Ring of Honor Review - February 26, 2026

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Adam Priest def. JD Drake

It was the battle of tag team wrestlers for some reason. Maybe this is leading to The Workhorsemen facing Priest and Tommy Billington, but if not, I'm not sure why this existed. Perhaps it was designed to give Priest a rebound win after recently losing to Kazuchika Okada on Collision, or just to kill time. Either way, the match was perfectly fine for what it was.

TMDK (Shane Haste and Bad Dude Tito) def. The Frat House (Cole Karter and Griff Garrison)

I'd have no issue with TMDK continuing to make appearances in Ring of Honor. They're a quality team/group and would be a welcome addition to the tag ranks. This being their second straight appearance on the show gives me hope that could be the case. Frat House have go-away heat with me, personally, but they played their roles well here and the match gave TMDK a win over a contracted team.

ROH Women's World Television Champion Red Velvet def. Zayda Steel

Well, this kind of came out of nowhere. Sure, Steel has been racking up wins as of late on ROH TV, but I wish this got more buildup to feel like a bigger deal. That said, I thought they had a pretty good match here and I appreciated that they worked with a sense of urgency. Velvet is painfully boring to me as champion and Steel will have her time eventually, but Steel made the most of her opportunity to shine even in defeat.

Big Bill, "Bounty Hunther" Bryan Keith and Grizzled Young Veterans def. CJ Tino, Richie Slade. Che Cabrera and Dom Kubrick

Bill, Keith and Grizzled Young Veterans joined forces for that Parking Lot Brawl on Collision earlier this month and lost, so I don't know what the point is of them continuing to team. Nonetheless, this was a straightforward showcase for them over a bunch of jobbers. SkyFlight crossed paths with them while they were making their entrance, so that's something to keep an eye out for.

SkyFlight (Top Flight and Scorpio Sky) def. Ricky Gee, Adrian Quest and Danny Rose

This was yet another squash match, this time with a babyface team going over decisively. It's become clear that SkyFlight will win mostly meaningless matches but fail to win whenever it matters most. That's a shame, because these three are talented, but oh well. At the very least, they should win the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship at some point, despite coming up short against Shane Taylor Promotions at Final Battle back in December.

Jay Lethal def. "Dynamite Kid" Tommy Billington

My top takeaway from this had nothing to do with that match itself but rather Lethal not looking like he's not in as great of shape as he has been in the past. Am I just noticing that now or has he looked like that for a while? He's obviously older, so it's understandable, but it was still slightly surprising. At any rate, this was a well-wrestled bout and I liked that it had a story behind it with Lethal betraying Billington and Priest to align with The Swirl.

Satnam Singh def. Jordan Oasis

Singh is now a babyface in his matches. I don't remember if that's a new thing or not, but it's impossible to care. He seems like a nice dude who just wants to improve, but he's been doing the same thing for years now and it's difficult to justify wasting television time on this. Granted, the matches are always on the shorter side, but if they're not leading anywhere, there's no point.

Persephone def. Johnnie Robbie

I believe I've said this before, but Persephone is in a strange spot at the moment. She just signed a dual contract with AEW and CMLL. She also failed to dethrone Athena for the ROH Women's World Championship at Final Battle, and the other two women's title ROH has are a step down for her. She screams star, and while one-sided matches like this are solid steps in the right direction, I'd like to see her doing more soon.

Komander def. Tony Nese

It's possible we've never seen this match before, but I feel like I've seen it a thousand times, purely based on the fact both guys are always in the same spot on these shows. The matches are well worked and whatnot, but similar to almost everything else on ROH TV these days, they don't amount to anything. In other words, they had a fun little match, but it was inconsequential.

ROH World Television Champion Nick Wayne def. Lucas Riley in an ROH World Television Championship Proving Ground Match

Wayne has been out injured for many, many months, and his first appearance back was on ROH TV in a random Proving Ground match. You can't make this up. I'm not saying Wayne is a major star by any means, but he was featured fairly prominently on AEW TV as part of the story with Christian Cage over the summer and there's been zero follow-up since then. They might be better off forgetting about it and moving on all together.

ROH Women's Pure Champion Deonna Purrazzo def. Trish Adora

This marked Purrazzo's first defense of the title since becoming the inaugural champ at Final Battle. Adora was a worthy first challenger and I'm glad this was positioned as the main event. It wasn't a barn burner, but they had an enjoyable outing. Billie Starkz and Diamante attacked Purrazzo post-match, and we also found out to close the show that Athena will face Maya World in a Proving Ground match next week.

Overall Show

Good lord. Just as I was starting to praise ROH TV for being on the shorter side again and featuring less matches, they had a bloated show this week that went way longer than it should have. This wasn't a special show, either, so I have no idea why this was necessary. We got two title matches and Wayne's return to the ring, so it was a somewhat newsworthy episode by ROH TV standards, but it was still a chore to sit through. I'm curious to see if the show will be handled any differently once they start taping it at that new venue in Jacksonville.

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