Matt Taven Discusses ROH And CMLL's Expanding Relationship, Teases ROH - NJPW - CMLL Shows

Ring of Honor has recently expanded its partnership with CMLL and they had a tour together in September. Former ROH World Champion Matt Taven sees nothing but positives from this relationship as he told Nick Hausman when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.

"I think some of the best luchadores of the world are almost being hidden from an American audience. Anything we can do to expose them to the ROH crowd is a positive," Taven said before listing off many of the CMLL luchadores he has been impressed with. "We live in such a great wrestling world where you can get anything from your phone, but at the same time I think there's an exposure that these guys deserve that is being done through ROH's relationship with CMLL.

"It was a nice change of pace to do Global Wars with them [and not New Japan] and soon we will have all three companies working together. I think this relationship is something that a fan like myself, that grew up wanting to see international talent, it's exciting for a fan base to get the opportunity to do that."

Taven lost his title to Rush at ROH's Death Before Dishonor last Friday. He talked about Rush and their history together which dates back to Mexico.

"He's been unbelievably impressive in ROH and he's always been making waves down in Mexico. But he's going against a guy who's worked harder than anyone else to be the world champion," stated Taven.

Taven added that Rush's undefeated streak in ROH doesn't affect him because he's beaten him in Mexico several times. He also said that people would still mispronounce Rush's name had Taven not worked with him.

"He really owes all of his success since coming to the US, he owes that to me. I really should get a percentage of his contract like I'm his agent," said Taven.

Last month Rush had an impressive victory over Dalton Castle at Summer Supercard although Taven claims to not really know who Castle is anymore.

"I don't know who Dalton Castle is," said Taven. "Who's that?...I really don't know too much about that person. Rush is one of those guys where if he's gonna step up to Matt Taven and take this title from me, which is laughable, he needs to worry about people that are on a higher level than this Dalton Castle you're speaking of.

"Is that the one with AJ Styles' haircut," Taven asked of Castle.

Taven's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it Taven discusses his current ROH contract, defending his title against RUSH at Death Before Dishonor, the ROH World title #1 Contender's tournament, who he'd like to see win the tournament, Super Humman, ROH's relationship with CMLL and more. You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.