Ring Of Honor Releases Everyone From Their Contracts As ROH Announces Hiatus

In a shocking midday news story, Ring of Honor—the venerable wrestling promotion that helped launch the careers of CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe—has announced a “brief hiatus” as the promotion looks to reimagine the company.

Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter went on to report that ROH has released everyone from their contracts.

“Throughout the pandemic, our top priority was to keep everyone healthy and safe, and despite not producing any live events over 18 months, we were able to keep everyone fully contracted. We now find ourselves at a time where we need to make changes to our business operations and are planning a pivot for Ring of Honor, with a new mission and strategy,” read an official statement from the company.

“The year will culminate with a Final Battle in December, and we will be taking the first quarter of 2022 to work internally to reimagine ROH. ROH has the most dedicated fans in the industry, and we appreciate their loyalty and patience as we reconceptualize ROH.”

ROH went on to announce that it hopes to return by April 2022 for the Supercard of Honor during WrestleMania season, as it looks to create a product more geared toward wrestling fans.

PWInsider (h/t Wrestling Inc) has since reported the decision was made about one week ago. ROH is a subsidiary of media conglomerate Sinclair Broadcasting Group, but from the looks of it, Ring of Honor’s current situation was not one that was able to be bailed out by its deep-pocketed parent company.

With the pro wrestling free agent market already flooded amid recent mass releases by WWE, Ring of Honor has only added to a budding problem when it comes to supply and demand of pro wrestlers. The pandemic has also had a disastrous effect on the once-thriving indie wrestling scene, leaving far more wrestlers than the scene is currently able to support.

Ring of Honor’s hiatus, at least for the moment, have changed the face of the wrestling business. With more talent than ever in the industry currently out of a job, the jobs of WWE, AEW and IMPACT executives and talent scouts just became a little more tricky.