UPDATED: Ring of Honor Issues Statement on Kelly Klein’s Departure

UPDATE: Ring of Honor has issued a statement to PWInsider about Kelly Klein’s departure from the company, as seen below:

“We don’t generally discuss personal issues but they seem to have made it public – we didn’t fire [Kelly Klein], we just notified her that we would not be renewing her contract.”

ORIGINAL: Ring of Honor has reportedly decided to let Women of Honor Champion Kelly Klein go. Klein’s husband BJ Whitmer posted to Twitter to confirm that ROH COO Joe Koff fired Klein on Tuesday evening via email. Whitmer noted that Klein is still suffering from Post-Concussion Syndrome; you can see his post below, as well as the original post by Joey Mercury in which he shared the email.

Klein allowed Joey Mercury to release emails between her and ROH General Manager Greg Gilleland at the beginning of the month which shows that she was making $24,000 a year and suggested all female talent in the company had to be paid the same amount. She also confirmed that ROH does not have a current concussion protocol in place and said that she “didn’t bring issues up publicly before. I was afraid for my job and the jobs of my colleagues. I don’t want to take away their place of work. I want to make their place of work better and safer.”

In the email as shared by Mercury, Koff says:

“Dear Kelly,

“Thank you for your email the other day and I’m glad that you are getting treatment for your injury.

“As you have known over the years in Ring of Honor, we always take any injury very seriously and have supported many through their recoveries.

“That does not change here for your health is of the utmost importance.

“However, there were important things unrelated to your injury that we haven’t really had a chance to discuss, and perhaps we probably should have when you came to Baltimore, but I was more interested in what you had to say.

“What I did not hear though was any remorse for what transpired up to that point. I was really hoping to hear some acknowledgement about wanting to move past the actions that you had taken, that have hurt the company.

The company is firm that pursuant to your contract, section 15 — you have breached out existing agreement sharing confidential documents with another contractor [assumedly Mercury], who used the material to defame and slander the company and one of its key officers, Greg Gilleland. You also used your social media presence to help this contractor’s twitter account gain traction, and to validate his claims, which further your involvement in these actions. This was painful to watch.

“Personally, I have always appreciated the level of open communication we have had with our talent, and the ability to approach Greg or I anytime you had an idea or thoughts to improve any aspect of the company.

“So despite the clear breach of your contract and ethical requirements, I still appreciate the time you have spent with ROH. Therefore, rather than pursue the breach which would terminate our existing agreement right now and enact a 6 month non-compete, I have decided to let your current agreement continue as it is and then expire at the end of the term. Also at this time, we are choosing not to continue with our ongoing negotiations that began in July. We will follow up with written correspondence outlining the same.”

ROH has yet to comment on the story.

https://twitter.com/JOEYnRetrograde/status/1197651202680459264

https://twitter.com/BJ_Whitmer/status/1197656657637126150