AEW - All Elite Wrestling (*Spoilers for Latest Show*)

Session Moth Martina wrestled a match for Dark Elevation. Delighted for her!

Called it.

Tony is definitely not a public speaker

TONY KHAN ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE RING OF HONOR

— Video Library, Brand Assets, Intellectual Property from Independent Professional Wrestling’s Most Prestigious Promotion Purchased Under New Partnership with Tony Khan —

March 2, 2022 — Moments ago on AEW: Dynamite live on TBS, it was announced that Tony Khan has agreed to acquire the assets of Ring of Honor Wrestling Entertainment, LLC from Sinclair Broadcast Group, including the promotion’s extensive video library dating back to 2002, brand assets, intellectual property, production equipment and more.

Known widely as the independent promotion that birthed some of wrestling’s biggest stars of today, including AEW’s CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, and highlighted dozens of members of the AEW roster, Ring of Honor’s purchase signifies a new chapter in the future of professional wrestling as AEW’s meteoric rise continues to draw the youngest-skewing wrestling audience on television.

“Ring of Honor’s influence on modern professional wrestling is etched permanently in the history books, and this acquisition ensures that its legacy will be kept alive and treated with the utmost respect,” said Tony Khan, CEO of AEW, Chief Football Strategy Officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars and GM/Sporting Director of Fulham F.C. “This deal adds thousands of hours of content to our rapidly growing library and creates new opportunities to expand our footprint on a national and global scale, while having the potential to produce new content under the ROH banner. I will immediately begin exploring opportunities to make ROH’s video library available to fans, who’ll have the opportunity to witness the beginnings of the careers of some of AEW’s biggest stars.”

More than 40 members of the AEW roster have appeared in Ring of Honor during their careers. The promotion launched the careers of numerous AEW superstars, including CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Hangman Page, Dr. Britt Baker and Adam Cole. Additional members of the AEW roster have made their mark in ROH, including the late Brodie Lee, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, ReDragon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly), Best Friends (Chuck Taylor and Trent? Beretta), Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, Matt Sydal, Mercedes Martinez, Serena Deeb, Frankie Kazarian, Scorpio Sky, Keith Lee, Eddie Kingston, Evil Uno, Stu Grayson, QT Marshall, Danhausen, Lance Archer, Griff Garrison, Thunder Rosa, Wheeler Yuta, Luchasaurus, Orange Cassidy, Ethan Page, Austin Gunn, PAC, Kip Sabian, Jon Moxley, John Silver, Alex Reynolds, Jerry Lynn, BJ Whitmer and Sonjay Dutt.

“Ring of Honor has produced some of the best professional wrestlers over the past 20 years, but more importantly, it created a family. I will be forever grateful to everyone in the ROH family who has worked tirelessly for the past two decades to take ROH to levels previously unimagined,” said Joe Koff, Chief Operating Officer, Ring of Honor Wrestling. “Tony has the utmost appreciation and respect for Ring of Honor, and I’m truly excited to see how he continues the legacy.”

This acquisition will be completed through an entity that is wholly-owned by Tony Khan. Further details about the extent of this acquisition will be announced in the coming weeks.

So I guess after Tony's announcement, we can expect ROH wrestlers to be added to the forthcoming AEW console game?

I'm curious to see how they use it. I know he said the line about Shane but would they have an invasion type angle? Maybe not like WWE but with ones turning up like how they're doing it in Impact now.

As said above, will this affect the comeback PPV? I have noticed the occasional ROH appearance like Josh Woods was on this week's Dark or Elevation.

ROH don't have any wrestlers under contract so an invasion angle makes no sense, and the ones theyve brought in have gone straight to Dark or barely wrestled. Impact are also running an ROH invasion angle which would just make it worse too.

In relation to the shirt sponsor analogy, that's grand but that's a press statement. They don't interrupt the match on TV to announce it.

Outside of it being a development system, it's basically Dark but with an established name. Not sure if there's even a TV deal for it.

I think its a pretty shrewd move by Khan.

Let's be honest, roh has always been an unofficial developmental system to wwe, tna etc over the last 20 years. Mainly do to its size - roh had a knack of finding good talent and make them indy names. Said talent would naturally go to wwe to earn more money and become stars. Roh always had a revolving door and every few years talent got scooped up.

By buying ROH, Khan has bought an established developmental promotion, with a great track record, that can provide his AEW with the talent of tomorrow.

In the context of pro-wrestling, it is pretty big news imo. AEW is going for what, 2 years? In that short time they have signed some of the biggest names available that still have inring ability and have now bought a rival. They have immediately scaled up in terms of their library and as such, are much more attractive from an investment perspective for a streaming provider. WWE buying ECW was the obvious thing to do and not really big news simply because WWE was a monster at the time, head and shoulders above any other PW outfit. AEW buying ROH is more in line with WWE buying WCW which was big news at the time.

The ROH tape library is a huge deal to AEW with the current contracted AEW roster heavily involved in titles since the beinging of the ROH.

Danielson, Punk, Lynn, Cole, Lethal, O'Reilly, Daniels even Cody if he really is gone are all former ROH champions.

The Second City Saints, Daniels & Sydal, reDRagon, The Young Bucks, The Addiction, The Broken Boys, SoCal Uncensored are all former ROH Tag Champions.

Lethal, Danielson both former ROH Pure champions.

Daniels, Lethal, Cole, Fish all former ROH TV Champions.

If AEW sign Joe, Homicide, The Briscoe's, Rush, Bandido, Greshim they add more value to that library for AEW.

They can sign Briscoes, Gresham etc easily even without buying ROH, assuming they want to work for AEW.

I really don't get how a tape library that no one was watching anyway (was anyone here actually subscribed to Honor Club) a huge get and the AEW brand name is worth more than ROH nowadays so even branding stuff as ROH instead of AEW costs them money.

It gives them All In and opportunity to do documentaries with more footage of their wrestlers but that's about it from a value perspective and that doesn't justify actually hyping it up and having an announcement imo.

Even from a library for a streaming deal perspective. If someone is into AEW, they'll subscribe anyway, the existence of ROH content actually gains very little in terms of subscribers as anyone who's a fan of ROH is probably a fan of AEW anyway.

It's painful watching Khan talk. It's like he's trying to shout and speak at the same time.

As for ROH, meh. An announcement about padding content for a streaming/network deal is fine but doesn't really get my rocks off.

I wonder will NWA & Impact be next up for a purchase.

Impact would have another 20 years of a tape library.

If they're looking for a tape library for documentaries, it should be Chikara with how much of their talent is from there. The only actual ones you could hype up are WWE (not happening) or some deal for shared content with NJPW.