Kellyanne has opened up regarding her experience with Ring of Honor.
On Friday, Kellyanne announced she had wrestled her last match and is stepping away from wrestling. Kellyanne signed with Ring of Honor in February 2020 and was set to debut at ROH 18th Anniversary, but the event was canceled the week of due to the pandemic.
Speaking to Vince Russo on The Brand, Kellyanne went in-depth on her experiences with ROH and management.
"I was signed in 2019, which was a big thanks to Marty Scurll, if it wasn't for him, none of us would have been signed. I got a phone call from Greg (Gilland) and he offered me a deal. I don't know how much I can talk about it, it wasn't very good, but I did it anyways. I was meant to debut on the 18th Anniversary. I was going to win a match, go into the tournament, go against Serena Deeb into the finals. Amazing. I'm told all this. I'm told, 'This is going to be massive. We're building this division around you. It's going to be huge.' I believed it. I signed the contract and as I signed it, something in the back of my head said, 'this isn't going to happen.' About three months later, the pandemic hit. Everything is canceled. I'm okay with that because it's out of my control. I can't do anything. I did what any good wrestler would do, I have to get myself out there, I haven't debuted, what am I going to do? My partner is extremely talented when it comes to structuring promos so I put out Ask Me Anything where I kind of made fun of people who do Ask Me Anything and I would answer ridiculous questions. I would do that once a week and it was getting over. Then, I noticed that whatever I was doing wasn't getting shared on their socials. I would have to prompt them to share things. That didn't feel very good," she said.
ROH would upload Kellyanne's Ask Me Anything sessions and promos onto its YouTube channel.
Kellyanne noted that Adam Brooks and Sledge were also overseas due to the pandemic. While communication was good to start between the wrestlers and the company, things eventually broke down.
"They were great with communication at the start. They started doing shows again without crowds. Kevin Eck reached out to me, he's a writer, and he said, 'We've seen your promos, I think you'd be a good writer, do you want to give it a go?' Boom. Gave it a go. I was writing for their website and doing articles. It took a lot of time. There was no pay, they didn't offer, which is cool, whatever. It took a lot of time and I had a full time job. If I didn't have my article in by a certain time of day, keep in mind the time difference, I would get emails about it. That didn't feel good. We noticed a lack of communication probably towards the end of last year. We were sending emails to Greg because we didn't know what was going on. They were running shows and it felt like we were getting left behind. We were planning to move there, all of us, and we put our life on hold for two years. That's two years I could have spent doing something else. We had no communication and the women's tournament was coming up. Speaking Out had happened and Marty Scurll was let go, so I knew that probably wasn't good for us. After that, no communication, emails left unanswered," she said.
When asked by Russo if she was getting paid during the pandemic, as many ROH wrestlers expressed their gratitude to the company for paying them despite not working, Kellyanne revealed she was only paid for the one show she missed.
"It was per-appearance and we weren't getting paid," she said. "However, what was awkward and embarrassing was the fact that everyone else that was getting paid by Ring of Honor would make a big deal about it 'oh, we're getting paid through the pandemic.' When I was asked about it, I felt almost pressured because they did pay us once, which was for the event we didn't get to do [18th Anniversary]. I was like, 'Yeah, they're looking after us,' because I didn't want to be the one saying they're not because it becomes a thing. That felt shit and I felt like a loser. I didn't like that either. When we were left unanswered, me and Session Moth were pretty upset because we were very excited. We had both men on the Indies for a long time and it felt good. For this not to work out, it sucked."
Kellyanne continued, finding optimism as Maria Kanellis took over the women's division and the world started to open up in 2021. However, the optimism quickly disappeared.
"We had a meeting a few months ago with Maria [Kanellis] and they said, 'You're here in September, you'll come in as a team, it's going to be amazing. Can't wait. Share it on your socials, get it going.' We did. TO be told that, I was holding onto that the past two years. All I had was this hope of it working out to keep me going through this. What was bad was that when I would see people here in Australia, they'd go, 'why are you still here? What's going on?' I feel like an idiot. 'They said this month, then it's next month, and now the next.' Everyone else is flying in and out, but we're not. So what's going on? Are you just going to ignore the international talent? Joe Hendry is one of their main guys. Are they just not going to use him or communicate with him? When September came and went, I knew something was up. No communication at all, again. My articles were not getting shared, they take hours to do. I'll never forget it, I woke up one morning, open up my email and there's an email from Greg. It is the most empty, emotionless email I've ever received. I couldn't believe it. It's so blunt and it felt like shit," she said before reading the email.
The email from Gilland, as read by Kellyanne stated:
October 2. Good afternoon, I hope you and your family are safe and doing well. Unfortunately, I'm writing this bad news. The US government has come back yet again with another request of evidence. For some reason, they aren't pushing your visa through. At this point, we aren't in a position to keep paying the attorneys to keep revising and submitting the case without guarantee. This would mean your contract with us is null and void. I'm deeply sorry this didn't work out. I hope there will be another opportunity in the future.
Kellyanne gave her response to the email by saying, "Two years, no appreciation, no communication. To say 'null and void.' I couldn't believe it. It felt like I had been thrown away. It felt crap. What annoys me is that I was warned by Joey Mercury about Greg. I heard about the court cases and how unhappy the women were with the contracts. It's no better. It hasn't changed, nothing has changed. Everything I thought about him was true. Unfortunately, it now makes me look at Ring of Honor in a completely different light. Ring of Honor to me, when I was growing up, was the embodiment of pure wrestling, independent wrestling, honor, respect. Where is it? This is how you treat people? You waste two years of their life, ignore them, and then say they are null and void?"
When Russo asked if she had an attorney look at her contract, she said she hadn't. Russo implored her to do so.
Kellyanne continued by further responding to the email and Gilland.
"However, I don't believe what Greg said in the email and I say that because Luke and Adam got their visas, no problem. They processed the boy's visas before mine. I'm not saying 'poor me, I'm a girl,' I'm not. However, I was the only one really doing anything for them and trying to do something, providing them content every week. To not have any acknowledgment or appreciation from him when he fired me, I don't care who you are, I'm still a human and he's a human, at least acknowledge the work someone has done for you. I know I'm not anyone. I'm not Stone Cold [Steve Austin] or HBK [Shawn Michaels], but I'm still a person who has dedicated their life to this. I'm still a person who signed your contract with the hope of trying to help your company, because it needed it, especially the women's division. I don't believe he's being sincere. I understand Ring of Honor went through a hard time, as every company did. Every other company can fly people in and out, why can't RIng of Honor? It's not hard. Once the visa is done, all you need to do is write an exemption and we could have flown over. We could have flown back and forth for the last year, but he just didn't. I researched it all. The fact that this visa had a problem and I wasn't asked about any evidence, which is what they are meant to do, that pisses me off too. I contacted the visa people myself and they said everything is fine. What happened? He's not being true because he hasn't responded to me. That shows someone that is weak and gutless," she said.
ROH re-signed Sledge in February 2021 and he was brought in for tapings in 2021. Brooks has not wrestled for ROH since 2018.
Kellyanne wrestled for various companies in Australia during the pandemic.
You can view Kellyanne's full statement on her decision to leave wrestling by clicking here.
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