ROH Supercard of Honor Post-Show Media Call

Apr 2, 2022

Ring of Honor held a post-show media call following their Supercard of Honor event on Friday in Garland, Texas. This media call featured ROH owner Tony Khan, Jonathan Gresham, Samoa Joe, and Mercedes Martinez among the host speakers.

Notable highlights:

On the status of a potential new television deal for ROH, Tony Khan stated that there is no update regarding ROH’s television status nor a time-frame when a television deal might happen. Khan stated that Supercard of Honor was meant to be a transition show and was done in honor to both ROH fans and PPV distributors that the previous ownership had committed to.
In regards to the show’s attendance, Khan stated that there was over 2,000 fans in the building for the event. Khan stated that prior to his purchase, ROH had only managed to sell around 200 tickets for the event.
In regards to early PPV buys numbers, Khan stated that the number for streaming buys “shocked him” and the overall numbers are trending towards being the highest ever in ROH history.
On the topic of running another ROH event during WrestleMania weekend, Khan stated “I think we can draw without coming here [WrestleMania weekend], but on the other hand, it’s a tradition for fans who do come here. To be honest, I never looked at it like that. Maybe I should come…I always said AEW was never going to come do this and I’ve stuck to that. I never said Ring of Honor would never come and do it and we’ve done it once. Maybe I should do it and I’ll get the hell out of town on Friday night, but that also gives them a year to counter-program and come up with some bullshit thing to do to me.”
On the topic of running ROH events during the weekends of big AEW events, Khan stated “That could be cool too. I never thought about that, but it’s a hell of an idea. The only thing is, we do the Fan Fest on Saturday. To do, Rampage the Fan Fest, possibly Ring of Honor, and this is all depending on…I have a TV contract and I have to run things by WarnerMedia and do things the right way, but it’s a hell of an idea. It’s creative but it’s a lot on the weekend. It’s something to think about.”
In regards to Deonna Purrazzo’s status as ROH Women’s World Champion, Khan stated that he is hoping to be able to hold a unification match between Purrazzo and Mercedes Martinez as soon as they figure out her schedule.
On the topic of Jonathan Gresham, Khan stated that he is considering plans for Gresham to defend the ROH World Championship on AEW programming. Khan stated “I would love to have Jonathan defend the title in AEW and on AEW programming, that’s definitely something that is possible. Jonathan has traveled the world and he can tell you better than anybody about his vast experience in wrestling and all the championships he’s held all over the world. I’m excited for him to defend the championship in AEW, on Dynamite, on Rampage, on lots of our great programming and also, there are a lot of great relationships we have with other companies and relationships Jonathan has with companies and they are a lot of exciting possibilities both in AEW and through the Forbidden Door.”
In response to Khan’s comments, Gresham gave his thoughts about the idea of defending his ROH World title in AEW. Gresham stated “For me, it would be an honor to take Ring of Honor to national television. The funny this is, my life has been somewhat of a Cinderella story. I grew up in wrestling idolizing the men and women that worked for Ring of Honor and my passion grew. It got me out of a lot of trouble and I wouldn’t be sitting next to Tony Khan right now if it wasn’t for Ring of Honor. My goal was always to be Ring of Honor World Champion, I never told anybody, but I worked night and day to get exactly where I am today. My goal along the way was to make sure that Ring of Honor lives on. I want to take the idea, the essence, the heart and soul of Ring of Honor to everybody around the world. Now that Tony Khan has acquired Ring of Honor, I can now do that. I really appreciated the passion that he has for professional wrestling and the passion he has for RIng of Honor. If it wasn’t for Tony Khan, Honor would have died. Now, I can stick with the company that I have fallen in love with all these years ago. I don’t have to wave another flag, ever, besides the Ring of Honor flag.”
On the topic of his second stint in WWE, Samoa Joe stated that he had actively pushed the company to purchase ROH’s tape library. Joe stated “[Tony Khan buying ROH] was a major surprise to me, especially coming from my former position and how hard I was pushing to buy the library for the other company. It let me know why it was being such a difficult process. When that did come up, at the same, having Tony have it and know how much he loves wrestling and knowing how much he loved ROH and product, just from our meetings and the time knowing each other, I knew it would be good hands. I knew it would be treated with respect and it would be kind of made available to the fans in the best way possible. I was very happy with it.”
On the topic of his current health status, Joe stated “More than confident. You have to understand, coming into WWE, that is me coming off a 15-year-plus career of probably the worst medical care a guy can get and going into a very very arduous schedule. I did have a few injuries, one of them being the major concussion that took me out for a while. Honestly, I took extra time. When it comes to brain injuries and stuff like that, I wasn’t willing to risk going back quickly and potentially harming myself permanently. It’s just a dumb thing to do. We have too much science on our side and too much knowledge now that we can pull back and treat things properly and take time to heal. I took the time to do that and that was really my major issue, I was taking the right amount of time to make sure I was ready to come back to the ring. As for my last injury, obviously, it was more a circumstance of the world we all live in now and it pops up here and there. I’ve been healthy, I’m more than ready to go, and I’m excited.”
In regards to his signing with AEW and his goals for his AEW career, Joe stated “World Champion. That’s why I’m here. I tried my bid at bettering the world of professional wrestling, but at the end of the day, I’m here in AEW and ROH to be a Unified Champion. I’m here to win the AEW Championship and Ring of Honor Championship. I’m here to win anything they put in front of me. I’m more than willing to go into the Owen Hart (tournament) and win that. This ain’t a game anymore. AEW has a lot of feel-good moments, a lot of great wrestlers who respect each other. I don’t respect nobody. Until you’re in the ring with me. I’m coming out there to smack people in the mouth and take what they have. That’s pretty much my edict when I’m here. Broadcaster, mentor, good guy, I am all those things, but not here. Not here.”
On the topic of why she did not sign with AEW after their All Out 2019 event, Mercedes Martinez stated “It wasn’t so much passing up AEW two years ago, it was more or less, I think they were still learning and I was still figuring out where I was going at that time. It just wasn’t the right time.”
Khan provided more details from his end on why Mercedes was not signed to a deal at the time. Khan stated “To be honest, it was a screwy thing. Here’s what happened. She was working with us and obviously I like Mercedes a lot and I had worked in putting a card together for All Out, she was commonly featured in All Out and I was coaching then and we got along really well, but it was before the TV renewal. I went on the Jericho cruise, pre-pandemic, and it was a very eventful cruise and a lot of stuff happened and Booker T was on the cruise and he brought up to me how I missed the boat on Mercedes and I told him, ‘Mercedes is the kind of person I would like to have in AEW.’ I was using her on a non-contract basis and basically building up to when I had the budget to sign her because, before the TV deal, our revenue stream totally changed you saw me bring in literally dozens of free agents since then. She absolutely would have been one of them, but she signed with the competition before I got the (TV) contract and it was probably within weeks. We worked on the battle royal together, I thought she was awesome, now I’m going to start signing people, we signed a bunch of big names like Brodie Lee, Matt Hard, Sting, FTR, and she absolutely would have been a name I would have been interested in. That was a conversation I had with Booker T on the cruise.”

Full ROH Supercard of Honor post-show media scrum:

Source: F4WOnline.com

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5