Ring of Honor Review - November 16, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Trent Beretta def. "Pretty" Avalon

What a random match. As I've said before, I'd actually like to see Beretta do more on his own and not be bogged down by the Best Friends stuff. They're never going to get beyond a certain level at this point and Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander have proven to be successful separate from the group. This didn't need to remotely competitive (wasn't Avalon squashed in under 30 seconds in a tag team match on Wednesday's Dynamite?), but it was decent enough. Beretta will challenge Katsuyori Shibata for the ROH Pure Championship on next week's show.

The Outrunners def. Sebastian Wolf and Jacoby Watts

I believe this marked The Outrunners' first win in Ring of Honor. Perhaps their performance against Darby Allin and Sting recently was enough to convince Tony Khan to push them? In all seriousness, they've been the ultimate enhancement team for many months (both in ROH and AEW), so it will take more than one win and a backstage promo for me to see them as stars. They had their time to shine here, but consistency will be key unless this was meant to be a one-off.

Emi Sakura def. Kel

I don't think the timing of this was a coincidence with Sakura set to face Toni Storm on Friday's Rampage. Of course, she has zero chance of winning with Storm fighting for the AEW Women's World Championship at Full Gear on Saturday, but it should be a quality contest, if nothing else. Kel had size on her side, but it wasn't enough to earn her the win. This was a fairly simple squash for Sakura.

The Boys def. The Bollywood Boyz

I appreciated this match for the sole reason it was the battle of the boys. Of course, Amazon Prime Video's The Boys show is better than both of these tag teams, but that's neither here nor there. I don't know why this match existed otherwise, but it did give The Boys a rare win. It's tough to take them seriously as a threat to most teams, but I enjoy them as part of Dalton Castle's act. This was quick and painless.

ROH Women's World Champion Athena and Billie Starkz def. Brooke Havok and Johnnie Robbie

I remember when Havok had one of her very first matches ever on an episode of Dark back in 2020 if I'm not mistaken. Needless to say, it was as basic as could be and I'm still not quite sure why it happened. That said, Havok has noticeably improved since then, but this was all about Athena and Starkz and giving them another tag team win. Starkz has been showing more heelish tendencies lately to impress Athena and it seems to be working.

Rachael Ellering and "Legit" Leyla Hirsch def. The Renegades

Ellering and Hirsch are telling the story of being reluctant partners with Ellering trying to win Hirsch over, but I personally find it hard to care as I don't and have never found Ellering interesting. Hey, it's better than Hirsch doing nothing, I suppose. The Renegades are, as they said, an established team, so it meant something for Ellering and Hirsch to beat them. The match was well worked. Maria Kanellis-Bennett continues to attempt to recruit Hirsch but to no avail.

Marina Shafir def. Amira

The Shafir squashes do nothing for me personally, and it didn't sound like the crowd was overly invested, either. I'd be fine with them if it was clear they were leading to something significant, like a shot at the ROH Women's World Championship. On the bright side, she's no longer aligned with Nyla Rose it seems, so she can be built up on her own. For the record, I have no desire in seeing Ronda Rousey being brought in as her partner.

AAA Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo and Komander def. Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal

Komander is a double champion currently in AAA, but I missed if he came out with both belts or just one, so I wouldn't list him as either one here because ROH and AEW aren't consistent with their wrestlers bringing outside titles to the ring with them. Nonetheless, this was the highly enjoyable affair you'd expect from these four. Daniels and Sydal are there to put people over at this point and Vikingo and Komander make for a fun team whenever they're paired together.

ROH World Champion and NJPW Strong Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston def. Dalton Castle (NJPW Strong Openweight Championship Was Not Defended)

It was pretty clear Castle was never going to capture the championship, but I'm glad he cut so many promos leading up to this match to make it more meaningful. It was a unique clash of styles and it ended up being an entertaining main event. It was cool seeing Castle back at the main event level for one week and I'm happy Kingston has been appearing more on ROH TV as champ than Claudio Castagnoli was. The post-match embrace between the two over their close friend Brodie Lee was a nice moment.

Overall Show

Apparently HonorClub had an issue where the show didn't start until much later than it usually does. What's unfortunate is that this was actually one of the better episodes in recent memory I thought, complete with an ROH World Championship main event and some quality tag team matches. There was also an update on the status of the now-vacant ROH World Television Championship from Tony Khan, who revealed that a new champion will be determined via a six-way Survival of the Fittest match. The episode being around 90 minutes helped as well.

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