Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/11/02/post-news-update-cary-silkin-talks-rohs-forthcoming-hiatus-talent-reactions-joe-koffs-position/
If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
** Former Ring of Honor owner and current company ambassador Cary Silkin sat down with Ringsiders Wrestling following the news of Ring of Honor going on hiatus after Final Battle in December. Cary confirmed that talents whose contracts roll over in 2022 will be paid until April 1st.
They’re not re-signing as far as I know but, anyone who’s got a contract through the end of the year is getting paid and anyone who’s got a contract that rolls over into 2022 is getting paid until April 1st, which is very generous, very admirable.
Silkin talked about some of the internal reactions to the news about Ring of Honor’s hiatus. He spoke to Jay Lethal, Matt Taven, Todd Sinclair, Dalton Castle and others. Some weren’t surprised but they did not think it would get to this point.
Yeah, I mean I spoke to a lot of my friends yesterday who’ve — Jay Lethal, Matt Taven, Dalton Castle, Todd Sinclair, Bobby Cruise and you know, a lot of them are shell-shocked. Some people are — it wasn’t a huge surprise but they didn’t think it was to this level. But as I told — there’s guys like Lethal and Vinny and this one and that one. I’m gonna leave names out. This could also be a break for a lot of them to do something else. I was talking to Vinny, how he’s created such a good character and he’s worked hard at it and he’s laid groundwork. I don’t wanna speak for him but I guess I am so would he rather — he would rather have Ring of Honor existing and have that as his home base but at least the work he’s put in the last many years and we could go down the list; Dalton Castle, this one, that one. The ole ‘cream will rise to the top.’ So, I don’t know what else there is to say about it.
He then went on to reflect on what Ring of Honor has been able to accomplish. Cary said he should have closed the company in 2006. Although it was a great product, he said it was not doing well financially. Nonetheless, Cary is grateful to Sinclair Broadcast Group for getting Ring of Honor as far as they did.
I should have closed, you know, as a business, I should have closed by like 2006. As great as it was, financially, it wasn’t working. I held on, I held on. You know, pride, ego but I loved the product and I loved pro wrestling and I knew that I was not — fortunately — I had a cap where I’m not gonna completely jeopardize my livelihood, which many of person has done in the wrestling business. But, I was able to keep it alive and as we’ve talked about, Jim Cornette led to Gary Juster who led to Joe Koff and so, we were able to get to that sale of Sinclair on May of 2011 and they’ve had the company for, you know, ten years plus and once again, it’s not easy. People — I’m going to be repeating myself but people think that, ‘Oh! Sinclair!’ And they’re right. Trust me, Sinclair is worth a lot more money than WWE. You know, it’s a freaking massive thing. ‘So how could this go sour?’ But whatever, we talked about it already. So we’ll see. I’m grateful for Sinclair to get us to this point today, to have all that great content and all that great wrestling after I sold it. You know, with the Adam Coles and Kyle O’Reillys and the Eddie Edwards and Bobby Fishes and you know, obviously and then The come in and our relationship with New Japan and then getting to do Madison Square Garden. There’s the dream come true.
Silkin credited ROH COO Joe Koff for the job he did. Silkin feels that people don’t understand what Koff had to deal with in his position.
I have a lot of emotions with this. I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m sort of — I don’t know if I’m relieved but yeah, I give Joe Koff — see, people don’t — when I owned the company, ‘Oh Cary, he saved Ring of Honor’ and I was bleeding money and I had to deal with that and I had to deal with all the bullsh*t and working and all the guys below me. It’s Sinclair . Joe Koff might not be bleeding the money, but, not only does he have to deal with all the bullsh*t and all the mechanics and liability of running this and all the moving parts, you know with the traveling and even doing the shows in front of no people but on top of that, you gotta deal with this massive corporation above him. You know, so could this have easily — they could have bought the product from me and after a year or two said, you know — Sinclair, ‘That was a good try but let’s put back on reruns of Seinfeld. It’s much easier.’
