Ring of Honor Newswire Thread

[Silk]

Lady Jo Jo ist Sojourner Bolt von TNA.

[Bild: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BE9HgYUgPTI/ST...n-Bolt.jpg]

[DE_Kimura]

aso.. die.. na dann... SQUASH HER DAIZEE

..ich weiß ja ned.. bei TNA wirkte sie schon recht überfordert.. na mal sehen, was draus wird.

[Silk]

Is wohl bei OVW jetzt unterwegs (i smell a working relationship thanks to Cornette)

[DE_Kimura]

hehe.. denkbar.. und sicher nicht schlecht.. ;)

[Silk]

Cowards

[Bild: http://www.rohwrestling.com/news/wp-cont...00x160.jpg]

Cowards.

That is the only, the absolute ONLY, word that can be used to describe my “friends” Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards. The American Wolves talk a big game but, at least in this case it seems, there is no action to back up their words. See I spent quite a long time alongside these two, watching them grow as wrestlers. Hell, I have known Eddie for as long as I’ve been involved in wrestling and watched him develop from a chubby kid with dreads into one of the most superb athletes in the world today. I first met Davey when he debuted at “Destiny” back in June of 2004 and I even then I knew there was something to that guy that would take him far. I can never, would never, take away from the wrestling ability of both of these men, but it’s their moral center…their heart that I question now.

Punch me in the face, kick me in the ribs, threaten me all you want; the mistake Eddie made was in calling out Hero and Claudio after I simply tried to congratulate him on his back-to-back successful World TV Title defenses. Here’s the video for those of you too lazy to find it yourselves:

[YOUTUBE]NMI8OQCpnL4[/YOUTUBE]

See Eddie, Davey, that was your biggest mistake, and I think I can put the blame for that on hubris. Pride f’n with you as a great movie once put it. Despite all the facts in front of you, you both still think your the best team in ROH. Now I recall a moment on HDNet where I warned Davey that he would get hurt if he didn’t do the right thing and, what a shock, he didn’t listen. What happened? Well go watch HDNet to find out, but the unadulterated truth is this…I saw fear in your eyes in those moments Davey. For the first time in the history of your ROH career, for the first time in all of the video tape I have watched of your endeavors, I saw fear. You knew you were outmatched and, for the first time, outclassed and even the timely arrival of Eddie wasn’t enough to shake that fear. With that fear in your heart and mind Davey, The Kings of Wrestling already own you.

I thought maybe Eddie didn’t have that fear but then I look at the calendar since the two of you decided you were better off without me and I see a great many ROH events with at least one of you absent. Eddie challenges the Kings and Davey runs to New Japan. Davey comes back and Eddie runs to NOAH. Oh look at this, when Eddie comes back to ROH, Davey goes BACK to New Japan. Are those the actions of two men ready to face the greatest tag team in ROH history?

I say no.

Those are the actions of two men stalling for time, and trying desperately to find a solution to the problem on hand. You will have to own up to your actions Davey…Eddie…you will have to pay the piper and Eddie gets to do it right in front of his friends and family no less. So please, sit back and make game plans, and hope you get to Plymouth intact. But accept that fact that it won’t make a lick of difference. I know they pair of you like no other, guaranteed better than you know yourselves. But you…you can only guess at what the KoW have in reserves.

I also have no doubt that Kings will still be champions so the fans can rejoice when The Wolves get their shot, but mark my words, it will be the last tag title shot they ever get. That night in Mass. will be the death blow for the Wolves, and the repercussions will be felt at “Final Battle” when Davey proves…once again…he can’t do it without me when he loses to Roddy or to Chris. Afterwards, I’ll be the guy standing on the front steps of The Manhattan Center yelling “I told you so” to every fan that’s spit in my face and celebrated my misery.

