WWE Acquisition of ROH Talent: Good for Business or Bad for Wrestling?

WWE recently acquired another Ring of Honor talent with the signing of Chris Spradlin, best known as Chris Hero, to a development deal.

Hero is currently working matches in WWE’s development promotion, Florida Championship Wrestling, and is called Kassius Ohno.  WWE changed his name because they prefer to rebrand all acquisitions to squash even the notion that their talent has existed elsewhere.

For example, if one were to perform an Internet search of the name “Chris Hero,” many other wrestling promotions would show up in the search, whereas only FCW would show up in a search of “Kassius Ohno.”

Hero (I am refusing whenever possible to call him the other name—he’ll always be Hero to me) joins fellow ROH alumni who have made the jump to the WWE: CM Punk, Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan), Tyler Black (Seth Rollins in Florida Championship Wrestling) and Hero’s former tag-team partner Claudio Castagnoli (currently called Antonio Cesaro in FCW).  There are rumors in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter of The Briscoes being headhunted as well, but I haven’t verified if they’ve signed yet.

I’ve read many articles on Bleacher Report and other Internet Wrestling Community sites lauding WWE for the acquisition, hoping that Hero will bring some of his indie-awesomeness to the mainstream. 

Many members of the IWC also hope that WWE will reunite Hero with his ROH tag-team partner and reunite the Kings of Wrestling—one of the most impressive and entertaining tag-teams in recent memory—within WWE. 

However, we’ve see WWE’s recent record with tag-team wrestling.  Long gone are the days of the Road Warriors and Demolition, of the Heart Foundation and the Rockers, of Edge and Christian, the Hardy Boys and the Dudleys.

Every once in a while WWE begrudgingly puts a tag-team match on TV, but the lack of direction and hype around the matches and feuds, the unwillingness to give adequate push to the teams or the division, show that someone at the top (Vince McMahon) doesn’t give a lick about tag-team wrestling. 

As fantastic as it would be to see the KOW wrestling another legitimate team (and I can’t even fathom who that could be) for the WWE tag-team championship on a pay-per-view, we can be fairly sure it won’t happen. 

If WWE were to reunite KOW, it would acknowledge their previous existence in another promotion. 

Even without the possibility of a KOW reunion, there’s still the hope of Chris Hero getting a major push, finally being the star we’ve seen him to be the last decade in ROH and other indie wrestling promotions, right?  I don’t know about that.

CM Punk’s success in WWE is something of an anomaly—and it took years to happen.  Daniel Bryan is currently getting a push, but something about his push doesn’t feel genuine or long term.  Would he be getting the push if Randy Orton wasn’t injured?  Sure, Bryan is getting a push, but WWE isn’t letting him be himself—he’s not the American Dragon, Bryan Danielson, that ROH fans went out of their minds watching.

Remember how much everyone loved the two Undertaker versus Shawn Michaels matches at WrestleMania?  Danielson used to put on matches like those at least once a month.

In WWE, Danielson has been turned into a sad parody of himself.  In WWE, Daniel Bryan is a weirdo who is defined by his veganism and a delusion that his nondescript indie past made him great—the heel subtext tells WWE fans not to believe in his past greatness.

I’m sure WWE is rationalizing his switch in direction because Bryan wasn’t getting over as a face, but the reason he wasn’t getting over as a face was because they weren’t booking him correctly.  Danielson got over with fans in ROH by putting on one-hour wrestling matches that were sixty minutes of awesomeness.

Wrestling doesn’t matter in the WWE—catch phrases matter—T-shirts matter.  WWE would much rather push someone to a WrestleMania main event because he’s got a good set of pipes and can yell that he’s awesome rather than someone who is actually awesome at wrestling.  Have you seen Danielson’s ROH matches?  If you haven’t, go find some.  You’ll wonder why you ever tuned in WWE.

And CM Punk?  I couldn’t be happier about the push he’s gotten in the last year.

I was blown away by his infamous “shoot” promo.  He wore a Stone Cold Steve Austin T-shirt, called Vince on his B.S. and looked into the camera and said hi to his Second City Saints partner.

I just about jumped through the ceiling in my living room when Punk said the name “Colt Cabana” on WWE television.  I thought, could this be it?  Could the change the Internet Wrestling Community has been clamoring for actually be happening?

There were rumors of Vince stepping back, of Triple H taking control—there was so much promise building up—an acquisition of Bryan Danielson and Mistico—I had fantasies of a CM Punk versus Danielson WrestleMania main event—something that would remind fans of Bret Heart versus Shawn Michaels.

But all that heat fizzled.  Triple H inserted himself into the action—interrupting an excellent feud Punk was working with John Cena—Cena’s best feud by the way and probably his best match too.  It was a great time—even John Cena could be awesome.  (I’m neither a Cena hater nor a Cenation member—but that’s another article.)

Now we’re left with a WrestleMania consisting of Triple H versus the Undertaker for the eleven-teenth time in a “who-the-hell-cares match” and Cena versus Rocky in a “who-is-a-bigger-sports-entertainer match.”

For a short time, I was moderately interested in Punk versus Jericho, but I’ve lost interest in that too because I know the actual match can’t live up to the hype.

