Ring of Honor Review - January 29, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Vincent and Bateman def. Michael Stevens and Sal Rinauro

The commentators mentioned Rinauro is a former ROH World Tag Team Champion (which I had no idea about), but I know him better from his recent run in the NWA, specifically on Powerrr. He and Stevens were fed to the new team of Vincent and Bateman. I wasn't interested in the act at all when it started soon after Final Battle, but I liked what I saw from them here. Granted, their matches aren't anything worth writing home about, but their character work has been pretty good so far. We'll see where it goes, but if nothing else, it's nice to see Vincent doing his own thing and making a name for himself post-Kingdom.

Bandido, Flamita and Rey Horus def. Villain Enterprises to Win the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship

(From my Saturday Night at Center Stage review...) I might be mistaken, but I believe Bandido, Flamita and Horus were already teaming elsewhere before they brought their team to ROH, as I've seen them referred to as Mexa Squad in various places online. I didn't hear them referenced to as such by the ROH commentators, but maybe in time they will be. Regardless, this was a super strong six-man tag team match and easily the best thing on the entire show. The ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship feel like a complete afterthought, but props to the two trios for making it feel important in this outing and the hot crowd helped with that. It should be noted that Flip Gordon filled in for PCO here which is why they were able to defend the six-man titles. It was definitely the right time to pull the trigger on a title change.

Overall Show

ROH has officially starting airing highlights from the Saturday Night at Center Stage event, which is relatively recent, so that's good. The main event is well worth checking out because it was absolutely excellent and the crowd went nuts for the title change. There were also highlights of Shane Taylor's promo, Jonathan Gresham vs. Josh "The Goods" Woods, and Dragon Lee vs. Andrew Everett for the ROH World Television Championship. The sole original match this week (Vincent and Bateman vs. Stevens and Rinaruo) was far from must-see, but it did allow them to maintain momentum. All in all, this was a solid show.