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To many wrestling fans, Ring Of Honor is the go-to company when it comes to the best performers within the wrestling industry. Its list of established alumni includes the likes of Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Chris Hero (NXT’s Kassius Ohno), Adam “Hangman” Page, Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks. In other words, many of the champions from other notable wrestling companies got their start as ROH talent.
Ring Of Honor hit a big milestone last year when it partnered with New Japan Pro-Wrestling for the G1 Supercard supershow event at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. 60 percent of its tickets were sold during its online pre-sale, while the remaining tickets available were sold within 16 minutes of going on-sale to the general public. Ultimately the G1 Supercard was the first non-WWWF/WWF/WWE wrestling event at the Garden – widely nicknamed “the World’s Most Famous Arena” – in close to 60 years.
Despite that large-scale success in New York last April, ROH maintains a close relationship with its fanbase via its Honor Club. An Honor Club subscription – currently priced at $9.99 per month – gets you access to live event-streaming of ROH events, access to a substantial amount of ROH’s extensive archives, and assorted specials and exclusives related to ROH tickets and merchandise.
Furthermore, Ring Of Honor has come up with something special to thank everyone for nearly two decades of unwavering support. On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at Baltimore, Maryland’s UMBC Event Center, ROH will present Free Enterprise, a live event that is absolutely free to attend. Free Enterprise is an extension of the ongoing #ROHCares initiative in which ROH gives back to the community.
The #ROHCares program has seen top stars regularly visit children’s hospitals and has provided veterans with free tickets to live events through a partnership with Vet Tix. Now ROH is giving all professional wrestling fans the ultimate opportunity to feel the ROH experience in its hometown of Baltimore absolutely free. And of course, Free Enterprise is available to stream at no cost for HonorClub members.
Another popular recent announcement from Ring Of Honor was its re-signing of PJ Black to a multi-year agreement. A second-generation wrestler, Black held championships in virtually every major North American wrestling company before joining up with ROH.
I had the pleasure of speaking with PJ Black by phone on January 31, 2020. Below are highlights transcribed exclusively for Sportskeeda while audio of the full chat -- which will appear on a future edition of the Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz podcast -- is also embedded here for your listening pleasure.
More on PJ Black can be found at www.pjblack.com and www.twitter.com/DareWolf333, while information on upcoming ROH live events can be found at www.rohwrestling.com.
On what led him to re-signing with Ring Of Honor:
PJ Black: There's quite a few things, you know? For the first time in my life I actually made a "pros and cons" list, because I had a couple of other offers on the table. Where I am right now in my life, a few certain things matter, and there's so many wrestling companies out there, so there's some good money to be made everywhere. But you've got to decide where you want to be, where you can have the biggest impact.
For me it was creative freedom. I look at the roster and the talent that they re-signed, and I was like, "Wow, I can have amazing matches with every one of these guys". I really believe in the product and I really think that this is going to be a big year for Ring Of Honor's growth.
On who he hopes to work with in Ring Of Honor:
PJ Black: All the young kids. Flip Gordon is amazing, and Bandido is amazing, Dragon Lee, I think those three guys are the future of professional wrestling. The fact that Ring Of Honor signed all three of them to big contracts, it's amazing. It just shows that there's high hopes for Ring Of Honor this year.
