ROH Final Battle 2022 Media Call: William Regal, ROH TV Future, ROH on AEW, Shane Taylor, FTR, PPVs

Ring of Honor owner Tony Khan held a media call this past Wednesday to promote Saturday’s ROH Final Battle 2022 event in Arlington, Texas.

Some of the notable highlights included Khan revealing that his mother had been dealing with serious health issues the past couple of months including her suffering two strokes and having heart surgery. Khan stated that this played a role in his decision to grant Regal’s request for his option to not be picked up and allow him to leave for WWE to reunite with his son, NXT talent Charlie Dempsey. Khan stated:

“I watched Monday Night Football at my parents’ house with my parents. My mom was hooked up to a lot of machines and I was just praying that my mom’s surgery would go okay. That same night I got a phone call and it was saying that William Regal has approached Megha and it was all very legitimate, valid stuff.

Basically, he’s got a son who works at another wrestling promotion and he really wanted us at the end of the year when we had the option to renew the contract, he was asking that we would not. Nothing bad, we were having a great time working together but that this was an opportunity for him to go back and work in his golden years of his career with his son.

It’s a very complex situation for AEW because he’s a huge part of what we’re doing on-screen, and we really value him, and there’s multiple storylines that he’s involved in at this point. As we were going to Toronto that week, obviously I had a lot on my mind.

This was the timing of the request from Regal and I really had to think about it. Both those shows in Toronto were very successful and then at the end of the week, my mom had this heart surgery and when I got back, my dad and my sister had already been there at the hospital since the previous day.

My mom was asleep and I got a message from Regal and it was asking if we could talk. I made time to talk to him and I went outside the hospital. So, I’m sitting out on a park bench out in front of the Mayo clinic on Sunday night and we had this really long, good talk and it was very positive. He really had good intentions, I’d like to say, for why he wanted to go back. It made a lot of sense to me that he would want to work with his son and be with his son.

Frankly, the last thing I wanted to do at that moment was prevent any parent and any child, any son, from being together as I was sitting on a park bench, Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, where my mom was sleeping inside recovering from a major operation.

Later that week, we had Rampage live in Daily’s Place in Jacksonville and I sat with Regal for over 90 minutes in my office afterward. This was probably the longest in-person talk I ever had with him. We talked and I told him I’ll make major sacrifices to this company to do the best thing for you and your family because this is a family-first company. The person I’m releasing later this month, who is still with us through the holidays, has been an essential part of multiple TV stories and is still an essential part of the TV as of tonight and we’ve done a lot of things to help him create the best situation he can for his family. For me, my mom is doing really well and we’re really grateful.

I probably won’t be able to facilitate every family reunion but I do try to make this a family-first company and especially in this situation, that’s what we’ve done.”

In regards to the terms of Regal’s release, Khan stated that he believes that the terms do not allow Regal to appear on WWE television for a year and he can only work in a backstage coaching role in the company.

Khan also stated that he was surprised over a recent tweet by Paul “Triple H” Levesque hyping up WWE’s Survivor Series WarGames event last month. This tweet featured Regal and had quickly lead to rumors of Regal returning to WWE despite him still being under contract with AEW at the time.

“Honestly, given the spirit of the thing and how accommodating we were being, I was really surprised by the tweet with the supercut of him on it, especially since he’s still been with us and part of the shows. We’re still addressing him on the show and going into last week’s show, especially, he’s still a big part of our show. I was a little surprised by the supercut of him on Triple H’s twitter, and given how accommodating we were being to the whole thing, I was not necessarily expecting to see that. I didn’t necessarily think it was in the spirit of how accommodating we were being about the whole thing, but whatever. The important thing is that it’s a situation that will be resolved and he will be able to be there and do the coaching and work with his son and the stuff that’s important to him, that he said, he was cool and okay with it being a release that he would not be appearing on TV next year.”

On the topic of Athena, Khan stated that he has been very impressed with her new aggressive heel character in AEW and currently feels she is doing her best work in the company now.

On the topic of the future of ROH TV, Khan stated that he will make an official announcement after this Saturday’s Final Battle 2022 event.

On the topic of the criticisms of ROH taking up valuable television time on AEW shows, Khan stated that he has been trying to limit ROH’s exposure during AEW’s shows after listening to those criticisms.

On the topic of Shane Taylor’s contract status with AEW and ROH, Khan stated:

“I don’t want to get into contractual status, typically, but I was excited to have him here. Obviously, he’s been a great champion in Ring of Honor, and there are a lot great wrestlers in Ring of Honor and we have a great roster in AEW. Now, as we’re doing more Ring of Honor events, I’ve looked to bring in people that have had success in Ring of Honor and all over the world and try to build a new an exciting version going into Final Battle.

That’s something I’m looking forward to at Final Battle, seeing former partners colliding and then how does that play into Keith Lee’s current partner drama. He’s got drama with his current partner Swerve Strickland and he’s got a former partner in Shane Taylor, who wants some payback and resolution, and Shane Taylor has another former partner there, JD Griffey. It’s a family affair, it should be very exciting at Final Battle to see, Shane Taylor in this new Ring of Honor. it hasn’t been that long that we’ve been doing these Ring of Honor shows, it’s only my third full ROH event. Shane Taylor is someone, from the beginning, that has been a good name we’d consider. When the situation with Keith Lee came up, it was actually Keith Lee, when we were talking about idea, he brought it up to me. I thought it was a great idea. When people have good ideas like that, I want to support them. Keith had something there.”

In regards to creative teams, Khan stated that there currently is a lot of crossover between AEW and ROH’s creative teams but there are some people who are exclusive to a certain team.

On the topic of FTR not being featured more on AEW programming, Khan stated that it is not any fault of FTR’s own and instead simply due to a lot of the plans for them being thrown off due to unfortunate injuries to others. Khan stated that he had plans for FTR to work with CM Punk prior to Punk suffering a foot injury.

On the topic of potentially adding more yearly pay-per-view events for AEW, Khan stated that he has not locked in any plans to do so but also does not want to saturate AEW’s PPV market. Khan also stated that 2022 was AEW’s most successful year to date for PPVs.

On the topic of ROH’s pay-per-view events since he purchased the company earlier this year, Khan stated that ROH’s events have managed to perform above all of his expectations and even doubled many of them.

Sources: F4WOnline.com 1 & 2, Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3