GCW's Brett Lauderdale Details Talks With ROH

2021 saw a massive shift in the American independent wrestling scene, as GCW established itself as arguably the number one indie promotion on the scene, as Ring of Honor ended the year by going on hiatus.

Since then, ROH stars and titles have strongly made their presence felt in GCW, and GCW head Brett Lauderdale spoke of his relationship with ROH to PWIndie:

“As far as Ring of Honor goes, obviously in the recent months before they went on this hiatus, we saw a lot of our regular talent start to go over and work with Ring of Honor,” Lauderdale said. “We had people on the inside so to speak. Aside from that, obviously we’ve had relationships with people that have been there for years as well, people like PCO, Brody King or anyone of a number of people.

“We had talked several times over the last couple of years about the possibility of working with certain people, having certain people work on our shows, getting exceptions, and for whatever reason, it never worked out until this most recent attempt. We had been trying to get The Briscoes in particular in GCW for a long time. Some ideas came into place. I had a meeting with some of their people at one of their TV tapings. We threw ideas back and forth and the idea of how we can have a mutually beneficial relationship using their talent, and at the same time, being able to promote Ring of Honor, and reminding fans who don’t follow Ring of Honor as much what they are and who they are. Reminding people who the Briscoes are and whoever else might come over and spark an interest from our fans to check out Ring of Honor.

“At the same time, allowing these people who haven’t been seen out of the ROH world to get back into the regular indie universe, freshen things up, and make things interesting. We got as far as discussing the Briscoes and having an arrangement in place, and obviously we know what happened. Ring of Honor is changing some things up, so we didn’t get much further than that. That’s honestly how it happened. I’ve heard a lot of people’s speculation on how this or that happened. There was no other crazy stuff planned. It was just, let’s start with this, see how this goes, and see where this leads us. As far as the ROH World Title, Gresham is the champion. He wants to defend it, so when it makes sense for him to defend it, when he’s at GCW, that’s a thing. Ian Riccaboni, what better person to call an ROH world title match on such a big stage than him? That’s how those pieces came into place.”

Jonathan Gresham is due to defend the ROH World Title at GCW’s upcoming The WRLD on GCW PPV.

H/T: WrestlingNews.co