** Highspots Wrestling Network hosted a virtual signing with PCO. PCO’s Ring of Honor contract was expiring near the end of this year and he gave notice to the company that he would not be returning. He felt the product had become flat without fans in attendance. PCO added that prior to the pandemic, Ring of Honor planned to go live on Thursdays. ROH COO Joe Koff previously confirmed that Ring of Honor had plans in place to do a live weekly show.
Well the thing is like I gave my notice a month ago. Like almost a month-and-a-half ago and just on my feeling of how everything was going around, having no crowds for most of the time during the pandemic and we went safety first, safety first but then I would see in my mind, the product was great but the fact that it was no people in attendance brought the ratings down or the popularity of the show a little bit so I think that was hard. The fact that it’s a great thing that we went health first and not economy first but a lot of other companies went economy first, health second but it cost us in the end I think and I felt like towards the year that we’re on, I felt like I knew where I was going in my mind, what I wanted to accomplish, me, separately from the company. I knew I had to give my notice because it was a little bit flat. Not that the guys didn’t work as hard as they always worked. They put on an awesome show but just the fact that the fans weren’t interacting with us, that was really, really hard. I think a real hard blow for the company and I’ve heard, like you, that they were gonna close down for four months until April after Final Battle and that was hard to see but I could tell that they were pushing a lot of guys from the aspect but the history of Ring of Honor is like 20 years-plus so it’s crazy so, I think there’s a lot of good things in that library, and I think that would interest a lot of people but also, I’m pretty sure with all the money that they had invested, you have to take into consideration that the big thing with Ring of Honor was before the pandemic, we were going to fight against AEW and everybody live too. We were supposed to go live so we had reserved buildings, we had places to go, we upgraded our production material, the borders around the ring. We spent a lot of money and we’re on a higher budget than usual and then the pandemic hits and then we got all that stuff, ready to go live on a Thursday night and we got all these venues reserved that we had to break contracts and just go back to Baltimore and just do shows without a crowd so, I think they invested a lot of money in the production and on certain talent and things like that and towards the end, you could see that we’re — they we’re going like not as crazy as we’re supposed to go.
** The featured guest of Asylum Wrestling Store’s latest virtual signing was Dirty Dango (Fandango). He recalled when Vince McMahon would mention that he had a new idea for his character and it would always be something related to dancing.
Every time Vince is like, ‘I got a new idea for your character,’ I’m like, ‘Oh cool, we can stop dancing.’ He’s like, ‘It’s a different version of dancing.’ I’m like, ‘Aw man.’
** At IMPACT Wrestling Knockouts Knockdown, Gail Kim offered Masha Slamovich an IMPACT contract. She spoke to WrestlingNews.co and detailed what was going through her mind as she saw Gail Kim coming down to the ring.
Well at first, I was trying to explain to myself why she was coming out and I was like, ‘Man, you know, I mean we went a little over time with the entrances or something like that.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, whatever. They’re probably sending out the next segment and I’m just going to take myself to the back.’ Then she turned towards me and she’s like, ‘No, come here.’ I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. What’s going on?’ And the rest is history. You all saw the clip go around on Twitter that she offered me a contract and it was proof that I had done everything right while I did it. You know, I did everything my way because I’ve had quite the unconventional career so far and it still paid off and worked out. It was just an incredible moment.
** Natalya went live on Instagram with WWE Deutschland. She heaped praise onto both Sasha Banks and Bayley for always wanting to uplift others in the women’s division and for being unselfish.
Of course Sasha Banks. I think Sasha’s so talented and she’s really one of my favorite people to wrestle, man or woman. I love working with her. I think she’s so — she’s so good and a lot of people don’t realize with Sasha, Sasha and Bayley actually, both of them is that no matter what character they’re playing, whether it’s good, whether it’s bad, they’re very giving. They really wanna make sure that the body of the match, the integrity of the match, the story is being told the right way and I’m really proud of them for the way that they’ve handled themselves and how unselfish they both are and like I said, whether they’re playing a good guy character or a bad guy character, they both really want to elevate the division and give back in such a special way and I’m all about that.
