Marty Scurll was the first guest on the new ROH Strong podcast. During the conversation, Scurll talked about the company’s decision to cancel shows and mentioned that ROH has filmed a handful of empty arena matches.
ROH was forced to cancel its planned 18th Anniversary PPV on March 13th and television taping scheduled for the next night. The company then announced on March 17th that they were canceling all shows up to May 31st.
“It broke my heart but I was like ‘we can’t run these shows,'” Scurll said on the show. “This is way bigger than pro-wrestling, like, that would be so irresponsible for us to run a wrestling show.”
Scurll continued to talk about how the predicament was particularly upsetting for him as he is just starting in his new position with the company.
“No one was more heartbroken then myself,” Scurll continued. “Even though I’ve sort of been hands-on with the show since January, I felt like these were really my first shows that I had full control of.”
“I put so many hours of time and thought into these shows.”
Marty Scurll On Canceled ROH Shows
Scurll continued to say he had a lot planned for the weekend.
“I had a lot of surprises in store for that weekend, a lot of new and exciting things,” he continued. “I wanted so badly for those shows to happen but ultimately, it wasn’t worth putting people’s lives at risk.”
He continued to say that ROH did film a few empty arena matches in Vegas. The matches involved talent who had already arrived in Vegas before the shows were canceled.
“We discussed about doing empty arena shows and everything else. We actually did film a handful of matches with no fans with some of the talent that was there just to see how it would look and if we can make something from it,” he continued. Ultimately, Scurll says the decision was made to save the “Past vs Present” concept until a time when they can do it right.
