Various: Adam Cole on ROH’s Importance to Modern Wrestling, MLW Antitrust Lawsuit Update, Indies

Jul 7, 2023

Adam Cole Comments on ROH’s Importance to Modern Wrestling

A recent episode of the Superstar Crossover podcast had Adam Cole as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cole’s thoughts on the importance of Ring of Honor to modern day wrestling and it introducing a new style of wrestling.

“I think Ring of Honor may be the most important company that has helped evolve what modern pro wrestling is today. Seriously, when you look at all the talent that came from Ring of Honor, Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, the Briscoes, AJ Styles, The Young Bucks. I mean, the list goes on and on and on of these guys who have come through Ring of Honor in some capacity, and also the style of wrestling that kind of started to transcend and move forward a little bit into the casual wrestling audience and what they liked in wrestling matches was huge. Again, these were guys who not all of us are 6’4, 265 pounds, a lot of us had this certain style of pro wrestling that we really wanted to showcase. The athleticism was huge. The hard-hitting style was huge. The crazy passionate fan base was really important. So to this day, you know, I spent seven years in Ring of Honor and my first wrestling contract ever was with ROH. So there is no doubt in my mind, I would have not gone to NXT, I would have not gone to New Japan Pro Wrestling, I might not be in AEW if it wasn’t for my time in ROH. That’s just for me personally. I think a bunch of guys can say the same thing. So ROH is incredibly important in the modern era of wrestling that we’re in, and the history is incredibly important.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

MLW Antitrust Lawsuit Against WWE Update

As noted before, Major League Wrestling’s original antitrust lawsuit against WWE was dismissed this past February and had filed a new amended lawsuit this past March. MLW’s amended lawsuit was allowed to continue following WWE’s attempt to have it be dismissed was rejected by the court.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that the United States District Court of California, Northern District (San Jose) recently released the current court schedule for this lawsuit revealing that it will not be heading to trial any time soon. Johnson reported that the earliest that this lawsuit could start its trial phase would be June of 2025 based on recent court records.

Current court schedule for MLW’s lawsuit against WWE:

Joint Trial Setting Conference Statement – June 17, 2024
Trial Setting Conference – June 27, 2024
Fact Discovery Cutoff- July 31, 2024
Designation of Plaintiff’s Opening Experts with Reports – August 30, 2024
Designation of Defendant’s Rebuttal Experts with Reports – October 14, 2024
Expert Discovery Cutoff – January 12, 2025
Deadline for Filing Dispositive Motions – February 11, 2025
Deadline for Filing Oppositions to Dispositive Motions – March 31, 2025
Deadline for Filing Replies to Dispositive Motions – April 28, 2025
Hearing on Anticipated Dispositive Motion(s)1 – June 5, 2025 at 9:00 a.m.

Johnson also reported that WWE’s original legal representation, K&L Gates, were officially removed from the lawsuit on July 5th. This legal team featured WWE longtime lawyer Jerry McDevitt who recently removed himself from the case due to retirement-related reasons.

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

This past Wednesday’s NJPW Strong Independence Day Night 2 event in Tokyo, Japan featured New Japan Pro Wrestling revealing the official logo for next year’s Wrestle Kingdom 18 event.

Women of Wrestling’s parent company WOW Holdings LLC filed several new trademarks for “WOW” and its logo on June 29th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes.

Pro Wrestling NOAH talent Takashi Sugiura announced on Twitter that he recently underwent successful left eye surgery and is currently planning to undergo one more surgery after he retires from wrestling. Sugiura stated “Surgery is over. Since the crystalline lens was considerably misaligned from the time of the injury, it was removed by surgery. Normally, I would have a medical lens inserted into my eye instead of the removed lens, but I plan to have that surgery once I retire from active duty. This is my third eye surgery, but it was too painful for me to ask for a double eye surgery.“

In a recent interview with Tokyo Sports, DDT Pro Wrestling talent Saki Akai revealed that she had received a two-year contract offer from an overseas wrestling company prior to her decision to retire later this year. Akai stated “I had been thinking about it (retirement) for a while. But I was working hard on what was in front of me, and time was running out. At the time I thought, ten years… I was offered a contract with an overseas pro wrestling company, and it was a two-year contract. I couldn’t graduate from professional wrestling until that contract was over, so I thought that would be 12 years of my career, and that I would end up cheating, so I told the company what I wanted to do.” (English translation via PostWrestling.com)

Major League Wrestling recently announced that Mandy Leon will be making an appearance for the company at their MLW Fustion taping on July 8th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvanian.

MLW also recently announced a new match for the card of their MLW Fusion taping on July 8th in Philadelphia:

Tiara James vs. B3CCA

Ring of Honor recently announced a new match for the card of their Death Before Dishonor 2023 event on July 21st in Trenton, New Jersey:

ROH World Championship – Mark Briscoe vs. Claudio Castagnoli (c)

Impact Wrestling recently announced two new matches for the card of their Slammiversary 2023 event on July 15th in Windsor, Ontario, Canada:

Impact Digital Media Championship – Kenny King vs. Joe Hendry (c)
Frankie Kazarian vs. Eddie Edwards

Impact also recently announced one new match for the card of their Slammiversary 2023 Fallout Impact tapings on July 16th in Windsor:

Santino Marella vs/ Dirty Dango

Jersey Championship Wrestling recently announced one new match for the card of their Big A$$ Extreme Birthday Bash event on July 9th in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey: