Ring of Honor is still chugging along, and they're constantly looking to improve.
A year removed from selling out Madison Square Garden with New Japan Pro Wrestling, ROH is well aware they have to make adjustments in an evolving wrestling landscape with more competition. When speaking with ROH star PJ Black, Fightful learned that they've went above and beyond to make that happen.
So much so, Black even chose to sign with ROH over NXT and other companies. He elaborated, and even revealed a secret meeting the company held.
"So, here’s another thing that made my choice very easy, signing with Ring of Honor. They actually care what talents thinks. I’m not saying other companies don’t, but for the most part they don’t. They flew us all, the whole roster, to the head office and asked us, “Yo, if you guys would run this, what would you change?” We gave them a list, I think the list came out to 140 things, I think, and they’ve already implemented a hundred of those things. Which gives me a lot of hope. In any other world, even outside of wrestling, that would never happen. I don’t know what business you’re in, but that usually never happens or that takes years for that transition to happen. Ring of Honor, it happened like that. So, I was like, “Oh, okay.” So, I tried a few things, I was like, “Hey, what if I do this? Can I get this?” and it happened instantly. So, I was like, “Okay, this is where I need to be.”
Black couldn't remember exactly when the meeting was held, but said that most all of the ROH roster answered the call, and both ROH and Sinclair officials were there.
"I forget when it was, but it was when we had a little bit of downtime," the former Justin Gabriel told us. "It was optional, too. You could choose if you wanted to go and if you didn’t want to go. It was cool that everyone went because it just shows the camaraderie and the brotherhood. That for me is another thing. That’s why Lucha [Underground] was so successful, I think. Because after every single show the whole crew hung out every single day. You could tell the product was freakin’ amazing. The matches in Lucha was insane."
Black also discussed himself passing this quarantining age by reading, but he's not thrilled about the downtime. ROH was set for some impressive events, including Past vs. Present and Supercard of Honor. Unfortunately, all those were kiboshed. Black still has high hopes, though.
"This company, this year, is going to grow. I’m was so excited about shows that were canceled, man. It was literally going to put Ring of Honor on the map. The Vegas show, all those little things that you said that you noticed? People would have gone to that show and been like, “This is completely different.” We would have had, you remember it was going to be the future versus the past? Just for the merchandise stand alone, man, it was going to be like walking into a virtual reality room. It was going to feel like you were in the 80s and 90s on this side and feel like you were in the future on this side. It was going to be so epic. It was going to be completely unique and I’m so sad that fans didn’t get to experience that," said Black.
You can see our full interview with PJ Black above. Make sure to leave it a thumbs up and comment!
