ROH introducing 6 man titles

[sek69]

From their website:

 

 

Six-man tag team matches have been a highlight of Ring of Honor events for years, and now competitors in those bouts will have something to fight for other than pride and the winner’s share of the purse.

The inaugural ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champions will be crowned in an eight-team tournament that begins at the end of September. This will be the first time in six years that ROH has created a new title.

Teams expected to compete in the tournament include: Bullet Club, The Cabinet (Rhett Titus, Kenny King and Caprice Coleman) and the current World Tag Team Champions The Addiction (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) and Kamaitachi.

Six-man matches are a staple of Lucha Libre (where they are referred as trios matches), and with ROH’s recent partnership with Mexico’s CMLL promotion, the timing couldn’t be better for ROH to introduce a six-man tag title.

New Japan Pro-Wrestling, also a partner of ROH, introduced the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship this past January with a tournament that was won by The Briscoes and Toru Yano.

ROH’s new championship will mark the first time a major U.S.-based promotion has had a six-man tag team title in nearly 30 years.

Roy McClarity, Pat O'Connor & Yukon Eric were the first NWA 6-Man Champions crowned over 60 years ago. In the ‘80s, the NWA created a six-man tag title that was held by the likes of Dusty Rhodes and The Road Warriors, and in World Class Championship Wrestling, the legendary feud between The Freebirds and The Von Erichs often revolved around that promotion’s six-man tag title.

The tournament gets underway at All Star Extravaganza weekend in Lowell, MA on Sept. 30th and Oct. 1st, and continues on Oct. 29th in Baltimore.

 

 

Makes sense considering their partnership with CMLL, but like cubsfan joked on Twitter they could have just asked to use one of their titles since they don't seem to remember who half their champions are.

[Laz]

Let's add new titles when hype over the product is at its lowest. Hurray!

[Mad Dog]

I think this will last as long as the No. 1 Contender Trophy did. Their roster is far too small and they don't have enough compelling combos to keep it going.

[Memphis Mark]

I believe the 6 man title will be used to showcase CMLL talent . If you add the NJPW and CMLL talent to the mix you got plenty of talent to make the 6 man gimmick work . Plus , Sinclair is starting to let ROH sign some new talent , so the ROH roster will begin to slowly grow over the next few months.

[Mad Dog]

Yeah but then you're back to outside talent dominating which is already pissing off your fanbase.

[bradhindsight]

I think ROH does a very good job at protecting and promoting their belts so it'll be interesting to see how they continually mix this into their TV. This is a company that can base a TV episode around a talking segment and #1 contender match for their TV title and no one blinks because of how established the championship is.

 

On the other hand, a common gripe was that they only had a handful of storylines going at one time so here's another story that will tie up quite a few guys (I disagree that their roster is slim, plus they have the expanded roster with CMLL and partnering in the UK and that tour). I don't see any of this as a negative and using a tournament to get things started should take them close to the end of the year.

[Tim Cooke]

I like the idea in theory but ROH has never figured out how to run tag team matches so I have little faith in the ability to book the trios titles in interesting matches.