Ring of Honor Review - February 8, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Th Workhorsemen def. Brillante RB and Sayrus GT

Workhorsemen are one of those teams that lose a majority of matches they're win but will win the occasional squash match to maintain some shred of credibility. With that being established as their role, it's hard to care about stuff like this, even though they're a talented team. This existed to give them a rare victory and that's about it. It was a pretty standard squash, but at least it was on the shorter side.

"All Ego" Ethan Page def. Aaron Solo

Page wrapped up his rivalry with Tony Nese at Final Battle, but he hasn't been involved in anything of note since then. Yes, he's racked up some wins and that's nice, but it feels like he's back in the same spot he was a few months ago, and that's despite cutting some strong backstage promos. My only guess is that they're holding off on him challenging Kyle Fletcher for the ROH Television Championship at Supercard of Honor and he's killing time until then. This was fine but a little long for my liking.

Penta El Zero Miedo and AAA Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo def. Jon Cruz and KM

Penta and Vikingo have teamed up a number of times before in AEW and Ring of Honor, but never just them two until now. They've have plenty of tag team matches together in AAA, though. I don't know when Rey Fenix will be cleared to compete, but I'm down for a Penta and Vikingo pairing until he's ready to return. They worked well as partners and did some fun stuff, but did it really need to take them as long as it did to beat two jobbers?

Johnny TV Refused to Face Dalton Castle

Johnny was advertised to face a "friend" of Castle. It turned out to be Castle in disguise. I've largely enjoyed a lot of what Johnny and Castle have been doing during their feud in backstage segments and such, but this was really lame and felt like it would never end. Johnny repeatedly refused to face Castle, so there was no resolution to the segment. Rather, it was a waste of time. They'll obviously have a match soon, but this was bad comedy.

Billie Starkz def. Araya Thorn

Starkz beating a no-namer was nothing out of the ordinary. The match was exactly what you'd expect, but at least it didn't overstay its welcome. What I did like was Nyla Rose confronting Starkz afterward in an attempt to lure out Athena, who has been absent from ROH TV since December. She finally resurfaced here and put Rose through a table at ringside. Rose retaliated by putting Athena through a table backstage as the show went off the air. I'm glad we appear to be close to finally getting that ROH Women's World Championship clash.

Diamante def. "Legit" Leyla Hirsch, Kiera Hogan and Trish Adora in a Four-Corner Survival Match

I have no idea what purpose these Four-Corner Survival matches are supposed to serve for the women when we have a tournament kicking off soon. Sure, it gives all of them exposure, but they'd all benefit from facing each other in singles matches instead. This well worked and they made the most of the time they had. Hirsch has largely been protected up to this point, so Diamante pinning her for the victory was certainly surprising.

Shane Taylor Promotions, Cole Karter and Griff Garrison def. The Infantry and Iron Savages (Boulder and Bronson)

Iron Savages were heels the last time I checked, so them teaming with The Infantry was weird. I'd say that alone guaranteed they'd lose, but it's not like Karter and Garrison have won many matches, either. This was decent, but none of these teams have issues with each other at the moment, so it was rather random. Post-match, Spanish Announce Project brawled with Karter and Garrison to further that feud.

Lee Johnson def. Gravity

This marked Johnson's third consecutive win on ROH TV, and although that's an encouraging sign for him, I still question if this string of wins will amount to anything. An opportunity to contend for the Television title one of these weeks on ROH TV would make sense, but time will tell. I'd like to think these matches aren't entirely pointless. Gravity is a good wrestler in his own right, so this was a quality contest.

Taya Valkyrie def. Killa Kate

I have to imagine Valkyrie will be taking part in the ROH Women's World Championship Tournament. She obviously won't win because she's busy with Johnny in the rivalry with Castle, but it'd be silly for her to be excluded given she's a bigger name than a majority of the women in the division. This was a straightforward showcase for her as it should have been to give her a momentum boost.

AAA Cruiserweight Champion Komander def. Jack Cartwheel, AR Fox and Willie Mack in a Four-Corner Survival Match (Non-Title)

Komander doesn't come out with the AAA Cruiserweight Champion anywhere, but I'll continue to label him as the champ for consistency sake. The match itself was on par with the other Four-Corner Survival matches we've gotten with the men in recent weeks, but they all blend together for me. This had its moments and the crowd not being completely quiet was a plus, but it doesn't matter who wins with nothing being at stake.

Overall Show

The best thing to come out of this episode was the news that the ROH Women's World Television Championship Tournament will finally kick off next week. Otherwise, it was your average edition of ROH TV where absolutely nothing of note happened. There was some solid action sprinkled throughout, and I appreciated the runtime was shorter than it has been lately, but there really is no reason to watch these shows unless you can't get enough wrestling (because that's really all this show is, except most of the matches aren't meaningful).

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