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THE pROHfile LOOKS AT THE AMERICAN WOLVES REPORTING TO NXT, MARK BRISCOE'S FUTURE, THE END OF C&C WRESTLE FACTORY, AND MORE

By Stuart Carapola on 2013-11-19 11:40:07
Hey everybody, with the last ROH events before Final Battle in the books and a lot of stuff to talk about, I thought it would be a good time for the pROHfile to return and look at all the latest news from ROH as we begin the build toward Final Battle 2013.

Let's start by talking about the American Wolves, who were completely shut out this past weekend with a perfect 0-3 record. First, Eddie Edwards lost to Jay Lethal while Davey Richards was defeated by Roderick Strong in Dearborn, then the next night in Columbus, the Wolves were defeated by Outlaw Inc in a tag match. As Mike reported, the Wolves pretty much went straight from the ROH events to Orlando, Florida to report to the WWE Performance Center for a week-long tryout that could lead to a regular spot in NXT as part of the developmental system.

While it's still far from set in stone, the Wolves leaving ROH would be a major blow to the company, as they have been two of the core guys on that roster going all the way back to the end of 2008, and have carried a big chunk of the load of a company that's continually been in some state of flux or another for just about five years now. While there have been good storylines and matches, I think it's fair to say that the perception from fans is that ROH is not what it used to be, and that some of that is because of ROH becoming a TV company and bringing in people who have used their creative control to try and increase the marketability of ROH by bringing in wrestlers and changing the presentation in other ways that don't really mesh with what attracted longtime fans to ROH in the first place.

Davey and Eddie have been two of the guys that fans have latched onto as "authentic" ROH wrestlers, and given all the time they spent main eventing ROH shows both as ROH World Champions and ROH World Tag Team Champions, I don't think I'm out of line by saying that ROH may not have been able to chug along as well as they have without the Wolves. While there will always be somebody to step up and take their spots if they leave, they would take a lot of the heart and soul of the company with them if they do end up leaving for good.

Speaking of people longtime fans have latched onto, I really wonder what the plan is for Mark Briscoe. While a big focus has obviously been put on Jay Briscoe returning and getting inserted into the main event of Final Battle, Mark has just kind of been there. He may have won a match here or there when I wasn't looking, but it seems like he's lost just about every match he's had since the Briscoes returned to ROH a couple of months ago.

I really hope there is something on the horizon for Mark, who is booked to wrestle Silas Young in a strap match at Final Battle that seems to have been thrown together just to give him something to do. I don't want to see him portrayed as Jay's sidekick, but I also don't want to see the Briscoes just go back to teaming up and chasing the tag title because it's been done to death.

Hey, here's an idea: give him the TV Title, then build to a rematch with Jay where Jay is now challenging him, and have Mark go over. I think that would give Mark back some of his street cred, and give us another big match to build to for the Anniversary Show or the Wrestlemania weekend events.

Let's wrap by talking about the apparent end of Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander as a team following their loss to reDRagon over the weekend. The team didn't end violently, they just announced that they need to go their own ways and see what they could accomplish on their own, but I'm not sold that it'll be a heck of a lot.

Don't get me wrong, they're both very talented, but I think the reason they've mostly been on the hamster wheel the last few years is that neither of them has really shown an ability to connect with the fans outside of hitting big spots in their matches. It could be that Cedric is secretly a promo wizard and we've just never seen it, but I think we've got a pretty good idea of what Coleman brings to the table in that regard, and I just don't see that either guy is going to mean more by themselves than they do as a team.

That's it for today, feel free to pass your feedback along to stupwinsider@gmail.com, and thanks for reading!

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