From its beginning, Ring of Honor always had one clear focus. It was to provide no-nonsense technical wrestling that respected the ethos of the art of wrestling rather than the spectacle. This has been constant from the opener of the first show in Philadelphia, PA through its most recent main event in Cincinnati, OH this past Friday night. No matter how each guy was aligned, no matter what their personality was, they all had one thing in common; they all respected the spirit of competition.

This respect is, or at least was, personified through a handshake that happened before every match. It's called the Code of Honor, and it's usually expected to be followed before every match with very little exception. It's what gave ROH the majority of its identity. It didn't matter if the two wrestlers disliked each other or disagreed with tactics. They both agreed that the match, the spirit of competition, was too important to disrespect. If two men made it to Ring of Honor, it was assumed they were good enough to be there to compete at the high level of athleticism and skill, so they deserved a handshake out of respect at least.

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In the days of the territories, the South was a megalith. While the capital of wrestling was New York City and the WWWF/Capitol Wrestling (because of market size and money), it was more a city-state, a singular bastion of the art of grappling. The vast expansive empire where wrestling was most diverse, most revered and most obsessed over was in the Southern states. From Texas to Georgia, Kentucky to Florida, territories dotted the landscape, each with their own identity, their own vision, trading stars among each other to create a tapestry that defined a culture. These were the most famous promotions in the country, each garnering pages of coverage in each of dozens of publications dedicated to covering it.

Today, in terms of attention, the Southern states may as well have a dormant independent wrestling scene. While TNA is based out of Orlando and tours mostly below the Mason-Dixon Line and WWE tours as extensively around the South as they do in all their other theaters, one might think that the independent wrestling scene in that part of the country was dead. For an area that was as ingrained in the old territorial culture as any other around the country, how could they be so absent in the new one? Well, that's the funny thing, they aren't. It's just not as advertised as the Northeast or Southern California or even the Midwest.

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Independent wrestling can be viewed in one of two ways. One, it can be assessed as a collective of loosely confederated wrestlers and promotions that work to provide a pseudo-national, neo-regional network to help further the art of wrestling on a smaller yet more creatively boosted stage than what is presented in WWE and TNA. The other, it can be considered to be a term that is labeled upon any start-up promotion that is trying to make money either locally or nationally, with the promotions not working with each other but against each other. We all want it to be more of the former, but it's becoming increasingly clear that the landscape is taking on the shape of the latter.

There are two culprits for this. The first is iPPV. The medium has done wonders for fan accessibility for shows live and on demand, but it has an unintended consequence of companies, two in particular, forcing their wrestlers to sign contracts that include exclusivity clauses that they won't appear on anyone else's iPPV telecasts. The second, which ties in strongly to the first, is that there is bad blood between two indie companies, Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate USA, mainly stemming from the former letting booker Gabe Sapolsky go unceremoniously and the latter starting up around his vision. The problem is that other companies like Chikara and especially PWG suffer from this turf war.

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Once upon a time, Ring of Honor (ROH) was the most critically acclaimed wrestling promotion in America. Part of this was the newness of the style taking a wrestling landscape that had just lost WCW and ECW by storm. Part of it was an inherent hipsterism that pervades any independent scene. Part of it was that with or without that groundbreaking style pervading, the way it was promoted was different. One trope of that "difference" involved how seamlessly a wrestler could move into a title match without seeming out of place. The environment in the company always engendered a feeling that if a wrestler was good enough to wrestle for ROH, they were good enough to challenge for the Championship, even if the card structure dictated that not everyone was worthy of winning that title.

Over years, that attitude gradually wore away as the roster depleted itself through a combination of attrition, WWE poaching and falling out with management. The grind got so bad that in 2011, the title scene was dominated by three men - Roderick Strong, Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards. While Chris Hero and El Generico got token shots here and there, but the title picture was DOMINATED by the Wolves and Roddy. I don't think the company's stagnation in the last year is coincidental with that fact. Would it have been better if the personalities involved were more colorful? Maybe, maybe not, but a full year of overkill with any main event players will grate, whether it's Steve Austin vs. CM Punk or Lance Storm vs. Brent Albright.

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Saturday night, the ECW Arena hosts its final wrestling show before being turned into a priced-out-of-any-indie's-budget concert hall. Of all the companies that have promoted shows in that building, it might seem curious on the surface that the promotion holding the final card there is EVOLVE. The Gabe Sapolsky vehicle has run 9 shows in the past, exclusively in North Jersey and Manhattan prior to this foray into the soon-to-be former home of Philadelphia independent wrestling. Common sense would dictate that Chikara, ROH, CZW or a reunion show with all the different former ECW wrestlers coming back for one final hurrah would be the obvious choice.

