Tony Khan’s purchase of Ring of Honor has been a hot topic since the news was announced, even though the future of where the company is headed is still unclear. ROH championships, performers, and mentions have been all over AEW television in the last couple of months, and though it is nice for AEW to acknowledge the wider wrestling world, and the history of several of their own talents, not everything about this ROH integration onto AEW TV is working. A recent episode of Dynamite which was headlined by an ROH match is proof that spotlighting another company so much isn’t perhaps the correct move.
AEW Feels Bloated With The Addition Of ROH Championships
A lot of wrestling fans were excited about Khan’s acquiring ROH, with the company looking to be on its last legs before he purchased it. Many of those fans also watch AEW, with several of the current roster being ROH alumni, so it felt like a match made in heaven. The ROH Men’s, Women’s, Tag, and TV belts had been making their way around the independent scene following the release of all contracted talents from the company, with those now titles also able to appear on AEW programming.
Khan has taken full advantage of having a large roster, with the belief that several of the names in AEW who perhaps aren’t as heavily featured, will begin making more regular appearances in ROH, whenever the company starts up again properly. Thus far, Samoa Joe had won the ROH World Television Title, Wheeler Yuta has become the ROH Pure Champion, FTR has won the Tag Team Titles, and Mercedes Martinez recently became the Undisputed Women’s World Champion. Right now, with ROH not having its own show, the championship title situation on AEW TV feels crowded, with a recent main event between Deonna Purrazzo and Mercedes Martinez being evidence of that.
AEW Fans Didn’t Care Much For The ROH Women’s Championship Main Event
Women’s wrestling has been the subject of some criticism within AEW, so seeing two women main event Dynamite is always welcomed. However, it was between two women who the audience was clearly unfamiliar with. Martinez has been signed to AEW since late last year, but her involvement on TV has been minor, with a brief program with the likes of Britt Baker before a face turn that didn’t lead to much. With Purrazzo, this was her first-ever appearance in AEW, so for those who don’t avidly follow other promotions such as Impact, then it is no surprise that the crowd didn’t react too strongly when she emerged.
AEW hadn’t built to this match on TV, so the audience had no reason to really care for it, with it being unclear who to cheer for. The match was wrestled well, but it suffered from a severe lack of heat, which wasn’t at the fault of the two talented performers inside the ring. With two women’s titles on AEW TV already, being asked to care about another title belt that was appearing on the show for the first time was a big ask, especially when the title was featured in the main event. AEW is clearly trying to make ROH feel important, but just giving it the main event spot detracts from the rest of the show, with the final match just feeling out of place.
The Focus On ROH Is In Good Faith But Isn’t Working Well Enough In AEW
This isn’t the first time AEW has featured an ROH match in the main event, with FTR defending the ROH World Tag Team Titles against The Young Bucks a few weeks back. This match was fantastic, but the focus was more on the feud between the two times, rather than the belts, with fans not being overly familiar with the titles. The same can be said for Samoa Joe's main eventing against Minoru Suzuki too, with the ROH Television Title on the line. The hype was all about the dream match, rather than the belt itself.
A big issue with featuring the ROH Championships is that there are still no revealed plans about the future of the company, which will leave many people feeling apprehensive about whether to get invested or simply indifferent to who holds the championships due to it not mattering too much to AEW storylines or titles. The slightly altered rules to matches in addition to unfamiliar names have led to ROH matches feeling like a completely different world to everything else on TV, which is currently a negative, especially when these matches get placed in the main event of the show. If AEW wants to continue giving ROH these spots, then more build and attention needs to go into them, and detailing of plans going forwards needs to come sooner rather than later, or this will indeed remain a failed experiment.