Silas Young is currently one of the most experienced members of the Ring of Honor; the two-time ROH World Television Champion has been a regular in the company since 2012, and he has enjoyed plenty of prominence in the promotion.
But like the entire roster, Young’s time with the company is seemingly coming to an end, as ROH reportedly won’t be renewing the contracts of its talent roster at the end of the year. Given Young’s veteran status, many fans have been curious to hear what he thinks about this situation.
In a recent interview with Bodyslam.net, “The Last Real Man” offered his stance on the matter. He first recalled how the Zoom meeting in which everyone found out about this development taught him that “Ring of Honor’s basically gonna cease to exist for the foreseeable future” after the Final Battle show in December. When asked, Young stated that, when it comes to ROH’s future, the roster basically knows as much as the fans do at this point. He then expressed his gratitude for the fact that the company continued to pay its roster throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and he expressed his understanding about the financial motives of this decision.
“To be honest with you, a lot of us know basically what you guys know,” said Young. “You know, I know it’s been said that there’s a plan for a reboot at what would be Supercard of Honor, which is usually WrestleMania weekend…so I guess the idea’s to do that, but to be honest, working for Ring of Honor for as long I have, you know, there’s a lot of really talented guys there and basically come the end of the year, depending on contracts for a lot of guys, no one’s going to be getting paid past when your contract expires.
“And from what I heard, and this isn’t definitely set in stone by any means, but it seems like basically Ring of Honor was paying everybody for two years to not have shows with fans. So I gotta say I’m super thankful for that. There’s never a good time to be let go from your job, right? You can never have enough money saved, you can never be prepared. I understand kind of why it’s happening, it’s a business decision, right? They can only lose money for so long.”
“The Last Real Man” admitted that he felt fairly secure with ROH, as he felt that promotion was “cheap programming” for its parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group. But in hindsight, he noted that there’s no such thing as true job security in the wrestling business.
“I’ll be honest with you, working for Ring of Honor for a long time and knowing it was owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, I was kind of under the assumption that you know, it was always cheap programming for them and it was some pretty good job security,” said Young. “But you know, like the wrestling, there’s never such thing as [good] job security.”
Young expressed his belief that ROH COO Joe Koff fought for the company, but other decision-makers likely made the final call due to the promotion’s bottom line during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the months that followed.
“It’s a business, you know, and I would assume the people making the decisions at Sinclair, it’s not just Joe Koff,” said Young. “I truly believe Joe Koff really went to bat for us and tried to keep this thing going.
“I think what it just comes down to is just you know, it’s a boardroom full of executives, and it’s all about what’s cheap and what makes money, but it sure as hell doesn’t make you feel good.”
Though Young again stated that this situation with ROH is disappointing, he named the freedom to perform in front of crowds again as one silver lining. He described how he’d “love” to wind up in a major promotion like WWE or AEW, but for now, he’s happy to work some independent dates.
“The last two years, we barely worked at all, man,” said Young. “[Due to the pandemic,] we barely wrestled and I missed doing shows regularly. So I’m trying to look at this whole situation and trying to find the silver lining a little bit, you know. I missed wrestling so I get the opportunity to get out there and work some indies for a while.
“Clearly though, obviously I would love to go to a place like AEW or IMPACT or WWE. I think that would be kinda the no-brainer answer, but at the same time, I’m excited to get out there and work. I’ve managed to pick up some bookings in the last few days so I’m excited to get out there and working regularly again.”
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The full interview is available here:
