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ROH Death Before Dishonor 2022 - 23 July 2022


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1 minute ago, Matt D said:

I was just thinking there wasn't as much harm not hotshotting the whole Gresham vs Moriarty story but drawing it out a little more and having it open last night's show then have Claudio make the save at the end of the show. That might have been the initial plan that would have gotten Gresham another month or two as Champ depending on when they'd want to blow it off (maybe Grand Slam). But they had to debut Claudio early so it just made sense to scoot up the title switch.

I think Khan wanted his guys in as soon as possible and obviously Gresham wasn't a Khan guy.  I'm more amazed at the Brian Cage story.  TK is a weirdo with too much money.

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It sounds like Gresham wanted to continue being the focus of ROH and Khan didn't want to confront him with what he had in mind (not having Jonathan Gresham being the focus of ROH.)

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2 hours ago, Tarheel Moneghetti said:

Have other talent made this same accusation?  I mean ones that aren’t bitter?  I have no idea if he has a valid complaint or not, but I tend to take accusations with a grain of salt when the dude hurling them at me is yelling over his shoulder as he’s shown the door.  I know nothing about Gresham out of the ring - no idea who his wife is, though she’s probably in the business since she was mentioned in this thread - but he seems to have an inflated idea of his worth and a bit of a Napoleon’s complex.   Not to mention he seems kinda emotional and bitter.  I’m not taking anything he says at the moment at face value. 

Chavo said after doing the Andrade angle and then going to work on young rock he couldn't get a response. I'm on the side of talent on this one, not returning messages is kind of a  pet peeve of mine. It takes ten seconds just do it 

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I respect Tony's ambition but he's just got too many irons in the fire. It also sounds like he's too concerned with being seen as one of the boys and doesn't want to be the bad guy. Unfortunately being in a position of management means that you occasionally have to do just that as far as letting guys know you don't have the place for them that they want, or maybe not a place at all. Having the backstage atmosphere be a positive place people like to be and giving wrestlers latitude to do what they want comes with the price of people wanting spots on the card or angles that just don't work out for the bigger picture. Avoiding people and hoping they'll just stop showing up when you stop paying them instead of just flat out telling them they're future endeavored isn't a way to run things.

Tony just needs to put together a committee that shares his vision (providing he has one) for ROH and just step back and concentrate on his other projects. Let them handle the booking and operations and run things by him periodically to sign off or whatever. You've got Sonjay and Daniels there who are well suited to the role and bringing Delirous back is also an option. You know who else I'd bring in for the back end of things? Jimmy Jacobs. He's a veteran who was around for the boom period, was on WWE creative (I don't know what ideas were his, but he obviously knows how to be part of a writing committee) and is a really creative guy. He'd be a good asset backstage.

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2 hours ago, grilledcheese said:

Can someone fill me in on how he landed as the World Champ? Did it not have something to do with Bandido and some COVID shit?

I believe the extended timeline was something like this.. Delirious was the head of creative for a longggg stretch. After the MSG show with New Japan caused New Japan to end their working relationship they needed to replace Delirious as head of creative. In an effort to keep him from going to the upstart AEW, they signed Marty Scurl to a big deal and made him head of creative. Then the pandemic hit, and right in the beginning speaking out happened. Scurl was suspended indefinitely and eventually released when his allegations came out.

During that time Gresham became the head of creative. They ran limited shows due to the pandemic. Bandido got Covid and couldn't defend to the title at the "last" ROH before before the planned hiatus. So Gresham booked the dual champion gimmick so the final show could still have a world title match. Similar to how AEW handles interim titles. Him vs Bandido was booked for the WM return weekend show to unify the titles. TK stayed with the booking of Grehsam over and signed him to a deal afterwards.

Edited by NoFistsJustFlips
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3 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

People who want to take the company’s side will always paint people making that accusation as bitter, so nobody should be rushing to engage with this type of thinking as though it’s in good faith. 

Anyway, since you said you didn’t know, he’s married to Jordynne Grace.

