During his latest interview with Under The Ring former ROH world champion Matt Taven spoke about his current run with IMPACT as a member of the Honor No More group, and how comfortable he has felt in the promotion since there are so many familiar faces around him. That and more can be found in the highlights below.
On facing the Briscoes for the ROH tag team titles at last December’s Final Battle PPV:
They [The Briscoes] bring us [Taven & Bennett] to a whole other level and when we knew we were heading into Final Battle with that — we knew actually before we got the news about everything else [ROH’s hiatus]. So, we were all excited to kind of — you know, we had all these plans and then all of a sudden, it’s like it’ll be one and that’s it. It was kind of — the four of us all looked at each other like, we’re gonna go all out tonight and it’s one of my favorite matches of my career and I’m so unbelievably proud of it.
How he feels about his current run with Honor No More in IMPACT:
I mean it’s — this whole thing has been such a crazy experience for me [IMPACT Wrestling run] just because you know, we talked in the beginning and even before that, my first dark match in Ring of Honor was in 2009. So, I was working underneath during that time. In 2012, things started to kind of pick up a little bit of steam for me at Ring of Honor and I’ve been there ever since and so, when you’re out there and especially when you’re a free agent and you can kind of do whatever, you’re testing all these different places and right now, we have something going on with IMPACT and you never know what you’re gonna get into when you go to a new place. I mean there’s just kind of this weird anxiety of like, ‘Oh man, I’ve been so comfortable in this locker room for so long. What’s this gonna be like?’ But when you walk into the door at IMPACT, there’s so many familiar faces that it felt like another day. It almost felt like a Ring of Honor show in 2015 or something where I’m looking around, it’s Eddie [Edwards] and Moose and just everyone, [Chris] Sabin, [Alex] Shelley. It’s like, oh, okay and so many familiar faces that you have spent time with in wrestling and I guess that’s one of the beautiful things about wrestling is that you see people — ‘I’ll see you down the road’ is not just something people say to each other just to say it. It’s because it’s true. Sometimes you’ll be like, ‘Ah, I don’t know where I’m gonna see him next’ and now I see him all the time so, it’s been an easy adjustment to IMPACT because of that. Obviously, being there with me, Mike and Maria [Kanellis-Bennett], teaming up with Eddie, having Vinny there, Kenny King and myself are very good friends. PCO is — always had a soft spot in my heart for big PCO so it’s kind of [nice to] be there together and to be kind of all be going through this new phase together.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
)