Ring Of Honor COO Joe Koff recently spoke with AV Club; you can read a few highlights below:
Joe Koff on whether or not ‘indie wrestling’ is a negative connotation for ROH:
I don’t see it as pejorative at all. When we bought the company from Cary Silkin back in 2011, Ring Of Honor was considered one of the top independents in the country. We’ll always be labeled as that because that’s how we’re remembered, and sometimes memories are much stronger than present tense. But I hardly look at us as an independent promotion. We’re in the middle of a four-day, four-city tour. We have weekly television. We have incredibly distribution. We’re on internationally. I don’t think we’ll ever get that [indie connotation] out of the hardcore fan’s mind. I’m not insulted by it by any means. But when you lump everything into that category, then we’re either at the top of that category or we shouldn’t be included in it at all.
Koff comments on the possibility that we’d see Daniel Bryan ever wrestle for Ring Of Honor once his WWE contract expires:
I’m not gonna give you odds, I wouldn’t even know how to set those. Bryan’s under contract with the WWE, from what I understand, until September 2018. If he chooses not to renew that contract, and he is able to wrestle from a health standpoint, I would welcome him. It would be a triumphant return. I think we would be the right place for him, the right fan appreciation, the right respect from the industry plus management plus everybody. But there’s so many variables in that. Even though it’s not far away, a year in wrestling is a long period of time. But he is more than welcomed to come back and I would love to have him on our roster.
Where does Ring Of Honor fit into the style of professional wrestling in 2017?
I think we are wrestling of 2017. When you see Ring Of Honor and that specific style, it’s more a brand more than a style. If you’re watching The Briscoes wrestle The Addiction, you’re seeing fan expectations being exceeded, but perhaps not in the same way you would see The Young Bucks vs. The Motor City Machine Guns. I think the level of talent is so superior in Ring Of Honor, the guys are so good at what they do, so honed in on their craft. It’s about delivering a great match to the fan. Jay Lethal-Silas Young is going to have a different feel with The War Machine vs. The Briscoes. The fervor and the way fans proceed it is no different. They expect an incredible match. We are there to create a moment, a moment of wrestling amongst the community that is in that arena. Wrestling, I view, is a community. It’s not mainstream, I’m not walking into the Starbucks line going, “Did you hear about the Jay Lethal match in Buffalo?” People would look at me like “what is that?” But when you get to a wrestling match and you get amongst wrestling fans, you’re free to be you. And that freedom is in the community of wrestling.
