As soon as he became the new Crown Jewel of the Embassy, you could feel the badass being sucked out of the Necro Butcher.
Complete Monster: Jimmy Jacobs. In a promotion where heels are cheered as often as babyfaces are, it speaks volumes that Jimmy was never cheered when he ran the Age of the Fall.
In the span of two years, Homicide lit a fireball in Samoa Joe's face, disrespected the ROH World Title, and tried to kill Colt Cabana no fewer than three times. Fittingly, he was the one who the fans called upon to defend ROH against CZW.
With help from Steve Corino, Kevin Steen has turned into this. When Steve Corino essentially disowned Steen because his mentorship had gone toowell and begged El Generico to simply end this before It Got Worse (which it did), you know something's wrong. In a span of a year, Kevin Steen went from being best friends with El Generico to beating him with a chair, unmasking him, and various other terrible acts.
Creator's Pet: The Carnage Crew. Nearly everyone flipped shit when they beat Whitmer and Jacobs for the Tag Team Titles.
"The Prodigy" Mike Bennett goes here in most eyes, especially when he is feuding with Chris Daniels and Eddie Edwards for the TV Championship. He even received a "YOU CAN'T WRESTLE" chant at "Tag Title Classic II."
Ending Fatigue: Ring Of Honor Main Events have a tendency to go on A LOT longer than they really need to, even if by all means and accounts the participants should have basically beaten each other into a coma. They really milk that 60 minute time limit for all its worth.
Ensemble Darkhorse: After handling an unruly fan who tried to take a swing at Austin Aries, referee Paul Turner has been cheered mightily, especially in New York.
Growing the Beard: The one-hour draw between CM Punk and Samoa Joe is cited as the turning point for the promotion; the original owner had been ousted shortly before that due to a pedophilia scandal, and the promotion was in danger of going out of business. The Joe vs. Punk series and the breakout of the Generation Next stable created heightened interest for the promotion as well as heralding a more sophisticated booking style augmented by a roster of young wrestlers who were constantly improving.
Hilarious in Hindsight: During the Colt Cabana/Homicide feud, Cabana referred to Homicide as "Konnan's bitch." When he said this, it was based on such an unpublicized real-life connection that it had a Viewers Are Geniuses vibe. A few months later, Homicide began wrestling for TNA with Konnan as his manager, making the burn much funnier in retrospect.
Hype Backlash: Tyler Black suffered from this - after being clearly groomed as "the guy" for the entirety of 2008 and 2009, Black lost a lot of his luster by the time he became ROH champion in 2010.
Ring of Honor itself, with a good bit of Hype Aversion. While certainly a good promotion, and better than either WWE and TNA, it's still massively over-hyped, what with the fans constantly singing its praises while endlessly bashing either WWE and TNA, sometimes without real reason.
Iron Woobie: El Generico has been one since his debut, but his feud with Kevin Steen and Steve Corino has intensified that status.
It's Popular, Now It Sucks: Surprisingly averted by the success of ROH alums who have had success in WWE and TNA - in particular, CM Punk is as popular among ROH fans as a WWE champion as he was as an ROH champion.
The same can be said about Bryan Danielson, whose current "YES! YES!" catchphrase became a chant throughout the entire 10th Anniversary show in New York.
MST3K Mantra: Prince Nana claimed to be the iron-fisted ruler of Ghana. Obviously false, and the Mantra is even more necessary to understand why a wealthy and evil African head of state would be managing a stable in an American independent wrestling promotion.
Narm: The whole Homicide/Colt Cabana Drain-O thing. First off, a guy trying to kill someone with Drain Cleaner in the ring and it not killing the guy pushes the boundaries of Willing Suspension of Disbelief pretty far, but when the drain cleaner in question looked like chunky Lime Jell-O, then it's just silly and dumb.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The promotion has been fairly well-known for giving successful makeovers to struggling wrestlers.
Ruined FOREVER: Try to find one event that didn't trigger this reaction from somebody.
The Scrappy: Nigel McGuinness, after a year as the company's top babyface, quickly hit Scrappydom upon winning the ROH World Championship. However, ROH and Nigel turned it around with a Face Heel Turn that saw him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
Jim Cornette's first stint as ROH Commissioner was chock full of Scrappyness, especially after he turned heel against Homicide by refusing to reinstate Low Ki.
As soon as Jerry Lynn won the World Title, he got placed here.
Shocking Swerve: Even Ring of Honor isn't immune to Russo-esque booking with Jimmy Jacobs siding with Kevin Steen at Showdown in the Sun, less than a month after being brutalized by him at the Anniversary show.
Unlike most of Russo's swerves, however, this one had a somewhat logical explanation, revealed in a speech from Jacobs the very next day.[1]
Strictly Formula: Due to the promotion having a lot of well balanced (to the point of being generic at times) wrestlers, a lot of their matches have a very similar structure, around five minutes at the beginning of the wrestlers locking up and exchanging amateur throws and pins, then one wrestler starts using high impact maneuvers, both wrestlers will work a body part as they trade momentum this all concludes with a series of near-falls with a climactic finish. Which is a nice structure...if they don't use it. All. The. Time. Roderick Strong is especially guilty of this.
Unfortunate Implications: Prince Nana treated Jade Chung like absolute garbage while she was a member of the Embassy, but when Daizee Haze joined, she was immediately treated like a goddess.
The Woobie: Most ROH School graduates fall under this, especially Pelle Primeau, Bobby Dempsey, and Alex Payne.
↑ "For the past year, Steve Corino and I have been on a road to redemption. Trying to do what's right, trying to be good. And the whole way through, the man that was trying to stop us was Kevin Steen! But at Final Battle, when I drove that railroad spike into Kevin Steen's face and I froze...it wasn't because I was disgusted by what I did. It's because I'd been celibate for a year, and I finally had an orgasm! And in that moment, in that moment I realized being good isn't for me, uh-uh! I realized, in that moment, that the zombie princess Jimmy Jacobs ROSE FROM THE GRAVE! And Kevin Steen was right; sometimes, EVIL WINS."