Bobby Cruise was behind the scenes working alongside Maria Kanellis to help mold the growing Ring of Honor women's division that took center stage in the summer of 2021 as a tournament was held to crown a new Women's Champion.
Now, with days to go until Ring of Honor hosts its final event of the year and final event until they resurfaced from their Hiatus as a re-imagined promotion, Final Battle 2021, Bobby is reflecting on the success of the Women's Division in its short time of existence.
Speaking to Sean Ross Sapp in an exclusive interview, Bobby says that senior management of Ring of Honor fully supported he and Maria Kanellis’ vision for what the division could be.
"Yeah, we, Maria and I — I've watched more wrestling in 2021, scouting talent, and so forth on YouTube than I watched my 10 years combined. A lot of it has been the scouting. You have women that get recommended or you hear about the buzz they have, like a Willow [Nightingale] or Trish [Adora] and then you say,' Okay, I gotta check them out,'" Cruise began.
Bobby Cruise touted the ability of Willow Nightingale saying that the current Major League Wrestling featherweight star would have signed with Ring of Honor had he and Maria Kanellis had their way.
"Willow, if Maria and I had our way and things were continuing and Willow would have signed with us, never mind talking about signing with someone else. So, you know, we got everything we could out of ROH giving us that freedom, you know, we started in January. Then in the spring, we made some decisions. Maria and I had said we're going to throw four names at them that we wanted the company to sign because we knew we were going to utilize them a lot and have them go deep in the tournament and we didn't want the risk of losing someone mid-tournament or something? Yeah, and all four names we gave them, in just a few days, they were all signed. And so again, the support was there from senior management.
The four names were revealed to be Trish Adora, Max the Impaler, Miranda Alize, and the woman that would go on to become the first Ring of Honor Women's Champion, Rok-C.
Maria would be so confident in the ability of Rok-C that she would go on to say in an interview before Ring of Honor announced that it was closing its doors for a brief length of time, that she would put Rok-C up against any other women's champion currently active in wrestling today. Learn more here.
Fightful will have live coverage of Ring of Honor Final Battle 2021 when it airs on December 11.
