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LOTS OF RING OF HONOR ANNIVERSARY PPV NEWS AND NOTES

By Mike Johnson on 2015-03-02 09:58:33

The Ring of Honor Anniversary Show drew a little over 1,000 paid at the Orleans last night in Las Vegas with very little comps in the building. The company was extremely happy with the show overall.

From a production standpoint, it was the company's best produced live broadcast to date. The one suggestion I would make is to either not have talents stop and play to the crowd right after they walk out of the curtain in the aisle or to make sure that area is properly lit. At no point should the talents be on TV shadowed to the point you can't see them.

I said this on the 90 minute ROH Post-Game show last night but wanted to repeat it today: In the last few weeks, we have received a lot of emails complaining about the positioning of Daniel Bryan in WWE, the Wrestlemania lineup, and the creative of WWE and TNA from readers. If that is you and you aren't going out of you way to order the ROH PPV, you really shouldn't be complaining, because the company is providing you with a legitimate alternative product that you can find on PPV, either live or via replays. There's no iPPV issues, there's no "I can't see the TV" in my area, etc. excuses anymore. The three hour show wasn't perfect but it was, for your dollar, the best American-produced three hour PPV you can hope to get from a "wrestling" point of view, especially if you are disenfranchised with the sports-entertainment presentation. It's there for you to find and if you aren't taking that chance, you have no one to blame for that but yourself. If you can take the time to complain in great detail about what you hate about pro wrestling (and you have every right to do so), you should take the same time to try something you might really love about it.

Legendary "Husker Du" frontman and one time WCW Creative Team member Bob Mould was in attendance at the PPV.

MMA fighters Phil Baroni (who was sitting in the front row), Shayna Baszler (who managed ReDragon and was damn entertaining) and Jessamyn Duke were all at the show. Gere are Duke and Baszler mugging it with Moose last night:

 

To say Doc Gallows was furious about missing last night's show would be one of the biggest understatements of the week.

For those who asked, I am told referee Todd Sinclair was perfectly fine after taking that insane bump off the apron during the Four Way. He's always been a hell of a hand and showed it again last night.

The next PPV will be Friday 6/19 from Terminal 5 in New York City, the 2015 "Best in the World" PPV. The Friday night timeslot is an experiment. ROH will tape TV in the same location the next night.

While Samoa Joe vs. Jay Briscoe was teased last night and is obviously coming, it may not be for that PPV. The company is very excited about Joe's return and you can look forward to a lot of dream matches in the weeks to come. Joe is on Taz's latest Human Podcast Machine discussing his TNA exit and ROH return at this link.

Joe's return gives the company Joe, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels all at the time same time in the same place. Not only were they all standout talents that helped build the foundation of the company in 2002, but it conceivably gives ROH the chance to rematch what's considered the best TNA bout of all time.

Trent Baretta is coming in to team with Rocky Romero as Roppongi Vice. Roppongi is a very cool, trendy section of Tokyo where all the hot clubs and nightspots are. Romero and Barretta have been teaming for New Japan.

Speaking of New Japan, I am told that no decisions have been made regarding talent and creative for the May combined shows and that won't change until around Wrestlemania weekend when the two sides meet in California.

The opening of the PPV was obviously inspired by Ocean's 11 with the Mark Briscoe bit at the end sort of inspired by an ongoing gag in "The Muppet Movie" where the character Sweetums is trying to catch up to everyone. The fact I just got to write about Sweetums will undoubtedly make me laugh for the rest of the day.

For those who asked, the masked characters who keep appearing are building to something.  I'm guessing that reveal will take place at the 3/7 Baltimore, Maryland tapings this Saturday, but I don't know that to be 100% the case.

 

 

 

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