The big news this week is Ring Of Honor’s big announcement about their plans to run a show at Madison Square Garden with New Japan Pro Wrestling on 4/6/19, on the night before WrestleMania. Clearly, WWE is not happy with this because they did everything possible to stop this show but it’s official and they will have to deal with another wrestling promotion running in MSG for the first time in decades.
ROH COO Joe Koff told the New York Post that the “All In” show funded by Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks changed things for ROH and after running 4,000-6,000 seat venues for “Supercard of Honor,” the “next place we should be playing” is Madison Square Garden.
Last month it looked like this show would not happen after ROH said that WWE was looking to prevent them from running MSG. In a statement to the Post, WWE said, “MSG is, of course, free to work with ROH [Ring of Honor] however they want.”
Koff did not say much about WWE’s attempts to shut them out last month but he said this, “[MSG] did what they had to do as a business and I guess all of a sudden there was a phone call and we were able to work it out. … That’s probably their story to tell because they made the call [to us] and said let’s get on the phone and see if we can work this out. They wanted us. They knew that we would be good promotion. I think they were just looking for a satisfactory outcome for all parties.”
Koff said that ROH has not been in contact with WWE but there was “correspondence that was going back and forth” between ROH and The Garden along with phone calls leading up to the big announcement this week.
The MSG date might not be just a one-off event for ROH. Koff said that a potential return date is possible based on how well they do on April 6.
“If it works for both parties and it makes sense for both parties, I wouldn’t see why if we get the sellout that I’m hoping and anticipating we’re gonna get why they wouldn’t want us back,” Koff said.
