Ring of Honor Chief Operating Officer Joe Koff recently joined the Pro Wrestling Boom podcast to discuss a variety of subjects including how the company’s bubble system from COVID-19 is still in effect, and how their full-time crew was still paid during the pandemic. Highlights are below.
Says the bubble system hasn’t completely gone away but there’s been some leniency since more talent/staff have been vaccinated:
No, the bubble system is not entirely gone. There’s a little leniency towards vaccinated people, and that’s basically on — they have to show proof of that and they’re not specifically in a bubble, but those who’ve not been vaccinated and there’s plenty of people who choose not to from a performer side, they will be masked, they will have a little different set of protocols at that point but it is so much more lenient. I wouldn’t say the bubble has broken, but the bubble has a leak in it and it’s not — it’s workable. The bubble’s workable. Remember those plastic bubbles we used to get with the little blower and it was a little bit more flexible than the water blowers? That’s kind of what we’re in. Our bubble’s very flexible and depending on your health status and where you are, the flexibilities go there.
How the full-time crew was paid during the pandemic:
Yeah, if they’re full-time Ring of Honor employees, they were paid throughout the whole pandemic, and we even took care of some of our outside contractors, especially last March and April in those first two shows because they were booked and they had plans and stuff like that. We were very, very generous and very, very caring and I think it really comes down to, you know, our DNA. To me, welfare, safety, health, family were far more important to me than whether we did an event in April or May. I wanted people to be with their families, I wanted them to feel safe. I wanted them to know that their safety was foremost in our mind, their health and welfare and I’m really proud of the job we did and I’m also proud of the job we did in creating content over this period. Using our massive library, we are so fortunate to have such a reserve and robust library that we could create original programs.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)