ringside and at least one camera roaming the crowd to capture crowd reactions. There were some glitches and production issues early on, specifically with the house mic and assorted audio issues, which led to delays. The show was being filmed live to tape with the editing (graphics, etc.) being handled live in the production truck, which also led to slight delays live. ROH management was impressed by the energy level of the crowd, who ended up being louder with more energy when something had to be re-shot due to a technical issue.
Post-Production of the tapings is currently ongoing in Maryland. Jim Cornette went right to Maryland after the tapings to help oversee the TV.
The October and November tapings will be held in Louisville, Kentucky at the Davis Arena.
The Mike Sydal vs. Ernie Osyris bout on the tapings was a last minute addition. The match itself was dark and not taped, but the production crew filmed the crowd reactions specifically so they would have footage to insert when needed on TV shows for edits.
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