Ring of Honor Review - July 11, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Taya Valkyrie def. Robyn Renegade and Marina Shafir in a Three-Way Match

As I've said time and time again, these multi-person matches would make much more sense if there was something at stake. I know both women's titles are set to be defended at Death Before Dishonor, but if you're going to do a three-way, putting a future shot at either title on the line would've made this worthwhile. Otherwise, it felt like a waste of time. There was nothing wrong with it from an in-ring standpoint, but we'll see if Valkyrie's victory actually amounts to anything.

ROH World Television Champion Atlantis Jr. def. Serpentico

As shown in the video package, Atlantis Jr. knocked off Kyle Fletcher for the ROH World Television Championship at a CMLL event two weeks ago. If AEW's partnership with CMLL is going to continue, this is a cool way of going about it. Ring of Honor used to do the exact same thing years ago. Serpentico was hardly a credible challenger, but he was a fine first opponent for Atlantis Jr. on ROH TV and they had a nice little match here.

Skye Blue def. Laynie Luck

New look for Blue, same attitude. The white gear looks like she's back in babyface mode and has ditched the heel persona, but she was clearly still a heel here. Julia Hart getting injured in the spring left Blue directionless on her own, but at least she picked up a momentum-building win here to get back on track. It was essentially a squash win for Blue and didn't last longer than it needed to.

ROH Women's World Television Champion Billie Starkz def. Mackenzie Morgan in an ROH Women's World Television Championship Proving Ground Match

It was confirmed last week that Starkz will defend her title against Red Velvet at Death Before Dishonor, so this was supposed to serve as a showcase for her before then. It was your average enhancement match, but it was entertaining seeing Athena hobble around on her crutch at ringside now that we know she isn't actually injured. That was the best part about this because Morgan didn't have a chance to do much.

Diamante def. Nyxx

I mentioned this when they had their last match a few weeks ago, but I really like the idea of Diamante and Leyla Hirsch feuding. They aren't fighting for a championship and it's been a basic feud so far, but it gives both women something substantial to do so they're not constantly competing in matches that don't matter. Hirsch didn't show up here, but Diamante dominated Nyxx and sent a message to Hirsch by saying her name into the camera before she put Nyxx away.

Lee Johnson and The Infantry def. The Dark Order (John Silver, Alex Reynolds and Evil Uno)

I continue to find it funny that we've been getting more six-man tag team matches in the last few months than we did when the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship was still active. In other words, these matches have zero value at this point unless the winning trio ends up getting a shot at the Unified AEW World Trios Championship on AEW TV, which I'm not expecting. It was a well-wrestled main event but not much more than that.

Overall Show

ROH TV has been noticeably better as of late, but this was one of those inconsequential shows you can certainly miss. It's a shame because Death Before Dishonor is coming up this month and you'd think there would be a stronger push for the pay-per-view than what we got here, which wasn't much of anything. At least it was under an hour. The only thing worth nothing from this episode was that it was announced Roderick Strong vs. Dalton Castle in an ROH World Championship number one contender's match will happen on Saturday's Collision. Would it have killed them to put that on this show instead?

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