Shane Taylor believes Ring of Honor could have focused more on their own stars at Final Battle.
With ROH Final Battle in the books, the company is set to go on hiatus until April 2022. At the event, Shane Taylor defeated Kenny King in a fight without honor. After the bell, he and King shared a touching moment in the ring, but it wasn't seen on the broadcast because production cut to a video of CM Punk saying 'tahnk you' to ROH. A number of these clips were embedded throughout the broadcast.
Appearing on Tru Heel Heat, Taylor explained why them cutting away from his post-match celebration was disappointing and why he believes the aforementioned videos would have been better served as social media promotion in the week leading up to the show.
"It's disappointing. It's not Punk's fault or anything, I'm not trying to blame him. It's one of those things...Ring of Honor's first slogan was Fiercely Independent. That's something that resonates with me. This was Ring of Honor's, supposed to be, Ring of Honor's last night to stand on its own two feet, show that pride, show that grit, show that heart, and show that we could do this and make changes and do whatever we had to by ourselves. To me, that's what that night was supposed to symbolize. I understand all the special appearances and all that stuff that needed to happen. Fantastic, great. A lot of what the video packages did kind of just took time away from everybody that was there that has been fighting and trying to keep this place going for years. I feel the younger versions of those guys would have understood the same message that I said, which was, 'this night is about us, not anybody else.' This was about us, right now, the people here right now. That was really my thing. You could have had all of these special moments on pay-per-view if we had done things and produced things a little differently. There is no reason why all of the promos and talking points, while great, couldn't have been put out the week of Final Battle on everyone's individual social media, 'We love ROH, go see the show.' All of that could have been done and you could have saved 45 minutes or so on pay-per-view for talent to go out there and absolutely showcase everything they had to showcase, which was my only point. This was supposed to be about us. If anybody is upset about that, they can be upset. I feel as though if you had asked the younger version's everyone, they would have agreed with me," Taylor said.
Recently, Taylor shared that he and STP have had discussions with other promotions and that he is currently working on projects in LA. Click here to learn more.
If you missed anything from ROH Final Battle, check out Fightful's full report on the show by clicking here.
You can find Fightful's watch along of classic ROH matches, every Tuesday at 6pm ET on the Distraction YouTube channel.
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