ROH Final Battle 2025 Media Scrum: ROH TV Deal Talks Update, Nick Wayne Broken Foot Injury Update & Potential for Interim ROH TV Champion, Zayda Steel AEW & ROH Contract Status, Potential of Blake Christian Using Zack Harlow Song, Mercedes Mone ROH Future

Ring of Honor owner Tony Khan held a media call on Thursday to promote this Friday’s ROH Final Battle 2025 event at Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio.

Some of the notable highlights included:

• On the topic of the status of ROH’s current talks for a potential new television deal, Khan stated “I’ve had great offers to put ROH on TV. Right now, we have a streaming service, and I have had an opportunity at times to move ROH to TV, and from great media partners. Right now, we have to look at the AEW situation. AEW has a media rights deal with a half-billion dollar contract. Given that I have a half a billion dollar contract to produce wrestling, I really want to make sure I get a good rights fee, and the situation for ROH is not necessarily equal or greater than, but I want to get a rights fee that makes sense and the perfect situation with a media partner.“
• Khan also gave his thoughts about what he is currently looking for in a potential media partner for ROH. Khan stated “It has to be the right fit and, to me, it’s gotta be the right media partner, but also, the money has to be right. It has to be a combination of the two things. There are times where we’ve had great media offers, and there were times we’ve had offers of money, and when they line up with the right media partner and right money…certainly, when you get a deal like we got with TBS, TNT, and HBO Max, that’s one of those great situations. It’s the perfect combination. I love ROH, but I’m very cognizant that it may not get the exact same media rights as AEW, but it does have to be something that makes sense. I would like to put it on TV to get the maximum eyeballs on it. For me to pull it out from a paywall, where it’s doing very well, especially this year. I want people to see it, but it’s important to look at a media rights deal and say, ‘Is the partnership perfect for ROH and are the seeds commensurate with what I think ROH can command in the market?’ I’m happy to wait. There is not the urgency because we’ve been having a great year with it. When the time is right, I now we’ll get the right deal for ROH and it’ll make sense. We have to keep evaluating it. It has to be the right combination of partner, money, and time.“
• On the topic of ROH World Television Nick Wayne’s recovery from a broken foot injury and the potential of an Interim champion being crowned, Khan stated “Well, I’ll be honest, the timeline on this particular injury changed, which is the nature of injuries. You can expect when somebody recovers but when it’s a bad injury, it can take longer. We’ve had some of those happening in AEW… Nick Wayne got hurt in the ring. It’s not his fault, and we thought he would 100 percent be back for Final Battle. I would have bet money, and I’m not allowed to bet money, but if I was allowed to bet money, I would have bet money that Nick Wayne would be back for Final Battle, and he’s not but I would have to be honest, at Death Before Dishonor, I did not know that Nick Wayne would not be back by now. I didn’t know that a few months ago that was gonna be the case or we probably would have crowned an Interim TV Champion for when he is back. We’re at the point now where I think Nick is getting close hopefully to coming back, and he’s a great, young wrestler. This is one of the top young wrestlers in the world. Somebody I really like working with and I’m very, very fond of and somebody that has had the mentorship of one of the all-time greats in Christian Cage and that’s my opinion… Nick Wayne, to me, has such a bright future, and everybody who’s been around him sees — and these are people I really respect a lot, whether it’s Christian Cage, Adam Copeland, Darby Allin. People that I think the world of, they’ve all praised Nick Wayne to me. Again, Adam Copeland, who’s one of the most accomplished wrestlers ever and is somebody who came into AEW with a fresh pair of eyeballs and immediately took to Nick Wayne and said, ‘This is a brilliant kid, and some of the instincts he has at his age are remarkable,’ and I’ve heard that from these great minds… All of them have said to me that Nick is the future and I see it. I see it in Nick. He is a prodigy. He is legitimately the prodigy, and I would have, at this point, put an interim champion in position to have the title being defended if I had known that Nick would not be medically cleared by now but there was no way to predict that. Again, that’s not Nick’s fault.“
• On the topic of if indies and former WWE ID talent Zaya Steel has signed a contract with AEW and ROH following her surprise ROH debut appearance on the December 2nd ROH TV show, Khan stated “Well, I think we’ll stay tuned as Zayda Steel’s doing a great job and I think she does great work. She’s come out and we saw that promo with Leila Grey. I thought that was very interesting this week on ROH… Certainly, Zayda brought some good interest and I’d be interested to see more of her in ROH for sure so, stay tuned.“
• As noted before, Khan also had provided an update on Queen Aminata’s neck injury status and announced that she had been pulled from her scheduled ROH Women’s Pure Championship Tournament Semifinal Round match against Deonna Purrazzo.
• On the topic of ROH’s 2025 year, Khan stated that he feels that this was the most complete and his favorite year in terms of ROH TV and pay-per-view shows out of the four years he has owned ROH so far.
• On the topic of the potential of Blake Christian using “Lovin’ on Me” by Jack Harlow as an etrance theme song, Khan stated that he has made no progress other than getting “1% approval.” Khan stated that if he can get the other 99% of stakeholders to approve, he will get the song for Blake.
• On the topic of AEW TBS Champion and ROH Women’s World TV Champion Mercedes Mone becoming more of a fixture on ROH going forward, Khan stated that he hopes so and considers her as a “free agent” ROH brought in.

ROH Final Battle 2025 media scrum full audio: Fightful

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