I know what you're thinking:
Ring of Honor is in serious trouble.
Jay Briscoe and his brother Mark are gone from Ring of Honor.
ROH should just say, "Good riddance" to the American Wolves!
Well I, Xan, say...
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
After they won the Monday Night War, who thought the WWE would ever have wolves at the door again, huh?
XanMan: After a long hiatus, I'd like to welcome everybody to The X-Change. Joining me for its return is none other than the man who has no H's, but three R's. The man who came up with the name "ShaneCount" for the fictional stable of former LOP Main Pagers Shane and yours truly, Shane McMahon, and "Sugar" Shane Helms. Ladies and gentleman, TripleR.
TripleR: Thanks for having me aboard Xan. It's truly a privilege to be asked to join you in the return of the X-Change. As for "ShaneCount", I eagerly await your first single together. Maybe you can get 3MB to be your air band. So what's on your mind today Xan?
Xan: Airheads is more like it. Trips, I've been pretty down for the last couple of weeks. I was listening to Trippin' Out on LOPR--where you can catch The Weekend Update every Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern Time--and I heard you mention how Ring of Honor announced it was no longer going to be airing live internet pay per views and then, about an hour after that, rumors broke out that the Briscoes were done with ROH, as well, which was especially embarrassing because Jay Briscoe was the World Heavyweight Champion. I immediately started thinking that this was the death of ROH. Now I'm not so sure. Things have happened since that got me thinking that maybe this thing is all a work, along the lines of the Chikara collapse rumors. What say you?
Trips: Well let me just say this to start. More people are talking about Ring of Honor in the past month or so than they have in the past year. The problem though is that not all publicity is good publicity. With RoH's seemingly unfixable problem with the iPPV's, the Briscoes possibly leaving RoH, and now possibly losing The American Wolves, Ring of Honor MIGHT be walking the tightrope of doom right now. They seem to be trying to salvage some buzz with their RoH Title Tournament, but that brings us back to the focus of this piece- are Jay and Mark Briscoe really gone from Ring of Honor?
All reports say they're no longer under contract. Jay Briscoe has been stripped of the RoH title, and Mark Briscoe has been completely MIA since the end of the TV Tapings in Baltimore immediately following "Best in the World". The story is that they're injured, but who knows. If they're no longer with the company, why are both of them still listed on the Ring of Honor website in the Roster section? The thought of them still being in Ring of Honor has certainly crossed my mind. But what would the end game be for that? That is the real question I have, and I'm hoping you have some sort of idea where it might be headed. What do you think Xan?
Xan: What I'm thinking is that this is going to end up being some kind of new company-wide angle. I mean, obviously, the whole ippv thing is legit, but everything else to me just screams "work." It didn't for the first few days, but the moment I saw the intense promo Jay Briscoe cut demanding that he remain ROH Champion--that was *sponsored by Ring of Honor with spoiler disclaimers*, all the talk that the Briscoes were gone from the company suddenly seemed the opposite of legit to me. After all, why would the company sponsor that promo and why would Jay agree to do it if they weren't still working together?
For better or for worse, the S.C.U.M. angle is now over, and what I'm thinking is this thing with the Briscoes and the American Wolves--and others may be added--is going to replace it. Those four men embody three out of the last four world champions and have held the tag team titles, as well. If Michael Elgin or somebody else new wins the World Title, they could say that they're embodying the old guard that have been pushed aside by Nigel McGuinness and current ROH management after all they did to fight off S.C.U.M. They saved the company and now are being shown the door. This is no longer the Ring of Honor they fought for and they're going to fight to get their company back.
