Ian Riccaboni chats all things Ring of Honor ahead of Final Battle.
Next up on the docket for the Tony Khan-owned Ring of Honor brand is the Final Battle pay-per-view on December 10th. There are five matches currently announced for the show and four of those are championship bouts.
Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni discussed all things ROH as he was doing a virtual signing for K & S WrestleFest.
While promoting the upcoming pay-per-view, Riccaboni stated that he’s been asked about the Honor Club service a lot and it might be relaunching soon.
4 PM, you can get it [ROH Final Battle] on pay-per-view, dot com, DIRECTV, regular pay-per-view and I know there might be — a lot of folks have asked me about Honor Club, you used to be able to watch that, pay-per-views on there. That might be relaunching soon. There might be some news coming your way about that but to get Final Battle this year, you gotta order on pay-per-view so, it’s gonna be a heck of a night.
Since the acquisition of Ring of Honor, the question of if there will be a TV deal attached to it has been asked of Tony Khan. Khan has stated that he wants to follow up on Final Battle by having a weekly show in 2023.
Ian believes that a television deal will come to fruition for the brand. He feels the pieces are being put in place for that to happen and brought up the likes of Bandido being signed, Shane Taylor appearing on AEW Rampage and the talents that are currently ROH Title holders.
I think so [ROH will get a TV deal in 2023]. I don’t have any inside information… I’m very hopeful because if you look at the folks that are coming in, we have — it’s very public, Matt Taven and Mike Bennett, Maria [Kanellis-Bennett], they’re all signed. You have Brian Cage earmarked with Ring of Honor. Samoa Joe’s got the belt, the TV belt, Chris Jericho’s got the world belt… FTR with the tag titles, Mercedes Martinez, she’s been a fixture in wrestling for a long time, she’s got the Women’s Title. If you kind of look at – the chips are being positioned, right? And you see Bandido getting signed, Ring of Honor stalwart, RUSH getting signed, Shane Taylor with a big chance next week at Final Battle. There’s all these folks who were in the last kind of era of Ring of Honor that are suddenly in the AEW umbrella in the fold. AEW, you look at the TV ratings, every week, AEW’s getting number one, number two depending on if there’s the World Series or a big college game or what have you but, I don’t think there’s any reason why there wouldn’t be an appetite for a Ring of Honor broadcast, especially as you see kind of the army that’s being built right now that has the Ring of Honor ties.
When there is an ROH-branded match on AEW TV, Ian Riccaboni and/or Caprice Coleman are brought in to call the match.
Ian credited Excalibur for making that happen and said he’s one of the biggest reasons why he and Caprice are on AEW TV.
I love Excalibur though. If you wanna know the God’s honest truth, one of the biggest reasons you see Caprice [Coleman] and I on AEW television is Excalibur and he’s nothing but kind and gracious and figures out a way to work with my schedule, Caprice’s schedule and whatever’s going on with the TV show to work us in so, got nothing bad to say about Excalibur.
There is going to be written coverage of Final Battle here on the site along with an audio review after the show concludes.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit K & S WrestleFest with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
