WWE is continuing its cherry-picking of the independent scene and other promotions — and this time, they decided to grab a huge star from Ring of Honor.
Spoiler alert: results ahead for upcoming Ring of Honor Wrestling television episodes.
According to Wrestling Observer , Punishment Martinez is indeed done with Ring of Honor after this past weekend’s events. On Friday night, ROH held their annual Death Before Dishonor event which saw Martinez defeat Chris Sabin to retain his TV Title.
Once the match was over, Martinez was set to dish out more pain to Sabin, but he was stopped by Jeff Cobb. Punishment Martinez hit Cobb with a chair, but the tables were turned on him as Cobb hit him with a few moves and left him laid out in the middle of the ring. This sort of dusty finish provides the perfect pretext for a major switch of storylines — and of careers options.
That would conclude what is shaping up to be the final ROH match for Punishment Martinez — before he heads to WWE.
Punishment Martinez finishes up with ROH, headed to WWE https://t.co/4toGckYOrI pic.twitter.com/XfcYPv59Id
— Wrestling Observer (@WONF4W) September 30, 2018
On Saturday night, Ring of Honor held a set of TV tapings which included a match between Punishment Martinez and Jeff Cobb for the ROH World TV Championship. As reported by Pro Wrestling , that match was won by Jeff Cobb — who is now the new TV Champion.
With Martinez giving up the belt, the 36-year-old has no more ties to Ring of Honor and is now free to move on to other things. The report from Wrestling Observer doesn’t state much in the way of details surrounding his deal with WWE, but Dave Meltzer has confirmed that is indeed where he is heading.
Throughout his three-ish years in Ring of Honor, Martinez has made a big name for himself. While under contract with ROH, Martinez also worked for New Japan Pro Wrestling due to the working relationship between the two promotions. He has been a rather dominant force in ROH, and his appearance is one that is ideal for WWE.
Vince McMahon has always liked having superstars on the roster who are big, muscular, and hulking over the competition. Even though times have changed in professional wrestling, there is still room for big men in WWE. Unfortunately, one of the last — Big Cass — didn’t work out so well, but there is more hope for Punishment Martinez.
It is not known when he will start his run, nor whether he will debut on the main roster or on NXT. No matter which platform hosts Punishment Martinez, pain is coming soon as his time with Ring of Honor expires.
