Matt Sydal on ROH One Day Competing With WWE

Current Ring of Honor star Matt Sydal recently sat down with the Baltimore Sun to discuss a number of wrestling-related topics, including if ROH would ever be able to compete with World Wrestling Entertainment:

Q: Do you think that if Ring of Honor got a big cable deal, that they’d be able to compete with WWE?

“It’s not about competing, it’s about putting on a product that people enjoy, and fostering love for this wrestling art that we all do. If anything, it would probably boost WWE’s numbers because wrestling ebbs and flows together. So if somebody comes in and lights a spark in wrestling, which is what Ring of Honor does, then we light a fire for the entire industry. Wrestling has the ability to get red-hot again at a moment’s notice. Ring of Honor could be the coal that gets that done.”

Q: Over the summer you were released from the WWE after spending seven years there, and quickly made your way back to Ring of Honor. What have these past six months been like for you?

“It’s been a real rush actually. Some of the coolest things about coming back are seeing all my old friends that I used to hang with all the time before I was hired by WWE. It’s great being in Ring of Honor and getting to work with those guys, like the Briscoes, and getting to wrestle guys for the first time, like Jay Lethal. These guys are world class wrestlers that I get to work with.”

Q: I don’t want to look back too much, but I did have a question about your time in WWE, specifically the end of your run, where you spent two years essentially in “wrestling purgatory” between injuries and suspension. How hard was that for you?

“Forget wrestling purgatory, I was in life purgatory. One of the hardest things, as someone who has based his entire life on being an agile athlete, was to be literally stuck on a couch for two years. Going from ninja-like agility to unable to walk up the stairs for 18 months. It was very much a trial of my will and forced me to adapt to a whole different life that I never experienced. I wasn’t traveling on the road. I wasn’t wrestling. That’s something I hadn’t done since I was 17 years old. It’s hard to change your trajectory in life, and very rarely do you get the chance to sit back and think about where you’ve been and where you want to go. That’s what I was able to do. Being injured physically reminded me that your body is a temporary vessel. However, you have many things that can last a lot longer, like your mind. If you exercise your mind as much as your body, you’re going to get a lot more mileage out of everything. I was able to gain certain valuable insight that I was able to use to become the best wrestler I’ve ever been.”

You can check out the entire interview by clicking here.

Editor’s Note

While it may lack the budget of TNA Impact Wrestling, I truly believe that ROH has become the definitive No. 2 brand in North America. They’ll never be able to compete with the juggernaut that is WWE, but they can still continue to carve out a niche for themselves in the wrestling world.

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