Ring of Honor Review - February 29, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Queen Aminata def. Taya Valkyrie in an ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament Quarterfinal Match

Aminata has won a few matches on ROH TV but only just won her first match on AEW TV a few weeks ago. Thus, Valkyrie winning felt like the safe bet here and I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Valkyrie's obviously very talented, but I'm happy to see Aminata showcased and advance. This was the quality contest that you'd expect from these two and was a wise choice to start the show.

Lee Johnson def. Mike Sydal

Man, Mike Sydal is not a name I've heard or even thought of in years. He was a staple on those early episodes of Dark: Elevation but disappeared later on in 2021, probably because Tony Khan signed more people than he knew what to do with and he was never under contract. At any rate, he was a fine person for Johnson to beat as he continues to rack up victories, ideally ahead of an eventual opportunity at championship gold.

AAA Cruiserweight Champion Komander def. Blake Christian (Non-Title)

I feel like these guys are in multi-man matches a lot but not singles competition as much. Their lack of direction in Ring of Honor is apparent, but at least they had the chance to go out there and have a fun little match here. Granted, it was a typical spot-fest, but they're both impressive and the crowd was into it. It clearly existed for no other reason than to kill time, but they maximized their minutes at least.

ROH Women's World Champion Athena Threatened Lexy Nair to Win the ROH Women's World Television Championship

Lexy Nair, who was also involved in the segment, referred to this as a "M.E.M.", or a Minion Emergency Meeting. I don't know if "threatened" is the right word, but Athena basically said that there would be consequences to pay for Starkz if she fails to win the ROH Women's World Championship Tournament. The rest of the segment was okay, but personally, I'm ready for this "minion" stuff to be over so Starkz can do her own thing. It's almost as if her betrayal of Athena late last year never happened.

Taiji Ishimori def. Jacoby Watts

Watts is best known as AEW enhancement talent Dean Alexander, who also has a behind-the-scenes role if I'm not mistaken. I don't know why he went by Jacoby Watts here, though. I also don't know if Ishimori will be making more appearances for ROH going forward, but I wouldn't complain if he did. I've been following his work dating back to his TNA days and he's an awesome competitor. This was a straightforward squash for him as it should have been.

Johnny TV def. Dalton Castle for Custody of The Boys

Castle had a match with Silas Young that had a similar situation around the time I started watching ROH full-time back in ROH and that also ended with the heel Young winning "custody" of The Boys for a bit. That was the only outcome that made sense here to keep the feud going and continue Castle's downward spiral. The match itself was good, but they could do better. Props to Ian Riccaboni for selling Johnny gaining custody of The Boys as if Castle's dog died. He sounded absolutely crushed on commentary as the show went off the air.

Overall Show

A one-hour edition of ROH TV! Huzzah! I know not to get used to it since the shorter runtime was likely due to AEW having to pre-tape a ton of content this past week with Revolution coming up on Sunday, but I appreciated it for this week and it made for a more tolerable episode. There were still a few random matches, but the opener and the main event were significant and more seeds of dissension were planted between Athena and Starkz, so I'd chalk that up to a thumbs-up show in my book.

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