Kenny King On If "The Forbidden Door" Is Open To ROH
Former ROH Tag Team and TV Champion Kenny King returned to The Wrestling Inc. Daily recently to discuss his involvement with La Facción Ingobernable. The group is led by ROH World Champion RUSH, and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman asked King about his inclusion in the group.
"The Ingobernable organization is one of the biggest and most over ones in pro wrestling. It has some of the most prestigious members," King noted. "It started with RUSH and Andrade in CMLL in Mexico and branched out to Naito, and Naito formed his own group in Japan. When I was in Japan, it was very very popular. The best factions are the ones that happen organically.
"This isn't a situation where anybody in the office was like, 'Hey guys, can you speak Spanish? Why don't you go with RUSH and Dragon Lee?' It's a situation where it took a while to kind of manifest. I met RUSH and Dragon Lee for the first time in Mexico in 2017, and there was mutual respect there. I've seen Dragon Lee come back and forth a couple times. We built a relationship. So seeing those guys come to Ring of Honor then kind of solidified our relationship more and we're just on the same page.
"We're like-minded. Those dudes are wild and crazy, and I feel like my role is more like a consigliere. If RUSH is Vito and Dragon Lee is Mike, I'll be Tom Hagen. We're putting the ship together. I'll be the one to point out the targets, and then we set them up and knock them down. So it's going to be one of those things this year where we have full strength now with Bestia Del Ring with us. We about to whoop everybody's ass man. It's about to be chaos. We really about to bring some of that, let's call it, controlled chaos to these Foundation members if they want to whine and cry about the rules."
The last ROH – NJPW co-promoted show was back in May 2019 for a War of the Worlds tour. King discussed the relationship between the promotions teasing a sit-down between LIJ leader Tetsuya Naito and LFI leader RUSH.
"I think that's one of the sweetest things that's going on right now is that you really don't know what's going to happen next," King pointed out. "A lot of the walls and the old, nonsense, egotistical nonsense has kind of been put to the side in order to create better optics for pro wrestling, and I'm all for it. The New Japan relationship and the Ring of Honor relationship, it's strong and hasn't gone anywhere.
"Obviously, things are different because of COVID and talent exchanges don't work right now, but it's definitely something that RUSH, Dragon Lee and I have talked about. Some kind of meeting of the minds, see how we can maybe sit down with some of the rest of Ingobernables. You have a sit-down with the heads of the families and all the seconds and all the thirds, and we discuss how we can move this thing forward."
"The Forbidden Door" has been a hot topic in wrestling with AEW, Impact, NJPW and the NWA all seemingly beginning to work together. Hausman asked King if "The Forbidden Door" is also open to ROH.
"I'd like to take Ingobernables everywhere and tear it up," King admitted. "I think what we have is such a special group of dudes and such a unique style that we bring. Everywhere we go we'll show up and wreck it. I think that's only good for wrestling. I think that the more crossovers that you see, the more unpredictability you get. I think that's something that's just going to get more people to tune in."
Shane Taylor is currently set to face RUSH for the ROH World Championship hoping to become only the second Black wrestler to capture the title. King praised Taylor for the work he has been putting in the past few years to get to this point in his career.
"Ring of Honor's always been next man up," King noted. "Whenever someone leaves or whenever there's a spot created, the person who is prepared [and] the person who's hungry and driven, they're gonna fill that spot, and Shane went from the guy who was like, 'Well, Keith Lee left Ring of Honor. So what's Shane going to do?' Everybody almost gave up on Shane, and then we gave Shane a shot.
"And Shane has, in every opportunity, made himself better as a pro wrestler [and] made himself better as an athlete. He understands the game very cerebrally. He understands the business aspect of pro wrestling. That is part of the reason why he has been able to seize his opportunities and able to put together a squad, Shane Taylor Promotions. I am proud of Shane. It's going to be something to watch, Shane and RUSH. Now, my allegiances lie with LFI, but I'm going to be very happy for Shane watching him in that match because he earned it. He deserves it."
You can find Kenny King every week as part of ROH TV. For more information on how to watch ROH please visit www.ROHWrestling.com. You can follow Kenny on Twitter @KennyKingPb2. The full audio and video from Kenny's interview can be found below.