6 Ways Gabe Sapolsky's ROH Followed Paul Heyman's ECW Legacy
3. Utilisation Of Wrestlers From Elsewhere
Sapolsky and Heyman mirror each other perfectly here. While WWE were cherry picking their talent from elsewhere their main competition (WCW in Heyman's ECW, TNA for Sapolsky) would simply collect up "big names" that would drop from WWE or the remnants of WCW and push them as stars. Heyman and Sapolsky however took each man on their individual merits and only took in wrestlers they felt would add something to their roster. Heyman's two biggest successes in this area were Mick Foley and Steve Austin, who both left WCW before honing their acts ready to take over the WWE main event scene. As previously mentioned, Raven had failed to be utilised by the Big Two and reinvented himself in ECW to great success. Ring of Honor may not have taken masses of stars from their competition but the ones they did were chosen carefully. Former WWE and WCW cruiserweight superstar Jamie Noble was taken in by ROH where, competing under his real name of James Gibson, he would win the only World Championship of his career. Talented but lowly WCW wrestlers such as Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles and Jimmy Yang were taken in by ROH before TNA even launched to boost their name value. A host of former ECW wrestlers were also brought into the company but were just a part of the roster, not the headline acts. The same treatment befell Brian Kendrick during his several runs with the company and Gunner Scott came competing under his real name of Brent Albright without any fanfare about his WWE run. ROH were also selective in the legendary names they brought in, only bringing in ones who added credibility and storyline value. Legends such as Mick Foley, Ricky Steamboat, Bobby Heenan, Raven, Eddie Guerrero, The Great Muta and Jushin Liger were used to help establish their own roster by association. Big name wrestlers would also come in to work a weekend of shows such as Christian, Kenta Kobashi and Jeff Hardy, who would always take at least one loss to a member of the roster to give them a rub.
