Why Hasn't Anyone Signed AR Fox?

Before the pandemic hit, it seemed that anyone who had any bit of potential was being scooped up by WWE, AEW, Ring of Honor, Impact, and New Japan. And despite independent wrestling being raided for talent, there was one name that always shocked me that he somehow didn’t get a big time organization contract, and that man is AR Fox. 

 

I have been lucky to see AR Fox about a dozen times since he wrestled quite a bit down in Florida. Every match I have ever seen him in has been somewhere between very good and holy shit, and it isn’t all competition as I saw him against less than stellar competition with a crowd of like 15 people at a Style Battle in New Port Richey. Of course, when the competition is stellar, like the time I saw him against Matt Riddle, that’s when he can produce those holy shit matches.

 

But it’s not like he’s new to the scene. The guy has been awesome for a long time. The first time I saw him was at the WrestleCon Supershow back in 2015. I saw him team up with Jushin Thunder Liger and Ricochet to take on Roderick Strong, Frankie Kazarian, and Christopher Daniels, which, holy shit, that’s a hell of a lot of talent, and the guy I was most impressed with was Fox. He wrestled a hellacious pace and managed to outshine freaking Ricochet. 

 

Over five years later, he’s still putting on awesome matches, running a wrestling school in Atlanta, and outside of a brief stint in Lucha Underground, he hasn’t gotten a real shot at showing what he can do on a bigger stage. He’d be an incredible addition to any organization, and it is absolutely baffling that it hasn’t happened yet. So for all of you wrestling executives reading this right now, remedy your mistake sign AR Fox before your competition does.

The Future of The Elite

There are many things I would rather not think about involved in the world of professional wrestling. WWE in Saudi Arabia is high on that list, but still well behind Cesaro never being a World Champion. Don't waste your time thinking about those things, as they are depressing, and neither is likely to have a happy ending anytime soon. Still, there are fascinating things happening in professional wrestling, and at the top of that list is that seemingly all of the core members of The Elite, Kenny Omega, Cody (Rhodes), The Young Bucks, Marty Scurll, and Hangman Page are all about to become free agents in January 2019. For the purposes of this article, I am going to focus on Cody and The Young Bucks as they seem to have the most entrepreneurial spirit in the group.

This group has managed to transcend the non-WWE wrestling scene due to a combination of great wrestling but mostly due to a YouTube show called Being The Elite. If you have not watched the show, oh man, you are in for a treat. You should probably skip the first 40 or 50 episodes, because it's really just a travel vlog early on, but then they get more and more into storylines, and it's one of the best shows out there, not on YouTube, but anywhere. Like, if next week, Netflix announced that it bought the rights to Being The Elite, I'd just go, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense."

So now they not only have an audience of people who love professional wrestling, which is an incredibly important group that consistently will pay good money to support their obsession. They also have an audience of people who are way into these guys because of the characters they have created on their show.

This past September they tested the influence they had on professional wrestling by going from wrestlers to wrestlers/promoters with a show called All In that became the first show in the United States to have more than 10,000 fans since WCW shut down nearly 20 years ago. Oh, and it took them less than a half hour to sell out those seats.

After the show, Cody alluded to the fact that All In was more than just a supershow, it was a movement in pro wrestling. What also stood out is that Cody challenged and ended up winning the NWA World Heavyweight Title, a title that used to mean the best wrestler in the world, but now means the best wrestler at fairgrounds around the USA.

Now Cody will travel around a defend the belt, and I think this is all part of the plan for their 2019 decision. Instead of signing again with ROH/NJPW, heading to the WWE, I actually think the NWA is the model to follow for The Elite. I don't think the NWA organization truly matters, but instead of constantly putting on their own shows, the NWA lets other shows promote a match with their champion, free to take on anyone, anywhere without the pressure of consistently financing shows. Couldn't The Elite do the same thing, only on a much broader scale?

