TK O’Ryan Saddles Up For Final Battle
The Kingdom member meets RUSH Saturday in Philadelphia.
TK O’Ryan refers to himself as the Sassy Wild Horse, and it’s easy to see why.
At 6’3, he’s one of the tallest wrestlers in Ring of Honor. Yet, he moves quickly and gracefully, while remaining strong and powerful. And even though he holds the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championships with Matt Taven and Vinny Marseglia, O’Ryan can definitely carry the workload.
“Wild horses are a very versatile animal and I think of myself as a versatile guy,” O’Ryan told The Wrestling Estate. “I’m definitely not a one-dimensional wrestler.”
Having spent less than five years in the squared circle, the Massachusetts native has yet to show fans all he can do. A gifted athlete, O’Ryan played football, basketball and baseball in high school, going on to become a NCAA Division I catcher at The College of the Holy Cross. As a sophomore, he was named second team All-Patriot League, started 51 of 52 games for the Crusaders and batted .333 with seven home runs and a school single-season record of 21 doubles, Telegram.com reported.
THIS SATURDAY! #CMLL‘s Rush vs @WildHorseTKO at #ROHFinalBattle Fallout TV Taping!
Dec 15 – @2300Arena – #ROHPhilly
Get your tickets while you still can: https://t.co/Y49laueWq1
More Info: https://t.co/EmYTFUe6Mo pic.twitter.com/VlxIYTc0sL— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) December 12, 2018
A broken foot during his junior year derailed his baseball career, leaving O’Ryan to consider other endeavors. After stints in software licensing and the Bourne school system, he realized he wasn’t ready to be tamed by a desk job.
“I picked the right time to be a wrestler,” O’Ryan says. “It wasn’t a conscious decision – I got lucky. I just so happened to pick the wrestling school in the right place where there was a group of guys who were looking for a dude to run with. I also have to believe that you put in the work and put yourself in the position to be lucky.”
He trained at The Lock-Up: Pro Wrestling School in Fall River, MA, where Marseglia showed him the ropes. They developed chemistry in the ring and became a featured match throughout the Northeast independent scene. Around the same time, Marseglia’s long-time buddy Taven suffered a major knee injury, sidelining the ROH star for 10 months. That gave Taven plenty of time to rebuild The Kingdom, one of the promotion’s most notorious stables.
“We click because of our organic nature,” O’Ryan says. “Outside of wrestling, those are the guys I hang out with. Those are the guys I lean on. I’ve been to Vinny’s daughter’s birthday and Matt bought her a giant electric jeep to drive around. I’ve been to Matt’s family’s house in New Hampshire and met his friends from high school. They’ve come to my place as well.”
On the October 23, 2016, edition of Ring of Honor Wrestling, Taven introduced O’Ryan and Marseglia as his new partners. The treacherous trio instantly shocked the wrestling world, defeating Adam Cole and The Young Bucks in the quarterfinals of the World Six-Man Tag Team Championship tournament. They went on to become the inaugural champions at Final Battle 2016.
“Oddly enough, before Ring of Honor, I had never been in a six-man tag team match,” O’Ryan says. “But team sports have been in my blood for a long time. I’m the kind of guy you want on your team. If I’m on the opposing side, you probably hate me.”
Now Final Battle 2018 is rapidly approaching, and it’s bigger than ever. For the first time, ROH’s premiere event of the year will run four hours long. And O’Ryan says that he and Marseglia have been added to the card, taking on the Best Friends and the Bouncers in a triangle tag team match. Meanwhile, Taven meets Dalton Castle in a highly anticipated encounter.
“It’s an exciting time of the year for Ring of Honor with guys’ contracts coming up, new guys are going to come in and some are going to leave,” O’Ryan says. “Then we’ve got this history-making event coming up in Madison Square Garden and other than the fact that we know we sold out Madison Square Garden, it’s all still up in the air.”
If he could face anybody of his choosing at the G1 Supercard in MSG, O’Ryan says he’d love to face Jay Briscoe or have The Kingdom face Los Ingobernables. “That would be a helluva matchup that could really make some history,” he says.
O’Ryan will get a taste of his dream match this Saturday in Philadelphia at the Final Battle Fallout TV tapings. He’ll clash with a founding father of Los Ingobernables – RUSH – in the CMLL star’s long-awaited ROH debut. It’s just more evidence of the industry’s evolution as talent exchanges and interpromotional matches have become the norm in 2018.
For a wild horse like O’Ryan, the wide, open landscape has never looked better. “I wasn’t alive for the territory days, but I can’t imagine it was a whole lot better than right now to be honest with ya.”
ROH Final Battle airs LIVE from the Manhattan Center’s Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on Friday, December 14, 2018 at 8 p.m. EDT on traditional cable and satellite Pay-Per-View providers, and streaming free for HonorClub VIP, 50% off for HonorClub Standard members, and through FITE TV. Become a member of HonorClub here.
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