Your heads are on the chopping block Wolves, the guillotine is coming fast…

…SH…

[Silk]

NEW VIDEOWIRE

- der Engel kritisiert den Jäger
- die Neulinge sprechen
- Steen zu seinem "mörderischen" Gegner mit einer jahrelangen Vergeltung
- Corino und das Ende
- der Grund für das ROH World Tag Title Match "according to Hero"
- Andy Ridge geht "on trial"
- Davey Richards über Risiko

[YOUTUBE]MRwtUH5W04Y[/YOUTUBE]

[DE_Kimura]

sehr netter VideoWire.. mal wieder..

allen voran Steen.. der Typ ist einfach genial.. fette Promo..

..Davey, Daniels, KoW, Corino.. solide..

Cole, O'Reilly, Ridge noch etwas hinten dran.. aber das wird schon noch..

[Silk]

O'Reilly und Cole haben imo scho die gewisse Ausstrahlung, wie ich finde - da könnte was werden

Platz 3 is Daniels, Platz 2 Corino und der Mothaf**** is definitiv wieder mal Steen. Man man man i luv it. Selbst Rückbezug auf Corinos Taubheit. So cool.

[Double F]

Tja, was soll man groß schreiben!
Habt ihr beide ja schon alles gesagt...
Dieser Steen ist einfach der Hammer. Und genau wegen sowas will ich ned, dass der nächstes Jahr nicht mehr da ist. Aber Generico ohne Maske geht einfach auch nicht!

Ohhh Mann!
Aber für Chicago mal wieder genau die richtigen Worte gefunden von den Jungs und die "Neuen" haben doch nen ganz guten und relativ sicheren Eindruck gemacht. Da hat mir ein Tyler Black nie so gut gefallen in den Videowires...;)

[Silk]

Die ersten beiden Teilnehmer für das Survival Of The Fittest 2010 wurden nun bekannt.


1. Colt "Boom Boom" Cabana (bisher: Finalist 2004, 2005, 2009)
2. "Pretty Boy Pitbull" Kenny King (bisher: Ausscheidung in 2009 Runde 1 gegen Tyler Black)

[DE_Kimura]

Haas und Benjamin kommen wieder.. Dezember Tapings.. :klatscher:

[Silk]

(8) Hab ich scho fast geahnt, als ich Haas Twitter gelesen hatte vor einigen Stunden, dass WGTT schon bald wieder zurück ist. Natürlich sehr geil, weil man somit auch ne Fehde mit KoW um die Titel aufbauen kann.

Gleich nmal offizielle News vorbereiten. *g*

[Silk]

Hier mal ein sehr interessantes Interview mit dem ehemaligen ROH Headbooker Adam Pearce, der über die stetigen Probleme von ROH spricht, seinen Abgang, wie er an den Job kam, seine Meinung über die NWA und so weiter. Definitiv lesenswert, wenn auch ein wenig länger.

AC: You’ve been in the news as of late, largely because of your parting of ways with Ring of Honor. You’ve said a little bit about what happened, but can you tell me more about how that came about?

AP: I think basically what it boils down, and I’ve said this to practically everyone I’ve talked to, is that it’s a different ideology having literally nothing to do with the wrestling side of the operation. I’ve thought, and I’ve been adamant from the beginning, that if and when Ring of Honor finally closes its doors, the wrestling side of it—the in-ring, the creative—is never going to be the reason why. I really mean this: It doesn’t matter who the booker is. Whether it’s Gabe Sapolsky, me, Delirious, or somebody you pull off the street, it really doesn’t matter because the in-ring is going to be so strong and what Ring of Honor is going to be remembered for. It’s those other things that are equally important and often forgotten and those things away from the public eye that are going to be the things that drag the company down. And those ultimately turned out to be what the main difference of opinion was between myself and some of the other guys in Ring of Honor.

AC: Is that to say that you think there are some bad business decisions being made in Ring of Honor?

AP: I think that there are opportunities that Ring of Honor has had over the last two years, that I’ve seen with my own eyes, and doors that have gone unopened and things that are left on the table that I think the company could have really taken advantage of and have been better for business in the long term and certainly better for the wrestlers in the long term. And it’s unfortunate.

