Former ROH wrestler Matt Taven was recently interviewed by NBC Sports Boston to discuss several professional wrestling topics, including his Ring of Honor run coming to an end, what match was his favorite in ROH, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his ROH run coming to an end:
“It was a place where I really kind of set my roots and stuck my flag in the ground, and was very proud to call myself a Ring of Honor guy. It’s one of those things that it’s still not far enough in the rearview mirror to kind of wrap up my feelings on everything, looking back on it.
But man, what a wild ride it is. And for me personally, my last match being in a Ring of Honor ring as of now being against The Briscoes at Final Battle, I can remember right before we went out there, thinking of all the — like you said, 2009 was the first time I stepped into a Ring of Honor ring.
And thinking of all these years that have gone by and everything that I’ve seen in Ring of Honor, and everything that I’ve been through — literally starting as one of the underneath guys that is just begging to get a shot and moving all the way to being the world champion. And now I’m going out there in what could be my last match against the greatest tag team in Ring of Honor history.”
On which match was his favorite in the company:
“You know, people constantly want to know like, ‘Oh, what’s your favorite Ring of Honor match?’ I kind of look back on it and — maybe it’s because it’s the last one as of now, but I really look back and I think I left it all out there for the very last time, knowing that it could be the end.
And I’m so extremely proud of that match that that’s almost one that I hang my hat on as almost like a, ‘Here’s a synopsis of my whole career here in Ring of Honor.’ And it’s summed up in this one match with us and The Briscoes at Final Battle.”
On if he knew that ROH was about to go on hiatus:
“No. I mean, none of us really knew exactly what’s going on. And even after that announcement, no one really knew what was what was going on. There was definitely guys like like myself and Jay Lethal who were you know, ‘We’re filming in front of no one.’ I can see how much every time we do these TV tapings, amount of testing the single rooms, the amount of people coming in, all the flights.
I’m looking around and I’m adding everything up, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘This isn’t good,’ you know what I mean? This is not the ideal business situation, to be not bringing in you know two of your biggest — merchandise and the live audience are two of your biggest revenue streams.
And also not for nothing, but the Honor Club, which was a big revenue stream for us, where it’s it’s a little bit difficult when five months you’re not putting out any new content on there. So it’s not like you’re growing that and you know, there was definitely times where I was looking around and wanting to to talk to the brass and be like, ‘Hey, are things going well?
Are things okay?’ And we were reassured of a lot of different things. And and maybe, you know, I have no idea because I’m only on one side of it, so I don’t know what was going on on the other side. But we really found out shortly before the internet found out. I mean, we had a meeting, a Zoom meeting just like this and we were told the news.
And before you really had a chance to process it, your phone’s already going off because it seemed like everyone else already knew as well. So it was all very very quick.”
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