Ring of Honor Review - January 18, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Nyla Rose def. Erica Leigh

AEW has teased turning Rose in the past, but she finally feels like a full-fledged babyface and it's definitely the right role for her. She has a hilarious personality and this gives her a chance to showcase that, in addition to her usual domination. This was a pretty basic squash for Rose, but the crowd was into her antics. It also gets her one step closer to challenging Athena for the ROH Women's World Championship.

ROH World Tag Team Champions The Undisputed Kingdom (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) def. Iron Savages (Bronson and Boulder)

I don't think Iron Savages have won enough matches to earn themselves an opportunity at the ROH World Tag Team Championship, but oh well. I know that sort of stuff hardly matters in Ring of Honor these days. Both teams are talented, but I mostly bored by this heel vs. heel match. It was far from bad, but the outcome was never in doubt. If nothing else, it was nice for the tag title to be defended on ROH TV for a change. It's been many months.

Claudio Castagnoli def. "The Bounty Hunter" Bryan Keith

Keith has had so many matches on AEW programming and ROH TV in the last month that he must be under some sort of deal to two companies, and rightfully so because he's a hell of a hand. Castagnoli doesn't pop up on ROH TV too often anymore, so this was a treat. It was way more than just a squash as Keith had the chance to show he can hang and he did just that. Great stuff here from these two.

Billie Starz, Kiera Hogan, Lady Frost and Queen Aminata def. Taya Valkyrie, Robyn Renegade, "Legit" Leyla Hirsch and Rachael Ellering

You can expect to see pretty much all of these women in the upcoming tournament to crown an inaugural ROH Women's World Television Champion. I appreciated that these ladies received as much time as they did and they put together a damn good match. Starks feels like the odds-on favorite to clinch the title, but perhaps she's just a red herring. Abadon again emerged afterward, so obviously they'll be a part of the tourney, too. I assume they'll occupy the spot that Renegade had here.

Top Flight def. The Butcher and The Blade

The rest of the matches from this point forward must have been taped last Wednesday when AEW was at Daily's Place. This felt like a match you would've seen on Dark during the Daily's Place era. Butcher and Blade don't mean much at this point, but Top Flight still have untapped potential. This was an enjoyable outing that gave Top Flight a rebound win following their loss to Private Party on Wednesday's Dynamite. Thinking long-term, they should be the team to dethrone Undisputed Kingdom as ROH World Tag Team Champions, especially given their history from early 2023.

Mark Briscoe def. Serpentico

It was noted that this marked Briscoe's first match on ROH TV since last June. That was right before the injury that sidelined him for a few months. This was a bit more even than it needed to be considering Serpentico is the ultimate enhancement talent, but at least the crowd ate up everything Briscoe did. The timing of this was perfect with today being Briscoe's birthday. If you missed it, check out that segment with the Briscoes from Dynamite. It was beautifully done.

Diamante def. Dream Girl Ellie

Daily's Place is very familiar with Diamante as she was on most of those Dark shows emanating from the venue from 2020 and 2021. She's still essentially in the same spot on the card now as she was then, but at least she's racking up some wins on ROH TV ahead of the women's TV title tourney that she should definitely be involved in. This was a short and sweet spotlight match for her, exactly what it needed to be.

ROH World Television Champion Kyle Fletcher def. Christopher Daniels

This was Fletcher's third consecutive title defense on ROH TV. I like that he's being booked as a fighting champion and on ROH TV at that (Tony Khan could have easily had Fletcher hold it hostage as many other AEW stars have). As I've said before, Daniels can still go at this stage of his career and thus this was a quality contest. Fletcher spent a majority of the match on offense, but Daniels played his role well and the crowd was behind him throughout.

AAA Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo def. Action Andretti

Vikingo has had a lot of matches on ROH TV and AEW programming over the last year, but he hasn't defended his AAA Mega Championship too many times on these shows, probably because fans automatically assume he'll win. Despite that, he and Andretti had a fun main event, and it wasn't the complete spot-fest you'd expect from them. There was plenty of aerial action, but they also had an actual wrestling match before they picked up the pace down the stretch.

Overall Show

This was unquestionably the strongest edition of ROH TV in some time. Yes, I'm aware that's a low bar to clear, but this was legitimately a thumbs-up episode. The venue change in the middle was weird, but we got three title matches and more meaningful, competitive matchups than we normally do. The length of this show remains an issue, but it was much less of a chore to sit through this week and it was an entertaining two hours on the whole.

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