Jay Lethal made an appearance on AEW Unrestricted to discuss a wide range of topics.
During it, Lethal spoke about everything that happened leading up to him signing with AEW as he was with ROH before they went on hiatus and let all wrestlers out of their contracts.
“They (ROH) let everybody go. The odd part is, the year before they let everybody go, I was considering coming to AEW. I felt like the only reason that I hadn’t gone to AEW and jumped ship in the very beginning was that I was extremely loyal to Ring of Honor. I felt like with everybody leaving, they needed to have somebody stay and try and help. I felt because they were so loyal to me, I was going to try to stay and help.
My duty to them was slowly coming to an end. They were good to me so I was good to them for a time and it was time to start exploring other options. That was in my mind. But I didn’t do it. I stayed and continued to help out Ring of Honor. Then as luck would have it, about October, we’re in the pandemic. They’re having these sporadic shows. Everybody’s getting paid still which we’re all excited about. Kudos to them for tipping their hat because we had a lot of people on the roster, particularly a lot of overseas people that they didn’t let go. They kept them too and paid them. So kudos to them. But it was just the perfect storm of events, not having many shows, not drawing too well when we did have the shows, and paying everybody. They couldn’t take it anymore. The company closes and now I can finally explore that option that I was thinking about.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription