New Ring of Honor 10 Thought man, Ricardo Rochetti questioned why ROH fans supported James Gibson, but not Jerry Lynn. The answer to that one lies in one part booking and another part workrate.
First, Gibson was booked like an underdog within the company. Lynn spent the entire time he was in the company beating everyone but Nigel while announcers told us he might no longer have it. At every turn, all the wrestlers went out of their way to put over Lynn as a gentlemen and an influential legend. It was all very heavy handed. It’d be like Rocky being a star in the first movie before fighting Apollo Creed, beating all the other top contenders handily. Once you lose that underdog story, you lose the appeal. Gibson was booked strong, he went over fairly often, but he also jobbed quite a bit, making a star of Roderick Strong and giving Austin Aries some of his best defenses. He wrestled like a man trying to prove himself by putting on great matches, win or lose, showing what he could do like WWE never gave him a chance to. Lynn had a chance nationally in TNA, WWE and ECW already. It just wasn’t the same.
Next, the sheer quality of match difference when both men were challengers was huge. Lynn had very good showings, but in ROH very good fails to really stand out. Further, he has several idiosyncrasies as a wrestler that prevented his matches from achieving real drama. Without the storyline building drama outside the ring, the lack of drama inside the ring became inexcusable. Meanwhile, when Gibson was building towards a title run, he had several dream matches that all seemed to stand out. On a roster that included, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries and many more, Gibson was in the best match, win or lose. Jerry Lynn could have said that, he’d have been the success James Gibson was as ROH Champion.
