This past Wednesday Ring of Honor Wrestling announced that it would cease operations as a full-time company with the inference that it would be back sometime in 2022.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group is the parent company of the promotion and its weekly show airs regularly across of the Sinclair Family of networks across the country. Yet, the pandemic hurt the company’s revenue, causing the shutdown which includes releasing all of its talent from their contract. However, SI reports talent stating that mismanagement at the top contributed to the promotion’s downfall.
— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) October 27, 2021
According to the report from SI, all talent with contracts expiring on or before March 31, 2022 will be paid out for the duration of their deal. Contracts extending beyond March 31 would be negotiated between ROH and the talent regarding a buyout.
The company plans to revamp its business strategy with hopes of coming back in the first quarter of 2022.
The fall of ROH is due in part to the pandemic and the report that it continued to pay talent despite no shows and with the loss of crowds, it lost money. With the success of MLW and AEW along with the burgeoning “forbidden door” allowing independent wrestlers to truly be ‘independent,’ professional wrestling is on a roll. Yet, ROH seemed to be behind the curve. Whether the organization failed in retaining star talent like The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Adam Cole.
While WWE receives a great amount of its revenue through licensing and television deals, ticket revenues are a big part of their business. Without live shows in 2020 and most of 2021 for ROH as well as the inability to keep top talent (with many leaving for AEW), the closure was bound to occur.
We shall see if ROH can come back. The problem being is that the talent will can now move on and may not return to ROH as they will have found new homes.
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