ROH Rumors: Officials concerned with top talents leaving amidst low ticket sales
What's the story?
Ring of Honor made massive waves in the pro wrestling industry when the company, along with New Japan Pro Wrestling, sold out New York City's famed Madison Square Garden over WrestleMania 35 weekend, packing 16,534 fans into the venue for the G1 Supercard event.
Following the historic show, however, ROH has seen a decline in ticket sales, with upcoming summer events drawing disconcerting numbers, and creating concern within ROH over the futures of the promotion's top talents.
In case you didn't know...
The G1 Supercard event drew extremely well, and many pro wrestling fans and pundits are of the belief that former ROH and NJPW stars, including Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, Hangman Page, The Young Bucks, and more, helped create a buzz around the company which in turn helped sell G1 tickets.
With the above names having left ROH and NJPW prior to the G1 Supercard event, both ROH and NJPW are now without key talents who decided to launch All Elite Wrestling as opposed to re-sign with Ring of Honor and New Japan.
The heart of the matter
According to the most recent edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, ROH has only sold 1/3 of the allotted tickets for its upcoming event on August 24th taking place at Center Stage in Atlanta. The world famous venue is setup to hold 700 fans, meaning ROH has only sold just north of 200 tickets to the show.
Additionally, ROH has only sold over a couple hundred tickets to the upcoming Manhattan Mayhem event, which takes place on July 20th. Manhattan Mayhem is being held at the Manhattan Center's Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, which is typically a sold out venue for Ring of Honor.
Furthermore, The Observer notes there is likely concern in ROH as it pertains to the futures of the company's top stars such as The Briscoes, Bandido, Marty Scurll and Jeff Cobb.
With the aforementioned talent contracts expiring at the end of the year, it is likely the talents will remain with the company through the end of 2019, however, there likely will be interest from both WWE and AEW in some or all of the talents when their deals expire.
What's next?
With the formation of All Elite Wrestling, it will become increasingly difficult for promotions such as Ring of Honor to retain top talents, with rival companies such as AEW and WWE looking to secure free agents and in-demand talents.
If ROH ticket sales continue to decline, it might ward off longtime company talents from re-signing with the company
Where would you like to see top Ring of Honor talents end up? Would like to see them jump ship to AEW or WWE, or remain with ROH?