Mary-Kate Grosso, who has been with ROH from day one as a photographer, was fired by the company earlier this week. Mary-Kate's work was always well liked and respected by fans and talent alike. We originally weren't going to use her name in our reports, but since other sites betrayed her confidence and posted about her departure, we didn't want to leave DOI readers in the dark. Mary-Kate who used to work for JAPW, will return this weekend, and will have a full online picture gallery of the show sometime next week.

Mary-Kate was told she was being let go because she was seen talking to former ROH president, Rob Feinstein, at a recent indy show. This was the sole reason she was given for being let go.

In January of this year, she was also harrassed about attending Doug Gentry's funeral from some of ROH's staff. The DOI did not print that story at the time as we found it disrespectful to Doug's memory & did not want to cost Mary Kate any heat with ROH. One of the people who did NOT harrass her over going to the funeral was Gabe Sapolsky, as it came from others in the ROH office. On this note, it should be said that Gabe Sapolsky actually reached out to Rob Feinstein during Doug's passing, and expressed his condolences, despite never talking to Doug again when Doug left ROH in 2004.

One must question why ROH would fire someone just for talking to a friend that she's known before ROH even existed, especially over a situation that happened over 3 years ago.

When Mary Kate was told she was being fired by people in the ROH office, she called owner Cary Silkin who blew her off on the phone.

Upon hearing the news that he was the reason that Mary Kate was fired, Rob Feinstein, RFVideo President & former ROH owner said:

When I heard that Mary Kate was told she was no longer needed to work in the business she loved and to move on I felt great sorrow because I have known for for 15 years and she is the type of girl who would do anything for the company or wrestlers she is friends with. For anyone to try to control a person and tell them who they can and cant talk to outside of their work is disgusting. People that try to do that are insecure and should look on how to improve thier own business and not worry about forces they can't control. I Know Mary will move on as her talents are great. This is not a bump in the road as she will land a deal with a wrestling company that really takes care of their own

Several ROH wrestlers have commented to the DOI, with the condition that we don't use their names in fear of ROH's paranoia, that the situation is "fucked up" and that ROH seems "idiotic". One wrestler told the DOI, "why would you get rid of a hard working person who does great work?"

ROH alumni & current ROH wrestlers have expressed their feelings to Mary Kate and don't understand why ROH would do this, as Mary-Kate is very well liked by the ROH locker room.

One version of the story going out there is that ROH needed Mary-Kate on the road full-time and Mary Kate could not make it to every show, which according to Mary-Kate is complete BS. Mary-Kate even went to the UK to take photos of the shows and was at every show possible. Furthermore, Mary Kate assisted the company by handling several of the wrestlers websites & MySpaces.

Mary Kate plans on increasing her indy show schedule now. Obviously, the reason she was fired was petty, and she plans on not letting this unfortunate situation slow her down.

One interesting thing that comes out of all of this is that ROH uses Mary Kate's photos for advertising, on DVD covers, websites and other media materials. They did not have a written contract to use Mary-Kate's work, and one DOI source told us that Mary Kate may have legal right to request ROH not to use her work. ROH is no longer an indy company, and with the new of them being on PPV, there could be a case that ROH profits off of her photos. Of course, that's a decision that she will need to make.

Mary-Kate told the DOI she'll have a full statement about this situation in the next 24 hours. Once it's ready, we'll print it here.

Sean "The MiC" McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com