Trips: Do you really think Ring of Honor has the forethought to pull something like that off? Let's look at what's been going on there most recently since Kevin Steen was RoH Champion. He started as a member of S.C.U.M., but during the course of that he got such insane crowd pops that RoH probably pulled the trigger to soon and turned him face, thus completely diminishing the S.C.U.M angle, replacing him essentially in the group with Matt Hardy, a man that Ring of Honor fans absolutely hated seeing show up in RoH. During all this, seemingly out of nowhere, Jay Briscoe won the RoH World Title. I don't think anybody saw that coming. After the reports came out that he won, most people were pretty surprised it happened. S.C.U.M continued on, and RoH had the chance to really make something happen after Best in the World had they defeated the RoH team in Steel Cage Warfare (which will air in a couple of weeks). See, I don't think Ring of Honor can think that far in advance to make the Briscoe/Wolves situation a work. If they had the creativity to do that, then why didn't they keep S.C.U.M. intact. It would have only added to the angle even more.
Let me explain what I mean by that. With S.C.U.M in control, and the Ring of Honor team in disarray, someone would have had to step up to save RoH. With the team of Steen, Whitmer, Lethal, and Elgin unable to do it, where else was there for Nigel and Ring of Honor to turn? They'd have to turn to the American Wolves and the Briscoes to save the day. But how could they do that, if the Wolves and Briscoes no longer under contract to Ring of Honor? See that's where that angle SHOULD have gone, but right now, I just don't see how it works. You mentioned that they would come back to fight to get their company back, but get it back from whom? There really isn't anybody tearing apart Ring of Honor right now. S.C.U.M is gone, a new World Champion will be crowned, and the Briscoes and Wolves are nowhere to be found. What would they be fighting for?
Xan: What I'm saying is that they (The Briscoes) got injured fighting for Ring of Honor against S.C.U.M. What was their reward for that? Jay was stripped of his World Heavyweight Championship, while Mark just gets to sit on the shelf for awhile. When they return, they come back to somebody else being the World Champion, the contracts of both the American Wolves have expired, and they feel like the company they've loved for so long has turned its back on them. They may not like Richards and Edwards, but they hate even more that the company isn't re-signing them and paying them what they're worth. All four of these guys, two world tag team championship teams, three out of four of them being World Champions, and yet none of them getting the respect they deserve. They're pissed. They want revenge on the ROH "new blood."
Jay passionately declared that he is still the Ring of Honor World Champion and in the same promo implied strongly that he's the guy to lead ROH into a bright future. He doesn't like what he sees and wants to upset the new world order and bring it back to where the Briscoes--and the Wolves--are the top dogs. Maybe they recruit Paul London and Brian Kendrick into this faction, as well. Let's call them the ROH Stalwarts. They're fighting for nothing so much as respect and the chance to right the perceived wrongs that were done to them by Ring of Honor. All of this would be contingent, of course, on these guys quietly re-signing with ROH, but acting as if they are still free
agents. It's almost like an anti-NWO angle.
Trips: Ugh, you had to go and mention the NWO didn't you. See that's my problem with a lot of promotions nowadays, and that is every promotion trying to recapture lightning in a bottle with their own version of the NWO. Quite frankly, RoH already did that with S.C.U.M. and it turned out to be a miserable failure. So why would you go that route again? I think I'm still struggling with the motivation that anybody but Jay Briscoe would have in this angle. Sure Jay has every right in the world to be irritated. You mentioned the promo he cut asking Nigel not to strip him of the belt. It's one of the most intense promos that I've ever seen in terms of emotion and insanity. But does Mark have a beef? Do the American Wolves have a beef? I'm not so sure and I think it would be a real stretch to go that route.
Let me clarify though, I DO think this could turn into a work. Right now though, I believe that Ring of Honor has given the Briscoes and the Wolves a little bit of room to see what the interest is out there for them. I personally think that both teams are going to be surprised that there ISN'T much interest from either TNA or the WWE.
The WWE has already given the Briscoes try-outs in the past. They've apparently decided to pass on them, and I don't see that changing now. Would they go to the WWE, they certainly wouldn't be the Briscoe Brothers we've come to know in RoH. Frankly, I'd give them about a month before one of them drops the F-Bomb on live TV and gets fired.
