ROH Supercard of Honor 2024 Media Scrum: CM Punk, AEW Talent Releases, Anthony Henry to Return to AEW/ROH, Reason for The Boys Releases, Stardom, ROH Women’s Division, WBD

Ring of Honor owner Tony Khan held a media scrum on Thursday to promote Friday’s Supercard of Honor 2024 event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Some of the notable highlights included:

• On the topic of CM Punk’s negative comments about AEW and Khan as a boss in a recent episode of The MMA Hour show, Khan stated “I’d prefer not to talk about that. I’d really rather focus on the card and Supercard of Honor, but thanks for asking. I do appreciate you asking, and there’s plenty of interesting things we can talk about here.“
• On the topics of AEW’s recent talent cuts and his plans to bring back Anthony Henry once he heals up from his broken jaw injury, Khan stated “I am very, very proud of the AEW roster. We have a great group of women and men and a lot of great talent working in ROH. Any time we have to let someone go, it’s a tough call. We’ve expanded the company greatly this year, and I can tell you that I definitely plan to continue the expansion. I think we’ve built the best roster in wrestling, and I have no intention of stopping. I am gonna keep the foot on the gas pedal. We’re gonna keep going after top talent, and to do so, we need a war chest, and it’s important to keep an eye on the budget. I definitely value the people who work here, and any time you have to make a cut, it’s a very tough call, and these are fluid situations. They’re all different from each other.I think these are all fluid situations. In some ways, it was me trying to make changes to the budget. I’m actually expanding our budget, growing it, but to do, I did have to make some cuts because we’re growing the company, and I am gonna be very aggressive when it comes to the big-name free agents for the rest of the year, as we already have been in the first quarter of the year, adding big names like Kazuchika Okada, Mercedes Mone, and Will Ospreay. I think that these are all different situations. It’s possible, I think everybody there has great things to offer, and it’s possible you may see some of them back here. In the case of Anthony Henry, when he’s healed up, you will see him back here.”
• Khan continued stating “As an example, one of the things that has come up is Anthony Henry. He’s somebody who’s done great work in ROH. I really like Anthony and his team, The Workhorsemen. Anthony got injured on an independent show. I do think when our wrestlers, there’s a double-edged sword here, when we book independent shows, injuries can happen, and there’s a risk to that, and they can affect the wrestler’s career, and frankly, here in AEW, it changes our plans, or in ROH, it can change our plans when the talent get injured here, and by the same token, it changes our plans when people get injured on the outside. Any time anybody gets injured here, I feel responsible, and when it happens on the independents, it’s a challenging gray area. I’ve had a little bit of time to reflect and think about it. Anthony’s gonna be healing up soon, and I’ve thought about it, and Anthony’s gonna come back to AEW and ROH when he’s cleared, which is gonna be pretty soon, and I think we’ve worked something good out. So I’d like to have Anthony back in AEW/ROH.”
• On the topic of The Boys (Brandon & Brent Tate) being among those released, Khan stated “These are all very different situations. I think Dalton and Johnny have been very creative. I’ve really enjoyed Dalton and Johnny working together, and this came at a time after Dalton had just custody of The Boys on ROH TV. The rivalry between Dalton and Johnny has been tremendous, and I’m really looking forward to the Fight Without Honor. To be honest, they didn’t show up for work on more than one occasion, and it’s not acceptable. I think the whole locker room knew about it, and you can’t do that, and that’s it, and that’s why I had to make a tough call.“
• On the topic of the type of contracts wrestlers have in AEW and Ring of Honor, Khan stated that some talents are currently under per-appearance type deals.
• On the topic of the Six-Women Tag Team match involving talent from Stardom for ROH’s Supercard of Honor 2024 event, Khan praised Rocky Romero for playing a role in getting that match made for the event.
• On the topic of ROH’s new working relationship with Stardom, Khan stated “[Laughs] Well, it’s a much better relationship now, I can tell you that. It’s been a real pleasure working with the new STARDOM management. I’m very grateful to our partners at Bushiroad and very grateful to STARDOM and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Really, I think, it’s a new day, for sure, with STARDOM and AEW, and the new management has been tremendous to work with. Very grateful to them, and very excited to have STARDOM represented in ROH. Again, I think in ROH, you’re seeing, a lot of the best women’s wrestling is happening in ROH right now, and President Okada, from STARDOM, has been a great friend to us, and it’s a young relationship, but Taro’s just a great guy and very honest and he’s been very open, and it’s been 180 degrees, what it had been like working with STARDOM up to this point. When I worked with Bushiroad in the past, when there were wrestlers interested in coming to America, I believe the parent company, and specifically in our past dealings with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, if there’s a wrestler interested in coming here, typically they’ve been very open, and I have never wanted to go behind their back and work behind their