AC: What’s kept those things from happening? Is it just a disagreement about whether those things would, in fact, help the company? I imagine if those in power thought these were good things, they would do them.

AP: You would think that would make sense. You know you have good people that you work with. Ring of Honor over the last two years has come into partnerships with some strong businesses people—HDNet, obviously owned by Mark Cuban, who is a billionaire. And, from the outside looking in, you’d take it as a given to want to get in bed with a billionaire who obviously is a fan of wrestling, who has put himself in the ring in WWE several times and fronted the money to put Ring of Honor on a national platform on his television network. You’d think you’d want to expand that relationship and try to get away from a business model that has proven to not be successful—the DVD market. I don’t think it takes a lot to realize that if WWE is having problems selling WrestleMania on DVD the last couple of years, what makes anyone think that you’re going to be able to sell any other wrestling DVD, especially from a company with a percentage of the notoriety, a percentage of the familiarity of WWE? And expect to sell them at a volume to where you’d not only break even, but draw enough of a profit to sustain your business going forward? I think that Ring of Honor needs to take a look at how it’s operating and what it’s expecting. I just think there have been doors that have been knocked on and just haven’t been answered.

AC: Can you give any specific example of an opportunity that you think they didn’t take?

AP: I think the number one thing that should have been done in Ring of Honor is expand its deal with HDNet. And I know that there are opportunities to do that that were declined… Stronger help on the television side of things. Ring of Honor has been off of cable pay per view for a couple of years. And there are opportunities there to sit down with HDNet and talk about that. There’s the continued use of the DVDs that Ring of Honor has been putting out that are not in high definition format – basically just not keeping up with the technology of the day. These are all things that could have been mitigated – and in my opinion should have been mitigated – if the company is going to stay on the winning path and is going to move toward becoming solvent and well off. These are things that need to be done. People are complaining about the quality of the DVDs – that’s it’s not shot in widescreen format and it’s not in HD.

Basically, Ring of Honor, I think, on the business side of things, is stuck in 1998. They’re a generation behind of where they should be. And on one side of the coin, your wrestling is supposed to be this revolutionary product, but everything else isn’t. I was championing those things, which is why I was happy that we took a step forward with the Internet pay-per-views and the online, on-demand portal. You’re going to see that over the next five years, that’s going to be how people rent things. I don’t think there’s going to be DVDs coming off of shelves at the Blockbuster. We’re going to be looking more toward the Netflix download system. WWE’s got their online portal, and so does TNA. And they’re drawing strong revenues from that. And I think that it’s totally natural that as technology advances, you have to keep up with it. And I don’t see that happening at Ring of Honor.

AC: Was it a situation where you couldn’t remain silent and felt you needed to speak up about these problems you were seeing?

AP: I’ve always been that guy. I’m outspoken and when I see something that I see as a deficiency or something that needs to be corrected, I’m on it. The good side of that is that that’s why I’m always looked to as a leader in practically everything I do. The bad side of that is that my voice is always a little bit louder. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This time I didn’t get the grease I was looking for.

Anytime you’ve got two strong personalities in the same office on opposite ends of the spectrum as it pertains to an issue, there’s automatically division. If I say black and someone else says white, that puts the owner, Cary Silkin, in the middle. And if that argument continues for months and months, and there’s bitterness on both sides that has been festering, then a change is coming. And Cary Silkin was, unfortunately, in a position where he felt that he needed to make a change he thought was easiest for the company. I don’t like it, but I understand it.

AC: So you’re butting of heads wasn’t with Cary.

