PWInsider.com’s Mike Johnson reported the following earlier today, which seems to have caused a lot of controversy around the Internet and the indy scene. Here’s the exact post he made. All credit goes to him for the following:
Jersey All Pro Wrestling’s Frank Iadevia issued the following statement this evening:
“Due to outside interference from ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky Jersey All Pro Wrestling management has canceled the September 10th match between Homicide & James Gibson in Rahway, NJ. I feel bad for “ALL” the fans that were looking forward to this classic encounter and have been robbed by the actions of another promoter.”
According to both Iadevia and Sapolsky, the issue was over James Gibson, who currently holds the ROH title, losing cleanly to Homicide as planned. The bout was booked prior to Gibson winning the ROH title from CM Punk several weeks back.
Sapolsky said that in the past, whoever has held the ROH championship has never done clean jobs when champion and working for other independent companies, “So what would be different in this case?” He also noted that in the past when working with TNA talent who held championships, he would go to TNA to make sure that he had their approval over their champions losing in a ROH ring, noting the recent Christopher Daniels-Matt Hardy match as an example. Sapolsky said that JAPW didn’t contact him with any ideas, and his primary concern was that the ROH champion didn’t lose cleanly in the ring due to all the work that has been put into building the prestige of the belt.
When it became clear there was going to be an issue with the match, JAPW canceled Gibson from the booking. Sapolsky made it a point to say that at no point did he ask Gibson not to work the JAPW event. JAPW officials were very upset about having to deal with the restrictions of another company on a show they were running, which led to their decision to remove Gibson. “[Sapolsky] could have asked us to respect his championship, not tell us what we had to do on our show,” said Iadevia.
JAPW was also upset about the turn of events because in the past, ROH had used previous and current JAPW champions and booked them to lose clean on ROH events without worrying about whether the bouts had any bearing on the JAPW championships. Sapolsky responded that at no point in the past had JAPW contacted him asking that ROH protect any talents that were being used and he didn’t keep tabs on what belts ROH regulars held in other independent companies.
The real shame of the situation is that in the end, as it always is, it’s the paying fans who are deprived of a match they paid for. No matter the circumstances or who is getting blamed by the other side, in the end, the fans are the ones who lose out. It’s a shame there wasn’t something that could have been worked out for the sake of the fans. There is no word yet on who Homicide’s new opponent on 9/10 will be.
JAPW’s return to Rahway, New Jersey is headlined by JAPW champion Jay Lethal vs. Charlie Haas and Rhino vs. Samoa Joe in their first in-ring encounter. For ticket information, visit www.JAPW.net.
10:47 PM Note: Shortly after this article was posted, Sapolsky wrote the following note on the ROH website’s message board: “If you check PWInsider.com you’ll see a little story about us and JAPW. I might write a response to it later as there are two sides to every story, but if so it is simply to address our side. The bottom line is that there is no war with JAPW and there won’t be one. If they want one on their side it’ll be like masterbation (sic) because we won’t be involved.”
You figure it out. The bottom line is that Gibson is not appearing at the JAPW show as a result.
