Ring Of Honor Wrestling sent out the following:
For the majority of their ROH careers, Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly have been synonymous with one another as the tag team Future Shock. They climbed the ranks together, battled for the World Tag Titles together against WGTT, and most fans thought they would eventually claim those belts together. But the closing months of 2011, and in particular the ROH World Title match between Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards at “Final Battle 2011” seemed to cause Kyle to drift closer to Team Richards.
Still, Future Shock battled as a team in the Tag Gauntlet that December night but were unsuccessful in their bid for a title shot when they were eliminated by the eventual winners, The Young Bucks. Yet with the dawn of the New Year, the wedge between the two men grew, and despite their tag team bout with WGTT at “The Homecoming 2012”, it seemed evident that they were not on the same page.
This notion was further cemented when Davey & Kyle united as a team to fight The House of Truth at “ROH Underground” in a match where the winner would receive a Tag Title Match. The newly christened Team Ambition successfully won that bout, but were not as fortunate at “Rise & Prove” when they lost to The Briscoes in said title match.
While Kyle’s focus turned towards his partnership with Davey, Eddie Edwards reached out to Adam Cole after Cole stepped up in his stead at “The Homecoming 2012” in the scheduled No Holds Barred match with Roderick Strong. Edwards, suffering from a serious staph infection, was ruled unable to compete by the doctors so Cole took the match upon himself. Adam lost in a brutal fight that saw Eddie get involved to stem the interference of Michael Elgin, but Cole’s effort earned a standing ovation from the notoriously critical Philly fans.
In the face of his dissolving partnership, as well as friendship, with O’Reilly, Cole accepted the offer of Edwards to form a duo of their own which ultimately led to the “Young Wolves Rising” tag team match that headlined the “10th Anniversary Event”: Edwards/Cole vs. Richards/O’Reilly. It was a special affair, especially for Adam & Kyle, made even more so when Adam pinned the ROH World Champion to win the match for his team! Following the bell, to the shock of many (no pun intended); Kyle refused to shake the hands of Eddie or Adam and flat out told his former partner that he did not respect him.
Then this week on “Ring of Honor Wrestling” TV, following Cole’s defeat of Chris Silvio, Kyle came out and issued the challenge for Adam to meet him, one-on-one, on March 31st. Cole readily accepted…
“I’m tired of Kyle’s whiny attitude to be honest.” said Cole to ROHWrestling.com, “Something changed with him over the last few months and I’m honestly not liking what I’m seeing. If this is the influence Team Richards has on you, then I am glad to have no part of it. It was one thing to not shake my hand in New York Kyle, I can understand being a bit frustrated after a loss, but to tell me you don’t respect me after everything we’ve been through, after the fights we’ve had together, that’s a whole new side of you, an ugly side at that. In Ft. Lauderdale, I’ll be glad to beat some respect into you if that’s what it takes to wake you up, to snap you out of whatever this is you’re going through.”