As the dust settles on Tony Khan's acquisition of Ring of Honor, there are a lot of people asking a lot of questions. At this juncture, we have no foresight into if and when he will run additional ROH shows, whether the announced PPV and TV taping in Dallas and Philadelphia will still happen and even whether the existing ROH TV will continue to air where it currently exists weekly. These are all things to be ironed out in the days ahead, so while we have gotten a number of emails asking for clarification, while I could be wrong, I honestly don't believe those finer points have had a chance to be worked out yet.
What we are hearing is the following:
*Yesterday, the Ring of Honor side was still working on production for the TV show and the forthcoming events and the word making the rounds in that circle was that there were discussions but the deal wasn't done. That changed very late in the day. How late we don't know, but one person believed it could have been as late as 6 PM EST. So, while the two sides had been negotiating for at least a few weeks, the official deal was indeed closed yesterday, as Tony Khan said in the ring on Dynamite. Prior to that point, there was a small circle in AEW who were aware of the discussions and believed it to be a done deal well before that.
*The ROH announcements for Supercard of Honor and the TV taping in Philly were made independent of the AEW side and were put into motion before the sale was announced. That was all pre-Tony Khan, so whether any of that takes place as originally envisioned remains to be seen.
*The announcement that AEW would be returning to Baltimore and running The UMBC Event Center instead of the Royal Farms Arena has zero to do with the ROH acquisition. AEW is running UMBC because the Royal Farms Arena is in the process of undergoing extensive renovations.
*There had been WWE interest in purchasing Ring of Honor when the company's hiatus was announced last year. PWInsider.com can confirm the two sides had entered into discussions in December but for some reason, the talks ended without an official deal being made. This would not have been the first time the two sides had some sort of communication about the idea of WWE buying the promotion and library, as there had been previous talks when Paul Levesque was in power. In the end, Khan stepped in and was able to strike a deal. I can confirm there were some in WWE who were legitimately shocked when the announcement happened, as they believed the announcement was going to be that AEW had come to terms with HBO Max for a streaming deal.
*On the ROH side, the sale was described as "bittersweet" as it felt this was the right thing for the long-term viability of Ring of Honor itself but there were a lot of people who truly loved working on the promotion.
I'm not sure what Highspots themselves own as far as libraries vs what they just have permission to sell tho but that should still be some good indy content either way