So, is the WWE better for having acquired all the ROH talent?

Theoretically, yes.  They could be.  The potential is there.

In reality, I can’t see the potential manifesting in WWE programming.  Maybe WWE would be better if they stopped thinking the be-all and end-all of wrestling was Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant.  Has anyone actually watched that match recently?  It was boring as hell.  Sure, there was great hype going into it—Vince used to be a great promoter—but the match was weak, with the stare-down lasting longer than the athletic competition, culminating in Hulk body-slamming Andre and wining in about three minutes with the same old guillotine leg-drop he used in every other match he ever worked. 

Compare that match to CM Punk and Samoa Joe, or Bryan Danielson and Tyler Black, or Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards beating the hell out of each other for an hour, performing death-defying moves and combinations, mixing multiple fighting styles, hitting each other with stiff kicks and chops, bleeding, not because of a blood packet, but because they are hitting each other that bleeping hard.

Okay, so even if Vince won’t call it “wrestling” any longer.  The matches themselves have to be entertaining enough to be called “entertainment.”  All right, then.  You want entertainment?  Which WrestleMania card sounds more entertaining? 

The current option: The Rock versus Cena, Undertaker versus Triple H (again) and CM Punk versus Jericho.

Or:

The dream option: CM Punk versus Tyler Black, Bryan Danielson versus Davey Richards and the Kings of Wrestling versus the Briscoes.

I know WWE apologists say that the indies don’t run storylines, that they don’t know how to hype matches, but I can’t believe that.

Go watch ROH’s “Final Battle 2011,” “Best in the World 2011” or “Young Wolves Rising” and tell me those matches weren’t promoted well.  The only complaints you can make about ROH pay-per-views are that they don’t have high quality cameras.

Money is the one thing WWE has over ROH.

That money enables WWE to utilize top-of-line production values in their programming. And, that money means they can pay their talent.  The one silver lining to talent like Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli going to WWE is that they will finally get paid for the years they’ve put in on the indies, working for peanuts.

They deserve it.

They deserve all the John Cena-money they can eat.

WWE becoming more like the indies is not the solution nor is recapturing the glory of the Attitude Era.  In a perfect world, all of the ROH talent would return to the ROH.  The true dream of the IWC should be making ROH the top professional wrestling promotion.

The top stars wouldn’t make the jump to WWE for a bigger venue and paycheck.  They wouldn’t need to because fans would support ROH.

Imagine a wrestling world in which ROH’s roster is populated by its former stars: CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Tyler Black, Austin Aries, Colt Cabana, Homicide (permanently), Low Ki and Amazing Red (permanently).

Imagine that group competing against ROH’s remaining talent: Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, the Briscoes, El Generico, Kevin Steen, Jay Lethal, Kyle O’Reilly, Adam Cole, TJ Perkins, the All Night Express and the Young Bucks. 

Imagine if they were joined by the other top talent: AJ Styles, The Motor City Machine Guns, Beer Money, Elijah Burke and Johnny Moxley.  Any of these stars would be even bigger stars if ROH were what it should be. 

I’m not only an ROH mark.  I grew up with WWF.  I want WWE to be great.  But I’ve lost faith—even if they have some legitimate, young homegrown talent, I’d rather see Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston, Sheamus and Jack Swagger jump to ROH.  These wrestlers have been so underutilized in WWE that, frankly, I’m not sure they could work a 40-minute ROH pay-per-view match. 

WWE just doesn’t give their talent the opportunity; we’ve yet to see any of them wrestle matches that are as long or intense as ROH matches.

Even worse, promising talent like Ted Dibiase Jr., Drew McIntyre, Zack Ryder, Alex Riley, Justin Gabriel, Tyson Kidd, Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks are never given more than five-minute matches, so we really don’t know what they can do. 

But this isn’t a perfect world.  We won’t find out if Ryder and Gabriel can work 40-minute matches.  Vince won’t do that.  He just doesn’t see the profit.

What’s happening in wrestling is a microcosm of the capitalist leviathan devouring the small business. 

It’s Walmart killing Mom & Pop stores.  Wall Street gets richer; main street gets poorer.  Remember that whole “Corporation” angle WWE ran in the late 90s? That’s what’s going on now, but it isn’t kayfabe anymore.

The corporation continues its decimation of indie wrestling in the name of sports entertainment, offering a stale product, but it’s virtually the only product in town, so people eat it up, giving Vince their money—more and more money—and that money isn’t improving the product, not in the PG era—no, Vince has to keep it PG, so Linda McMahon can run for congress and try to change those pesky laws that ask billionaires to pay their fair share.

Is there an answer?  I don’t know.  We’re not going to put the genie back in the bottle.  Punk and Danielson and Black and Hero aren’t going back to ROH.  And they aren’t getting to be themselves, the true talents that they are, in WWE. 

All I can do is buy an ROH DVD and hope the 20 bucks helps them resign Davey Richards (because it’s not just a clever title: he is the best in the world, but that’s another article).  Because you better believe WWE is going after him next, not because they want to utilize his talent on the grandest stage, but because they want to destroy ROH and make you spend that 20 bucks, plus fifteen more, on a “Team Bring It” T-Shirt.