ROH Final Battle 2023 Media Scrum: ROH Tag Team Titles Status, ROH’s Standing with Warner Bros Discovery, The CW, Athena, Samoa Joe, HonorClub

Dec 13, 2023

Ring of Honor owner Tony Khan held a media scrum on Tuesday to promote this Friday’s Final Battle 2023 event in Garland, Texas.

Some of the notable highlights included:

On the topic of potentially stripping Adam Cole and MJF of their ROH World Tag Team Championship due to their current injuries, Khan stated “That’s definitely something to look at at some point. It’s something MJF said was important to him and Cole, was to try and maintain the belts to when Cole gets back. Obviously, it’s been a long road to recovery from a bad injury, but we’re all excited about having Adam Cole back in AEW as soon as he can come back. They are a great tag team for any company and certainly have been a huge part of AEW this year and a big success for us. With Adam Cole and MJF being champions, I think certainly that is something to consider.“
On the topic of ROH’s current standing with Warner Bros Discovery and a potential television deal bundled with AEW’s next media rights deal, Khan stated “We’ve had really good talks with Warner Brothers Discovery, had a great visit with them today and we have a really exciting relationship that has grown a lot over the years and has expanded for AEW. Ring of Honor is still a third party in the relationship and is a company putting on really exciting wrestling and is peripheral to the conversation right now. It offers a lot of value to AEW and to a media company. There is a lot of interest in ROH and some of the most exciting wrestling and stories and some of the best events in ROH history are happening now. It’s really awesome that ROH has healthy options and very complementary for myself, my family, and our business interests, the ROH media rights and the massive library and IP are there and accessible to us as we pursue new media rights for AEW in 2024 and we also have the additional value of the ROH library with the AEW library that has continued to grow. Almost 200 episodes of Dynamite, well over 100 episodes of Rampage, and an exciting half-year of Collision.“
Khan continued stating “It is a value for us that we have this big library and additional media rights in addition to the five hours of weekly television and the great shows with Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision. Having that with our pay-per-view shows, our library, and complementing that with ROH with new events, which have been some of the best events ROH has ever had in the time we’ve owned the company, and the ability to go back and look at some of the greatest wrestlers in the world, a lot of them are in AEW now, and some of them wrestle in other companies all over the world. It’s great to look back at that library of events. I definitely think it’s a value add for AEW and ROH to be aligned with media rights that are coming up for AEW in 2024. It’s going to be a very exciting time for AEW and it’s great to have ROH there as far as strategic value.“
On the topic of the rumors of The CW having talks for a potential television deal for ROH, Khan stated “As far as the TV rights, we’ve had a lot of interested parties. It’s definitely something I’ve been holding onto and haven’t had a lot of detailed conversations. I think CW is a great network and we did have a visit. Dennis visited us at the Forum last year and was great. I have a lot of respect for Dennis Miller and the CW folks. The timing for us wasn’t necessarily right, but there is a lot of great, interested, people in the marketplace in both AEW and ROH. For 2024, it will be really exciting time for pro wrestling and ROH added good value going forward.“
On the topic of the upcoming ROH Women’s World Championship match between Billie Starkz and Athena at Final Battle 2023, Khan stated that he is very excited for the upcoming match. Khan also stated that the storyline has been something that he has been personally involved with on a week-to-week basis.
On the topic of Athena not defending her ROH Women’s World Championship on AEW television, Khan stated that this is something he would be open to as an idea. Khan also praised Athena for the work she has done as ROH Women’s Champion.
On the topic of Samoa Joe vacating his ROH World Television Championship, Khan stated that this was due to the decision to want Joe to be a focal point of AEW programming and it would have been a challenge to have him be involved in the AEW World title scenes while also defending his ROH TV title.
On the topic of Final Battle 2023, Khan stated that there might be more of a lucha presence for the upcoming event.
On the topic of the current subscriber base for ROH HonorClub, Khan gave a non-answer discussing more about how having Final Battle air only on HonorClub versus pay-per-view providers has helped with the subscriptions for the service.
On the topic of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s new IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship, Khan stated that he is open to the idea of that championship being defended on AEW or ROH.

ROH Final Battle 2023 media scrum full audio: F4WOnline.com

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