WWE News: WWE Upset With Ring Of Honor After They Beat Out WWE NXT In Ticket Sales
Ring of Honor has produced some of the biggest stars in pro-wrestling history. Some do not realize the extent of ROH’s impact and what they’ve done for the world of wrestling by discovering and developing talent into stars before they became involved with companies such as TNA or WWE. People like Seth Rollins, AJ Styles, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Luke Harper, Cesaro, and many more all came out of ROH before they landed more high-profile gigs.
ROH has truly had an impact on the wrestling business few can compare to others on the Independent scene. This is why people have grown into big ROH fans and why many feel the next generation of stars will come from there before they end up in a bigger company. That said, WWE is not a big fan of the company. The reason for this is that ROH has taken advantage of WrestleMania week every single year for quite a long time.
This year, Ring of Honor happened to be in New York at the same time WWE had its big WWE SummerSlam event. They were going to be performing that Saturday while SummerSlam happened the following day like always. Interestingly, WWE felt this would be the perfect time to see the power of WWE NXT, and they ended up doing a Takeover event that had Bayley vs. Sasha Banks and Kevin Owens vs. Finn Balor in a ladder match as the co-main events.
The Barclays Center where NXT was at ended up selling out, whereas ROH did not do as well. Keep in mind, however, this was a huge show that went on live on the WWE Network. This is different from a random live event. Don’t tell that to WWE, however.
According to Daily Wrestling News, WWE is very upset with ROH after they beat them out in ticket numbers. During WWE Night of Champions weekend, WWE NXT did some live events that went up against ROH. WWE felt confident that they could beat out ROH again as they did last August in Brooklyn, New York. In fact, it was said that WWE was fully aware that ROH was working the same area during the same week, but they chose to go up against them anyway.
Some claim that WWE has lost some face after some ROH stars WWE had an interest in ended up staying with the company. One such name on WWE’s radar is Adam Cole, who actually had surgery and was due for a jump to the WWE whenever he healed up. WWE had an interest in others as well, and the feeling was that they had a real chance to get them in. However, Cole was the golden goose WWE hoped to acquire, as they first saw him at 19 then saw how he progressed since his first tryout.
Then, of course, ROH landed a television deal with Destination America.
This led to many staying, and it even allowed for ROH to branch out of the northeast, where they have been far more successful for their shows. Since ROH is known for their live events far more than their televised material, the events are always worth seeing. However, like any televised promotion, they are obviously heading toward any title changes happening on their TV show or on the iPPVs.
WWE feels that NXT is just as viable a brand running shows like Indy companies such as ROH. Since WWE has several former Independent workers with their company, it makes sense to think that those people can draw across the United States. Sadly, this has not happened everywhere. Although WWE has done well in attendance for all of their live events, they simply did not do better than ROH for one tour.
[IMG Credits: ROHWrestling.com, WWE.com]
