ROH News: Michael Elgin quits ROH on Twitter

[Big Red Machine]

Source: WrestlingObserver.com

Hours after Ring of Honor announced his return on Saturday, Michael Elgin, on Twitter, wrote, "I said this on our call, thank you for getting me back home. But an article doesn't fix lies and damage done. I QUIT."

Also could be an angle.

[Big Red Machine]

Got to be an angle.

[cero2k]

Got to be an angle.

i feel that ROH has been doing way too many angles with people leaving the company (forced or not)

most of the places i've read think this is a storyline too

[cero2k]

Meltzer on the Elgin/ROH situation

ROH announced that Michael Elgin would be returning at this Saturday's Champions vs All Stars event in Kalamazoo, MI at the Wings Annex Stadium having been absent since All Star Extravaganza on 6/9. Elgin was stopped at the border and told he wouldn't be allowed back into the United States as his VISA had expired. Elgin knew this and had told ROH officials beforehand because in actuality when crossing the border from the US into Canada, border patrol told him he wouldn't be gaining access back into the States. ROH knew they couldn't be without their World Champion and so decided to put Jay Briscoe over Elgin and win the title. Elgin, who lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife professional wrestler MsChif was stranded in Canada for 27 days. He made it publicly known he didn't have much of anything with him and was staying with his grandparents until his VISA issues were fixed.

The estimated time for the renewal of his VISA was expected to be anywhere between 60 and 90 days. ROH knew that without their help Elgin would be stuck in Canada, away from his family and that despite the fact he wouldn't be appearing at shows they would still have to pay him as Elgin was one of a number of talents who signed new ROH contracts recently with a salary and other clauses. Elgin wouldn't get his whole earning for the Wheeling, WV TV taping but would have received a fraction, which would still have been about $400 - $600. ROH and Sinclair Broadcasting worked with the Canadian embassy to ensure Elgin got back into the US quicker than expected. Elgin is the contracted employee of an American company owned by a multimedia conglomerate. I was told last Thursday that Elgin had received the letter telling him he was allowed back into the US. In actuality ROH had just finished working with the Canadian embassy and so Elgin may not have even known he would be allowed back yet. He got the letter on Friday and over the weekend returned home to St. Louis.
Despite this, ROH are still upset with Elgin. The only reason they worked to get him back into the US is they'd prefer to pay him to do something rather than nothing. ROH is becoming more stricter on their contracted talents exploits outside the company. ROH isn't an independent promotion anymore and they like NJPW do with AJ Styles, want their talents protected wherever they wrestle. For example, Adam Cole wrestled for small independent promotion Empire State Wrestling in Niagra Falls, NY. He was promoted as ROH's Adam Cole and lost his match via DQ because ROH don't want their top stars losing clean on the indies anymore. When Elgin lost to Trevor Lee at PWG's BOLA, ROH were said to be furious. I know that Hunter Johnston (Delirious) has contacted Super Dragon and reiterated their deal. Any contracted ROH talent taking a loss on a PWG show must be cleared by ROH management. For example, ROH would have little issue with Elgin jobbing for Chuck Taylor, despite Taylor working for Gabe Sapolsky. Taylor's a well known, respected name on the indies who has built up a good reputation and who is recognizable to those who follow independent wrestling. Trevor Lee is enjoying his first exposure to any sort of attention through PWG and ROH don't view him as somebody who should be going over their contracted wrestlers, especially not their World Champion.

ROH is incredibly protective of their world title. It's the centerpiece to the entire promotion. They don't make quick decisions on who wins it. There have truly only been two undeserving ROH World title holders since its inception, Xavier and Jerry Lynn. Lynn got the title as a thank you for his contributions to wrestling and because ROH wanted more recognizable faces on their roster while they were on HD Net. Lynn was seen as a guy who would attract the old ECW audience, who would appreciate ROH because it carries a lot of the same ideologies ECW did. There have been some "bad" reigns such as Davey Richards in 2011 but that was more for the fact fans were so behind Kevin Steen, arguably at the height of his popularity that anyone holding the title that wasn't him was viewed as a placeholder. For what a modern day title is, the ROH World title is pretty prestiged and holding it is viewed as a big achievement. They can say that the guy holding it is in the same league as former champions such as Bryan, Punk, Joe, Aries, etc. They took the title from Elgin for his VISA problems and for not honoring the title well enough. Jay Briscoe who holds it now is ROH through-and-through. If The Briscoes don't get signed by WWE in the next two years they'll probably never leave ROH. From one point that could be viewed as a shame, because Jay and Mark are one of the best acts in wrestling, but between the cosmetically pleasing controversy and Jay's homophobic tweets last year, WWE would be hesitant to bring them in.

