Opting to stay led to a great stretch of his career, says Castle.
Prior to AEW President Tony Khan acquiring Ring of Honor in March 2022, the company had been on hiatus since the Final Battle pay-per-view in December 2021 and was planning to come back for Supercard of Honor.
With Ring of Honor’s hiatus announcement, some talents became free agents while others had deals that ran through certain dates and others asked to get out of their deals early.
Months before the hiatus announcement, former ROH World Champion Dalton Castle had been thinking about leaving the company. He shared that information during his appearance on AEW Unrestricted. Castle made his decision to stay in January 2021, adding that he realized how lucky he was. He still felt happiness when he was informed of the hiatus plan because it was a great stretch of wrestling he had that year.
I don’t know how many people know the real story of Ring of Honor where we closed the doors maybe like three months before Tony (Khan) bought it and I would say maybe nine-to-10 months before that, I had gone to this weird crossroads where I was gonna leave Ring of Honor and a last second decision, I just realized how incredibly lucky I was to be a part of ROH and how happy I was there and how I think I figured out what I wanna do with the rest of my life and I decided, okay, no, I’m not leaving Ring of Honor. I’m gonna stay right here and that was January 2021 when I made that realization and it was like the best eight months of my life. After that, it was like this weird clarity, I was the happiest I’d ever been. I feel like my work improved because I finally figured out what to focus on. I feel like I had some of the best eight months of pro wrestling in my life and it was weird too because it wasn’t even like an audience. We were still doing kind of closed arena shows and then come late October, we had this meeting and they were like, bah! Remember all this happiness you found? It’s over. We’re closing the doors, everyone’s fired. Get out! And it was just weird. I was still in a good mood because I had that moment of clarity and I knew what I loved and what was important but I didn’t have a job anymore so it was like this weird balance between emotions and then in March, Tony bought Ring of Honor and instead of shock and confusion, it was like optimism. I just realized, oh my God, finally, somebody who loves pro wrestling is in charge of this and I think we’re gonna be okay and I just kept thinking real positive about it and then I got invited to come be a part of the first show and it was amazing. I have so much gratitude towards Tony and everyone who’s kind of helped out to revive and keep Ring of Honor alive. It’s wild. It really is a wild time right now and I’m really happy about it.
At the 2022 Death Before Dishonor event, Dalton Castle reunited with The Boys/Tate Twins (Brandon & Brent Tate). Castle said it was Tony Khan’s idea to bring the trio back together.
We did (ROH) Supercard of Honor (2022) and I remember coming to the back and talking to him (Tony Khan) and he was like, ‘Hey, I think we need to get The Boys back’ and I was like, ‘Yeah! That makes the most sense in the world.’
In late March, Castle and The Boys competed on AEW Dynamite and were defeated by Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta).
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit AEW Unrestricted with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
