Hello and welcome to the WrestleTorque podcast.

I am Luke Owen and I'm joined by everyone's favorite substitute teacher when he sells say it was not around it's your friend of mine it's sp3 how are you sir I am doing well I'm always happy to be here with one of my favorite people in wrestling media and a fellow dad Luke Owen yeah we are now we have like dad community there's not there's not many of us are supposed to decide there's me you there's Alex oh surely there's more than just the three of us

I'm trying to think off the top of my head those are like the the the names that came to my mind as well so I can't even name anybody what else I got to I got to do my research to know we got to make a dad stable in wrestling media oh yeah yeah we'll start a podcast together like as well this world needs another wrestling podcast like we're stopped for that in this out in wrestling podcasts and just trying to try to get our kids into wrestling that that's that's what the name of it try try to try to get your kids into a

wrestling wrestling podcast by dad it was the first thing that my kid watched was AEW rampage because we brought her home on the Friday so I mean technically I think she watched an episode of taskmaster but she was asleep while out was on the first thing she was a wakeful was AEW rampage the very first thing that my daughter has ever seen on TV was CM Punk versus powerhouse harbs I will remember that to tell her tell her that I can show it to her later in life which I'll actually know what it is anyway let's get into the main show itself

for we just having a little ramble chance here is the show sadly talking about Ring of Honor but it's crucially with special guest

handsome man Chris fanfits here is the show

it's not exactly the nicest news to be bringing you here on a Friday but RIP Ring of Honor 2002 to 2021 a promotion that really did it helped me a lot in terms of like

that real down period of WWE where I was less interested in it and TNA one didn't for me anymore Ring of Honor kind of pulled me right back in I am Luke Cohen I'm joined this week not why Denise Salcedo because she is too big time for the WrestleTalk podcast it was seen I got a message from her at like 2 a.m. last night being like by the way can't do the show I'm doing an MMA gig so of course we called in the only person that could replace Denise Salcedo Mr SP3 how are you sir

I am doing well me and Denise share a birthday May 18 so I'm the appropriate substitute substitute for always but it's not just SP3 that is here we are joined by now Chris when we were talking earlier like when you first came in I was reading off like a list of adjectives

I'm now trying to remember what some of those words I could tell you let's hear them yes it's an honor it's a privilege to have someone of this man's stature fame credibility be it hair and handsomeness it is none other than Emmy Ward winning Chris van flees how are you sir wow should I then know you are paypal you for that would be easiest for you thank you so much for having me on it so good

to hang out with you guys Luke and SP3 CVV in the house and like you said it'd be great if you were talking under different circumstances here but maybe this isn't the end of ring of honor and I'm sure we'll get into that maybe this is just a maybe a little break maybe it's 2002 to 2021 and then it's 2021 to whatever goes on after that perhaps is even like this is we're going to go into ring of on a 2.0

in in next year perhaps so yeah this this news happens earlier in the week joke off informed talents that everyone is being released from their contract at the end of the year but that effective immediately all talent can start working for other promotions even if they are under contract so ring of honor have released everyone but you know credit to them they are still paying everyone up until the end of the year which is

yeah I think actually even beyond that I think if some people sign until like March they're still being paid until March of next year you know and that's kind of one of the things that ring of honor of sort of found themselves in and sp3 I'll come to you first like they along with new Japan were probably the promotion that was doing their best to like make sure that the talents and the fans were safe during a pandemic yeah they did it like better than probably anyone because new Japan had a lot of different cases to their talent

they were they got back fans before everybody and you know they had to go you know back to the empty arena and then back with fans again while ring of honor just did the empty arena and produce a lot of great television like their pure pure title tournament was one of the best things about the pandemic was just straight up wrestling in a totally different way the way they presented it and stuff and just to keep everybody safe to pay talent that weren't able to be on the live events that were canceled

guys like Alex Shelley who are not contracted talent still got paid for you know events that they weren't even on or didn't even happen they did a lot to help their talent and this is kind of unfortunately the consequence because of that they were doing business in a way to you know keep their talent safe but at the same time keep them pay and have them you know make a wage and that's kind of not the best way to do business and I think that's why they have to like reimagine as they say

and do business a different way in 2022 yeah Chris I mean that's what the you know the statement was all about is that like this is it's sort of the end like the title that we've got for this this podcast is a bit um it's a bit dramatic to say you know RIP ring of honor because like you you mentioned the stuff it's not really the end they're going to be running shows next year it's just going to be it's a different version of ring of honor right it's a very confusing announcement though like we're all sitting here going okay

so what happens now is it done is it not done if it comes back what's it going to look like when it comes back I just wish that they were a little bit more clear with what the next steps are here and if they are planning to do this show in April and I certainly hope that they do why not keep everyone contracted until April wouldn't that make a lot more sense I don't get why they're releasing people now and then in April going oh wait some of you can come back for this other show that we're doing it just doesn't

seem to make a lot of sense to me but I think there's like three scenarios that here that are going to happen there's going to be a rebrand

and it's going to be a completely new thing it's going to get sold and someone's going to buy this and turn this into something else perhaps or make it just

continue on the way that it was going or unfortunately number three might be along the lines of what your

clickbait headline is hey I hope that's not me

yeah I'm sorry that the dramatic headline yes the dramatic headline that's what we're going with here yes

...