He speaks candidly about the former ROH GM.
Come March 2024, it will have been two years since AEW President Tony Khan made the announcement that he acquired Ring of Honor. The brand now exists under the AEW umbrella with its own show, champions and pay-per-views.
After Final Battle 2021, Ring of Honor went on hiatus and the plan was to relaunch the following spring. There were talents who were under contract that were paid for the remainder of their existing deals.
Former ROH talent Beer City Bruiser voiced his displeasure with former ROH General Manager Greg Gilleland. Bruiser appeared on ‘The Undisputed Podcast w/ Bobby Fish’ and called Gilleland a ‘piece of sh*t’. He claims Gilleland knew the company was for sale while he was re-signing talents. ROH went on hiatus in December 2021 and Bruiser re-signed in February of that year. Bruiser would go on to state that Gilleland is the reason Ring of Honor’s previous existence is dead. Bobby Fish chimed in with his own interactions with the former GM.
Prior to Bruiser speaking about that, he claimed that he and others learned that in addition to Tony Khan, there were other parties that made offers to acquire ROH such as Anthem Sports & Entertainment, WWE and a private backer who Bruiser claims was Cody Rhodes.
Bruiser: None of us knew the company (ROH) was for sale, which was weird, and then we found out there was four offers for it. It was Tony (Khan), it was Anthem. Is that who owns IMPACT? It was Vince (McMahon) and then it was a private backer who wanted to remain anonymous but we found out later it was Cody (Rhodes). Yeah, and I guess Tony outbid all of ‘em and that’s what happened and what really sucked about all that was we — Greg Gilleland’s a piece of sh*t and I’m gonna go on record saying that. He’s the reason ROH is dead. He knew back when we were all doing our contracts — you had to negotiate a contract with him. When we were negotiating, he knew the company was for sale. Why are you offering us these deals knowing the company’s gonna be sold? Why not tell us ahead of time, like, hey, we’re gonna negotiate, we’re gonna get you what you want but the company’s up for sale so if you have offers from other places, do that… But, he’s a coward.
Fish: Well, I mean I’m not here to bury anybody. I had my contract negotiations that went through Greg a lot of times too and before I ended up going to NXT, a lot of that, I was doing with Greg and Greg was very smarmy at times to where it was like, ‘Come on dude. This isn’t personal.’ But then, Greg truly called my bluff and I was okay with it. I think he thought he had the stronger hand and it was like, no you don’t asshole (he laughed). But you’re gonna learn how you learn so it just is what it is and like I said, I’m not here to bury anybody but he wasn’t my favorite either.
Bruiser: He’s the only one I’ll bury, because that company was family. That company was amazing.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Bruiser shared that he was doing producer work for Ring of Honor prior to the 2021 hiatus. Present day, he is in that same role for independent promotions.
I’m learning now because I’m doing more backstage stuff since my surgery and before Ring of Honor shut down, they had me doing agent stuff back there and producing stuff, because I approached Hunter (Delirious) because I was getting up in age and you can’t do this forever but I wanted to be in wrestling forever… I said, ‘Hunter, what can I do?’ He said, ‘Well, why don’t you produce?’ So I’d shadow Bully (Ray) and Joey Mercury and B.J. (Whitmer) when he was there and I carried that over so now that I’m on the shelf, there’s a couple companies here, indie companies that are willing to bring me in to help produce their shows and I’ve been talking to other people at the higher-ups going, ‘Hey, this is what I’m doing. Is this a thing?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, that is a thing and you have much more negotiation power because it’s not an in-ring thing. It’s actually an employee position.’ Like, okay, cool.
It has been stated by Tony Khan that he’s planning on ROH having a Final Battle pay-per-view this year.
The ROH World Championship is going to be on the line at AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam. The reigning champion Claudio Castagnoli will be in a double title match against NJPW STRONG Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Undisputed Podcast w/ Bobby Fish with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
