Danny Cage speaks about his time working with the ROH Dojo.
Danny Cage, Who currently operates the Monster Factory Training Center in New Jersey, was previously working with Ring of Honor in their Dojo system. In a new Twitter thread, Cage, real name: Dan McDonald, opens up about his frustrations with Joey Mercury, Will Ferrara, and Kelly Klein.
In his first couple of tweets, he alleges that Ferrara has been intimate with some of the talent and calls into question the way that Joey Mercury believes in getting people over.
Later, he goes on to speak about Joey Mercury allegedly being under the influence during a tryout session and "snapping" on Hana Kimura and speaks about a time that Joey “assaulted” a trainee. Fightful hasn't been able to confirm that Mercury was under the influence, but did confirm the story about Hana Kimura.
Danny would later say that he spoke to a former WWE coach about his time dealing with Joey Mercury and they had similar stories.
Ian Riccaboni, the current play-by-play broadcaster for Ring of Honor, responded to the Danny Cage Twitter thread with a post on Reddit where he shared his own tumultuous dealings with Joey Mercury, including supporting is recounting of Joey Mercury’s incident with Hana Kimura
Hard and fast use of the pejorative F word which I asked him to stop. "Why do you say that about Rhett Titus' body? I'm in better shape than him! What, are you some kind of ***?!" This would occur after events but also when he'd call me at 1:30 AM ET. Why it needed to be addressed at 1:30 AM ET on days we didn't have events and I was living my life as a civilian, I have no idea.
Would joke about the time we saw a woman (the make up artist we had at Madison Square Garden) asking for a ROH staffer by name so she could get her check at the hotel. The situation, admittedly, was kind of funny. It appeared to be something it was not. He has implied that he was ready to drop this conversation. He has posted edited texts between us before on Twitter and I wouldn't be surprised if he does it again.
Similarly, he's threatened to out a LGBTQ member of the ROH roster and out one of my best friends.
I haven't said anything because I was pretty crippled by fear that I've said something out of pocket and it might come to light. But Danny needs a friend right now and what he's saying about the power dynamic that was created is true and what a WrestleMania headliner pulled me aside and warned me. If I said something out of pocket, that is on me and I have to own it.
I was/am not involved in the Dojo beyond the semi-annual tryouts. The first one we did with Joey, I came prepared as I always did with a printed spreadsheet of the campers names, hometowns/home promotion, experience level. I printed enough for everyone. Bully, BJ, Delirious, Daniels, and others said thank you; Joey took the copy I made for him and my personal copy and trashed them. This was the same camp Hana was at. Can confirm what Danny has said regarding Hana.
Finally, most recently, Joey blamed me on Twitter for spoiling Final Battle. One of the Dojo students has since privately apologized for providing him the results. It was a lot of time and energy explaining to folks that I didn't tell a soul. Joey always said there are two things you can't get back: people's time and attention. It didn't ruin my Christmas but I'm just glad someone nearly four months later admitted to providing him the results. He got my time and attention. Good one.
This has been therapeutic for me, too. There are others who likely feel the same way. But this is a time and an emotion drain. They likely are in similar positions where they have kids or other jobs and that they consider the issue closed and can't spare the emotion, especially during a pandemic. And there may be some too who fear what they've said to Joey via text. But I'm proud of Danny for having the courage to speak up.
Currently, Joey Mercury and Kelly Klein are in the process of pursuing legal action against Ring of Honor. You can learn more about that at this link. Mercury responded on Twitter this morning with the following:
Fightful will continue to monitor the story and report any and all updates.