Ring of Honor Review - January 15, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Eli Isom def. Crowbar

Yes, this is the same Crowbar of WCW and TNA fame. I had no idea he's remained active all these years and now he's made his way to Ring of Honor. I don't believe he's signed, and although he fared well for himself here, there's no reason for him to be. He and Isom had a perfectly fine match and Isom winning was the right result. ROH has been sleeping on Isom for a while now and I continue to believe he'd be better off on his own without Shinobi Shadow Squad (who have a stigma for being perennial losers).

Soldiers of Savagery def. Shinobi Shadow Squad

Soldiers of Savagery have wrestled a lot less in the last year for ROH than I thought they would, but at least they've become a regular part of Shane Taylor's act. They needed to be re-established as dominant, so I wish this would have been a bit more straightforward than it was. I don't think Shinobi Shadow Squad needed to get in as much offense as they did, but at least it was an enjoyable little sprint while it lasted.

ROH World Tag Team Champion Jonathan Gresham def. Alex Shelley

(From my Final Battle Fallout review...) ​I brought up in my Final Battle review that Shelley's victory over Gresham from August was never followed up on, but we finally got the rematch on this show. Once again, they produced an exciting affair and had the best bout on the entire show. Shelley can still be a valuable asset to ROH in getting others over as seen here. Gresham getting his win back was the right call and I appreciated that it came in clean fashion, proving that heels don't always have to cheat to come out on top. I was certain Gresham and Jay Lethal would attack him afterward, but Gresham shook Shelley's hand instead and that was it.

Overall Show

I realize it originally aired a month ago, but the timing of that Gresham vs. Shelley match couldn't have been better considering Shelley will be making his NXT debut this week as part of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic with Kushida. It was very fun and worth a watch. Crowbar vs. Isom was fine and Soldiers Savagery vs. Shinobi Shadow Squad was what it needed to be. All in all, it was a solid edition of ROH TV, but I strongly recommend checking out the two ROH events that aired over the weekend. They were two of the strongest shows I've seen from the company in a while (and that includes Final Battle).