Ramblings of an Englishman

Look I know it’s only halfway through 2026 and here I am looking at 2027. But I’m thinking and when I think I have to write it down so the ideas leave my mind. As this one states it’s all about changes I’d make to AEW and their PPV line up in 2027. Look next year is 8 years for AEW the format has been added on and fixed in place (mainly in terms of having your AEW UK show in August whatever it’s called more than anything). Originally Double or Nothing was the top show and then replaced with All In. For 2027 I want to reflect on how I’d change things around a little bit and just explain that reasoning. I’m not on the business side of AEW maybe some of this is impossible I dunno but it’s fun to just speculate. As a caveat I won’t be removing any PPV or changing the names. I don’t think AEW will despite my issues with Forbidden Door as a name. All In Starting with All In and I’d take another break from it being in the UK. Ticket sales aren’t exactly booming and I think Wembley has been a ...

​Sitting here away on holiday thinking about wrestling. I know doesn’t seem like I do much else. But we are in full Forbidden Door season for AEW which I was fortunate to be at last year in the O2 and well is the idea of ‘Forbidden Door’ redundant now?  If you look at what this show meant to being with it was the first union of AEW and NJPW following years of tension. After AEW was founded the president of NJPW at the time Harold Meji felt slighted by the departure of The Elite as well as other key talents to the new promotion in America opting for closer bigger paydays. New Japan saw The Best Friends gone just as they were looking to push Trent as a singles talent and mainstay Lance Archer to name a few.  I wasn’t really until the build up to Wrestle Kingdom 14 and Chris Jericho vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi that Tanahashi said should he win and get a shot at the AEW title he would walk through ‘The Forbidden Door’ to win the title. While Tanahashi didn’t win that day I think it went...

It was announced late Monday night that Ring of Honor would be holding a sole taping in Jacksonville at WJCT Studios this coming Sunday (1st March). This is an interesting move and a break from the current standard. For the last few years ROH has been tapped before and after Dynamite and Collision and has for a number of episodes been just matches with little promo segments or story beats. While this has improved I do find myself annoyed at the PPV builds where the majority of matches being announced 48 hours before. An exclusive taping show for ROH would allow for more time to focus on the storylines on that show. If it is not at the end of a long taping day past a big Dynamite or Collision it may help breath life into ROH. A focus on just ROH means that fans are going there to watch ROH instead of it being added at the end of what they’re going to see it should add to enjoyment. We don’t have a major ROH PPV coming up for a while (I don’t know if Supercard of Honor is moved to All In...

At long last All Elite Wrestling released its first console video game entitled Fight Forever. Developed by Yukes the previous developers of the WWE games it was the first time a different wrestling company outside of WWE had released a game since Impact Wrestling (TNA at the time) in 2008. I had high hopes for this game and was interested to see how it went. The below should give a breakdown on my thoughts on all different parts of the game. Roster and Match Types With this game being in development for a good while as expected a lot of the attires are outdated and the roster is lacking a lot of the top stars who have had an impact since the initial announcement window. Now this isn’t like the WWE 2K series with yearly releases so this is something that with enough support can be fixed with the likes of Jamie Hayter, Toni Storm, Swerve and The Acclaimed not announced for any DLC yet it may be that we get multiple season passes with popular superstars to add to the game. I don’t mind t...

Being far enough removed from Supercard of Honor I think it is time to discuss how Ring of Honor (ROH) has done since the takeover from Tony Khan. Supercard of Honor marked 1 year of shows since ROH was bought so it is a good marker on where the brand is.  To begin with interest and money into the company seems to be up. Subscriber count for ROH Honor Club is on the rise and they are posting PPV numbers on the high end of ROH records which is always good. With interest higher it shows it is a product fans are interested in. If you compare this to where ROH was prior to takeover it is night and day. Interest was at its lowest and tickets couldn't be given away it felt like a company on its last legs and it did feel that coming out of the pandemic that ROH was a company on its last legs. To go from that to being a product that is has and holds fan interest is a good sign. However, it is hard to see this constantly. With ROH being taped alongside AEW Dynamite or at Universal (which I ...

