Ring of Honor Review - July 4, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Kenny King def. Jonathan Gresham

Although this technically aired after Best in the World, it was taped weeks prior at the New York City television taping I attended at the beginning of June. Thus, I saw this as a rebound win for King following his loss to Austin Aries at Best in the World. Both King and Gresham are babyfaces, sure, and it took time for them to win over the audience, but it was a very well-wrestled match overall and the crowd got invested in the action down the stretch. Gresham continues to a be a great hand for the company with performances like the one he had here.

Josh "The Goods" Woords def. Facade

I seem to care more about Woods and want to see him succeed more than most, but even I can't deny that the crowd was way hotter here for Facade than they were for Woods. It wasn't even the hometown advantage, either; Facade simply had the better showing. It was a good match, though, and Woods' win sets him up for a rematch with Shane Taylor before long based off what happened afterward. The Carmelo Anthony line from Taylor during his promo was funny, too.

ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Matt Taven def. Ultimo Guerrero

I didn't have high hopes for this match on paper because it felt like filler, but it ended up exceeding expectations in a major way and being one of the better bouts of the night at the taping. Taven deserves credit for really coming into his own as a singles star over the last year, while Guerrero got over with the audience more than any other CMLL wrestler I've ever seen compete in Ring of Honor. The dynamic they had was terrific and this turned into an excellent match with an electric atmosphere to boot. Guerrero's post-match promo was cut from the broadcast (though Taven's made the air), but he basically said the feud between himself and Taven/The Kingdom was far from over.

Overall Show

The next few weeks worth of shows were all taped prior to the pay-per-view, so it will be a while before we get any sort of fallout from the event. On the bright side, I was at the NYC TV taping and I can tell you that these editions of ROH TV coming up are a ton of fun, including next week's episode with Cody vs. Titan and Bully Ray vs. Cheeseburger. The NYC fans are always awesome and they made these shows a blast to be a part of.