The Elite Heavyweight Champion could defend his title at NJPW, ROH, Impact, or even places like Revolution Pro, Progress, and MLW. The tag champs could do the same. The Young Bucks have consistently said that they love pro wrestling, but the travel is rough on them as it's not only traveling on planes around the world, but leaving their families for weeks at a time. Why should they do TV tapings and house shows when they could focus on only the most major events for the best organizations in the world? With Cody as the current NWA Champion, is this just him dipping his toe in the water to see the demand that he holds as a truly independent performer?

This also gives them the chance to ease into the promotional side of wrestling. It'd be insane for them to not do an All In 2. So maybe they look into expanding into two events in 2019, four events in 2020, and maybe getting into a monthly event by 2023. There is a chance that the Young Bucks or even Cody would strictly be promoters by that point in their careers.

The biggest issue that wrestling promotions have is trying to grow too big too fast. With wrestling still being their main income and being able to leverage their wrestling for working agreements to use any organization's talent for supershows, they don't have to rush in growing their organization and can let demand guide their growth.

And at that point, does WWE get to continue to pick the best talent out of the Indys as they please? Hell, does WWE even get to keep the talent they already have under contract? It's hard for me to see former indy darlings like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, and Cesaro not at least consider jumping ship to go back to a world with indy wrestling but now with major paydays.

For those wrestlers, it is by far the riskiest decision, but it also has an unbelievably high reward. Judging by their past, I don't think they're going to hesitate to go All In.

My First Ring of Honor Show

I went to my first Ring of Honor show last night in Lakeland, Florida. I am a pretty big wrestling nerd, but the first thing I noticed is that, oh man, I've got nothing on these wrestling nerds. Although I have gone to some independent shows, the only things that I follow on a weekly basis are WWE and Lucha Underground. The only champion I could have reliably named in Ring of Honor or New Japan is that Cody is the ROH World Champion. Still the show was going to have the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega on it, and even as a WWE fanboy, I knew how big of a deal that was so I decided that this was definitely a show I needed to see.

After going, I will 100% be back.

Ring of Honor put on an awesome show from beginning to end. My only real complaint about it is that it lasted nearly five hours, and five hours is simply too long of a wrestling show. Three hours is really the sweet spot where you are getting your money's worth but not being totally worn down by the end of the night. But even though I was worn down, they gave enough cooldown matches where the entire crowd was still hyped for the main event.

I told a buddy that I was going to the show (tried to convince him, but he decided he wasn't a big enough wrestling fan to fly from Iowa to Florida for wrestling), and he recommended watching "Being the Elite" YouTube videos. I told him that I had no interest in stupid YouTube shows, but then I ended up giving them a shot, and I'm glad I did. it made everything The Elite did that night make way more sense, because there are a lot of inside jokes that you would only know by watching their YouTube show.

Speaking of The Elite; they are pretty damn awesome. Cody (formerly Rhodes) does a great job as the arrogant heel. Hangman Page, who I knew very little about, put on an awesome match with Flip Gordon. The Young Bucks are super fun, and Kenny Omega might be the best wrestler on the planet. But the MVP was probably Marty Scurll. I had seen him one other time, but only as part of a 10-man tag match at WrestleCon, but he was my favorite part of The Elite that night. His entrance is fun, his wrestling is fun, and he just put on a really great show.

Other guys who stood out were Flip Gordon, former Bachelorette contestant Kenny King, and Dalton Castle who has a ton of charisma. One other thing were how big former WWE guys are. Sometimes they look small compared to the massive human beings in the WWE, so you forget how big guys like Simon Grimm (formerly Gotch) and Trent Baretta are.

It was five hours, but outside of a little longer breaks between matches since it was for TV tapings, the matches flew by, tons of incredible spots, and overall it was well worth the time and money spent. It's really tough to beat great pro wrestling, and this was definitely great pro wrestling.

Finally, I would just like to point out this hero.

But he woke up just in time for the main event, and he was as hyped as you would expect from a guy who just had a three hour nap. This guy lived Sunday Funday to the fullest, and for that, I salute you.