Ring of Honor Review - July 4, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Bang Bang Gang (Juice Robinson and Unified World Trios Champions The Gunns) def. The Dark Order (Alex Reynolds, John Silver and Evil Uno)

I was genuinely shocked to see Bang Bang Gang pop up on ROH TV. Did they even appear on ROH TV while they were holding just the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship earlier this year? This was more competitive than it arguably needed to be considering the outcome was never in doubt, but it was a decent match. Why not defend the trios titles on ROH TV every once in a while to give Ring of Honor's trios something to fight for? I'm glad the two sets of trios titles were unified, but the remaining title can still be defended on ROH TV occasionally.

ROH World Tag Team Champions The Undisputed Kingdom (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) def. Komander and Metalik in an ROH World Tag Team Championship Proving Ground Match

Komander and Metalik were a random team aside from the fact they're both luchadors. They worked well together and had nice chemistry with Undisputed Kingdom, but I don't understand the need to have Undisputed Kingdom wrestle as much as they do on ROH TV if they rarely face actual competition. This was a quality contest that nearly went the full time limit before Undisputed Kingdom picked up the win.

ROH Pure Champion Wheeler Yuta vs. Lee Moriarty Ended in a Time-Limit Draw in an ROH Pure Championship Proving Ground Match

This marked Yuta's first ROH match since defending the title against Tom Lawlor back at Final Battle 2023. Yes, that was almost seven months ago. I realize he was injured for a while, but he's wrestled recently in AEW. There's really no reason for him to be holding the Pure title at this point. Nonetheless, he and Moriarty had the well-wrestled affair you'd expect from them and the fact it ended in a draw was a pleasant surprise. By virtue of his victory, Moriarty has earned a future opportunity at the title, presumably at Death Before Dishonor.​

Overall Show

The Infantry hosted this Independence Day edition of ROH TV and were good for some campy comedy throughout the episode. Even for a holiday show, it was actually pretty newsworthy. Athena vs. Queen Aminata for the ROH Women's World Championship and Billie Starkz vs. Red Velvet for the ROH Women's World Television Championship were both made official for Death Before Dishonor in a backstage segment and a vignette aired promoting the upcoming debut of the former Maximum Male Models from WWE (Mansoor and Mace, not LA Knight and Maxxine Dupri, obviously). At only 47 minutes, this was short and sweet. I'd prefer to see ROH TV follow this formula more often (as opposed to the constant squashes), but I know that's probably not going to happen.

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