Ring of Honor Review - August 28, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Lance Archer def. BEEF

Maybe it's in Archer's contract that he can only beat non-contracted enhancement talent quickly. Apparently he has to take his time with enhancement talent actually on the roster. That's the only explanation as to why this lasted as long as it did, especially when the outcome was never in doubt. Even as one of the million members of The Don Callis Family, Archer is hardly a threat in 2025, so this was a waste of time.

Taya Valkyrie def. Allysin Kay

Ring of Honor's women's division is such a mess right now due to Athena barely appearing on the brand anymore, the ROH Women's World Television Championship basically being inactive and the (unnecessary) ROH Women's Pure Championship not being introduced yet. That leaves ladies like Valkyrie with nothing to do, making this match meaningless. It was a solid match between two seasoned veterans, but that's about it.

MxM TV (Johnny TV and MxM Collection) def. The Dark Order (John Silver, Alex Reynolds and Evil Uno)

This was an open challenge from MxM TV. I'm honestly surprised this wasn't saved for the Death Before Dishonor Zero Hour pre-show. Was it pay-per-view worthy? Absolutely not, but ROH has so few trios these days that this felt more unpredictable than most ROH TV matches. It was perfectly passable. I couldn't care about Dark Order at this point, so I'm glad MxM TV went over.

Spanish Announce Project def. Danny Orion and Stephen Wolf

I understand that Serpentico is a loveable loser in ROH, but I still don't find Spanish Announce Project remotely interesting at all. They'll only ever win against "local athletes" and not when it matters most, so why should I bother investing in their matches at all? There wasn't anything technically wrong with this, but if it's not leading to something, I don't know why it existed.

Okumura def. Stigma

As I've said before, I'm most familiar with Okumura from his time in MLW, where he's a multiple time MLW World Tag Team Champion. Both him and Stigma (who made his ROH TV debut here) are CMLL stars, so I'm not sure who the crowd was supposed to cheer for here if they were unfamiliar with both guys, but as a match, it was decent. It felt like a showcase for CMLL than anything else.

CMLL World Trios Champions El Sky (Mistico, Mascara Dorada and Neon) def. The Workhorsemen and Adam Priest (Non-Title)

El Sky just defended their CMLL World Trios Championship on last week's episode. The Workhorsemen and Priest aren't off to a stellar start as a trio, but it's become clear that they're just going to be stepping stones for other teams. This was a well-worked main event with El Sky picking up a nice win. A masked MJF attacked Mistico afterward to further that feud heading into their big rematch at CMLL's Aniversario event, which I believe is next month.

Overall Show

The most notable thing to happen on this show had nothing to do with Death Before Dishonor and that was MJF's surprise appearance at the end. There was also the return of QTV and I'm positive there were plenty of fans were happy to see that make a return, but that was such a dark period for AEW that I'd rather not be reminded of it. The rest of the show was serviceable and hyped up Death Before Dishonor for Friday night.

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