From TheChalkboardIcon
Hello, this is my first post here because previously even though I've known of this site I've never really had anything to post about. But tonight I was given a reason, one that has pretty honestly pissed me off with my own town.
I live in Carbondale, Illinois. We're not a very big city but with a population of around 28,000 we're not exactly small either. Tonight Ring of Honor brought something to us we rarely get, live wrestling. WWE comes here once every two years - they draw about 3,000 people, the shows usually aren't that great, I've been to a few. I don't think TNA has ever been here but even if they were I doubt anyone would know about it because they are so bad at promoting.
ROH did a good job of promoting these shows. They ran advertising with Jay Lethal on local radio stations, had flyers near the place they were running (SIU Student Center), they didn't have AJ Styles or Kevin Steen but that is alright, because they promoted a special appearance by Delirious. They are also on our local TV channel and I know a good few people who watch them, I even met a guy I know at this show, but ignoring that, what annoyed me tonight about my town but what I have so much respect for the wrestlers of ROH is that despite a horrible turn out for this show, they still gave it 100% and put on a great show.
This was an ROH live event titled "Road to Best In The World". The Student Center only fits about 500 people, they're running Collinsville, IL tomorrow and I know are expecting a much bigger turnout at The Gateway Center which is an actual arena, but for the quality of tonights show they deserved much more of a crowd. The wrestling was fantastic, the live experience and the measures their staff go to is so great to see, you can see not just the wrestlers but the staff ROH has love what they do.
At intermission I went to the merch table to buy my son a t-shirt, we watch ROH every Saturday morning at 11AM and when he watches WWE he always asks why guys from ROH aren't there (he's 5, doesn't get they're two different company's, thinks they're all friends), and while I was there I spoke to one of the guys at the table and asked him if they were sad at the bad turn out and if they'd come back again, and this is what this guy said.
"It's not as bad as you think. We weren't coming here expecting the crowd we had in New York or the one we'll have in Nashville, we just wanted to give a town that has us on TV some live wrestling and if you're enjoying it then everyone behind the curtain is happy."
I spoke to this kid (I'm 32 so he wasn't an actual kid but was maybe early 20's) for the entire intermission and when I asked my son what t-shirt he wanted and he picked out a reDRagon one the guy at the merch table said, "wait a minute", ran behind the curtain and got it signed by Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly. He didn't want extra money but I did leave him a tip.
ROH came to our town and put on a great show from beginning to end, the wrestling was superb, they had some comedy in there with The Romantic Touch and Cheeseburger, they had some stories progressed and a personal highlight of mine was seeing my son so happy to see guys he recognized from TV. They deserved a sold-out show tonight and they didn't get it, yet I bet the people of this town will complain some time down the line about no company's coming here and giving us shows. Well, it's probably because they've better places to go than a town that won't turn out for shows that deserve it.
Anyway, that's my rant. Thanks for reading.
Subject: Reddit post about ROH Event 