I’m not taking the company’s side, fwiw.  I don’t follow AEW all that closely, so I don’t have an opinion either way.  I was just curious if other people had made the same point.  I am not longer curious so I’ll leave the conversation to you,

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24 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

I believe the extended timeline was something like this.. Delirious was the head of creative for a longggg stretch. After the MSG show with New Japan caused New Japan to end their working relationship they needed to replace Delirious as head of creative. In an effort to keep him from going to the upstart AEW, they signed Marty Scurl to a big deal and made him head of creative. Then the pandemic hit, and right in the beginning speaking out happened. Scurl was suspended indefinitely and eventually released when his allegations came out.

I was under the impression that Delirious was still the head of creative during that entire stretch all the way to the end. Scurll was transitioning in under Delirious, but the only thing I heard he had booked was a nostagia show that was cancelled due to the pandemic. And then he was suspended as you said. Can somebody back up NJPW pulling out of their working relationship with ROH over the MSG show? I saw an ROH show here in Toronto with NJPW talent well after that MSG show. I don't recall any official announcement of the ROH/NJPW working relationship being finished prior to the pandemic. I don't even remember one during the pandemic. It seemed to just play out that ROH wasn't doing shows and NJPW started working with AEW and Impact. That said, I'm guessing I missed something.

I'd never heard of the Final Battle title win being Gresham's call, but I'm interested to know more. 

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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5 hours ago, Craig H said:

Given Gresham’s comments earlier in the week, I’d say it’s about doing a job and doing that job to a white wrestler that has been perceived of in the past as having no character.

Pretty rich coming from a guy whose character is “short strong man who wrestles well”

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1 hour ago, HumanChessgame said:

I respect Tony's ambition but he's just got too many irons in the fire. It also sounds like he's too concerned with being seen as one of the boys and doesn't want to be the bad guy. Unfortunately being in a position of management means that you occasionally have to do just that as far as letting guys know you don't have the place for them that they want, or maybe not a place at all. Having the backstage atmosphere be a positive place people like to be and giving wrestlers latitude to do what they want comes with the price of people wanting spots on the card or angles that just don't work out for the bigger picture. Avoiding people and hoping they'll just stop showing up when you stop paying them instead of just flat out telling them they're future endeavored isn't a way to run things.

Tony just needs to put together a committee that shares his vision (providing he has one) for ROH and just step back and concentrate on his other projects. Let them handle the booking and operations and run things by him periodically to sign off or whatever. You've got Sonjay and Daniels there who are well suited to the role and bringing Delirous back is also an option. You know who else I'd bring in for the back end of things? Jimmy Jacobs. He's a veteran who was around for the boom period, was on WWE creative (I don't know what ideas were his, but he obviously knows how to be part of a writing committee) and is a really creative guy. He'd be a good asset backstage.

Jimmy Jacobs was behind the Jericho/ Owens angle with the Festival Of Friendship, is one thing. 

Edited by Johnny Sorrow
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56 minutes ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Can somebody back up NJPW pulling out of their working relationship with ROH over the MSG show? I saw an ROH show here in Toronto with NJPW talent well after that MSG show.

From what I remember they continued out the working agreement to the contractual conclusion after the MSG show, but the MSG was the tipping point where they made up their mind to not renew the working relationship when the deal did end. Not telling your partner that you're running a worked-shoot run in from two very toxic performers at the time (one of which has already done a legit shoot attempt at hijacking a WWE PPV) is some minor league shindy shit. A New Japan tag team was out there while Enzo & Cass did their run in / fight segment and all indications are ROH did not clue NJPW in on that happening ahead of time. So GOD got wrapped up n what they thought was a legitimate fight out there.

As for the booker timeline, I could have it a bit mixed up. But I thought Delirious was out and Scurl was in. Full time. Total control. But the timing of it was that it was almost directly before the pandemic. So not much actually happened under Scurl's leadership.

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3 hours ago, Belgian_Waffle said:

I had never heard of Dalton Castle before last night and enjoyed his act but did a double take when the announcers mentioned he's a former ROH World Champ. Was comedy less of an aspect of his character when he was champ or was he a credible champion in spite of (because of??) the comedy? 

His whole thing when he was champ was that while his persona was kind of silly, he was a serious competitor with a legit amateur background and he could go. These days he leans more into the comedy schtick because, as other have mentioned, he suffered a pretty severe back injury and needs to wrestle in a back brace, which is why he started pulling his trunks up to his nipples. 

