Gabe Sapolsky Asks Tony Khan To Edit Out His ROH Commentary
ROH founder Gabe Sapolsky has asked Tony Khan to edit his early ROH commentary
Mar 25, 2022
With Ring of Honor back under the spotlight following the acquisition of the company by AEW President Tony Khan, attention has turned to the classic years of Ring of Honor.
During some of those early shows, commentary was handled by ROH founder Gabe Sapolsky, and now Sapolsky has taken to Twitter in order to get Tony Khan to remove the commentary tracks from those early shows:
“Since I see classic Ring Of Honor is getting more attention I want to take a moment and apologise for my ‘in character’ commentary. I’ll start by saying I fired myself from commentary as soon as we found a suitable replacement. It was another era back then. It might be hard to believe but it was hard to find decent commentators who would work the hours we did. We used to do commentary on 2 shows staying up all night on a weeknight in Tampa, FL. Budget was also a concern & I wanted to save Cary [Silkin] $
“At the time, ROH was just a growing indie. It’s not like people were clamouring to stay up till 5am to do voiceovers in a living room in Tampa. We went through various commentators and eventually I didn’t cost any extra money as I was there anyway to edit/produce. I also knew the storylines, directions & characters. Thankfully, we eventually found Lenny Leonard, who lived in the area, and Dave Prazak. We booked Prazak in FIP and combined the expenses to fly him in. They were a great team & still are. They gave us stability.
My commentary skills ranged from bad to embarrassing to deplorable. There were times I tried to do a Howard Stern influenced character (big in the early 2000s) & had an ECW influence. I apologise for anyone having to hear it now.
“As you can see from years of EVOLVE, my values and standards changed to being much more family friendly without trying to be “edgy” in a 90s style. Can someone please ask Tony Khan to see if he can edit out my commentary or at least the worst parts of it. I’m not sure if that’s possible. Maybe he has the original master tapes. I don’t know. I hope my commentary doesn’t ruin people’s enjoyment of classic ROH. Thank you.
“For the record, I don’t know Tony Khan and have never talked to him. However, I know a lot of people who do know him so feel free to pass on the message.”
Sapolsky later deleted the Tweets.
There is no word yet on what Khan intends to do with the ROH tape library, with rumours suggesting a streaming deal with HBO Max is in the works.
