Ring of Honor Review - December 12, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

ROH Women's World Champion Athena def. ROH World Television Champion Red Velvet, "Legit" Leyla Hirsch and Billie Starkz in a Wrestle Dynasty International Women's Cup Qualifying Four-Way Match (Non-Title)

Athena and Starkz teased more tension during a backstage segment before the bout, so you knew that would come into play here. It did toward the end when Athena prevented Starkz from winning before stealing the pin on Velvet for herself. Athena was the logical choice to advance to Wrestle Dynasty being the biggest female talent in Ring of Honor, and this also served to set up her ROH Women's World Championship defense against Starkz at Final Battle (which was officially announced later on in the show).

The Outrunners def. Premier Athletes (Tony Nese and Ariya Daivari)

There was a screen effect when The Outrunners made their entrance and while they were celebrating their win, so that was cool. There's no denying they're getting over with the audience and this was another example of that. This really didn't need to be as competitive as it was, but it's ROH TV, so I can't say I'm shocked. The match was decent. The Outrunners should get a run as ROH World Tag Team Champions eventually. That'd be a better fit for them than the AEW World Tag Team Championship in my opinion.

Madison Rayne def. Allysin Kay

Being an Ohio native, Rayne received a nice reaction from this Columbus crowd. Apparently she hasn't wrestled since February on Dynamite, and her last match on ROH TV before that was in August 2023. It was pretty clear from her showing in this match that she had some ring rust, but Kay is talented and experienced enough that they were able to have a perfectly passable match. We'll see if Rayne sticks around in ROH or if this was just a one-off for her in her home state.

Toa Liona def. Lee Johnson

I don't believe there was any buildup to this bout as Johnson has largely been wrestling tag team matches with EJ Nduka as of late, but I imagine this will lead to The Gates of Agony vs. Johnson and Nduka based on Liona's post-match face-off with Nduka. This was an acceptable outing for the time it was allotted, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about it. Rather, it seemed to be more about what it could be leading to.

NJPW Strong Openweight Tag Team Champions Grizzled Young Veterans def. MxM Collection

The NJPW Strong Openweight Tag Team Championship being on the line made this match more meaningful than it would have been otherwise, so I appreciated that. MxM Collection are obviously a comedy team, but they had quality chemistry with Grizzled Young Veterans and this was a solid match while it lasted. They had a backstage segment with The Dark Order earlier in the episode, so I can Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Dark Order possibly being added to Final Battle.

ROH World Tag Team Champions The Sons of Texas def. Eric Dillinger and Josh Crane (Non-Title)

I'm going to assume The Sons of Texas is the official team name for Sammy Guevara and Dustin Rhodes now and will refer to them as such going forward. They're going to be having the first-ever Texas Bullrope tag team match (basically a double Texas Bullrope match) against The Righteous at Final Battle, so this was a quick showcase for them before then. Vincent's post-match promo was great. I'd love to see The Righteous take the tag titles, but I'm not expecting it.

ROH Pure Champion Lee Moriarty def. Matt Taven in a Pure Rules Match

This has been in the works for a while, so I thought this would be saved for Final Battle. Stupid me, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, it was an attraction for this episode, but now I'm not sure what these guys do at Final Battle (if anything) since Moriarty won clean. On the bright side, they had the well-worked match they're capable of. This was a big win for Moriarty considering everything Taven has accomplished in ROH.

Matt Cardona Attacked ROH World Champion "The Learning Tree" Chris Jericho During the ROH World Championship Contract Signing for Final Battle

I'm glad we got this contract signing on ROH TV as opposed to AEW programming. It's a much-needed boost of star power for ROH TV, not to mention it gives people more of an incentive to tune in. Honestly, this was a fairly basic exchange, and it was especially comical when Cardona talked about how Jericho doesn't care about the ROH brand when he himself has never competed in ROH before now, but it was at least effective in hyping their ROH World Championship clash and providing Cardona with an additional momentum boost before then. He'll take on Bryan Keith on Friday's Rampage.

Overall Show

ROH TV was doing so well with the hour-long episodes, but it was back to two hours this week. You wouldn't think so looking at this show on paper since there were seven matches and a contract signing, but there were plenty of backstage segments as well as new matches announced for Final Battle (including Jay Lethal vs. QT Marshall for some reason). The build to Final Battle has been better than most ROH pay-per-views under the AEW banner, so I'll give Tony Khan credit for that. ROH TV has benefited from effort being put into it for a change, likely because Khan wants that elusive television deal for the brand.

SEE MORE: ROH Reviews