AEW has been sitting on years of classic Ring of Honor footage, and fans wondering why more of that library still isn’t available finally have an answer. The holdup isn’t about AEW forgetting the footage exists — it comes down to the massive amount of editing and music work needed to get those old shows ready for streaming.
During a Fightful Select Q&A, Sean Ross Sapp was asked why AEW hasn’t added more complete shows from the early ROH library, especially with fans still having to rely largely on individual matches and compilations for a lot of that history. Sapp said he has asked about the missing footage multiple times, and the explanation coming back has remained the same.
“Every time I’m asked, I’m told it is a lot of edits, music and things like that.”
In other words, AEW can’t simply grab every old ROH broadcast and dump it onto My AEW. Years of shows contain music and other material that would need to be edited or replaced before the footage can be redistributed. The problem for AEW is that this excuse is getting pretty old. Sapp said he has been hearing the same explanation for years and believes the company has had plenty of time to get the work done.
“But then again, I’ve been asking for like four years, so it should have been prioritized and squared away by now.”
Sapp then made it clear what he thinks AEW should be doing with the footage. With the company already operating its own streaming platform, he believes My AEW should become the one-stop home for everything AEW and ROH. He argued that AEW already has its American television situation in place, meaning the company needs to give U.S. subscribers more reasons to actually pay for its own service.
“My AEW really needs to become AEW and ROH’s complete library home.”
“They’ve got TV deals nailed down in the U.S., right? But they need an incentive for subscribers in the U.S. now. AEW’s whole library should be on there. ROH’s whole library should be on there.”
Sapp acknowledged that old wrestling libraries alone aren’t necessarily going to bring in a flood of subscribers. WWE learned that lesson after years of operating the WWE Network, but that doesn’t mean the footage has no value. He also questioned whether AEW could have put more resources toward fixing the library instead of paying wrestlers who wanted out or weren’t being used. Sapp used Danhausen strictly as a hypothetical example and stressed that he did not know his actual AEW salary.
“There are talent that have previously wanted out of AEW, right? So, Danhausen — let’s say hypothetically Danhausen makes $150,000 a year in AEW. I don’t know what he actually made. Let’s just say hypothetically they renewed him and then didn’t use him at all.”
Sapp’s argument was that money could have gone toward hiring people specifically to clean up the old ROH footage.
“They could have just let him go and then taken that money, paid two or three people the equivalent salary for a year to work on editing and fixing that library.”
Music is clearly one of the biggest headaches, but Sapp even pointed out that AEW already has Mikey Rukus working with the company and suggested replacement themes could be created where needed.
“You’ve got Mikey Rukus under contract. Like, my God, have him create some generic themes — and nothing’s really generic with him. He’s really great.”
There’s also a bigger reason Sapp believes AEW should get serious about building up My AEW. Television deals and pay-per-view distribution can change, and having a loaded streaming platform gives the company something it completely controls.
“In the event that your TV deals come up or your pay-per-view distributor goes out or anything else, it’s good to have your own option.”
So the mystery surrounding the missing classic ROH footage isn’t much of a mystery anymore. Editing headaches and music issues are keeping a lot of the library off My AEW, but after roughly four years of hearing the same explanation, patience is understandably wearing thin. AEW owns the history — now fans are waiting for the company to actually make it available.
Do you think AEW needs to make restoring the full ROH library a bigger priority, or are the editing costs and music problems not worth the trouble? Let us know what you think in the comments.
