The Honor Club snooze fest
If you caught the ROH on Honor Club results from March 26, you might have noticed something missing. It wasn't the work rate—the guys are moving fine—it was the total lack of stakes. We are staring down the barrel of AEW Dynasty on March 30, and suddenly, the ROH weekly show feels like the guy at the party who won't stop talking about his high school glory days.
The current booking strategy is drifting into neutral. We see technical clinics and athletic sequences that keep the basement tape-trading crowd happy, but where is the heat? You can do all the back-and-forth chain wrestling in the world, but if the fans don't care who goes over, it’s just cardio.
The Dynasty overshadowing
Tony Khan is busy juggling the massive build for Dynasty. That is understandable. However, when the flagship brand for the ROH experiment feels like a glorified dark match taping, the business model starts to look brittle. The product needs to stop acting like an extension of the AEW training camp and start finding its own voice again.
There is a recurring issue with these weekly tapings regarding crowd engagement. You can look at the official March 26 results and see exactly what went down, but reading it is a different experience than watching it. The intensity is often stifled, making the performers look like they are working in a library rather than a wrestling ring.
Missing the killer instinct
ROH used to be the place where hungry wrestlers went to make a name for themselves through sheer aggression and innovation. Now, it feels like a soft landing spot. If a talent isn't moving the needle on the main roster, they get sent here for a few weeks to go through the motions.
We need more characters with genuine motivations beyond just wanting a title shot. The championship belts are 0 titles away from feeling meaningless if the contenders keep trading spots without any narrative progression. It is a creative rut that needs a shove, or else the promotion will continue to wither in the shadow of its older, louder brother.
The upcoming calendar is packed with major events, from the UCL knockouts in early April to the inevitable chaos of WrestleMania 41 on April 19-20. If ROH doesn't carve out a niche soon, it’s going to get trampled by the sheer volume of better-promoted content. You cannot win a war of attrition with 3-star matches on a platform buried behind a paywall.
The road ahead
The transition toward the busy spring schedule for the entire wrestling world is happening fast. Following Dynasty, the conversation will shift immediately to the buildup for Double or Nothing in May. If ROH is still running the same plays in mid-April, the audience will just tune out for good.
My advice? Kill the pleasantries and start booking some genuine animosity. Bring back the high-stakes feel of the decade-defining feuds that made this promotion a legend in the first place. Right now, it is just white noise in a very crowded room.