back, and I’ve always been very open about the deals. I felt like that was a good relationship with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and there’s always been the understanding that if somebody was going to come to America, I think everybody would rather have those people in AEW, where they are still part of the family, they can still come work at the shows. In all these cases where people have come over, I have never gone behind their back. I always go through the front door, and that is something I would appreciate the same l kindness and the same courtesy, and it’s a real relationship, and we’re real people, and nobody’s perfect, but I think we’ve really come together and built a great working relationship where there’s so many positive things happening, and now I’m really excited that that’s gonna be able to happen with STARDOM too.“
• Khan also gave his thoughts about the differences in working with Stardom under Rossy Ogawa when it came to his talks with Mariah May for a deal with AEW. Khan stated “When I recruited Mariah May, and Mariah May was somebody I really wanted to bring here, and had a plan for her, and ideas for her, and I had to get in touch with Mariah myself, which is very different from what it’s been like working with New Japan, and that was because we had a totally different kind of relationship with STARDOM at the time. Now, here we are, and STARDOM is sending great talent over, working with us, they want to partner with us. It’s a very new day, and a different time, and it’s great working with STARDOM, and President Okada at STARDOM has been an awesome partner for us, and I’m very grateful to him, and I’m very glad that they made the change that they made.“
• On the topic of the recent focus on ROH’s Women’s division, Khan stated “I love working with these great stars and we have some of the best women in pro wrestling in ROH today. We have these huge matches on the card and, in addition to the presence from STARDOM that we’ve talked about, which is making the card even stronger, we’ve got great Championship matches, including the first-ever ROH Women’s World Television Championship match, crowning a new champion. Who will be the inaugural champion? Will it be Queen Aminata or will it be Billie Starkz? We’ve seen both of them rise and improve and change so much, they both had some great matches on the road to this championship bout, and I think it’s going to be tremendous. Then, you’ve got this great World Championship match with [Hikaru] Shida and Athena. I’ve talked about it a bit on this call, but I think it’s really important to focus on, Shida has beaten Athena before, frankly, and we’ve never seen Athena this shaken. We’ve never seen Athena this shook. I really love what’s happening and I just think that right now in ROH, we’ve built it into some of the best wrestling around and in particular, some of the best women’s wrestling, and it’s a lot of fun, and I think people are going to enjoy the show in Philadelphia tomorrow.“
• On the topic of AEW bringing their pay-per-view events to Triller TV and the decision to expand their PPV schedule, Khan stated “It’s expanding our reach, and really excited about the opportunity to hopefully grow the audience. We’ve got so much great, really great pay-per-views here, and this show’s available on WatchROH.com as a streaming special. For AEW, our pay-per-view providers, we’ve opened it up, working with more great streaming companies and different platforms and hopefully growing even more. It’s amazing how much our pay-per-view audience and our pay-per-view revenue have expanded since we’ve grown, and I think we’ve built a reputation that AEW delivers great pay-per-view events, and it’s helped us grow that audience year-over-year, where we keep having record years on pay-per-view, and 2023 was our biggest year yet by far, and I think 2024, we can be even bigger. We’re off to a great start. We just did one of our biggest buy rates ever for Revolution, and we’re coming up on AEW Dynasty. I do think something we’ve done really well is building a great, consistent pay-per-view audience. It’s grown. We’ve expanded the calendar, and they’ve followed. Very excited about Supercard of Honor, which again, it’s a very different delivery method here, and we’ve been able to grow that streaming service. WatchROH.com subscriptions this past year have grown to be bigger than ever. We have more streaming subscribers than ever before in the history of the company, so this is the peak of ROH streaming, which is really saying something, I think. Very cool to be able to acquire the company, change it, and I’m very proud of where we are. We’ve built a great product in ROH, and really should be a great show at Supercard of Honor in Philadelphia.“
• On the topic of ROH signing a potential new television deal, Khan stated that while ROH has a current home, he is open to bringing it to another platform. Khan also stated that AEW’s upcoming new media rights are of great importance for 2025.
• On the topic of if AEW is still in an exclusive window with Warner Bros Discovery for talks for a new media rights deal, Khan stated “I’m not sure that I am able to answer that question. I don’t want to endanger anybody who works here or get anybody in trouble. I’m not sure I can say. It’s coming up soon. I probably shouldn’t say the exact date. I do appreciate you asking that. I probably shouldn’t say the exact date. It’s coming up pretty soon here.“

ROH Supercard of Honor 2024 media scrum full audio: F4WOnline.com

Source: PostWrestling.com, Fightful.com 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7