Ring of Honor Review - August 16, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Max the Impaler def. Holidead in a ROH Women's Championship Tournament Round 1 Match

Holidead has made a handful of appearances for Ring of Honor over the years, but she's also popped up in a variety of other promotions as well. On paper, she looked like a lock to win, until I saw the pre-match sit-down interviews and Amy Rose (who we haven't seen since she was booted from (La Faccion Ingobernable) was revealed to be Impaler's manager/mouthpiece. There was no way she was losing after that. I was skeptical of the match going in because both of them (specifically Impaler) gave me Abadon vibes and I'm no fan of Abadon, but this turned out to be pretty good. The effort was there and it was one of the more hard-hitting matches we've seen in the tournament so far. Personally, I don't want to see Impaler win the whole thing, but she has to be considered a favorite.

Flip Gordon, EC3, Josh Woods and The Briscoes def. ROH World Champion Bandido, ROH World Television Champion Dragon Lee, ROH Pure Champion Jonathan Gresham and ROH World Tag Team Champions Violence Unlimited (Chris Dickinson and Homicide) in a Champions vs. All-Stars Match

​I believe this marked the first Champions vs. All Stars match Ring of Honor has done since 2019's Saturday Night at Center Stage show. There was a ton of talent in this thing, so it was no surprise that it was an entertaining main event. The action was hard to follow at a few points with so much chaos, but that frantic pace was also what made it exciting down the stretch. The All-Stars scoring the victory with Gordon picking up the winning fall was the right call to keep their momentum rolling heading into Glory by Honor weekend.

Overall Show

In between the two matches, we got a great promo package from Matt Taven hyping up his "Last Stand" with Vincent at Glory by Honor Night 2. All in all, this was an easy thumbs-up show. Both bouts got an ample amount of time, which is why we were back to the standard two-match format. The women's match exceeded expectations and the star-studded main event delivered, so I have no complaints regarding this show. There's going to be a lot of wrestling this weekend, but I'm looking forward to catching both nights of Glory by Honor at some point.

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