ROH’s Shane Taylor was interviewed by POST Wrestling where he talked about his ROH World Championship opportunity, his match at Final Battle being cancelled, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his ROH World Title match putting him on the trail of Jay Lethal and Kenny King: “I mean that’s the goal. Only three of us have held the Ring of Honor World TV Title: Myself, Jay Lethal and Kenny King and only Jay has reached the top of the mountain for the world title. That is why I make no bones about it that when I say I’m only chasing two legacies in ROH, that’s why, because we’re all here right now in our primes. Our careers are going to be compared. Like imagine if Kobe [Bryant], LeBron [James] and [Michael] Jordan all played in the same era, right? That’s what this is. So I’m chasing them in real time. I can’t be worried about the ghosts of Ring of Honor past. I can’t be worried about legend’s past. I look at who’s in front of me, I look at who’s around me and they are here right now. Those [are] the legacies that I’m chasing.
“I’ve already won the TV Title. I’ve been on one of the most impressive championship runs in Ring of Honor history with that championship and then, you follow that up with a singles victory over Kenny King to make sure he couldn’t have that over me and I’ve beaten Jay Lethal now in tag team action on two occasions. He holds a singles victory over me but I’ve now pinned him more times than he’s pinned me, and so the only thing left to do now in my opinion is to give him company on the top of that mountain and go on one of the most impressive runs that anybody has ever had with the Ring of Honor World Championship, because especially now in this time, in this climate, in this era, not only in professional wrestling but in society, in the country, to have a prominent Black male figure standing at the top of a professional wrestling company, not dancing around issues, not saying things without saying them, actually saying them and standing by that, to me that speaks to progress, that speaks to innovation, that speaks to a willingness to really make change. Anybody in any company can just say they want it, but you have to show that you really wanna do it.”
On his six-man tag match at ROH Final Battle being postponed: “It’s essentially like you said. I promised Kaun and Moses when I recruited them a little over a year ago that I was gonna make them champions within a year. You’re talking about guys who were in the ROH dojo system just waiting, waiting for a chance, waiting for an opportunity and nobody knew what to do with them, but I did. So, you go from that point, me, selling them on a dream, on a plan, on asking simply for patience and loyalty and to give me their very best and a year later, touted as undoubtedly future Ring of Honor Tag Team Champions, they will be. They are now looked at as future pillars of the company which they will be and the first step to that is winning the Ring of Honor World Six-Man Tag Team Championships, allowing them to taste that gold for the first time, know what it is like to go out there, win that. It was supposed to be their first pay-per-view. What better way to make your pay-per-view debut than Ring of Honor Final Battle? So this is what we had been working on, this is what we’ve been preparing for, what we’ve been game planning for and to have it not happen, of course it’s disappointing but we knew that it was gonna happen.”
On O’Shay Edwards joining Shane Taylor Promotions: “When I sat down and talked to O’Shay [Edwards], we as well as everybody in S.T.P., we all have the same vision, we all have the same goals and synergy on that team is important and I just made a post the other day and the reason I am so excited about everybody in this group is because even though I’m the face of the company, I’m the captain of the team, everybody on the team is better than me at something. Whether it’d be social media, whether it’d be fitness, whether it’d be Moses who’s got a mathematics, engineering degree, it’s — Ron [Hunt] with his idea creation. Everybody’s better than me at something and when you have that, you are constantly sharpening each other, you are constantly making each other better and if we’re making each other better, then the competition’s got no chance, you know what I mean? So now that he has made his ROH debut, he showed up, showed out. He’s got people talking and I’m sure that he will be back again. I’m sure they’ll probably do a rematch with him and Sledge. We’ll see how that goes. But yeah, I can’t wait to bring him into the fold. Man, and with me, O’Shay Edwards, Kaun, Moses, there’s nobody stopping us, nobody.”