AP: Not at all. Cary Silkin is the most generous man I’ve ever met in my life. I consider him a tremendous friend and probably the best boss I will ever have. I can’t say enough good things about Cary. But, again, to have himself in the position that he’s got one person chirping in his ear constantly about one thing and someone else chirping in his ear about the opposite—I think there’s some hard feelings both ways, and I certainly accept the part of the turmoil that I created. But he knows. I’ve had conversations with Cary since I was let go and he knows that where I was coming from was a place of bettering Ring of Honor and taking care of the people who we have under contract on the creative side who deserve, in my opinion, more than they’re getting.

AC: I’ve got to ask who the person was that you were clashing with. Is it Syd (Eick, ROH vice president)? Jim Cornette?

AP: Absolutely not Jim Cornette. It’s not hard to figure it out.

AC: You said something a little while ago that some people would find alarming. You said “if and when” Ring of Honor shuts down. I think for realists who watch this company surviving on DVD sales and few hundred people at live shows, that’s been in the back of their heads for a long time. But I know I’ve gotten assurances from Cary over the years of, “No, we’re fine. We’re not shutting down anytime soon.” Maybe you could offer some insider perspective. Is that a realistic possibility?
AP: I think anytime you’re dealing with a small business—and I still consider Ring of Honor to be a small business and I think Cary would—in the economy we have and in the entertainment field, whose existence is based solely on selling one item, I don’t really consider the people in the area buying the tickets. That’s almost second to the DVD sales. That’s the driving force of the company. Because by the time we walk into the building and the people show up, their money is already spent. So it’s on the back end that you’re trying to make a profit. So I think when you limit yourself to saying, “We’re going to rely on “X” and “X” is your bread and butter, and if you haven’t turned a profit in “X” since 2005, then I think you have to take a look in the mirror and ask, “Why are we in business? And if we’re not making any money, why are we in business? And if we’re not turning a profit at these shows, why are we running these shows?”

To Cary’s credit, the schedule was cut quite a bit from two or three years ago to where it is now. And the TV tapings are subsidized by HDNet, so that’s not a huge expense out of Cary’s pocket. I think, at the end of the day—and this is just me, personally—Ring of Honor will continue to operate as long as Cary Silkin wants it to. But what that entails is him pulling his private funds out of his own wallet to make that happen. And the thing that I fear, and I’ve said this to him a hundred times, is that he’s going to continue pulling from his own kitty, and one day he’s going to reach in and there’s not going to be anything left. And then it’s going to be reflection time. “Oh, no. What did I do? What could I have done differently? Where did all the money go?” I would hate for that to happen for him, because I don’t think he deserves it.

Like I said, this is the most generous man that I’ve ever met in my life, who’s taken care of so many people. He’s so generous, I think to a fault. He’s primed to be taken advantage of. And I think in some situations he has been. And I think he needs the right set of people around him on the business end of things to make sure that at the end of the day not only is it bigger, it’s profitable, but also that he’s not depleting his own personal funds. At the end of the day, he’s really the one who’s going to be worse off than anyone else. The wrestlers could always go and work. I’m going to find another job. People in the office can go and find another job. If his business fails, what does Cary do next? And that’s a scary question.

AC: I think it’s fair to say it will be a very sad day for the wrestling landscape when Ring of Honor isn’t around. Inasmuch as people think of a “Big Three”—even though I know Ring of Honor’s fan base is far smaller than even TNA’s—Ring of Honor has really been carrying the weight of athleticism and wrestling as a sport on its shoulders. And I think that’s something that would be sorely missed if Ring of Honor weren’t around.

AP: Yeah, and I’ve said that to the guys in the locker room. Before every show I do a little rah-rah speech or something like that and address issues. No one will ever be able to take Ring of Honor out of the wrestling history books. And that’s good. On some level, we’ve all forged a little niche on the totem pole of wrestling through the years that will never be erased. And that feels good. But at the same time, you want it to mean something. You don’t want it to be an afterthought, like “Hey, Ring of Honor was this great wrestling company that had so many great talents, and good bookers, and legends that came through. But at the end of the day, man, they just couldn’t get it together, and they’re gone.” You don’t want that epitaph to be more bitter than sweet.

