Ring of Honor Review - March 25, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Briscoes def. Jeff Cobb and Dan Maff

​(From my Bound by Honor review...) I wouldn't read too much into the commentators acknowledging Cobb's recent AEW appearance. Hell, Ian Riccaboni even mentioned Shelley wrestling for WWE during his match, so it's not like ROH and AEW are working together (at least not yet). At any rate, this match was fantastic. I had my reservations about Cobb and Maff teaming up early on, but they've been brilliant together so far, and you can never go wrong with The Briscoes. Cobb and Maff actually beat Lethal and Gresham in a non-title matchup at Free Enterprise, so I'm surprised The Briscoes beat them here. Considering Cobb was pinned, could ROH be preparing for the possibility of Cobb leaving for AEW eventually?

Alex Shelley def. ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champion Rey Horus

​(From my Bound by Honor review...) It's been so cool to see Shelley all over ROH programming, NXT and other independent promotions lately, and he came close to retiring from the ring two years ago! He's been killing it everywhere and he had another very fun match here with Horus. I don't think there was any reason for these two to be facing off, but the babyface vs. babyface dynamic didn't seem to be an issue as the crowd enjoyed the action, regardless. Shelley's victory gives him a momentum boost before he enters the upcoming ROH Pure Championship Tournament.

ROH World Tag Team Champions Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham def. 2 Guys 1 Tag

​(From my Bound by Honor review...) Despite initially looking like a bit of a mismatch on paper, Silas Young and Josh "The Goods" Woods have become a great team over the last several months. They have strong chemistry together and were actually undefeated as a tandem before losing to Lethal and Gresham here. Lethal and Gresham have been on a roll since joining forces, so it would have been premature to take the tag titles off them at this juncture. It didn't feel like the crowd ever thought the titles were in jeopardy, but it was a solid match, nonetheless. Lethal and Gresham will now defend against Villain Enterprises' Marty Scurll and Flip Gordon at the 18th Anniversary Show.

Overall Show

I assume the stuff with Quinn McKay was filmed at or around the time Bound by Honor occurred last month, meaning this material has been in the can for a while. As such, there is absolutely no excuse for ROH not pulling an audible and editing this show to remove mentions of the 18th Anniversary Show (which was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak) and Supercard of Honor, which was supposed to happen over WrestleMania weekend in Lakeland, FL but was also cancelled for the same reason. Both shows have been cancelled for at least a week or more, so again, that's embarrassing. I assume the next few editions of ROH TV will have the same problem, which is even worse. As for the matches on this episode, they were enjoyable, but if you've already seen Bound by Honor, they were nothing new.