Ring of Honor, or ROH, is an independent professional wrestling campaign and was established by Rob Feinstein in 2002. It’s owned currently by Cary Silkin; it generally holds numerous shows every month, at times as many as 6. Annual shows consist of the Anniversary Show(s), Death before Dishonor, Survival of the Fittest, Glory by Honor and Final Battle, which is the final show of the calendar year. ROH shows air on The Fight Network in Canada, the UK and Ireland, on Samurai TV in Japan and select shows are on pay-per-view in the US. In the first year of operation, ROH stuck to a limited schedule; it limited itself to a certain number of cities and venues in the northeastern US. There were ten shows in Philadelphia, PA; 2 in the greater Boston, MA area; 1 in metropolitan Pittsburgh, PA; and 1 in Queens, NY. It went out into other areas of the US in 2003; these included Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland.
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t also started to build an international identity by endorsing an event with Frontier Wrestling Alliance in London, England. ROH announced a Japanese tour on January 23, 2007; this resulted in 2 co-promoted shows: 1 on July 16 co-promoted with Pro Wrestling NOAH in Tokyo and the other on July 17 co-promoted with Dragon Gate in Osaka. ROH announced on May 2, 2007 that it signed a PPV and VOD deal with G-Funk Sports & Entertainment to take ROH into homes with iN DEMAND Networks, TVN and the DISH Network. The deal was made that 6 taped pay-per-view events would air every 60 days. Due to this, TNA Wrestling pulled its contracted stars, Austin Aries and Homicide, from ROH shows instantly. The first show was called Respect is Earned and was taped on May 12; it was first broadcast on DISH Network on July 1. The 2nd show, called Driven, was taped the next month. The main way ROH set itself apart was the “Code of Honor;” this was a set of rules telling wrestlers how they were supposed to act during matches. This was meant to make ROH’s matches feel like those of Japanese professional wrestling.