I’m not saying that Ring of Honor is going to end up being a multimillion-dollar company. I don’t think anybody would love anything more than to be able to make a good living in the wrestling business working for Cary, because we all love Cary, but I just don’t know what the future holds.

AC: Lets backtrack a bit. I’m interested in how you got involved in the creative side of things. I guess it was about two years ago that the bombshell comes out that Gabe’s been fired. And Gabe was a pretty popular booker among fans and among the wrestlers. They hear Adam Pearce is the new booker, and I think for a lot of people it was a real head-scratcher. Adam Pearce—the guy who’s wrestling in opening-card matches? What does he know about booking? Can you talk about what you brought to the table that made you a viable option?

AP: I think you hit the perception right on the head. People who were watching Ring of Honor went from one day having Gabe Sapolsky, who has this awesome knack to take people who are on the Internet and suck them into whatever idea he’s got or whatever idea he’s working with people on, and he turns them into this cult, ravenous following. It’s like him and Paul E. are the only people able to do that. And then, like you said, here’s this first, second, or third match heel putting babyfaces over, which just happened to be what my job in Ring of Honor was. I was the lower-to-mid-card heel gatekeeper for these babyfaces who were going to be moving up to the upper card or even higher than that. And the reason that job was mine was because I was experienced enough to get in the ring with guys who hadn’t been wrestling as long as I was and kind of teach them how and what to do to get on to that next level. I think if you look at your card, every spot on the card is important. You need to have your skilled and your tenured people in the right positions to mold guys going forward. And Ring of Honor has always been about the young talent ready to break out and take the next step and make themselves stars. And I think when you have that young talent doing so many moves and so many spots—these awesome things visually—you kind of lose sight of what working really is. These days, practically every locker room I go to I am the veteran. That was my job, to kind of reel people in and say, “Okay, You can do 10 flips, but we’re going to do two of them tonight and here’s where we’re going to do them and here’s why.” I don’t want to say “teach people how to work,” but just polish them. That was my job. And for three years I loved that job. I didn’t have to be the top guy. I didn’t have to be the main event …

Moving into the creative side of things, like you said the bombshell was dropped and Gabe was let go. That was a shock to everyone in the locker room, including myself. I didn’t know what was going on until actually my last date in-ring. It was September of 2008 in Philadelphia. I wrestled Brent Albright in Philadelphia and took the NWA title back from him, and I was being cut from the roster. It was a cost-cutting thing. I live in San Diego, so I’m flying everywhere. It wasn’t a drive to any of the towns. So that took a toll, and just operating expenses were being reduced. I wasn’t being featured, necessarily, in the main event. For me to be kept on for three years in the role that I was given at the expense that was incurred, I think says a lot.

And along the way I would be asked about things I might change. As a wrestler, I think it’s second nature to always question the booker—just like it is for any line of work for a subordinate to question their boss. But the guys would always come to people like me or some of the other tenured members of the locker room for ideas on how to put their match together or, “We’re stuck on a finish,” or just looking for someone else’s perspective on how to do something. I was always one of those guys as a veteran guy who they would come to. I was never shy on ideas on finishes, or angle ideas. When Gabe would say, “I want some kind of angle here,” I was always one of the first guys to wrap his head around it and we’d all knock our heads to figure out what we’re doing.

So over the last 15 years, I’ve always stuck my nose in creative, for good or bad. There have been people who appreciated and people who it’s pissed off. For Gabe it was his baby. Gabe had this thing where it was his show and he’d write everything. And I think that’s somewhat misleading. From that standpoint, it wasn’t hard for the boys to get on board with me captaining ship, because I was kind of doing that in the locker room anyway and giving young guys ideas anyway. So from that standpoint, it wasn’t a difficult transition, I would say.

AC: I talked to Chris Hero, who said that one of the things you brought to the table was that you were one of the boys, so to speak. And that goes a long way when you’re asking guys to do certain things. They know that you would and you are doing them yourself. Do you agree with that?

