Oh yeah, but to act like AEW’s creation is the only reason OG ROH folded is some dumbass talk.
Plenty of factors played a role. It may not be what it once was, but those 3 letters are still up and running.
There’s a whole lot of reasons and not a single one can be pointed out to as “yeah that’s THE reason why ROH died.” Below is the most significant reasons I can think of but by no means an all inclusive list of reasons why it died.
Sinclair Broadcasting really didn’t give a shyt about the product and didn’t want to invwst the money into it that was needed to be viable long term.
Most ROH bookers became dumbasses in short order, if not immediately.
They never did the ROH/NJPW dual contracts that were said to be happening in the future, which is something that likely could have staved off some of the talent losses to NXT. Also potentially would have made The Elite not want to take on the risk of starting up AEW. In some ways it’s easier to justify taking a risk when the stakes are higher and you have less to lose.
NXT snatched up a shyt ton of top ROH talent and was booking indie style matches that would appeal to fans of ROH style wrestling - which by the way included me because peak NXT Black and Gold was some good shyt even though I never watched it consistently because of personal reasons 100% unrelated to my hate for WWE.
Supporting the All In venture without making it an ROH shows.
They basically helped finance, staff, and produce the blueprint for AEW without getting the full financial benefit of All In. Oh, and this is the type of show they could have potentially axed based on contract language with the Elite and others if they had done those ROH/NJPW dual contracts.
AEW took what was the critically failing body of ROH and took even more talent and went even further than NXT did in creating a product that would appeal to people who like ROH. And they didn’t have the stench of WWE attached to it, which made it more palatable to people who were in the fukk the Fed train at the time.
Then the pandemic came along and that was the final nail in the coffin.
