Ring of Honor Review - February 22, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Taya Valkyrie def. Sussy Love in an ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament First-Round Match

Apologies for repeating myself from last week's opener, but it's incredibly illogical in my opinion to put women in a title tournament who are not signed to Ring of Honor or AEW. I'd be one thing if they were names people recognized, but I have no idea who Sussy Love is. What's weirder is that this was a competitive contest with Love scoring way more offense than she needed to. At least Valkyrie went over in the end.

Lee Johnson def. Sonico

The slow-and-steady push of Johnson continues. I don't believe we've heard from him at all, so I don't know what the endgame is, but I assume he'll eventually challenge for the ROH World Television Championship (and lose). If that's the case, it makes sense to build him up a bit before Kyle Fletcher returns. This was a nice match with Johnson getting to show what he can do and picking up a victory.

Red Velvet def. Sandra Moore in an ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament First-Round Match

You can take what I said about Valkyrie vs. Love and apply it to this match as well with Moore not being a member of ROH's women's division. If they couldn't fill out the bracket with women under contract, then they should've cut down on the number of participants involved. Nonetheless, this was fine for what it was. This also could've benefited from being shorter, but Moore looked impressive for as long as this lasted.

Danhausen def. Brandon Cutler

This was the epitome of the crap you would've seen on Dark at some point. Why this made television, I have no idea. I'm a big Danhausen fan and love a lot of the stuff he's involved in, but I find most of Cutler's nonsense intolerable. Nothing against the guy personally, but he really has no business being on television. Now that The Young Bucks are "serious" heels, there's no reason for him to be featured in any way. The less said about this, the better.

Abadon def. Viva Van in an ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament First-Round Match

Van is yet another name not signed to ROH, making this yet another pointless match. Why not bypass the first round all together? I will say that I'm more familiar with Van than I am the rest of the enhancement talent used up to this point, but she was never going to beat Abadon. The match was perfectly passable and didn't needlessly drag. That's probably the best thing I can say about this as the Abadon act doesn't do much for me, personally.

"All Ego" Ethan Page def. Anthony Henry

Page has a great thing going between winning matches and cutting promos backstage that portray him as a very likable babyface. He should absolutely be the next ROH World Television Champion. By the way, he called out Fletcher during his interview, so that match is inevitable (ideally at Supercard of Honor). Page vs. Henry was the well wrestled, quality matchup you'd expect from them.

Billie Starkz def. Robyn Renegade in an ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament First-Round Match

Starkz has cut better promos, but I liked the one she cut on this show before this bout, emphasizing the importance of the tourney and why she needs to win the whole thing coming off her loss to Athena at Final Battle. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about the match, but I appreciated that Starkz was the focal point. I'd be shocked if she doesn't make it all the way to the finals.

AAA Cruiserweight Champion Komander def. Exodus Prime, AR Fox and Matt Sydal in a Four-Corner Survival Match (Non-Title)

Ah, the return of the pointless Four-Corner Survival match. I thought we had seen the last of these after they were run into the ground on so many consecutive episodes, but apparently not. I feel bad bashing these matches because they're actually a lot of fun and the wrestlers involved always have strong showings, but without anything at stake, it's difficult to care. If you dig spot-fests, then this was for you.

ROH Women's World Champion Athena def. Nyla Rose in a 2-Out-of-3 Tables Match

I can't say I've seen a two-out-of-three Tables match before. I applaud them for the unique stipulation and trying something new, though a standard Tables matchup would have sufficed because this was a bit of a mess at certain points. On the whole, they put forth an admirable effort and had an enjoyable main event. It also protected Rose in defeat so she didn't have to get pinned, so perhaps there's more to come between these two.

Overall Show

I realized that ROH TV has been slighter shorter than usual the past two weeks because there was no Collision last week and thus they taped two editions of ROH TV in the same night two weeks ago, if I'm not mistaken. If so, bless these people for sitting through all of these damn matches in addition to Collision. Like last week, this was a rock-solid show that featured the remainder of the ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament first-round matches and a notable main event with Athena defending her title for the first time since Final Battle. It was hardly a home run of an episode, but it was better than a majority of the boring shows we've gotten in the last year.

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