Joey's Comments
Let me start out by disclosing that I own 50% of 1wrestling.com with Bob Ryder. I have no vested interest in the success or failure of TNA or Ring of Honor.
1wrestling.com has never been my full time career and has always been a fun business investment to me. Therefore, with nothing substantial to lose I am going to present my honest observations about the TNA/Ring of Honor situation as well as the 1wrestling.com/pwinsider.com situation. I am not looking to spin anything but am rather just looking to get some things off my conscience before fading back into obscurity and running the behind the scenes business of 1wrestling.com.
1.) The Rob Feinstein/Ring of Honor situation:
I was the one who made the decision to no longer cover or promote Ring of Honor on 1wrestling.com against the advice of Bob Ryder. Bob felt it would hurt 1wrestling.com on the Internet and would prompt an angry reaction from smart wrestling fans like you. I agreed with his assessment but decided that the truth was much more important than our stature in the online wrestling news community. I did the right thing and accepted the consequences.
I made the decision not to cover or promote Ring of Honor on 1wrestling.com because I am the father of a seven-month-old boy who already loves to stare at my PC monitor and bang on the keyboard. He is sitting with me right now as I write this column. The thought of pedophiles lurking out there in cyberspace waiting for him terrifies and enrages me.
I hope TNA gets national TV and sells millions of pay-per-views, I hope a Feinstein-free ROH sells out Madison Square Garden and millions of DVDs. I hope pro wrestlers have several options for solid employment and wrestling fans have several options for their time and money. I will not personally benefit from any of these things but hope for them to happen because many other people will benefit.
What I know is that I do not care for Rob Feinstein and from what I remember from what I read online after NBC10 exposed Rob Feinstein as an alleged Internet pedophile, neither do the Ring of Honor wrestlers or fans.
What happened after the story broke amazed me. Ring of Honor publicly assured their outraged wrestlers and outraged fans that Rob Feinstein would not profit in any way from the wrestlers' hard work and the fans' support of that hard work. To substantiate that claim, they provided paperwork explaining that Rob Feinstein had signed over 100% of the shares in both Ring of Honor and RF Video to his long time friend and employee Doug Gentry.
The paperwork sent to 1wrestling.com and other wrestling media was basic corporate paperwork that made no reference to any specifics of how the signing over took place or of any money that changed hands between Feinstein and Gentry. Who signs over ownership of a profitable company for no up front or deferred payment?
The paperwork was not filed with the appropriate authorities in Pennsylvania and was not even notarized. While it is true that Pennsylvania's Corporations Bureau does not require for profit corporations to file change
of ownership with them, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue does and there is no record with that department of the change of ownership. In the case of the filing with the Corporations Bureau, while it's not required it would have only taken a few minutes to prepare the change, and it would have been in their best interest to do so in light of the horrible publicity Feinstein forced upon them. Why wouldn't Ring of Honor rush to cleanse themselves of Feinstein in any and every way possible?
Ring of Honor could have easily and immediately diffused the situation by providing verifiable proof that there has been an ownership change and that Rob Feinstein no longer owns and is no longer involved in the company as Ring of Honor repeatedly and publicly promised their wrestlers and fans. The only public voice of the company, Gabe Sapolsky, is saying it is nobody's business who owns Ring of Honor because it is a private company.
It is the business of those wrestlers and fans that continue to support Ring of Honor only because they believe Rob Feinstein is no longer profiting from the company. Those wrestlers and fans should be demanding the truth.
The fact is there is no credible and verifiable evidence that there has been any change in ownership of Ring of Honor.
To make matters worse, after claiming Doug Gentry owns 100% of the company despite no evidence of any financial transaction having taken place, now there is a silent owner who does not want to have his name on any of the paperwork. What kind of business owner does not have his name of the company's charter or incorporation papers besides Tony Soprano?
In any case, it is none of my business where wrestlers work and where wrestling fans spend money, I am just observing the facts as I see them and if ROH can provide a legitimate and notarized proof of sale and transfer of ownership from Rob Feinstein to anyone else, I will happily promote ROH on 1wrestling.com and I will personally buy a front row ticket to an upcoming show. Until believable and verifiable proof is provided that Rob Feinstein is not profiting from Ring of Honor, I simply will not promote that company on 1wrestling.com, even if it means my website and myself personally are hated by thousands of internet wrestling fans. I owe that much to children and their families, including my own. I could not care less if TNA wrestlers do or do not work for Ring of Honor because it has nothing to do with the crux of the matter.
