Last October Sinclair Broadcasting Group announced it was putting Ring of Honor Wrestling on hiatus starting at the start of 2022, with Final Battle being the last PPV of the now former incarnation of the promotion and laying off the entire roster. In the months since, ROH has confirmed they will resume with Supercard of Honor (a ROH tradition to hold a event at a venue in the WrestleMania host city metro area during WrestleMania week as that week has turned into the super bowl week for pro wrestling). During the last couple of weeks, some names were revealed for ROH's upcoming reboot show, as well as a TV taping at 2300 Arena (FKA ECW Arena) in South Philadelphia, PA. Supercard of Honor of course if being held in a venue familiar to someone who is now buying it out, as on the March 2, 2022 edition of All Elite Wrestling's Dynamite, which was held at Daily Place in AEW's home city of Jacksonville, FL, AEW President/CEO/Founder Tony Khan announced at the start of the show that he acquired the promotion and even made a two references for the price of one when he brought up Shane McMahon (which the reference is to Shane McMahon's storyline buying out WCW from Time Warner to make his father Vince mad ahead of their WrestleMania 17 match which in real life Vince was the one that bought WCW out, and the other reference is a Cheech & Chong reference to their famous "Dave's no here man" bit) in the announcement.
This news is shocking as Sinclair has sold off their wrestling promotion which they acquired in 2011 shorty after HDNet (now AXS TV) canceled the ROH on HDNet TV show in early 2011 after debuting in 2009. Sinclair recently had financial issues brought on their buying out the Fox Sports Network RSNs (now Bally Sports) after Disney acquired them via the Fox merger but were forced to sell them to get the DOJ approval as well as the ransomware attack on the company's O&O TV stations last fall. The rumors of ROH's being put for sale began shortly after the announcement of their hiatus/entire roster getting laid off. AEW started in January 2019 and stole some big names from New Japan Pro Wrestling (which at the time had a working relationship with ROH) and ROH and lead to it's slow burning downfall, some would say the G1 Supercard event in Madison Square Garden and AEW's formation was the beginning of the end of ROH as we knew it at the time. Now fast forward to 2022 and ROH is being saved by AEW, avoiding a fate similar to WCW & ECW, bought out by WWE and put out of business. now the biggest thing to ask about now is, what is ROH's future, will it be AEW's development league to rival WWE's NXT brand, will it still air weekly on Sinclair O&O TV stations and Bally Sports RSN, will it lead to Honor Club (the streaming service of ROH) becoming AEW's answer to WWE on Peacock or will it fold and merge with HBOMax (which earlier on Wednesday March 2, was rumored to close to a deal or have reached a deal.)
We will find out sooner or later what ROH's future is gonna be now that AEW has bought them out
ESPN's report about AEW buying out ROH:
AEW CEO Khan buys wrestling promotion ROH
Tony Khan's press statement from his twitter account about AEW buying out ROH:
This news is shocking as Sinclair has sold off their wrestling promotion which they acquired in 2011 shorty after HDNet (now AXS TV) canceled the ROH on HDNet TV show in early 2011 after debuting in 2009. Sinclair recently had financial issues brought on their buying out the Fox Sports Network RSNs (now Bally Sports) after Disney acquired them via the Fox merger but were forced to sell them to get the DOJ approval as well as the ransomware attack on the company's O&O TV stations last fall. The rumors of ROH's being put for sale began shortly after the announcement of their hiatus/entire roster getting laid off. AEW started in January 2019 and stole some big names from New Japan Pro Wrestling (which at the time had a working relationship with ROH) and ROH and lead to it's slow burning downfall, some would say the G1 Supercard event in Madison Square Garden and AEW's formation was the beginning of the end of ROH as we knew it at the time. Now fast forward to 2022 and ROH is being saved by AEW, avoiding a fate similar to WCW & ECW, bought out by WWE and put out of business. now the biggest thing to ask about now is, what is ROH's future, will it be AEW's development league to rival WWE's NXT brand, will it still air weekly on Sinclair O&O TV stations and Bally Sports RSN, will it lead to Honor Club (the streaming service of ROH) becoming AEW's answer to WWE on Peacock or will it fold and merge with HBOMax (which earlier on Wednesday March 2, was rumored to close to a deal or have reached a deal.)
We will find out sooner or later what ROH's future is gonna be now that AEW has bought them out
ESPN's report about AEW buying out ROH:
AEW CEO Khan buys wrestling promotion ROH
Tony Khan's press statement from his twitter account about AEW buying out ROH:
