ROH News: Riccaboni signs new deal with ROH, other companies had interest had he opted out of old deal

PWTorch has confirmed that ROH announcer Ian Riccaboni has signed a new multi-year deal with the company. He signed a deal with Ring of Honor in April of 2018 and would have had to opt out of it next month in order to negotiate with other companies, but ROH was aggressive in making him a strong offer to ensure that Riccaboni couldn’t even opt out of his deal to negotiate with other companies.

PWTorch sources have confirmed that WWE and AEW were interested in signing Riccaboni had he become a free agent, but his preference was said to have been to stay with ROH. Riccaboni became the lead announcer for ROH when Kevin Kelly left the company in 2017.

Radican’s Analysis: This is a great signing for ROH. Riccaboni is the MVP of the promotion in my eyes. His commentary is so engaging with great references to hip-hop and wrestling. His enthusiasm for the product has made ROH better from a presentation standpoint since he took over. 

Riccaboni is also a great face of the company so to speak, as he’s friendly and engaging on social media and comes across like he genuinely cares about the fans and the product. In 2018 he became the friendly voice that ROH desperately needed when they had come off cold on social media and publicly in recent years. His “happy wrestling” sign-off is one of the things I look forward to most on a ROH broadcast. 

Riccaboni is someone that has truly risen through the ranks in ROH as a part-time announcer and sometimes backstage interviewer to one of the best announcers in all of wrestling. The fact that he was able to make himself so valuable to the company in such a short amount of time since becoming lead announcer is amazing. It’s also nice that he was able to take advantage of the market waiting for him had he decided to opt out of his contract next month.