However, the thing about EVOLVE that makes it work as the closer is that man in charge. Sapolsky was the guy behind the curtain in ROH's salad days, at the time when they were considered the best wrestling company in America in terms of critical quality, if not the world. Sure, he had a lot of help from the cadre of talented wrestlers who were under his watch, guys like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli, Chris Hero, Samoa Joe, Homicide, Colt Cabana and the Briscoes just to name a few. One could argue that anyone could create compelling-seeming stories with those guys as the cast. Then again, look at ROH now. They have a roster stocked with some choice talent (Kevin Steen, El Generico, Eddie Edwards, Jay Lethal, those same Briscoes, Michael Elgin, Adam Cole, Kenny King and Rhett Titus to name a few), and they're taking much more of a beating among fans and critics alike.

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The fourth and final first round match in Beyond Wrestling's Tournament for Tomorrow (TFT) pits one of my favorite unsung indie guys, Pinkie Sanchez, against a relative unknown to me, The Pitboss. About all I know about the latter is he did run ins on both About Time and in the last TFT match, Sugar Dunkerton vs. Johnny Mangue.

Turns out that he's one of the greener guys on the Beyond roster, since the pre-match brawling on the outside of the ring basically saw him flail like he was Mason Ryan. The difference? Well, Pitboss isn't in the biggest wrestling company in the world. One might expect an unfamiliar guy working in a low-level independent wrestling company not to be Bryan Danielson. Ah well.

He got better later on, but it was clear Pinkie had to have his carrying shoes on. There's a really cool spot before the bell where Pitboss is charging at Pinkie to punch him, and Pinkie opens the freezer door to stop him. Brilliant. I also loved that there is an overarching story in this tournament, that it isn't just a bunch of one-off matches. That's smart, drawing the crowd in with the promise of ACH and AR Fox and other insanely gifted wrestlers and give them a reason to stick around.

Check out the match after the jump.

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ROH posted a picture on their Twitter feed, showing the Briscoe Brothers, the current seven-time Tag Team Champions, on one side and the Chikara logo on the other. The words "Proving Ground" and the date "1/20/12" were also embedded, which is the day ROH FINALLY returns to Philadelphia. Nothing else was included on the picture at all. No other wrestlers, no other information, nothing else was given. It was a total tease, and yet like many other people who saw it, my imagination totally started running wild. Which tag team would the Briscoes be facing? Would it be The Colony? The Batiri? Hallowicked and UltraMantis Black? Was this just the beginning of something bigger? Would there be a partnership between the biggest independent wrestling company in America and the most critically relevant one?

Of course, every question I asked myself was nothing more than feeding into speculation. Proving ground matches in ROH don't always lead to something bigger. A lot of times, they're just avenues for local talent to get paydays. In Philly, it doesn't get much more local than Chikara without dipping into companies that are on a somewhat equal footing with ROH (read: CZW). All the hysteria over this could very well just be that, hysteria. There's no working relationship implied past the one match. To claim such would be irresponsible journalism, and hey, that's better left to the Rajahs and Lords of Pains of the world.

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The third match of the first round for the Tournament for Tomorrow pits a familiar face against someone who may be new to the Beyond Wrestling viewing experience. Sugar Dunkerton is known to most people who follow Chikara, and he's usually regarded as a playful, bordering comedic performer. His mission in Beyond couldn't be any more different than that, as he, along with Aaron Epic and Pinkie Sanchez have formed the #KOA in an attempt to change people's perceptions of them. His opponent in this match is Johnny Mangue, who isn't known that well outside of Beyond. Right now, he's embroiled in controversy as he can't seem to escape his stable mate The Pitboss interfering on his behalf, raising questions as to whether he can actually get the job done by himself. So that's the story of this match, on top of the fact that it's a first round match in a one-day tournament. Dunkerton works here as a far different performer than we know him in Chikara. He's less Harlem Globetrotter and more mid-'90s New York Knick ready to do battle with the Miami Heat (literally, if one remembers those classic brawls they'd have on the court). Mangue spends the entire match taking turns selling his knee and trying to convince Dunkerton that Pitboss isn't going to help him. Will he though? Watch and enjoy.