Dalton Castle Says He Considered Leaving ROH In January 2021

Dalton Castle is a former ROH World Champion and became a staple of ROH programming over the last decade. 

Castle became one of the faces of ROH just before the pandemic and into the pandemic era, but when ROH announced they would be going on hiatus at the end of 2021, his future was in question. 

Speaking on AEW Unrestricted, Castle revealed that he started questioning his own future in January 2021, but had a moment of clarity and got a new lease on wrestling when Tony Khan purchased ROH in March 2022. 

“It was a wild night, emotionally. Right before that, I don’t know how many people know the real story of Ring of Honor, we closed the doors like three months before Tony bought it. Nine to ten months before that, I had gone through this weird crossroads where I was going to leave Ring of Honor. A last second decision, I just realized just how incredibly lucky I was to be part of ROH and how happy I was there and how I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I decided, ‘No, I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay right here.’ That was January 2021 when I made that realization,” he said.

Castle continued, “It was the best eight months of my life. There was this weird clarity, I was the happiest I’ve ever been, I feel like my work improved because I finally figured out what to focus on. I feel like I had some of the best eight months of wrestling in my life. I was weird because there wasn’t an audience, we were still doing closed arena shows. Come October, we had this meeting, ‘All that happiness you found. It’s over. We’re closing the doors. Everyone is fired. Get out!’ I was still in a good mood because I had that moment of clarity and I knew what I loved and what was important, but I didn’t have a job anymore, so it was this weird balance between emotions. March, Tony bought Ring of Honor, and instead of this shock and confusion, it was optimism. I realized, ‘Finally, someone who loves pro wrestling is in charge of this. I think we’re going to be okay.’ I kept thinking positively about it and then I got invited to be part of the first show. It was amazing. I have so much gratitude towards Tony and everyone who has helped out to revive and keep Ring of Honor alive. It’s a wild time and I’m happy about it.”

Castle would be part of AEW programming before ROH started its weekly television again. Castle and The Boys won the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Titles at ROH Death Before Dishonor 2022. 

Castle & The Boys most recently wrestled Blackpool Combat Club (Claudio Castagnoli, Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta) on the March 29 episode of AEW Dynamite. 

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