Ring of Honor World Heavyweight Champion Adam Cole recently spoke with CBS New York about his career. During the interview, he was asked about being a two-time ROH World Champion. Cole recently won the title from Jay Lethal on August 19 at the Death Before Dishonor XIV pay-per-view event.
It’s huge. The number one factor is that it shows you the type of talent that are holding the Ring of Honor World Championship. If you go back and look at the lineage of the Ring of Honor World Championship… the guys that have held that belt are the who’s who of professional wrestling. And the guys who were able to win that belt are generally able to keep that belt for a very long time. It’s very rare that a repeat champion happens. So, it shows you how important and how much these guys fight for this championship. To be on that elite list of the guys who have held the title more than once… I’d certainly say it’s my number one accomplishment in pro wrestling so far.
With the success of the WWE Cruiserweight Classic and NXT, interest in smaller wrestlers has risen. Cole believes that has increased the popularity of wrestling.
I’ve noticed for sure that we have more and more people who are watching Ring of Honor and attending our live events. You can see generally across the board for pro wrestling that the power of the Internet is finally showcasing its strength. Years ago, people used to say, “Don’t listen to the Internet. The Internet is just a vocal minority. That’s not something you need to pay attention to — you need to pay attention to the live crowds.” Well, in 2016 the live crowds are people who are on the Internet — everybody is on the Internet. Everybody is voicing their opinion and saying what they like and don’t like. You see that in what WWE fans or pro wrestling fans in general expect from a pro wrestler. You can see that effect in WWE. You can see that effect in Ring of Honor. And another big factor for Ring of Honor as far as live attendance is that we’ve gotten on television. I’m seeing more and more people who come up to us at autograph signings and say, “I’m a huge fan of you guys. I watch you guys on TV all the time. I just started watching you six months ago.” So, because of that and the effect the Internet has on the industry, that’s a big reason that not just WWE and Ring of Honor, but pro wrestling across the board has grown so much.
Cole also talked about possibly going to WWE and more. You can read the entire interview here.