When ROH tweeted about Elgin's return he responded by saying, "news to me", later in the day he tweeted that he quit the company leaving many asking if it's a work. It's an angle but ROH will try to make it look as real as possible. One of the advantages ROH have is not many people follow how they operate. ROH just kind of do things that grasp peoples attention that the fan knows is coming but also doesn't, it's an odd but positive advantage they have. They did a great job in 2011 of making Kevin Steen's return look legit, except for the lawyer segment which Kevin himself has called terrible, but the promos outside arenas, the way he drove up to arenas, waited in line with fans and took front row seats, even bought merchandise (a Colt Cabana t-shirt just after ROH had fired him) was all well put together. Even their most recent disgruntled employee angle with Tommaso Ciampa has been well done. If it was WWE everybody would know everything about the angle before it happens, but with ROH they hold the cards. Nobody saw Jay Briscoe beating Elgin at All Star Extravaganza but when he did it they created a moment that for me is only beaten by Brock ending the streak at Wrestlemania.

[Big Red Machine]

A couple things here:
1. The whole thing with Cole being brought in as "ROH's Adam Cole" is the reason why Joe came up with the whole "ROH World Champion shouldn't lose on the indies" thing in the first place. He realized that people would bring him in while he was the ROH champ, have him lose to their guys, then have their guys brag about how they beat the ROH champ.

2. About Xavier being "unworthy"- that was the angle, so to dump on him for it isn't quite fair- and Xavier did hold his own well enough in the ring. His title defenses were mostly better than Homicide's, and better than all of Gibson's aside from the match where Gibson lost the belt.

3. About Davey's run being bad, I think Dave is totally misdiagnosing the reason. People crapped on Davey's title run because he wasn't around as much as people thought the ROH World Champion should be, and because of the booking (the big criticisms being that the only guys who really got title shots were Roddy and Eddie, and that he rarely defended the belt on the occasions that he was around).

By my count, Davey had fourteen title defenses. Only ten of those were in ROH, and the other four were in small or no-name indies. Three of those were overseas. All five of them took place before Davey had even made his second title defense in ROH, and four of them took place before he had even made his first. During that time, he missed his first iPPV as champion, as well as a big double shot in the Carolinas.
Remember what Kevin Steen said when he showed up at Death Before Dishonor IX? "How did you guys like Davey Richards' match tonight." The joke, of course, is that there wasn't one, because Davey was working in Japan even though ROH was having a big iPPV.

In the first 278 days of Davey's 321 day title reign, he defended the title six times in ROH. Of those six defenses, the only man who got a title who was not named Roderick Strong, Eddie Edwards, or Jay Lethal was El Generico. The other three men each got two. To make matters worse, everyone was certain the title wouldn't change hands during any of those matches because Eddie and Roddy had already been ROH World Champion, and Jay Lethal was the ROH TV Champion at the time.
In that same period of time, Davey wrestled NINE tag team matches. Four of those were matches in which he teamed with his American Wolves tag team partner Eddie Edwards. In December 2010, the Wolves had a match with the Kings of Wrestling that was billed as their last match together. Throughout 2011, they teamed up SIX times, including two during Davey's title chase, and four after it (including his first two shows as champion and three of his first four matches as champion).

Kevin Steen held the belt for a week longer than Davey did, and he made almost TWICE as many defenses in ROH. Adam Cole held the title for a month and a half less than Davey did, and he made three more defenses in ROH. Davey Richards held the title for more than three and a half times as long as Michael Elgin did, but Elgin made almost as many defenses in ROH (7 to Davey's 10). And this was Davey Richards, the guy who was supposed to be the fighting babyface champion who represented everything ROH was about.

It's not that people didn't like Davey's title reign because of how hot Steen was. People didn't like Davey's title reign because they felt he was an absentee champion who was being poorly booked to boot.

[cero2k]

**UPDATE**

Another note from the Observer.

"What may have been Michael Elgin’s first match back in the U.S. was on 10/4 in Alton, IL for St. Louis Anarchy Wrestling. His issues with ROH have been worked out at least to a degree, although there is an angle going on. He was being advertised on the 10/11 show in Kalamazoo. Then, hours later, he tweeted to ROH, “I said this on our call, thank you for getting me back home. But, an article doesn’t fix lies and damage done. I QUIT.” It is a angle, although a silly one given they just did a fake leaving the promotion and surprise return angle with Matt Taven. ROH then announced Elgin wasn’t going to be there. What we can say is that when they announced he was, it wasn’t working an angle at that moment. Elgin will instead be wrestling Jeremy Wyatt for Dynamo Pro Wrestling in Glen Carbon, IL, on 10/11. When Elgin wasn’t allowed to come back to the U.S. after the 9/6 show in Toronto due to visa issues, it was thought it would be 90 days minimum before he could return. ROH wrote on their web site that their legal counsel went to work on the problem and Elgin was able to return home this past week."