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A lot of the NJPW/ROH issues all came from when Bubba was also doing creative (he was the one behind Enzo/Cass).  There was also a bit of heat between the two companies with RoH pushing to have the Taven/Lethal/Scurll match go on last over Okada/White.  I'm pretty sure Cary, Delirious, and Bubba were the only 3 in that building that thought more people were there for RoH than NJPW.

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1 hour ago, JLowe said:

Pretty rich coming from a guy whose character is “short strong man who wrestles well”

But isn't that his point? Why is it okay for Claudio's character to be "strong guy who wrestles well" but it's not okay for Gresham?

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I’m sure people will disagree with me, but Gresham is only a guy who wrestles well and even on that front, it’s a boring style. He doesn’t emote at all when he’s applying holds so he’s never selling the struggle or making it look painful for the other person. He’s never looked strong to me, his striking looks extremely soft, and there’s not much that’s terribly exciting to him. It also doesn’t help that he looks shorter than Taz.

Claudio puts in way more into his matches in all aspects. I don’t think the two are remotely comparable.

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27 minutes ago, mystman said:

But isn't that his point? Why is it okay for Claudio's character to be "strong guy who wrestles well" but it's not okay for Gresham?

Craig H answered really well right above this. I don’t think that’s an accurate assessment of Claudio on Gresham’s part.

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1 hour ago, mystman said:

But isn't that his point? Why is it okay for Claudio's character to be "strong guy who wrestles well" but it's not okay for Gresham?

Who is the decision-maker for this "not okay" status? It's totally okay for him to have that character, and he and Claudio are very similar in that respect. 

My favorite wrestler of all-time is Dean Malenko, I'd never shit on a guy for being small and stoic and a wrestling machine. But goddamn, dude, make it look like actual combat in some way!! Gresham's entire existence as a pro wrestler is "dig all this slick shit I can do". 

I feel like it sort of seems like Gresham is being salty because Claudio is a bigger star than he is, and as such is looked upon as a more important piece of talent. 

If Jonathan Gresham thinks he should be ROH champ because he is a "better wrestler", that's real fucking dumb. I think Claudio is a thousand times better, because I feel more emotion and connection to what is happening. Gresham is technically gifted, but he treats holds like performance art. 

EDIT- I should load the replies while I am typing, @Craig Hmade the exact same points, in a much more succinct manner.

Edited by grilledcheese
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3 hours ago, Matt D said:

I was just thinking there wasn't as much harm not hotshotting the whole Gresham vs Moriarty story but drawing it out a little more and having it open last night's show then have Claudio make the save at the end of the show. That might have been the initial plan that would have gotten Gresham another month or two as Champ depending on when they'd want to blow it off (maybe Grand Slam). But they had to debut Claudio early so it just made sense to scoot up the title switch.

I could be recalling wrong because I watched it late, but in Claudio’s media scrum, TK basically said that with Danielson’s injury it completely changed the build of the ROH PPV. With the idea being a mystery wrestler of Ring of Honor’s past would appear. For some reason I thought that meant he would be Gresham’s mystery opponent still, but I could have completely misread what was being said. Maybe Gresham was losing to Claudio regardless?

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I guess I'm just feeling salty about how this all went down. I've been a big fan of ROH for years now, and I feel ambivalent with all their champs losing to AEW guys. I love Claudio, and the FTR vs. Briscoes matches have been amazing. I guess I wish it was a longer transition, with more build up. Maybe a big ROH vs. AEW event. I dunno, but I keep thinking how'd people would've reacted if Vince bought them out and did the same thing. 

Sorry if I'm rambling, and I'm not trying to start an argument. I know it all makes sense. I know TK has to make the changes he thinks are best. But it just really bugs me how this has all gone down.

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2 hours ago, Blue Dragon said:

PWTorch said Gresham has been fired.

I tried to go to PWTorch, but it wouldn't let me navigate away from a picture of toenail fungus.

I wish I was kidding.

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3 minutes ago, Dog said:

I tried to go to PWTorch, but it wouldn't let me navigate away from a picture of toenail fungus.

I wish I was kidding.

Just block ads.

Other websites have Gresham asked to be released.  And he will quit wrestling,

He did delete his terminus twitter.

 

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