Josh Woods discusses the Ring of Honor locker room growing stronger over the past year and how COVID-19 derailed many plans.
Josh Woods is a member of the Ring of Honor locker room and a part of the Pure Championship tournament that is currently the focal point of Ring of Honor TV. Over the past two years, Ring of Honor has undergone another metamorphosis following the exit of many top stars who left to form AEW.
Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Woods would explain how the locker room has changed in the past year saying that they are stronger together and there are a lot fewer cliques.
“A big thing is the locker room and the locker room, I feel, has gotten a little stronger as far as more camaraderie and people looking out for each other. Prior to the past, maybe, 7-8 months there was a lot of cliques, a lot of guys cliquing up and there was some very segregating, ‘These guys over here, those guys over there, everybody else over here.’ I think as of late it’s been really awesome having the bond we all have. The office has always been… You know, they’re the office. They’re always doing the stuff that they need to do and they’re pretty good about keeping in touch with us with what we need. So, that hasn’t really changed. It’s always been pretty fluid for the most part. You gotta take the good with the bad, right?”
The creative heads of Ring of Honor are always a major topic of conversation when discussing the promotion. Over the years many different men in the industry have been at the creative helm of Ring of Honor including Gabe Sapolsky, Jim Cornette, and Delirious. Josh Woods touches on the topic of creativity and says that there is currently a very large group who are all collectively suggesting ideas and he enjoys that Ring of Honor has allowed talent to have creative input as well.
“I think stuff like that is pretty important ‘cause if you have the same brain running the operation, if you’re constantly doing the same thing and you’re getting minimal or the same results, you have to mix things up,” Woods admitted. “We have a very large collective group of individuals who have ideas and who have been in the business for a very long time or come from places and have experiences from there. So, being able to have a free forum to say, ‘Hey, what about this?’ I think it was over 75, almost 100, ideas or things that could be improved upon or just ideas in general. That was pretty cool in general to have an even footing with the office guys and to speak freely and voice our opinion. It was great.”
Of course, the year 2020 was dominated by COVID-19 and Josh Wood says that Ring of Honor was on the verge of something special before the pandemic through everything off-course. Now, Woods is hopeful that Ring of Honor can get back on track.
“Yeah, there were a lot of things that were said that we started to notice almost immediately. Obviously, COVID, threw a lot of things off track, but I think we’re about to do something incredible and very new to put us on the forefront of wrestling. Hopefully, when things go back to normal that’s still going to happen.”
Regarding the branding of Ring of Honor, Josh Woods says he is a fan of the classic black and red logo from the early 2000s but feels ROH should take a page from NXT and WWE and have different branding setups for different events.
“Oh, yeah, it’s a weird light grey. I like the classic black and red. I think that’s really cool. I hate to say it, but like NXT and WWE have different things for different events, and I think that’s cool to mix things up a little bit. Makes the presentation stand out a little bit," said Woods. "Maybe on special events we would have a different color ring, ‘cause there’s so much black in the ropes and everything else. So, having the difference, it adds to the quality of the show. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, the production value on just the Pure stuff alone looks just incredible. It’s just a matter of time before some things get changed like that, I think. I think if we could go back to a more classic look here and there, just adds a little more prestige to certain events. Like Final Battle is coming up. If we had that old school Ring of Honor canvas for that would just be so sweet. I think it could bring a little bit more life to it.”
Ring of Honor television can be seen weekly on FITE, STIRR, and on television in different time slots depending on different markets.
