cero2k wrote: ↑Jul 10th, '18, 09:36
Big Red Machine wrote: ↑Jul 9th, '18, 21:15
What you're missing is that those jumps changed how New Japan plays the game, too. Since then they've been a lot more careful about ensuring that they can be competitive. Those signings were also well before the indy boom and- at least for certain people- a boom in ROH contract values, too.
a consequence of WWE's own talent acquisition style to be more careful with contracts, especially with your top guys, but you still can't keep a guy from quitting if WWE offers them the sky. Actually this is something that i'm surprised we are not seeing more often (well, we kinda are with guys going for EVOLVE over ROH for instance), with tons of guys unwilling to sign to multi-year contracts, or at least easy to get out contracts, in order to be free for WWE if Hunter calls.
It's absolutely a consequence of WWE being willing to offer more money, but it just means that ROH/NJPW are willing to respond with more money. You can't stop someone from going to WWE if all that talent is interested in is the financial security, but if they want a combination of money and freedom, then you can offer them freedom that WWE won't, and then it's up to the talent to make the decision.
The EVOLVE over ROH thing wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is if 1) Sinclair hadn't tried to stop guys from going to WWE through tampering claims. A lot of the guys leaving ROH because they have WWE deals on the table (War Machine would be an example of guys who left ROH without going to EVOLVE) were just doing so for a buffer so Sinclair couldn't pull the same stuff on them they pulled on O'Reilly and Dijak.
Another, more major issue in the "guys going to EVOLVE over ROH" thing is the booking. Gabe makes people stars; Delirious does not. See the difference between that Keith Lee did after leaving ROH as compared to what happened with Shane Taylor since Lee left ROH. Is it any wonder that guys like Rush, Dijak, Cedric, ACH, thought their careers were better off with Gabe (or Danny Davis, or whoever) than with Delirious? If a guy like Fred Yehi or Ethan Page is leaving WWN but not going to WWE, you'd expect them to go to ROH, but absolutely no one (at least any male wrestler, or female wrestler of note) who has left WWN has gone to ROH.
cero2k wrote: ↑Jul 10th, '18, 09:36
I'd argue that those signings happened in the middle of the boom, or at least a year in, otherwise they wouldn't had been big signings, at that point NXT was already super strong, ROH had already joined Sinclair, UK guys started coming to the US, PWG, EVOLVE, CHIKARA were making tons of noise.
I'm dating the boom to about 2015, or so, but either way, you're proving my point. The boom means that ROH is paying more than they used to, and a bunch of other smaller indies (like Beyond and AAW and whoever else) are probably paying more than they used to. Guys are being able to make a living on the indies much more easily now than they were before.