Now with Final Battle out of the way we know about the future of Ring of Honor. With an on demand weekly show on Honor Club now is the time to see what the roster will be going forward. I am excited for this as now you can build towards shows with a card fully focussed on Ring of Honor. The irony of the report that it will be taped at the former Impact Zone does make me laugh but we will see how this looks when it happens and once we get a date for the first ROH on Demand TV Show I will be subscribing. However, this post is about the roster. We don't have a full idea as of yet so I wanted to speculate. Judging by what we have seen from Tony Khan's ROH I imagine those on the roster for sure are as follows: ROH World Champion: Claudio Castagnoli  ROH Women's World Champion: Athena  ROH Pure Champion: Wheeler Yuta ROH World TV Champion: Samoa Joe  ROH World Tag Team Champions: The Briscoes ROH World Six-Man Champions: The Embassy Dalton Castle & The Boys  Mercedes M...

When you look at wrestling you will be able to see the top three companies globally are World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). When it comes to titles, booking and roster these companies all have different ideas and philosophies. However, what has become clear recently is these companies have something that resembles a subsidiary programe acting as a smaller brand or developmental for the main show. For WWE it is NXT, for AEW it is Tony Khan's recent acquisition of Ring of Honor (ROH) and for NJPW it is the American brand NJPW Strong.  Each of these brands have a (somewhat) unique roster, a unique set of titles and will have branding which is different to the main main product. These shows can be used to see if talents can be invested in or if something isn't clicking on the main product to send them there to rebrand and rebuild themselves. NXT had Dolph Ziggler as champion, Brian Cage went to ROH and Aussie Open star...

Ring of Honor returns to PPV this time really under the leadership of Tony Khan. If anything this was more of an interesting look into the future of ROH than Superxard of Honor was earlier in the year, here we can see where Tony Khan and those who are in charge of ROH now with a new logo and set up we are truly in a new era here.  Starting off with the new ROH World Champions. The 100% correct decision, with ROH looking to build as a brand, Gresham might be one of the blandest wrestlers on the planet, nothing he does excites me and he also isn't a good promo, not the type of person to build a brand around, while Claudio is no Eddie Kingston on the mic he's such an upgrade. It also is now a time where all ROH champions are those decided by Tony Khan (I still say his hands were tied with Gresham vs. Bandido and if it wasn't already booked it wouldn't have been the main event) so we get a clear idea of who TK wants to place as his pillars of the company going forward. I li...

April 1st was a pivotal day for wrestling. It seems big events that change the landscape happen more regularly now thanks to the emergence of AEW as well as New Japans expansion into America against a stagnant WWE product. While I won't go over the show blow by blow I thought it would be nice to give an overall summery of the event.  It feels good to see ROH back more than anything. A company with a 20 year history deeply routed literally everywhere in wrestling from the current AEW Champion Adam Page to the main who will (technically) main event Wrestlemania in Kevin Owens it's a company that's impact is fully felt so to keep it going is a benefit to all.  I do think the overall look of the show is not finalised I think it depends on what happens with the product going forward and then that can be figured out in time. Same goes for the roster, I think steps were made to show ROH as a place for younger wrestlers in the majority with some hands not being used on main AEW pro...

March 2nd 2022 the wrestling world show another seismic shift. Tony Khan the founder, co-owner, president, and CEO of the All Elite Wrestling (AEW) announced on AEW's weekly flagship show Dynamite that he bought the rights to Ring of Honour after the issues with the company for the past while. With Tony Khan now operating both AEW & ROH I wanted to take a moment to have a look at what this can mean for the future of the ROH brand.  Above all else and I imagine the key interest was that of the tape library. 20 years worth of content which not only contains some of the best matches ever seen in professional wrestling but a lot of key moments for in the careers of many AEW roster members. From the original Summer of Punk to the evolution of the Young Bucks so many talents from AEW have passed through ROH so not only does this tape library make sense to hold for the content but the history for the roster they have. Even with ROH as a whole one of the key events as far as AEW i...

When everything is said and done September 1st 2018 and All In will go down as a pivotal date in American wrestling. For me it is up there with July 7th 1996 (Hogan is the third man), November 9th 1997 (the Montreal Screwjob) & March 26th 2001 (WWE purchases WCW) as some of the key dates which had a long standing effect and change the landscape of American wrestling. Without All In we do not get AEW and the kick that has given wrestling. We have seen only recently with the return of CM Punk after 7 years as well as WWE changing NXT and its whole outlook for hiring talents shift completely and I imagine this is only the beginning due to certain rumblings in the wrestling world.    Rumours have circulated about a new third 'major' wrestling promotion coming to America. Between Jeff Jarrett dropping vague hints about a new promotion on his podcast and reports of this promotion being interested in signing up recently released talents in the wake of WWE's recent 'budget ...