Silas Young Discusses ROH Going On Hiatus, Whether There’s Heat On The Company

On Wednesday, ROH announced that they will no longer be running live events, with the exception of Final Battle on December 11, until April with Super Card of Honor. Not only is ROH on a live event hiatus, talent contracts will not be renewed if they are expiring at the end of the year but those still under contract will be paid through March 31, 2022. 

ROH will have a set of TV tapings in Baltimore next weekend to set up television ahead of Final Battle. 

Speaking to Bodyslam.net, Silas Young spoke about ROH going on hiatus. 

“We actually have some TV tapings coming up this next weekend since the pandemic era, the TV tapings have been done a lot differently with no fans for almost two years and a lot of COVID protocol. We do a Town Hall Meeting leading up to these TV tapings and, basically, during that meeting, we found out that after Final Battle, Ring of Honor is basically going to cease to exist for the foreseeable future,” he said. 

Young continued, discussing the details of what he knows regarding the situation right now. 

“A lot of us know what you guys know,” said Young. “It’s been said that there are plans for a reboot that will be Supercard of Honor, which is WrestleMania weekend. I guess the idea is to do that. To be honest, working for Ring of Honor for as long as I have, there are a lot of really talented guys there, and come the end of the year, depending on contracts, no one is getting paid past when your contract expires. My contract is set to expire on December 31. Come for the first of the year, I don’t know if I’m getting paid. Guys who have longer contracts, say to the end of 2022, from what I know, they’ll only be getting paid until the end of March 2022. Whether they have to negotiate a buyout or whatever, I’m not sure. That’s about as much as I know about guys getting paid. From what I heard, and this isn’t set in stone, but basically, Ring of Honor was paying everybody for two years. To not have shows with fans, I’m super thankful for that. It’s never a good time to be let go. I understand why it’s happening. It’s a business decision and you can only lose money for so long. We all found out Wednesday afternoon. Myself and a lot of guys on the roster, we’ve been talking and communicating and I said, it sucks that it’s happening, but will it be weird to go back and do these tapings knowing things will be over soon and will it be weird to do final battle knowing these things will be over soon? It’s one of those things where you have to try and look at it from a positive perspective. I would rather know ahead of time that I’m losing my job so I can have a backup and take precautions as opposed to a lot of guys who get a phone call or something UPS’d saying ‘You’re done.’ It sucks, but the way they did it is pretty good. Guys who had exclusive deals like myself, Ring of Honor has been good to us to allow us to start working Independent dates pretty much as of that phone call. It sucks, but it’s nice they gave us some notice and it’s nice they are allowing us to start working again to recoup losses.”

Young has been a regular for ROH since 2012 and is a former two-time Television Champion. 

When asked if there’s any heat in the locker room, Young said, “Right now, it’s great in the sense that you have WWE, TNA [IMPACT], AEW, even places like MLW. There are some good Indies you can work for but nothing that is comparable to getting a guaranteed check every month. I think it’s going to be really hard, but as far as any heat, yes and no. There are people who are definitely pissed, we’re all pissed, no one wants to lose their job, but I don’t think anybody is taking it too personally like this is being done on purpose. Ring of Honor is owned by Sinclair broadcasting, the biggest broadcasting group in the US. It’s a business, they run like a business and it’s about what’s profitable and what’s not. Not running shows with fans for two years has to be extremely unprofitable. I have no heat. I’m not happy about it and I sure as hell wish we were still working. I was looking, going into 2022, it was feeling like things were opening up and we would maybe get back to a traveling schedule. 

“I do believe Joe went to bat for us and tried to keep things going. He’s a huge fan of pro wrestling and I felt like I was treated well by the company. I have nothing bad to say about them. It’s a boardroom full of executives and it’s all about what’s cheap and what makes money. It sure as hell doesn’t make you feel good.”

Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp reported “Joe Koff told talent he had multiple meetings trying to fight for ROH, but ultimately Sinclair made the call. Talent was told there was some type of TV show that will be in place after Final Battle but weren’t told what that would be.”

Joe Koff commented on where ROH may have gone wrong. You can find his full comments by clicking here. 

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.