ROH’s future direction doesn’t sound good at all after releasing all of its contracted talent

Ring of Honor (ROH) issued a statement yesterday revealing the promotion will be going on hiatus for a few months in early 2022 in order to re-imagine their business. It was later reported that ROH’s roster was released from their contracts.

With that context in mind, here is how Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer characterized the company’s future focus:

“The basic gist of everything is they’re not gonna be running with a contracted crew, so they’ll essentially be an independent promotion, and they will use whoever the top independent guys are that they can book on the nights that they have shows and the nights that they do television.”

Meltzer followed up by explaining how a strict reliance on non-contracted talent will make it extra tricky to book champions:

“It’d probably be in their best interest to have a champion who is signed with a company that they do business with...or else their champion could be picked off by AEW or WWE at any point in time. All their champions.”

“I don’t know who that would be...it wouldn’t be an American company.”

That doesn’t sound good at all to me, for obvious reasons.

How do you think ROH will navigate these murky waters, Cagesiders?