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RING OF HONOR NEWS AND NOTES ON TAG TITLE SITUATION, THE KING DEPARTURE AND MORE

For those of you wondering about how the ROH roster feels about Kenny King bolting to TNA, it's pretty much a negative outlook because he had a handshake deal to remain with the company. There are a lot of people in the industry (including some top WWE names I heard from yesterday) that felt that King breaching the handshake was worse than ditching his contract offer. The biggest complaint I heard was that by leaving in the manner he did, King hurt Rhett Titus the most.   There were a few wrestlers who were also upset that King, despite knowing he was leaving, openly pushed for a finish at Best in the World where he and Titus would win the ROH Tag Titles strongly, as opposed to the planned finish (which took place) where King and Titus had a big come from behind miracle win.

Mike Mondo of the ROH roster was pretty outspoken about what King did, although he didn't mention him by name on his Twitter account.

From speaking to people close to King, the side of the story there is that the company wasn't offering him a raise and that he felt that the extension he would sign would prevent him from negotiating elsewhere. Sources close to King also denied that he had agreed to sign anything. ROH sources noted that would not have been the case. A number of other ROH talent signed extensions at the Best in the World iPPV a few weeks back, with King being the only one who verbally agreed and asked to have his attorneys look at the paperwork. The feeling within ROH is that King knew he was leaving and purposely avoided signing anything.  The belief is that Dave Lagana helped King get into TNA, although King had worked there in the past prior to his ROH run.

The reality is that while the departure made ROH look bad in terms of having their pants down, it's not like he was one half of a tag team that was drawing big time money for the company.  King being there or not will have no effect on the company's gates or business.  ROH right now is basically there to be  TV product for Sinclair and if the house shows and iPPVs do great, that's awesome because it helps that arm of Sinclair become self-sustaining but at the end of the day, it's priority is to be a TV product for Sinclair affiliates. 

I keep forgetting to write this, but In regard to the canceled shows in the Carolinas, part of the problem after they were moved the first time is that Shelton Benjamin had a Japan tour and several others had been locked into indy dates and couldn't make the shows. The lineups were changing by the week.  Ticket sales were obviously also an issue because you aren't going to cancel shows that were in the black. The ROH talents who were booked for the dates are being paid a cancellation fee and have four weeks to book themself on other shows if they wish. The plan is to return to the Carolinas before the end of the year.  One person in the company scoffed at the negative reaction to the shows being canceled, joking that WWE has canceled more shows in the last two years than ROH did this year "and no one is scared they are done."

The ROH Tag Team title situation will be resolved at the 8/4 TV Tapings in Baltimore.

The Young Bucks and TJ Perkins, who haven't been used of late, are back at the next TV Tapings.

 

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