Being put in this situation, where it's myself, Kyle O'Reilly and a Jay Lethal, I think it's the best main event you can have right now in Ring of Honor.
We slowly work on getting more markets. We slowly work on building relationships. And over time once we gain people's trust and they see what we do and they see what we deliver each and every show, more and more people are interested in jumping on the Ring Of Honour train. I definitely think the success will continue.
I've wrestled Kyle O'Reilly all over the world. I know how good he is, our fans know how good he is. A lot of people feel he is the next guy in line to be world champion.
There's a big difference between trolling and just attacking guys to attack guys, to get under people's skin, and to genuinely express how you felt about something. Like if I go to a movie for example, and I watch a movie, and I wasn't a fan of it. I don't mind turning to my family or some buddies I'm with and saying "oh man, I really didn't like that movie." But I've never acted or directed in my life. But I'm able to voice my opinion about whether or not I enjoyed it or not.
I think that Ring of Honor is a true alternative in the world of pro wrestling. Some of the best in-ring pure competition in the world you will find in Ring of Honor.
My all-time favorite match that I've ever had was against Kyle O'Reilly in 2012, the 'hybrid fighting rules match' where we were bleeding buckets all over the place. And it was really a match that took my career to the next level.
That's like the really fun, exciting thing about wrestling. There's no such thing as perfecting this art. You're constantly growing and you're constantly progressing and changing up you're style and gauging an audience to make sure that audience is enjoying what you're doing.
The only difference with wrestling is we're like a live performance. So we're feeding off the audience and if they do't like something, they can let us know immediately.
I think too, Jay Lethal being apart of Ring of Honor and being in that role where he's one of the guys who has the company on his back, he's taking that very seriously, and you can see it n his work. So it's been really cool to see.
The ROH guys looking at the New Japan guys coming over, we're just psyched. We think, "oh great this is just going to make our show even better." The respect level with New Japan and ROH is at an all-time high. And anytime we get a company like New Japan Pro Wrestling on a ROH show, it just benefits our show. It has everybody all jacked up, ready to do the best we can like we always do.
I've known Kyle O'Reilly since 2009. Me and him actually met each other when we had our very first match against each other for Gabe Sapolsyky's DragonGate USA show. Me and Kyle went in there and we had a match that kind of made waves throughout the independent scene as far as us getting our names out there. We both got signed to Ring of Honor at the exact same time.
I remember watching Ring of Honor as a fan, going to shows in Philadelphia and New York, and I loved the guys. I thought these are some of the best wrestlers in the world, if not THE best.
However, the positive, and I mean this, Jay Lethal and Kyle O'Reilly are two of my favorite opponents. I couldn't ask for two guys I'd rather be in a triple threat match with. On top of that, creatively, if we are able to make something that's really exciting for the fans, any time there are more bodies in the ring, you can always create something that's different because there's more than two people in the ring.
Jay Lethal doing that Black Machsimo character, as good as that was, it was fantastic and so entertaining. But now Jay Lethal has turned himself into this very formidable, dominant world champion, who is having some of the best matches in the entire world. So it's really cool.
We're more than ready to deliver. When the pressure is on, I think that's when the Ring of Honor roster does the best. Not only the main event, the entire roster feels the pressure and are ready to deliver.
Los Angles to me seems to be a little bit more forgiving. They're just as rowdy and they're just as excited but they understand a [botch] happens sometimes, and they're excited to see the show and they just want to have some fun.
What is doing the damage is the fact that the U.K. is pulling in more imports, which shows the continued strength of the economy and the strength of sterling.