By Jason Powell, Prowrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Ring of Honor COO Joe Koff says the company has lost its date at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Koff implied to Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com that WWE played a role in ROH losing the date. “I’m not going to discuss beyond this statement because I am not going to litigate this in the press, Koff said. “We had a deal with [Madison Square] Garden and they then told us they were backing out after communications from the WWE.
“We are not able to get any other dates in any kind of discussion. I’m expecting that our lawyers will be contacting all the parties involved and the best we can hope is that we can find a resolution, so we can bring the kind of energy and excitement that ROH and our partner New Japan to a bigger audience and to bigger arenas and to the fans of New York City.”
Powell’s POV: Chris Ripley, the President and CEO of ROH parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group, told BizJournal.com earlier this month that ROH would be running a show at the historic venue in 2019. The buzz was that ROH intended to run MSG during WrestleMania weekend, and that MSG officials unhappy that WWE didn’t plan to run any of their WrestleMania 35 related events at their venue. It’s impossible to say whether ROH was wronged from a legal perspective without knowing more about the agreement that Koff thought he had with MSG. If ROH was planning to run their MSG show during WrestleMania weekend then it could be difficult for them to find a replacement venue comparable in size to MSG within the proverbial WrestleMania bubble.
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For a company that claims they are willing to work with other promotions WWE has a funny way of showing it.
Thanks for legitimizing ROH, Vince. Clearly afraid a decent wrestling show might catch on.
I can’t feel sorry for ROH or any Indy company for that matter when every single year they mooch off WWE and WM to help them draw more crowds. If they were trying to run MSG in November I could feel sympathy, but they’re leeches and running it WM weekend is what leeches do.
Interesting thought process. WWE in your view is somehow justified in doing whatever it takes for their business, yet ROH is vilified for the same thing.
uh, several people get tickets to Wrestlemania just so they can enjoy all the other non-WWE related events as well. It works both ways, d bag.