By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW issued the following press release on Wednesday to announce the acquisition of Ring of Honor.
March 2, 2022 – Moments ago on AEW: Dynamite live on TBS, it was announced that Tony Khan has agreed to acquire the assets of Ring of Honor Wrestling Entertainment, LLC from Sinclair Broadcast Group, including the promotion’s extensive video library dating back to 2002, brand assets, intellectual property, production equipment and more.
Known widely as the independent promotion that birthed some of wrestling’s biggest stars of today, including AEW’s CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, and highlighted dozens of members of the AEW roster, Ring of Honor’s purchase signifies a new chapter in the future of professional wrestling as AEW’s meteoric rise continues to draw the youngest-skewing wrestling audience on television.
“Ring of Honor’s influence on modern professional wrestling is etched permanently in the history books, and this acquisition ensures that its legacy will be kept alive and treated with the utmost respect,” said Tony Khan, CEO of AEW, Chief Football Strategy Officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars and GM/Sporting Director of Fulham F.C. “This deal adds thousands of hours of content to our rapidly growing library and creates new opportunities to expand our footprint on a national and global scale, while having the potential to produce new content under the ROH banner. I will immediately begin exploring opportunities to make ROH’s video library available to fans, who’ll have the opportunity to witness the beginnings of the careers of some of AEW’s biggest stars.”
More than 40 members of the AEW roster have appeared in Ring of Honor during their careers. The promotion launched the careers of numerous AEW superstars, including CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Hangman Page, Dr. Britt Baker and Adam Cole. Additional members of the AEW roster have made their mark in ROH, including the late Brodie Lee, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, ReDragon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly), Best Friends (Chuck Taylor and Trent? Beretta), Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, Matt Sydal, Mercedes Martinez, Serena Deeb, Frankie Kazarian, Scorpio Sky, Keith Lee, Eddie Kingston, Evil Uno, Stu Grayson, QT Marshall, Danhausen, Lance Archer, Griff Garrison, Thunder Rosa, Wheeler Yuta, Luchasaurus, Orange Cassidy, Ethan Page, Austin Gunn, PAC, Kip Sabian, Jon Moxley, John Silver, Alex Reynolds, Jerry Lynn, BJ Whitmer and Sonjay Dutt.
“Ring of Honor has produced some of the best professional wrestlers over the past 20 years, but more importantly, it created a family. I will be forever grateful to everyone in the ROH family who has worked tirelessly for the past two decades to take ROH to levels previously unimagined,” said Joe Koff, Chief Operating Officer, Ring of Honor Wrestling. “Tony has the utmost appreciation and respect for Ring of Honor, and I’m truly excited to see how he continues the legacy.”
This acquisition will be completed through an entity that is wholly-owned by Tony Khan. Further details about the extent of this acquisition will be announced in the coming weeks.
Powell’s POV: As expected, the video library is included in the deal. There are still a number of questions left to be answered in terms of what Khan intends to do with the brand. If Khan opts to use ROH as developmental or an equal brand, it would be great news for some of the talent who felt like they were on the bubble in AEW due to all of the new talent acquisitions.
So I guess this means they’ll finally have a place where their developmental stars can actually get wins and respect? Like they should have been doing with dark all along but instead it was just more squashes and tv time for the main guys, if that’s the case good but Impacts the one thats been doing that storyline so are those guys Impact property now? Does AEW actually sign people they’ve had for years and done nothing with? Is ROH just gonna become another show for TK to show off his “acquistions”? I forsee him running it into the ground the same way he is with AEW but I could be wrong. The whole reason I switched to ROH/Impact is cuz AEW got borderline unwatchable and still is. Maybe this will change something. I still don’t get why he got it and not the original ownership. They talked about bringing it back, I didn’t know this is what they meant.