Flip Gordon Calls 2020 ROH Roster ‘Underrated,’ Says He Isn’t Surprised Bandido, Rush, Willow Nightingale Are Thriving

Flip Gordon says he isn’t surprised stars such as Bandido, Rush, and Willow Nightingale are thriving in wrestling today.

Before signing with CMLL in 2023, Flip Gordon also worked for Ring of Honor. His final match for the promotion took place in December 2021.

Speaking with Fightful’s Luis Palido, Flip Gordon was asked about his previous Ring of Honor colleagues achieving success in other places.

Luis mentioned stars such as Bandido, Rush, and Willow Nightingale as examples.

“To be honest, I’m not very surprised. I felt back in 2020 that we had a very underrated roster. So, to see them all go do great things, I’m not surprised at all. I remember when we were there, we were fighting for opportunities. Obviously, it was during the pandemic, so the company didn’t want to have shows with fans. 

So we did a lot of tapings with no fans. We’d only do pay-per-views with fans. But, I remember we were so hungry and we wanted to show the world cause obviously, this was after AEW started. This is after The Elite and a bunch of guys left Ring of Honor to go start AEW. But, we still had such a strong roster that we were like, ‘No, let’s have fans. Let us show what we can do. Let us go show what we’re about. Let us show this Ring of Honor style. Let’s bring back that old-school feel.’ But, unfortunately, I don’t think we were given that opportunity. Then obviously, with Ring of Honor not going out of business, but kind of having to take that break before it was later purchased by Tony Khan, I think it’s just we had momentum, but we weren’t able to take that momentum and run with it. 

So to see everybody doing what they’re doing now, like you said, Bandido, Rush, Willow Nightingale, myself, and many others, I’m not surprised at all because I knew at the time with the roster we had that we were capable of doing big things.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Flip Gordon discussed the difference in training for television wrestling in the United States vs. CMLL. Fans can read his full comments here.