When Ring of Honor officially announced its hiatus back in 2021, it left the company's contract performers scrambling to find new, long-term homes.

For some, this was easier said than done; Vincent, PCO, Maria Kanellis-Bennett, Kevin King, and the OGK duo of Matt Taven and Chris Bennett all signed with Impact as Honor No More, while Rush and Danhausen landed in AEW to team up with Andrade El Idolo and the Best Friends/Hook respectively.

But unfortunately, not everyone was so lucky. Sure, performers like Dalton Castle have secured per-appearance deals in AEW to perform on Ring of Honor shows moving forwards, but others, like Bandido, have been forced to bounce around the indies and wrestle matches for the likes of GCW, MLW, and Impact with no clear home (more on that here).

Shane Taylor's post-Ring of Honor run is starting to take shape.

One performer who fell into the latter camp was Shane Taylor, the proprietor of Shane Taylor Promotions, who held the ROH World Six Man Tag Team Championship until Final Battle, when The Righteous secured the straps on the final show of the former regime. While Taylor has wrestled around the indies both as a solo performer and in multi-man action with his faction mates, Taylor has only appeared in 27 matches over the last eight months post-ROH, according to Cagematch, most notably in a match versus the HitMakerZ at GCW For The Culture. Taylor has won two championships for his troubles, securing the Red River Heavyweight Championship over Ryan Davidson to go with his VIP Heavyweight Championship.

So what gives? Is Taylor untouchable? Is his act too radioactive to be successful in another company like, say, AEW? Or is this slow and steady approach to finding a new home nothing to worry about? Fortunately, Taylor talked with JOFO In The Ring on the topic, as you can read below via a transcription from Fightful.

“There's definitely buzz, for sure. I know, some people have issues with me because of how I represent myself, the subject matter in which I represent. There are a lot of people, who are in positions of power, who just don't understand what this is. It was no different than some of the conversations we had in ROH. You have people who aren't educated enough on the things we're trying to do and understand that when we talk about being for our culture and being proud of who we are, that is not negative against anybody else, it's not excluding anybody else.”

“If you were to say that you were proud to be Canadian, no one would say that you hate America or England or Portugal, you're just proud to be who you are. It's no different with us. We've always said that we are for everybody, but WE aren't for everybody because we are loud, we are boisterous, brash, confident, we're good and we know we are. We know what our worth is and for some people, hearing that coming from us is an issue. When you look at the responses online, the merch, all this, there are people of all backgrounds, and ethnicities, that support STP and do so proudly. That should show you right there that we're able to make this thing work and get all this love and buzz, essentially by ourselves, what do you think happens when you put us on a major network? This is only going to go up.”

“Right now, the lay for some people is what they've heard about me vs. them actually knowing me. My question then is, ‘what's the agenda of those people trying to make sure that we're not there?' Really, they're protecting a spot if that's the case, in my opinion. They see what we're about to do, they see who we are, and they see the organic following we've built, damn near by ourselves. That's something that they can't reproduce. There are a few things on the table, we're going to discuss all that in due time. We're just here, we're grinding. For a lot of people, they don't understand that we can't just show up in a place. We can't just show up at AEW or IMPACT or wherever. ‘You should just show up.' That's not how it works. That's not real life.”

“It's just a waiting game at this point. I know that's not something our fans want to hear, but this is the process, it's how it goes. Our job is to make sure that when we get that call, we absolutely knock it out of the park and that's what we're going to do.”

Well, fortunately for Taylor, that waiting game may soon be done, as, according to The Wrestling Observer, he reportedly made his debut on Before the Impact during the company's Lone Star Stampede tapings. Taylor wrestled against Crazzy Steve in a reportedly losing effort, but will still end up on AXS Television screens the world over with a chance to prove his mettle and capture the eyes of bookers.

Will Taylor stick around in Impact? Will his promotional efforts fit well into Scott D'Amore's company, especially now that The Good Brothers are gone, or will this be more of a one-off a la STP's appearance in GCW? Fans will find out soon enough.