Tony Khan claimed Ring of Honor is producing some if its best content in history.
Back in March of 2022, Tony Khan announced that he had purchased Ring of Honor. Since then, ROH and AEW programming have had plenty of crossover, with AEW stars like Eddie Kingston and Samoa Joe holding major Ring of Honor titles.
Speaking on a media call ahead of Final Battle, Khan addressed media rights negotiations with Warner Bros Discovery and claimed that having Ring of Honor under the AEW banner provides value to those negotiations.
“We’ve had really good talks with Warner Brothers Discovery, had a great visit with them today and we have a really exciting relationship that has grown a lot over the years and has expanded for AEW.
“Ring of Honor is still a third party in the relationship and is a company putting on really exciting wrestling and is peripheral to the conversation right now. It offers a lot of value to AEW and to a media company. There is a lot of interest in ROH and some of the most exciting wrestling and stories and some of the best events in ROH history are happening now.
“It’s really awesome that ROH has healthy options and very complimentary for myself, my family, and our business interests, the ROH media rights and the massive library and IP are there and accessible to us as we pursue new media rights for AEW in 2024 and we also have the additional value of the ROH library with the AEW library that has continued to grow. Almost 200 episodes of Dynamite, well over 100 episodes of Rampage, and an exciting half-year of Collision.” (h/t Fightful)
It was previously reported that Khan turned down negotiations for ROH to appear on the CW Network.
Eric Bischoff Called Tony Khan’s ROH Purchase A “Bad Decision”
While Khan believes ROH to be a valuable commodity, former WCW President Eric Bischoff disagrees. Speaking on a recent podcast episode, Bischoff explained that buying ROH was a mistake on Tony Khan’s part, and even said that if the company were a horse, he’d put it out of its misery.
Continuing, Bischoff criticized Khan for diluting the characters of valuable AEW performers like Bryan Danielson, saying:
“I would take the resources that are going into Ring of Honor which is never going to be viable, ever. I would take the resources that are being dumped into that and put it into my core product, Dynamite.
“By putting Bryan Danielson and the rest of the people that they put into this thing, you’re diluting their characters. You’re making them look like independent wrestlers. You’re not elevating their characters in any way, shape or form. In fact, you’re doing exactly the opposite.” (h/t WrestlingNews.co)
During the same media call, Tony Khan discussed what’s next for the ROH Tag Team Championships.