Kelly: “ROH roster impresses me more everyday”

Kevin Kelly penned a great column at Wrestlezone.com talking about a slew of topics, including deaths in professional wrestling and the atmosphere at Ring of Honor, where he now works calling PPV matches.

In particular, I thought it was interesting how he described a Tyler Black interview in which the ROH champion spoke of the  locker room banning chairshots to the head themselves, not waiting for a ruling from “the office.” These guys put their bodies on the line and the long-term effects of a cheap pop aren’t worth it – just look at Chris Benoit.

ROH is a unique and entertaining product, if you ask me. They’re vastly different from WWE and TNA, which I assume is part of their business model. It’s going to work for them. They might never be recognized on a global marketing level like WWE, but niche brands still have a spot in the marketplace. If they have a solid business sense behind, they should continue to survive and even thrive.

ECW was a niche brand and Paul Heyman helped the brand carve out quite a spot for itself in the wrestling landscape. And if the business end was handled better, and the promotion was able to land on another network in time after getting the shaft from TNN, then maybe they would still be around today.