AP: Absolutely. People ask me what the biggest difference between me and Gabe Sapolsky was, and it comes down to being as simple as anything I ever asked anybody to do, I had already done it. Period. I had been in there, and these guys knew they weren’t going to be put in a situation that I hadn’t put myself fin or been put in before. There’s a camaraderie and respect that’s inherent when you’re one of the boys. I think the guys knew that they weren’t going to be asked to do something outlandish or something that I thought was stupid.

At the same time, I could push the envelope a bit with guys who may not have been comfortable, necessarily, with things that I wanted them to do. They trusted me because they knew Pearce had been there, done that. But they all understood that my style and the things that I was looking for weren’t going to be insane anyway. They weren’t going to be diving off the top of steel cages or going through flaming tables. That’s just not my bag.

From that standpoint, it made it for the boys profoundly easier to relate. A wrestler relates to a wrestler. And if your booker isn’t a wrestler, there’s a gap that needs to bridged. And some people are really good about bridging that gap and some people aren’t … If respect is a cup that you could fill up to 10, if you’re not a wrestler, you could never fill that cup to 10. You might fill it to nine, but you’re never going to fill it to 10.

AC: Was it a delicate balance that you had to try to reach? Because on one hand, you had your own style and your own ideas, but on the other hand, Ring of Honor came into its popularity and grew its cult following under Gabe’s booking and Gabe’s style of wrestling. So, I guess you had to be careful not to completely turn that upside down, because then you’re alienating your fans.

AP: I think what people need to realize, too, is that, if a change in Ring of Honor in style and in creative wasn’t wanted, there wouldn’t have been a need to change the booker. It’s like you said, you’re walking that delicate, fine line where you’ve got your fan base that’s already built up and they’re accustomed to being catered to and they’re accustomed to seeing certain things. But at the end of the day, if the person writing the checks wants something different in the ring, then that’s what you do. And I knew that I would be the one taking the bullets for that. And, frankly, I don’t think it mattered who the successor to Gabe Sapolsky was going to be. I think the fact that it was me, a heel who had always been a lower-card guy in Ring of Honor, it’s not as if it went from Gabe Sapolsky to Jim Cornette. It was Gabe Sapolsky to a lower-card heel who wasn’t particularly Internet-friendly to begin with. I wasn’t out there giving interviews and making myself accessible the way that Gabe did. So I think in a certain respect that kind of hindered my cause more than it would have hindered someone else.

At the same time, one of the issues that the wrestlers always had with Ring of Honor was that it seemed like Gabe Sapolsky got more credit for Ring of Honor than anyone else. This goes back to wrestlers and filling that cup of respect. Gabe wasn’t in the ring doing it. That chapped a few hides along the way. And I wanted to make sure that I, as the head of creative, took myself as far out of the spotlight as I could. I didn’t do an interview at all for three years nearly. I took myself out of the ring in Ring of Honor nearly completely for two years. I think it was important for me that the honor and the attention in Ring of Honor was on the wrestlers and not the booking.

AC: Obviously, a pitfall that a lot of wrestler/bookers have fallen into over the years has been pushing themselves and making themselves the centerpiece of big angles. Once you started booking, we hardly saw you in the ring—at least in Ring of Honor. Was there any temptation along the way of, “You know, I have this opportunity here to really get myself over”?

AP: Absolutely not. And I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think that speaks volumes of what I thought about the product. It would have been easy. And nobody ever told me that I couldn’t wrestle. Cary Silkin never came to me and said, “Hey Adam, now that you’re going to lead things, maybe it’s a good idea to get out of the ring.” In fact, he would ask me, “Hey, do you want to bring the NWA title into Ring of Honor?” or “Hey, do you want to work tonight?” And the answer was always, “No. The focus is going to be on this locker room and these guys because they deserve it.” I didn’t want to be that guy and follow in the same steps, as you said, of so many wrestler/bookers who took the opportunity when they had it to make themselves the champion or to be at the top of the card or to get the TV time.

