Ring of Honor Review - July 25, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Jay Lethal, ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Matt Taven and Cody Staked Their Claim at the ROH World Championship

We're so far removed from the Best in the World pay-per-view that it's tough to remember who's in the running for the ROH World Championship, but this segment did a good job of reestablishing several stars as threats to the title. All four men cut solid promos and the crowd was hot for the announcement that the championship match would be taking place later on in the night.

ROH Women of Honor Champion Sumie Sakai def. Hazuki

I didn't know too much at all about Hazuki coming into this contest, but she really, really impressed me here. This was a super strong showing from her and of course Sakai looked awesome as always as well, so on the whole, this was one of the best women's matches I've seen in Ring of Honor yet. The audience was invested in the action by the end and reacted big to some of the nearfalls. The women of Stardom have been a great get for ROH so far.

Jay Lethal def. Dalton Castle, Cody and ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Matt Taven in a Four-Way Match to Win the ROH World Championship

Although I enjoyed the three-way main event at Best in the World, I found this to be a much better bout for the ROH World Championship. Lethal, Castle, Cody and especially Taven all had their time to shine at one point or another and they were given a ton of time to go out there and produce an exciting main event. The four-way format helped a lot as well as any one of them could have realistically walked away as the champ (okay, maybe not Taven) and I think Lethal was the best possible choice. Castle has been beat up for a while now, so it was more a matter of when than if he'd drop the strap, while Lethal has been delivering instant classics night after night for years now.

Overall Show

The set of tapings from New York City was a blast (mostly because I was there), but it was high time we got some fallout from Best in the World late last month. Thankfully, this was a pretty newsworthy edition of ROH TV with the world title changing hands in the main event (even though ROH spoiled it themselves online weeks ago) and the women's title being defended in an excellent outing. Needless to say, the hour flew by even more than usual as a result.