Unfortunately, Elias won’t be coming to ROH anytime soon.
This past weekend, it was reported by Dave Meltzer that the former WWE star had signed an ROH deal. The news was fueled even further when Elijah released a video showing him walking alongside Vincent and Dutch of The Righteous. However, that was not a post confirming Elijah’s signing to Ring of Honor.
According to Sean Ross Sapp, the 37-year-old has yet to put pen to paper on an ROH/AEW deal. In fact, there’s no word on whether Tony Khan has offered Elijah a deal in general. The former WWE star was on the recent Jericho Cruise where he lost to Tommy Billington.
Though it may not seem as if Elijah has a future in ROH/AEW, it could be possible that he’ll pop up in TNA Wrestling instead. TNA is another popular destination for former WWE stars and The Takedown on SI reports that their sources were told that creative pitches were being tossed around for Elijah. Of course, this doesn’t confirm that he’ll end up in TNA Wrestling.
Elijah has been quiet since posting that video of him walking with The Righteous. At the moment, there’s no word on whether that video was just a tease or a plan down the line for the ROH team to work with the former WWE star.
Despite this, Elijah has been pretty busy on the independent scene. The former WWE star wrestled in NWA, IWC, REVOLVER, WSW, and ALW in 2024. He noted in an previous interview that he was actually down on the business following the final months of his WWE stint. He’s been reawakened by his time on the indie scene. An interesting note about Elijah and The Righteous is that it’s similar to the Monday Night Messiah gimmick that Seth Rollins had. Elijah previously revealed in an interview that he originally came up with the Messiah gimmick for himself, but WWE ultimately gave it to the former WWE Champion.
"I was always coming up with different characters, ways to evolve Elias into the next thing. There was a character that I really thought could have been incredible myself, it was the Monday Night Messiah," Elias told Alistair McGeorge of Metro. "If you realise, Seth Rollins and AOP ended up – for lack of better terms, they just gave it to those guys. I had a real vision of me being the Pied Piper of Monday Night Raw and controlling people, with kind of a cult like leader. The biblical themes and things like that, I always love that Messiah stuff. There’s guys that just are getting paid more or getting put more in a spotlight, and they might want to put the resources into those guys. It’s no discredit to Seth, the guy’s absolutely incredible. But this is how that’s how the system works, you know what I mean? That’s the risk you take with giving these ideas."
Seeing Elijah work in TNA (should he go there) could be a fun experiment for his character. We’ll see what happens in the coming months.