ROH star Shane Taylor spoke with Wrestling Inc. ahead of this evening’s Best In The World pay per view, where Taylor and the Soldiers of Savagery will be defending their six-man titles against Eli Isom, Dak Draper and former world champion Dalton Castle. During the interview Taylor commended ROH for their handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, stating he feels immense pride in the company for taking such good care of their talent and staff. Highlights are below.
Says he feels prideful with how well ROH handled the pandemic:
“Pride, honestly. Not only being able to deal with a very unique and a very tough situation but I’m proud of the way that ROH handled it, not only with the performers but the men and women on the roster who’ve been busting their ass to make sure we put on the best show possible for our fans. I think when you stack it up against every other company in the world, if you put our product next to theirs, there’s nobody topping us right now. So for me, the ability for us to be able to go out, do that, put on the performances and the displays that we have up until this point is absolutely incredible. For STP personally, I feel as though this time has allowed people to appreciate some of the things that we do that they didn’t get a chance to when there were fans around because for me personally, the way my style is, I talk a lot of trash while I’m in the ring, and you’re able to hear that with no crowd, whereas before, you don’t pick up on those things. So I think that immersive-ness allows people to appreciate some of the things that we do more and that aspect of our performances, but going back to fans now, I think they’re going to be, not only entertained by the things we say, but what we do and the overall swagger that we bring to ROH.”
On the development of Shane Taylor promotions:
“For us, I think we, almost better than anyone, have been able to maintain the momentum that we had going into this and hit the ground running coming out of it. Again, people have been able to watch not only myself but Kaun, Moses, O’Shay [Edwards] sort of grow up through this era, and they’ve been able to track and see just how much confidence, how much improvement that that they’ve had from when we first debuted up until now. I couldn’t be prouder of everybody involved. It only goes to show the hard work and dedication that they have to making what we do not just the best thing going in ROH but the best thing going in all of professional wrestling, so I’m excited for Best In The World. I’m jacked. I’m ready to go. We have a point to prove. It almost seems like every single time we go out there, somebody does something to put that chip on our shoulder, which is much appreciated because we want that, and we need that. It’s going to be one hell of a match. You got STP against Dalton Castle, Eli Isom and Dak Draper. Dalton is a former champion. He’s a former six-man champion. He’s been able to lead an unlikely team to championship gold before. It won’t happen on Sunday.”
Talks Dalton Castle’s evolution:
“Dalton Castle, regardless of the quirks, regardless of the mannerisms, regardless of the aura he puts out, he kind of puts you off into thinking he’s this goofy guy, but when you really look at it, he’s one of the most legitimate competitors and one of the most legitimate athletes in the company,” Taylor pointed out. “And he’s proven that by becoming Ring of Honor World Champion, which is something so many people have never gotten the chance to do. He’s reached the top of that mountain. So we always know that he has that in his bag. He has that in his arsenal. Now, whether he puts that together and whether he brings all of that and his A-game and the three of them can mesh, that’s yet to be seen. But one of the dangerous things about having a team that’s unpredictable is there’s nothing really to scout. We can scout them individually, but we have no idea how they’re going to work together on that night. We’ve got to be prepared for anything. We’ve got to be able to deal with the x-factor of Dalton Castle, the speed and the youthful exuberance of Eli Isom and the power, speed, technique of a guy like Dak Draper. The things that they can do together, we have to capitalize on mistakes if they make them, when they make them. For us, this is just as big a test as facing a team that’s a well oiled team because there’s always going to be tendencies, and to be honest, it might be a little bit harder because they are so unpredictable and we have no idea how they’re going to come together as a unit. So we we’ve got to be on our game, which we will be. I will make sure of that, and if I’m off Kaun and Moses will be right there to make sure that they pick up any slack and bring it home.”