I Was There: Future of Honor Joppa

By Ryan Joy
Updated: February 21, 2020
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Chapter 4

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Event

Show 4: Future of Honor

Location: MCW Arena

Date: February 08

Headline: Kekoa vs. Brian Johnson

Miles from Home: 39

Future of Honor 4

My fourth show of the year took place on February 8th at the MCW Arena. Readers paying close attention might notice that I actually attended this show on February 8th and Ring of Honor’s Free Enterprise on February 9th . . . yet I’m calling the Free Enterprise show number three and the Future of Honor (FOH) show number 4. Truth be told, I was really excited to write about Free Enterprise, so I wrote about it first. I also had better pictures. That’s not meant to throw shade at FOH or MCW because I loved this show too . . . its professional wrestling after all . . . what’s not to love. The proverbial bottom line on this subject: I’m calling attention to the incorrect order of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 so you don’t have to do it for me. I have now confessed, spent ample amounts of word count on the subject, and I declare that we never speak of it again. Thanks in advance.

Future of Honor

While Ring of Honor has their own Dojo in Baltimore, they also partner with four well known wrestling schools: The World Famous Monster Factory, Team 3D Academy, the Power Factory, and Maryland Championship Wrestling. As part of the developmental program, ROH runs a number of shows titled Future of Honor. At least some of these shows take place at the MCW Arena in Joppa, MD and are co-promoted with Maryland Championship Wrestling.

The Future of Honor shows provide an opportunity for fans to see wrestlers in the ROH pipeline and allow fans to take advantage of meet and greet opportunities with some of the ROH stars. ROH also runs an annual Top Prospect Tournament featuring Future of Honor wrestlers during their regular ROH branded shows. The winner of the Top Prospect Tournament receives a contract with ROH and an opportunity to compete for the ROH Television Championship.

Past Top Prospect Tournament Winners

2011 — Mike Bennett – Currently under contract with WWE as Mike Kanellis.
2013 — Matt Taven – Currently under contract with ROH and former ROH champion.
2014 — Hanson – Currently under contract with WWE as Ivar of the Viking Raiders.
2015 — Donovan Dijak – Currently under contract with WWE as NXT wrestler Dominick Dijakovic.
2016 — Lio Rush – Currently under contract with WWE as member of the NXT CruiserWeight division.
2017 — Josh Woods – Currently under contract with ROH as part of a tag team with Silas Young.
2019 — Dak Draper – Currently under contract with ROH.

The above list of tournament winners doesn’t really do the Future of Honor system justice. The tournament includes many non-winning participants (Adam Cole, Silas Young, Dalton Castle, and Kyle O’Reilly to name just some) that went on to superstardom in ROH and the other national promotions. Future of Honor shows, like this one, get recorded and made available to Honor Club Members. Details about ROH’s Honor Club subscription package were outlined in my review of the ROH Free Enterprise show. As of this writing, ROH has not yet published Future of Honor 4. When they do publish the show, Honor Club Members will be able to view it here. For now, ROH has made Future of Honor Episodes 1-3 available. Also, since the show isn’t posted yet, the normal results section of this post is limited.

The Future of Honor Show

The bell to bell work on Future of Honor shows generally ranges from below average to good when compared to the wrestling you see on television. That shouldn’t surprise anyone as these wrestlers are in the process of gaining experience, getting better, and hoping to secure a full-time contract with ROH or another promotion.

While you don’t see match of the year candidates at these shows, you do get a community experience. The wrestlers seem to genuinely appreciate the fans. I commonly see the wrestlers walking around, saying hello to people, and giving out high fives and hugs to the kids. While some fans at the MCW Arena do get excited and shout weird things at the wrestlers, families can often be seen having a great time. I see a lot more kids having a good time here, then I do at any of the nationally televised programs.

Some Notes from the Show:

Dak Draper – Winner of the Top Prospect Tournament for ROH, and he just keeps getting better.
Dante Caballero has been a mainstay for MCW and Future of Honor. Having been to a number of MCW shows, he gets a lot of heat from the live crowd because he makes himself so easy to hate.
Portia comes out to the ring with Dante, and she exudes hatred toward everyone in attendance. I find her to be a critical component of Dante’s overall presentation. Her instagram handle is literally portia.hates.you . . . she lives the gimmick. . . how can you not love her for that.
My wife picked up on the inclusivity of the FOH show. We saw different races and gender represented across referees, announcers, and talent.
The Soldiers of Savagery (S.O.S.) formerly known as the Sons of Savagery are MCW originals that recently got picked up by Ring of Honor as part of Shane Taylor Promotions. Despite being despised on ROH, they are universally loved in Joppa. They spent so much time entertaining and growing in front of this specific audience, so why shouldn’t they beloved. They don’t get a Road Warrior Pop, but they definitely get a Briscoes Pop.

Future of Honor Summary

Seek out your local promotion and attend their events. Some are undoubtedly going to be better than others, but if you love televised wrestling, then you’ll love independent wrestling. Its just like going to see Monday Night Raw except the show isn’t over produced, and you don’t have to sit in the dark while the show goes to commercial. Having been to five or six MCW/FOH shows, I feel like I have this weird ownership over the company and product. Let’s be clear. . .I have zero ownership, but I do feel like this is my hometown promotion and these are my hometown heroes.

As a community of wrestling fans, we need to support the business so wrestlers have a place to work, practice, and get better. Without this part of the wrestling business, the whole industry dies.

A great experience for Chapter 4.

Future of Honor Results:

I will post the remaining results once the show is featured on Honor Club.

Recommendations and Tips

Tickets

Alright, I won’t bring this up again in future posts because I’m starting to feel redundant, but I do think you owe it to yourself to upgrade your ticket purchase. I included a screen shot of the order form for the next Future of Honor show on May 2nd. You can see that front row tickets cost $10 more than General Admission. I’ll understand if you’re a family of 5 and the extra $50 is too much, but if you’re buying tickets for one or two. . . GET FRONT ROW. You’ll be able to high five the wrestlers, take excellent pictures, and you won’t have anyone between you and the action.

Merchandise:

Ring of Honor does not bring their merchandise to these shows. Instead, you can shop at the MCW table or you can spend your money on meet and greets and autographs with the ROH stars. When I went to Future of Honor 3 in December, I met Flip Gordan. My wife and I got a selfie and a signed photo for $20. Vincent was the guest of honor at Future of Honor 4.

Parking

The parking here is easy to come by as the MCW arena is in a larger shopping center. Don’t even give parking a second thought because you won’t have issues.

Eat

Food at the show is comparable to a high school basketball game, so you can expect candy, soda, hot dogs, and pizza. If you’re looking for food before or after the event, I can’t vouch for the quality of anything close by. For your awareness though, there is a Wendy’s and Dunkin Donuts across the parking lot from the arena. A Double T Diner sits 10 minutes up the street. While I’ve never been to this White Marsh Double T location, I often go to the Double T Diner in Annapolis and find the food to be exactly what you would expect from a diner.

By the way, I do always spend money at the concessions. Drinks are only a couple of bucks per can instead of $6 that you would spend at a larger venue.