Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
One of the most talked about stories over the last several days has been CMLL star Rush signing an exclusive deal with Ring of Honor, pulling out of Major League Wrestling and his slot in the main event of their 4/4 event on Wrestlemania week in New York City.
The backstory here is that Major League Wrestling had planned a massive push for Rush in the new year, including a potential MLW Championship run. He had been offered what sources have told PWInsider.com was a $200,000 a year contract that would have seen MLW also assist him and his family financially in becoming United States citizens. The deal also would have been a conduit to Rush doing broadcast work for BeIN Sports. MLW saw him as the centerpiece going forward and was going to bend over backwards to give him all sorts of contract points that to date, they had not offered anyone else, including his father, lucha legend Bestia del Ring, being brought in to be honored at a MLW event.
We are told that CMLL, which has Rush under contract exclusively in Mexico and owns the rights to book him out, was aware of the MLW deal and had given Rush approval for him to sign the deal. One source even claimed that MLW had provided CMLL with a copy of the contract for their approval.
Before pen was put to paper, however, Ring of Honor stepped into the picture, wanting to use Rush as part of an internal push to have more Latin stars on their programming, which is why Bandido was also signed. We are told that their deal was exclusive to the United States and Canada and actually paid Rush less financially, but with their relationship to CMLL, the decision was made that ROH was an official partner and that it was better for Rush to sign there. He will still be working for CMLL regularly in Mexico but cannot work anywhere else in the United States.
All signs are that ROH made their offer several weeks ago. There is no word whether MLW was aware of the ROH offer until after Rush put pen to paper. MLW had believed Rush was signing with them up until he signed with ROH.
As noted, Rush was pulled off the 4/4 MLW event, where he was scheduled to headline against LA Park. That took a lot of wind out of MLW's sails this week.
“This is a match and organization Rush wanted to be a part of but sometimes politics get in the way and that’s what this comes down to: politics,” said MLW CEO Court Bauer.
MLW sources have claimed that they requested that Rush still be allowed to work the date, so they could finish him out, but that was turned down. ROH sources have stated there were no communications between the two sides about Rush and 4/4.
Business is business at the end of the day, but in my opinion, ROH should at the very least, allow Rush to appear in a non-wrestling role and sign autographs or cut a promo or something just so he can close out his MLW run and everyone has good karma. The best-case scenario would be to have Rush do a surprise run-in and interfere in the main event, since no one would expect that, but I don't believe that is even remotely close to happening. It should, though. It would babyface ROH, give MLW fans what they paid for, Rush bids farewell and then everyone can move on to live and fight another day.
At the same time as the Rush situation, Tom Lawlor pulled off a Black Label Wrestling event as he double-booked himself with MLW on 4/5, the date of the BLW show, so at the same time fans were made about the MLW change (and MLW did receive angry feedback from fans), Black Label Wrestling found themselves in the same situation.
With Rush signing with ROH at the behest of CMLL, MLW has already made the decision to pull any CMLL-affiliated talents from their events going forward, although that could change. That likely means the end of Dragon Lee in MLW, although if CMLL is going to allow its talents to sign with ROH, there's no long-term upside to MLW pushing them on MLW TV.
With Rush out, MLW quickly announced the new main event for 4/4 was LA Park vs. Pentagon Jr. That led to yet another sticky situation as Wrestlecon has, for months, been advertising Pentagon for their Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow in Manhattan that night. MLW is running Long Island City, Queens, right outside of Manhattan. It wouldn't be impossible for Pentagon to go from one place to another, except Impact Wrestling, upon seeing the MLW announcement, made it clear that Pentagon Jr. was working for THEM in Jamaica, Queens on the OTHER side of Queens. So now Pentagon Jr. was triple-booked in three different locations in the same city on the same date.
This being the professional wrestling business, one would expect that this would get ugly, but according to multiple sources, the three sides instead came together and worked out a plan for Pentagon Jr. to appear on all three events. The current plan is that Pentagon will work early on for the Wrestlecon Supershow, who get him first because they booked him first and because logistically, it would be the easiest travel for him. He will then head out to Queens to work MLW and Impact Wrestling.
So, out of all the turmoil with Rush came one positive - three promoters who valued Pentagon Jr. appearing on their events all working together to make that happen, at least in theory.
NYC traffic is now going to be their worst enemy on 4/4.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
