ROH’s COO Addresses Rumor That The Company Is Shutting Down

This Monday's episode of the ROHStrong Podcast is set to have Ring of Honor's Chief Operating Officer Joe Koff appear to discuss all the details about the company's hiatus.

The host of the podcast, Kevin Eck, has released several quotes from the upcoming episode. This includes Koff addressing people who are claiming Ring of Honor will not return after the hiatus that started a week ago at Final Battle: End of an Era. Once the show concluded, talents were released from their exclusive contracts with the promotion.

What fueled the speculation that the end of ROH had arrived were the numerous video messages sent in by some of the top alumni like AEW World Champion "Hangman" Adam Page, CM Punk, Adam Cole, The Young Bucks, and Bryan Danielson. Ring of Honor's social media page also labeled The Briscoes vs. OGK as the match to determine the "final" ROH World Tag Team Champions.

On this Monday's episode of the ROHStrong Podcast, Joe Koff reassures fans that the company will definitely be returning in the future.

"What seeped into the narrative ... is that we were shutting down when all we announced is that we were not doing any live events in the first quarter," he said, according to PWInsider. "We never used the words 'shutting down.'"

Ring of Honor is scheduled to run a show during WrestleMania 38 weekend in Dallas, Texas. Though a venue has not been announced, sources close to PWInsider claim that the venue is booked and paid for.

During a recent appearance on Talk Is Jericho, former top ROH Star Jay Lethal gave his take on why the promotion likely had to take a break and re-focus.

"I think the big thing — there are two reasons, I think. The main one is, during the pandemic they tried so hard to take care of everybody, right? Which, a lot of companies were doing," he said. "A lot of companies were taking care of people, not releasing too many people, still paying everybody, which they did. But I do think they tried to go above and beyond and had us all sitting home protected while still paying everybody.

"So, there are no shows, no money coming in for almost the whole year," Jay Lethal pointed out. "So they did do a good job in trying to protect us and keep everybody safe. Even though everybody on the roster was willing to go and have those shows. We were all willing to travel, but they wanted us to stay home and keep safe. I think that really put us in the red.

"Then the shows that we did have, I don't know for sure," he admitted. "But the amount of money I heard that they spent on testing and everybody having their own room, this doctor, and that doctor, and all the hoops they had to go through, I heard was unreal, the figures. I think that was the biggest thing that led us to this."