The Art of Wrestling: ROH Newswire

Eric sent me the ROH Newswire email that he gets and asked whether I’d review these shirts. That’s like the wife asking Eric to stay off Stunt Granny. Or Jeremy being told to watch the latest freak show on TLC. Or Dusty being told Jim Cornette was signing autographs in Fond-du-Lac for free. Of course I’ll do it.

I love the advertisement in the middle of this add which screams “We’re high quality” by announcing that their shirts are only $10 this weekend. In comparison, you need to look at the prices at TNA (A majority of shirts are $19,99 with a high of $24.99) and the WWE (A majority of shirts are $24.99 with a high of $30.99). I’m not going to buy t-shirts from all three companies to compare their quality. I do feel like TNA & the WWE could bring their price down but I’m sure their shirts are of better quality than those from ROH. They could have put a nice spin on it by saying it’s a special for their ten year anniversary all year long.

The next part of this advertisement that bellows “We’re high quality” is by advertising their biggest stars which naturally means they’ve got two ROH shirts that are more generic than anything TNA or the WWE produces. The least they could do is add a hand shake silhouette in the background or even use a modified medal of honor. I don’t quite understand the logo either. The lengthened O underlines the other letters but it doesn’t really do much for the design. It adds flags to the top of R and H but not to the bottom so they didn’t keep the theme going. The O is also another spot that they could use the medal of honor.

The US Medal of Honor

To move on with the star content, they decided that Roderick Strong, The World’s Greatest Tag Team, Jay Lethal and Eddie Edwards should represent them. The only shirt with anyone’s name is Camp Strong which is just a tad ironic. One of my favorite moments on #WatchROH recently is when Nigel McGuinness explained that Strong concentrates on cardio conditioning. Why does the guy have a gut then at 180? Camp Strong needs a new head trainer. The barbell has beers on the end of it to make it a hilarious shirt. Oh, that isn’t funny?  Austin pulled off the beer drinking gimmick. James Storm pulls off the beer drinking gimmick. A little imp can’t pull it off.

Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas have the most boring shirt of them all. Black shirt with grey print and a script below it explaining the acronym. They should have used white to help make the contrast more bold but even that wouldn’t have saved this boring shirt. Jay Lethal and Eddie Edwards shirts are better with the contrasts but the designs are left lacking too. One could argue that the Lethal Injection looks like a syringe but I think they could go more in that direction to make it look more realistic. Instead, it’s a lazy lined fade pattern. WGTT & Lethal’s shirts have something in common that Edwards’s shirt doesn’t, the first two are centered and symmetrical, while Edwards has a lop sided design. As I’ve noted previous Art of Wrestling columns, lop sided is not necessarily bad. In this case though, there’s nothing to offset the design in the lower right hand side of the shirt so it’s bad.

The one last thing I will note about all of these shirts is that none of them are Ring of Honor’s champions. Not the ROH World Champion Kevin Steen. Not the TV Champion Adam Cole. Not their Tag Team Champions in Steve Corino & Jimmy Jacobs. The later two don’t even have a shirt so no link. The first two aren’t any better in quality but they should be pushed more because they’re the top names in the company. ROH is a third rate company. Their t shirts only help to prove it even more than their TV product. -Kevin

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