Joe Koff: I Was Too Cautious In 2018 And ROH Missed An Opportunity That AEW Took
“We all know who they started with and I’m proud of those guys.”
The news of ROH’s hiatus is bound to reverberate through the wrestling world for a long time to come, but decisions ROH made in the past have already altered the wrestling business in ways few could have predicted.
In conversation with PWInsider, ROH COO Joe Koff admitted that cautiousness on his behalf led to the rise of AEW, and had they been on the ball with All In then things could have possibly been very different:
“If there’s going to be a laying blame, which there shouldn’t be because we’re really celebrating what we achieved, it was probably to me because I’ve always operated on a cautious basis and perhaps I was a little too cautious in this,” started Koff “But we took the measures beginning to sign those exclusive agreements, making production improvements and we were bolstering our internal staff and processes. It’s really incredible to see what we’ve done since then. If we had 20/20 hindsight we probably missed a huge opportunity in 2018, and I give all credit to Tony [Khan] and AEW, they captured it and they did it. We all know who they started with and I’m proud of those guys. I mean, obviously, I’m proud of all my guys, we’ve had so much talent that has gone to other organisations that have really been so critical to their successes. I take a small part of that success and I share in that, but it didn’t happen for us, happened for them.
“In essence, I think we would all agree, they’ve done an amazing job and really deserve all the credit in the world. Again, we had a pivot with a different creative line, with missing some of our big stars that chose to go over to AEW and we had lost stars in the past. The business is strewn with stars from Ring of Honor. We can go through the list and we’ve done it before, really proud of that legacy that Ring of Honor has, that this is where wrestling really is born. This is where wrestling really happens. This is like a desert that people are tested against, this is where they grow and they’re fortitude and all. I love that about our company, but that’s what we had to do. We’ve done it before and we will do it again.
“We had to move forward, with a great roster and a strategy, and our strategy was to go weekly and everybody knew that. It was going to be part of that July, I think we’re in 2020 now.”
H/T: PWInsider