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As noted in an exclusive interview in the Elite section of PWInsider.com yesterday, Kevin Kelly is now working full-time for the company. Previously, he had been working a regular job and handling his ROH announcing duties around those duties. ROH had been interested in using him full-time and those conversations had started and continued, off and on, since around the time Sinclair purchased the company.
Kelly will be working as something of a liason between talent and the ROH office, which has never had a "talent relations" department, for lack of a better term. A lot of different duties fell on booker Hunter Johnson, who with everything he was tasked to do, sometimes wasn't the quickest in the communications department as he was being spread between booking, producing TV, dealing with talent, etc. One of the things Kelly has already introduced is specific "office hours" at live events, so talents can come to him with concerns and questions.
For those curious, the creative team remains the same with Johnson heading things while names like Kelly, BJ Whitmer, Christopher Daniels and Steve Corino also toss ideas out the day of shows and agent matches.
Kelly will also be spearheading a number of projects for the company that have been in the talking stages for some time, including an ROH App and a ROH Roku channel. There are plans to retool and relaunch the ROH website as well. This was not a sudden move by the company but something that had been planned for some time.
Beer City Bruiser and Silas Young missed last night's ROH TV Taping in Philadelphia. The two were at the airport in Milwaukee from 5 AM - 2 PM as their 7 AM flight to Philly never took off. ROH officials told the pair to head home at 2 PM as the feeling was they had gone above the call of duty by being at the airport all day waiting to fly and since the flight issues were the airline's fault, there is obviously no heat on the pair. The plan is to get back to the planned Briscoes vs. Young & Bruiser bout down the line.
Mandy Leone missed the TV taping last night due to some sort of illness we are hearing. We wish her the best.
Jimmy Jacobs was visiting in Philly last night.
We are told that based on how Jay White was used last night, it was obvious they are building him into a player for the company.
Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino will be calling the final three nights of the New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Climax for New Japan World. Our own Matthew Macklin has told me he intends to cover all 19 events, proving once again, he is a madman!
The ROH UK tour in November will be fully fledged ROH events, not events partnered with a local promotion. Locations and talents are slated to be announced next week.
The TV Taping last night was sold out.
There are already plans for ROH events in Japan in conjunction with New Japan in 2017.
ROH is also slowly moving forward in building a relationship with CMLL in Mexico.
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