She also spoke highly of TJ Wilson and Fit Finlay for their work with the women’s division. Natalya said things would not be where they are for women in WWE if not for Fit. She added that Fit is currently working with NXT’s women’s division and Natalya would like to come to NXT and share the ring with some of the NXT 2.0 talents.
We look at the match that Bianca expertise, because he’s so good at what he does, because of his seamless work for 25 years, he’s able to help give so many other people this inspiration and you see the top performers in the world today and they’re finding inspiration from TJ because of the work that he did, so his reach is so much greater than just being a pro wrestler. His reach now is far and beyond that. He’s help changing the face of how people look at women’s wrestling and we started that with Fit Finlay who was undoubtedly one of the biggest pioneers for women’s wrestling. Without Fit Finlay, we may not be where we’re at today with women’s wrestling so it takes — to be able to pay that forward, everything that Fit did for us, we are so grateful and lucky now to have not just Fit who works very closely with the women at NXT — Fit, I wanna wrestle down there if you wanna let me come down there, I wanna wrestle. I wanna wrestle all the girls in WWE but you now have TJ paying all that extra expertise forward on the main roster and helping women really shine.
** On a recent episode of Bruce Prichard’s Something to Wrestle with podcast, Prichard touched on a variety of topics as a part of a Q&A. Prichard gave his thoughts about Pat McAfee’s commentary on SmackDown and thinks McAfee does a “magnificent” job.
Well that’s because happens to have a microphone on. He’s not even working or thinking about it. He’s just doing what he does. F*cking magnificent.
Back in 2002 when Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) portrayed the Mr. America character, Prichard said the end goal was to do a hair versus mask match between Vince McMahon and Bollea. McMahon was going to get his head shaved.
There was Hogan and it eventually would bring Hogan back.
Prichard detailed several occasions during his on-screen career when he felt nervous. One of those times was when he competed in the Gimmick Battle Royal at WrestleMania 17 and another time was his debut as Brother Love.
I think for me personally, there were really three of ‘em in Houston with Hulk Hogan and I got to go out and work with Hulk in my hometown, being in the ring with the number one attraction in the world was absolutely surreal and it was a sold out Summit that just — I’m pinching myself going, ‘Is this real?’ And then the last one was WrestleMania 17, went out in the Gimmick Battle Royal in front of 70,000 people in my hometown. So yeah, there’s quite a few but those were the ones that really stand out.
Prichard was asked to list things that he learned from Pat Patterson, Vince McMahon, Dusty Rhodes and Paul Boesch. Here was his response:
Wow. Pat Patterson, ‘what if.’ I credit Pat with helping me utilize those two little words to my vocabulary to be a little nicer in sometimes expressing my opinions and try to look at the other side and say, ‘What if we tried it this way?’ Dusty was to always make sure that all sides are covered and that you’ve taken care of as many as you can in the majority but also take care of those that are not necessarily in the majority.
** While speaking to Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Renee Paquette said she and Jon Moxley often joke about having their own reality TV show. She’s not against it but questions if they’d really want cameras in their space that often. She mentioned that she enjoys Miz and Maryse’s style of reality TV where things that are too personal do not get shown to the public.
You know, I don’t know. We . Something like that would be way more up our alley. That means we have to discover some other kind of skill set that we have. I’m not sure what that is yet but, we’ll just become house flippers, who knows? Who knows? Put his ass to work.
** Jon Moxley is making the media rounds to promote the release of his book. He spoke to Robbie Fox on ‘My Mom’s Basement’. Moxley talked about how hard independent wrestling was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he felt a responsibility to go work on some of those shows because he was once in that position of being an independent talent.
Oh 100 percent pandemic and not being able to run shows and everything. A lot of those guys were starving because being an indie wrestler… I mean I never made sh*t on the indies. The fact that guys are making good money now and they got good opportunities now. There’s just more opportunity, there’s more technology, there’s more stuff. There’s more ways to get your merchandise out and all that but when the pandemic hit, they just got killed and I came from the indies so I almost felt like a responsibility to try to help, you know?
