Ring of Honor wrestling have announced that they will be taking a hiatus from producing content after Final Battle in December, as well as releasing all talent.
Ring of Honor, owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Network, have been running crowdless shows since March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The group continued to pay talent, even hiring Maria Kanellis-Bennett as a board member, who has in turn brought back the Women of Honor title belt (as the ROH Women’s World Title), as well as strengthening the division on the whole.
Following their announcement of a hiatus, Dave Meltzer dropped the bombshell that the company will in fact be releasing everyone currently under contract. Bryan Alvarez later clarified that while no contracts will be renewed, and Sean Ross Sapp stated anyone locked in until March 31st 2022 will still be paid till then. Effective immediately, all talent are welcome to field offers from other organisations/take alternative bookings.
Fans online have already been calling for the likes of Bandido, Dragon Lee and Rush to appear on AEW Dynamite tonight alongside Andrade. Others have made reference to the long standing on-again, off-again feud between The Briscoes and The Young Bucks. Some want many of the “Pure” division to take on the young stars of the indie scnes, like Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia and Lee Moriarty, who have all joined AEW in recent weeks. My friends want DanHausen to team with CM Punk.
Our own @snapdragonwrites has been told by sources that these releases came as a shock even to talent, who found out through social media.
While seeing the talent be released is never a positive experience, the fantasy booking potential is seemingly endless – although everyones biggest hope right now is that ROH will return just as strong by the second quarter of 2022.
Many talents have already announced they are taking bookings starting in 2022, with Session Moth Martina who was stuck outside of the US due to the pandemic, thanking the whole ROH team for their work during this time.
After over a year and a half without fans, the organisation will be making a concerted effort in the new year to target live audience. When the time comes for them to announce shows, it will be interesting to see how they fill up the card.