The Wolves are way too small for the WWE, plain and simple. Put them in the ring against just about anybody and their going to look about the same size as Hornswoggle. Is TNA an option for either team? Sure they are, but with TNA already making cost-cutting measures, they're probably looking to sign people that they believe are going to make a major impact, and I don't think that's either team. So at the end of the day, whether they had it all planned or not, it probably will turn out to be a semi-work.
Xan: Everything you just said makes perfect sense, but at the same time, I have to wonder why ROH allowed that promo to be cut and put out under their banner if the Briscoes are truly done with ROH. Do the bad feelings not run as deep as were originally reported? Was it an olive branch to try and get them to re-sign? And why would they let four guys whose contracts are so important to the company leave at the same time with seemingly minimal effort to re-sign them? Clearly Ring of Honor isn't as large as WWE, nor does it have as many people reporting about its goings on backstage, but still, you'd think we would have heard something regarding the fact that arguably their four biggest names were all leaving the company within about a month of each other.
Maybe it's just the conspiracy theorist in me. Maybe I want there to be no fire around all this smoke. Maybe I just don't want a company I loved for so long to die an ignominous death, which is what I believe will happen if this is all true. I mentioned the NWO only in passing, because in reality this wouldn't be so much an invasion as it would be a rebellion against a new regime. Maybe Mark and the Wolves wouldn't have as much to rebel against as Jay would, but there's nothing saying they couldn't be pissed that their contracts were allowed to expire with "no effort to re-sign them" after all they'd done for ROH. After all, the refusal to re-sign arguably the four top guys in the company and re-establish a pecking order of talent amounts to a coup, if not an outright takeover. Fighting to keep one's spot is one of the oldest stories imaginable.
If this isn't a work, yet does turn into a semi-work, how would you foresee the return of these veterans to the ROH roster?
Trips: Well I guess the wrinkle in this whole thing is that right now, the American Wolves seem to still be wrestling for RoH. I don't know how long that's going to last though. Neither man has been announced for the RoH Title Tournament (as of this writing), but they are teaming up against reDRagon. But if they were to be cast aside I can envision what you are suggesting happening to some extent.
The World Title tournament is held, and from my standpoint I don't see anybody but Michael Elgin coming out of this on top. Either during the final match, or before, The Briscoes return, but not to the ring, but as spectators for the final match. Elgin wins, gains the RoH World Title. The next event, or TV Taping, with Elgin in the ring, the Wolves show up and do the exact same thing that the Briscoes did. No interaction, just fans at ringside. Now you get an air of confusion going on as to what is possibly going on. Keep this up for a few weeks with the Briscoes and Wolves popping up in crowds unannounced, but at the same time keep the impression going that they're still fielding offers from other companies.
It does have a bit of your scenario in there, until you get to the point where they finally make their move and attack Elgin. Two teams that have feuded in the past, now working together to take out the new champion, creating a heel faction that RoH desperately needs with S.C.U.M. being disbanded. And every heel faction needs a manager right? Well they would have one, and it would be one of the best in the business who also has some business to take care of with Ring of Honor- one James E. Cornette.
But none of that is going to happen......but it should.
Xan: Yes, it should. I think it would be something huge that would get people talking about Ring of Honor again in a positive way. Right now they have buzz around them, but it's all negative. They have given up on airing live internet pay per views due to ongoing technical issues, even though they are owned by a broadcasting company. The man who has been with the company mostly since day one and their world heavyweight champion is leaving the company with his brother, who has also been a long-time company man. They are holding a sixteen man tournament to crown a new world champion, when they don't legitimately have sixteen men that can compete for that title. It's all very bush league and third rate. Things that were never true about Ring of Honor even when they theoretically were third rate and bush league. I think an angle with veterans rising up against usurpers has legs and would get people talking. Like you, I don't know that it's going to happen, but unlike you, I'm not betting against it. I think it's all set up rather well.
Am I giving them too much credit?
Yes, but I am embracing hope so that I don't have to turn to despair. I don't want this to be the end of Honor.
I'd like to thank TripleR for joining me today. I hope to be back with another X-Change in the not too distant future. Be well, everyone.
X Out