RING OF HONOR NOTES & NEWS
by Mike Johnson @ 12:10:00 PM on 12/29/2004

With the loss of the ROH championship, it appears that Samoa Joe’s next storyline will indeed be against Mick Foley. Ring of Honor has already announced that Joe will meet Foley face to face in the ring at their 1/15/05 return to Cambridge, MA. There is a storyline mapped out for them already, although the question that everyone is asking me (Will Foley wrestle a match for ROH?) remains unanswered. Logically, the answer is no as Foley likes to save his matches for WWE PPVs where he can make six figures. However, Foley comes from that Terry Funk line of thinking where he likes to give back to the business, so if the whim strikes him, we just might see it. It would be interesting to see the WWE reaction to such a match. Foley has pushed both Samoa Joe and CM Punk to WWE as good additions to their roster.

BJ Whitmer will be undergoing elbow surgery shortly on a nagging injury. He is expected to return to the ring on 2/19 at ROH's Third Anniversary event. Whitmer’s partner Danny Maff won’t be booked on the 1/15 event, partially because the two are between programs with the conclusion of their feud with The Carnage Crew and partially because ROH has started rotating some of the mid-card performers in order to keep them fresh, which is also why Colt Cabana wasn't used at Final Battle 2004.

The promotion has opened Japanese and Spanish language versions of their website in hopes of raising their international level of awareness as well as selling more merchandise overseas.

ROH announced that they have dropped the Contender’s Ring deal when it comes to setting up challengers for the ROH championships. In the past, the promotion has tried to come up with several different ways for performers to earn title shots in storylines, and none of them have truly gotten over. The latest idea is that each performer will petition for shots, which plays into ROH’s style of building up storylines by giving exposition on their website.

They are playing up that Bryan Danielson is going into his 1/15/05 bout with Homicide in Cambridge, MA with an injured arm as a result of recent attacks by Homicide, Low Ki, and The Havana Pitbulls.

The 2/19/05 return to the Rexplex in Elizabeth, New Jersey will feature the return of the Scramble Cage match, as well as Mick Foley, ROH champion Austin Aries (It feels weird to write that), CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Steve Corino, Samoa Joe, Homicide with Julius Smokes, Dan Maff, BJ Whitmer, Roderick Strong, Jack Evans, Jay Lethal, Jimmy Rave, The Embassy, Prince Nana, Alex Shelley, and Special K. The promotion will hold an afternoon “Do or Die” card featuring Kevin Steen vs. El Generico.

There is a storyline playing on the ROH site right now that both the teams of Jack Evans & Roderick Strong and Steve Corino & CM Punk are pushing for a shot at the ROH Tag Team champions The Havana Pitbulls.

It's kind of silly that Strong would be looking for a Tag Team Title shot after looking like a complete jobber at the hands of Corino and Punk at the last show.

He could blame it on Shelly.