I mean, think about it from this standpoint: Ring of Honor gets a national television deal … Hell, I could have put myself on the TV show every week, and benefited myself personally. I would have the greatest tape ever on myself. I never appeared once. I thought to myself, If I don’t have the respect of my locker room now, which I did, I don’t think they could help but respect me by doing that. And that’s why I did it.

AC: What are you most proud of from your time heading creative? Is there an angle or a storyline that you look at and really feel was kind of a testament of what you brought?

AP: To be honest with you, being the head of creative with Ring of Honor was my dream job. I loved it. I have a family and child and the schedule didn’t require me to be on the road 200 days a year, but at the same time I was writing a television show that was airing nationally. And we were playing houses and doing reasonably well. In fact, numbers started to creep up during the last year or so, and I was really proud of that.

I think at the end of the day what I’m going to love most about what I did was solidifying the locker room in 2008. Up until the end of Gabe Sapolsky’s run, it was really fractured and really insecure—just really unnerved in not knowing what was going to go on, and really unhappy. And I was a part of that. I hated that feeling. No one wants to go to work when they hate their job. I’m not saying that the boys hated working for Ring of Honor, but that unknown, the uncertainty of the future, cast a dark cloud over what we would have been doing. It took some time when I came in because people thought that was the bottom—the beginning of the end of Ring of Honor, when Gabe Sapolsky left. It was his baby. It took some time to rebuild the confidence of these guys that, “Now we’re going to continue. We’re going to fight a different fight. We’re going to continue to fight the good fight. And at the end of the day, if we play our cards right and we get the right people on our side, we’re going to stay in business and it’s going to be better than it was before.”

I think on one hand there are some things about Ring of Honor that wouldn’t have been possible pre-2008. And there’s some really positive things to take from it. The television show I’ll put up against any wrestling television show on the air. If you’re a wrestling purist, if you like wrestling and you like athletic wrestling, and you want a little bit of sizzle with your steak, instead of a little steak with your sizzle, I don’t think you get a better hour of wrestling on television anywhere.

When I couldn’t get to the television, that was tough. Because, like the Ring of Honor’s DVD storylines from 2002 to 2008 were Gabe’s, the television show was my baby. And that was really hard.

AC: Any thoughts about where Ring of Honor goes now under Hunter Johnston (a.k.a. Delirious, ROH’s new booker)? Does he share some of your ideals? Do you expect him to go in a radically different direction?

AP: I don’t think so. From what I understand from talking to Cary Silkin and Hunter myself, I don’t think he’s going to do anything really different than what we were already doing. I think it’s more about having a different personality in that position that might be easier to work with on the other side of the business. Fortunately for the locker room, everyone knows Delirious. He has an extremely good reputation as being one of the boys with a sound mind, and a good mind. I can say unequivocally that he and I agree on nine out of 10 issues and came to same conclusion as far as wrestling goes. We see things much the same. And probably over the years I’ve spent more time in the ring with Delirious than with any other guy. He’s earned my respect tenfold.

So in that respect, you’re not going to see any radical shifts in what’s going on creatively. He’ll also have Jim Cornette to lean on. As great a mentor as Jim was for me in allowing me to be the boss and allowing me to succeed on my own merit, I hope he’ll do the same for Hunter going forward. And at least with Jim and (ROH producer) Dave Lagana on the television side going forward, you don’t lose that continuity. You still have two-thirds of the three-headed monster. And Hunter I think from a temperament standpoint, if my fuse burns at a thousand degrees, he’s a much calm, cooler guy than I am. I don’t want to say he’s less passionate, because I don’t think that’s accurate. But he’s kind of an easy, laidback kind of a guy. And maybe that is what Cary was looking for.

Teil 2 folgt sogleich, hier gibts nen Zeichenlimit. *g* Dies war zumindest der komplette Teil der direkt Ring of Honor betrifft.