Ring of Honor Review - July 31, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Conglomeration (Hologram and Tomohiro Ishii) def. MxM Collection

It's mind-boggling to me that The Conglomeration still exists in any form at this point. The faction was ridiculous to begin with, but I guess it gives Hologram and Ishii more of a reason to team (even though Hologram should be in contention for a championship by now seeing as how he's still undefeated the last I checked). This was a nice opener with the usual MxM Collection antics.

Gringo Loco def. Jon Cruz

It would've made way more sense to give Loco a win over an enhancement guy before he faced Nick Wayne in that Proving Ground match last week as opposed to afterward. I also have no idea why this had to last as long as it did considering the outcome was never in doubt (no, not even when Cruz was on offense). The crowd had fun with it, especially early on, but I was left wondering what purpose this was supposed to serve.

Blake Christian def. Jimmy Jacobs

Christian's in a weird spot because it feels like he's been in the process of being built up he went heel late last year, yet he's a total loser on AEW TV and hasn't had any meaningful storylines in Ring of Honor. Jacobs (who I believe departed his behind-the-scenes role in AEW a year or so ago) was another notable name for him to beat, but if it doesn't amount to anything, I'd argue it doesn't even matter. The match was solid for what it was, though.

Xelhua def. Virus in a Pure Rules Match

I remember Virus appearing for either ROH or AEW before, but I'm not familiar with Xelhua whatsoever. Why did they face each other and why was this a Pure Rules match? Again, more randomness. It was a well-worked match, but I can't say I cared about any of this. Perhaps Xelhua will challenge for the ROH Pure Championship one of these days.

ROH World Champion Bandido def. Adam Priest

I know Priest won a match on ROH TV earlier this month, but I assumed that was to explain why he was involved in that four-way match at Supercard of Honor. I'm not sure he's been on ROH TV since then, so for him to get a shot at the ROH World Championship out of nowhere was strange, to say the least. They had a good match, but it didn't feel worthy of the main event slot, despite the title being on the line.

Overall Show

As you can probably tell, this was very much an odd edition of ROH TV. It was a little longer than recent episodes at exactly an hour and it was filled with... well, filler. As previously mentioned, most of these matches made no sense and accomplished very little. The in-ring action on the whole was average, but the awesome venue in Chicago was quiet for almost all of it and I don't blame them one bit.

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