When All Elite Wrestling was formed in 2019, Ring of Honor lost Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) along with other talents such as Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Trent Beretta), Hangman Page, Frankie Kazarian, Scorpio Sky, and more.
With a big void left by talents leaving, Matt Taven was called upon to help carry the load. Taven won the ROH World Title at ROH NJPW Supercard of Honor at Madison Square Garden, making him the new face of the company.
There was backlash on Taven and the company for the decision, but Taven looks back proudly on his time as champion.
"It’s one of those things where I will never be able to make everyone happy and nor do I want to. It’s more the fact of I had these goals I wanted to accomplish and I could kinda care less about whoever was in my way or saying anything about it. After that it was about proving people wrong and it was about making people look stupid. Ring of Honor was in a big flux at that point. The Elite had left. AEW had started. I kinda felt like I took a lot of that burden on my shoulders and to this day I’m extremely proud of it. I’ll say, ‘Hey go back and watch all those matches and tell me that they suck, because I know they don’t,'" Taven told Fightful's Joel Pearl.
Taven held the ROH World Title for 174 days before losing it to RUSH. Taven is still part of ROH, which is now owned by Tony Khan and AEW.
Taven is aligned with Roderick Strong and his Kingdom running mate Mike Bennett.
Check out the full interview with Taven in the video above.