Moxley recently wrestled for DEFY in Washington state. His match with Schaff was put together last minute and Moxley recalled asking Renee Paquette if she wanted to take a quick trip to Seattle.
But I mean even like little matches. I worked with a guy named Schaff the other day at DEFY Wrestling on a completely random pop-in, like on a whim at the last second. I was on my way home from New York and they were like, ‘Hey, we’re in a bit of an emergency. What are the odds do you think you could — like this is a long shot but do you think you could make it up to Seattle?’ And I was like, ‘Let me ask my wife. Can we take a day trip to Seattle to save the day here?’ And she’s like, ‘Sure’ because we love Seattle, right? So like, ‘Let’s try to fly with the baby first. We haven’t done that. It’s only a 90-minute flight, right? Two hours?’ So we do that, pop in, do a nice, fun — I love matches like that where it’s just like, there’s a purity to them. don’t have to be like the main event of WrestleMania, you know? I just love the purity of wrestling.
** Bell To Belles pushed out their conversation with NWA World Women’s Champion Kamille. In 2016, Kamille announced her retirement from wrestling and it was the NWA that reeled her back in. She thought her appearance at NWA 70 was going to be a one-off.
Well I actually really liked it still, make sure she doesn’t attack Nick, nothing like that. So we didn’t know what was gonna happen from there. We didn’t know if the chemistry was gonna work out, anything like that, if the fans would even be interested in it. But we realized — Billy Corgan was there that night and afterwards it was like, ‘Okay, this is it. This is something, we got something here’ and we just went from there and it was a great way to kind of dip my toe back in the wrestling world, you know, without having to work matches and do this and that. It was a nice way to get back in it and then also, being under the learning tree of Nick Aldis was great for a few years so that was wonderful.
** Cultaholic Wrestling spoke to WWE Champion Big E to promote WWE’s forthcoming tour of the UK. Big E recalled the first time he met Goldberg at a signing in the 90s and discussed the positive impact that Goldberg left on him.
Man, I had other favorites but the guy who was my guy was Goldberg and I’ve said this a lot in interviews before but, so I got a chance to meet him. He was at a signing, I think in-store. This is probably the late 90s, WCW was still a thing and I remember meeting him and he was so cool, had a smile on his face and it just really stuck with me as you know, and that’s my hope. Anytime I have an opportunity with kids and whatnot to never be rude, to never be short because that roughly 30 second interaction or so that I had with Goldberg over 20 years ago, I still so fondly remember. Upstairs, I still have that autographed 8×10 from Goldberg so, that was such a special memory. A lot of people say, ‘Never meet your heroes’ but I got to meet my hero and he was really cool and so yeah, Goldberg was my guy as a kid.
** Referee Jimmy Korderas guest appeared on ‘The Kids on the Escalator’ podcast. He recounted being the official for Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero’s match at WrestleMania 21. Dean Malenko was the agent for the match and he continuously told Korderas to relay to Eddie that he needed to show more emotion. Eddie then grew frustrated with Korderas.
One of the things you have to consider sometimes is what the message is they .
He did come to the back and apologize after the match. He said, ‘I am so sorry for –’ I said, ‘Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry that I was relaying the message, you know what I mean?’ He said, ‘No, you’re doing what you gotta do but you know, I’m in my moment, I’m thinking several moves ahead, what I wanna do next,’ you know, that type of stuff.
Koderas then discussed being present for the segment when Mae Young gave birth to a hand. He said Mark Henry was legitimately sick after the segment.
This is gonna surprise a lot of you wrestling, I would actually see someone give birth to a hand, and the most incredible part about it was watching Mark Henry legit get sick over it. It grossed him out. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things through the Attitude Era and people set on fire and all that kind of stuff, but Mae Young giving birth to a hand, I think trumped everything for me.
** Ninja Mack and Dan Barry were the latest guests on The Shining Wizards Wrestling Podcast. During Ninja Mack’s portion of the conversation, he said he has talked to GCW promoter Brett Lauderdale about doing a deathmatch, but Lauderdale has yet to meet Ninja Mack’s price for that style of match.
No, no, no my price and the day I met Brett, I told him what my price was, I’m gonna stick to it and I’m gonna make myself valuable one day where he’ll pay that price and when I’m valuable enough for him to pay that price, you’ll get the white ninja outfit so — for that deathmatch.
When Dan Barry joined the show, he told the story of how he still has keloids in his back from falling onto Legos at a Beyond Wrestling show in 2019. Barry broke his elbow in that match as well.
Legos suck so, I did a ‘Fans Bring The Weapons’ match at Beyond against Bear Country (Bear Bronson & Bear Boulder) and I was on the top rope and Boulder I think pushed me off and I took just a big flat back bump onto Legos. It literally took chunks out of my back and I’m not kidding you, I literally have keloids in my back from Lego. I broke my elbow in that match, I had a lot of sh*t happen to me in that match, but like that was the one where I was like, ‘This is the worst pain I’ve ever been in.’ I could only use one arm but I was like, ‘No, this sucks way worse.’
** The newly crowned NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose was interviewed by Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp and detailed how her return to NXT came to be. There were no additional details after the initial contact was made but she went with the flow of things. Rose feels that she has evolved and she needed this revamp.
I got the call and I didn’t really get much explanation, which is kind of the usual. I didn’t expect anything less. It’s one of those things where they want you to help some of the other talent out, need a good heel, and I said, ‘Sure, why not.’ I live in Florida, it’s not that bad of a commute for me. I kinda just went with it and it worked out really well. I am in the process of helping a lot of the other talent and other women. In that process, I think I kind of evolved myself, in the best way possible. I kind of felt like I needed a little bit of a revamp or whatever it may be. I think we all go through those moments where characters have to evolve and change a little bit or find some other layers to your character, in a sense. I have and I’m really enjoying this ruthless side of me. I knew I always had it, but sometimes you need the time and space for it. You know how it is on TV, it’s hard with the women getting…we’ve come a really long way but it’s hard with all of us and sometimes you can get lost in the shuffle.
** At Bound For Glory, Steve Maclin was one of three participants competing for the vacant X Division Title. Maclin told Darren Paltrowitz that when he first joined IMPACT Wrestling, his goal was to be involved in the X Division Title scene.
Yes, on my end, yes , just because it’s such a prestigious title and it’s always been that bearer of what IMPACT has been for so long and even as a fan growing up in the early 2000s seeing how the X Division Title just was — hell, it’s changed wrestling and you can see how it transcended from the independent style of wrestling and all the high-flying and just intricate spots and moves into today’s wrestling and how it is in AEW and IMPACT Wrestling, WWE, everywhere, ROH, MLW.
** Glenn ‘Kane’ Jacobs was interviewed by Michael Harrison.
** Former WWE Women’s Champion Candice Michelle was the latest guest on Highspots Wrestling Network’s ‘Virtual Gimmick Table’ show.
** Daily Star Online has an interview with Doudrop.
** Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizanin and Witney Carson appeared on ABC Action News to promote Dancing With the Stars. The pair also did an interview with ABC7 New York.
** AAW Heavyweight Champion Fred Yehi joined Sportskeeda’s InSide Kradle show.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Katsuhiko Nakajima spoke to Busted Open Radio’s David LaGreca for an interview.
** Independent talent Jack Cartwheel guest appeared on F4WOnline’s ‘Left My Wallet’ show.
** Former GHC Heavyweight Champion Yoshinari Ogawa turned 55-years-old today. NXT’s Wes Lee turned 27 today. PJ Hawx is celebrating a birthday as well.
** Lucha Libre Online spoke to Gerald Brisco.
** Cesaro chatted with Nottingham Post about WWE’s upcoming U.K. tour.
** Washington Post has a feature about Trish Adora.
If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.