Ring of Honor Review - October 23, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Mascara Dorada def. Angelico

Dorada was involved in one of AEW's greatest matches all year at All Out with Kazuchika Okada and Konosuke Takeshita. Typically, AEW followed that up by not putting Dorada on AEW TV at all. At least he's getting some shine in Ring of Honor for now. It was announced during the bout that Dorada will challenge Bandido for the ROH World Championship again on next week's episode, so this existed to give him a win before then. It was all about Dorada as it should have been.

Adam Priest, "The Dynamite Kid" Tommy Billington and Jay Lethal def. The Dark Order (Alex Reynolds, John Silver and Evil Uno)

At this point, Dark Order genuinely add nothing to any show they're on and it's difficult to care about anything they're involved in. The only purpose I think this match was supposed to serve was establishing Lethal, Billington and Priest as a trio. I'm fine with them linking up if the idea is for them to eventually challenge for the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship. This was well wrestled, but it didn't interest me otherwise.

Deonna Purrazzo def. Angelica Risk in a Pure Rules Match

Ah, another Pure Rules match with absolutely no stakes. Someone needs to tell Tony Khan that Pure Rules are largely boring as hell and doing more of them is not the answer. We're getting a whole tournament full of them to crown the inaugural ROH Women's Pure Champion, so we don't need more than that. This was a glorified squash designed to give Purrazzo a momentum boost, but it was more of a reminder that the tourney is progressing at a snail's pace.

Alex Windsor and Yuka Sakazaki def. Aleah James and Billie Starkz

What a random match. I have no idea why Windsor would team with Sakazaki when she'll be teaming with Riho in the upcoming AEW Women's World Tag Team Championship Tournament, and the same can be said for Starkz already having an alliance with Athena (who returned in a backstage segment on Wednesday's Dynamite, by the way). In other words, this was a waste of a match despite being perfectly passable from an in-ring standpoint. Starkz and James teased tension. What does that matter?

Isla Dawn and Grizzled Young Veterans def. Dream Girl Ellie, Leroy Shogun and Bryce Cannon

This was pretty much the same six-woman tag team match we got on last week's episode with Grizzled Young Veterans and Dawn beating three local losers, ahead of their obvious match with Premier Athletes. It accomplished what it needed to, that's perhaps the best thing I can say about it. Hopefully we get that match soon and they don't drag out the build for a month because it will get old very quickly.

Komander def. Griff Garrison

I can't believe they preceded this match by showing a clip of The Frat House carrying Mercedes Mone's belts at WrestleDream like a bunch of bums. Granted, their whole gimmick is that they are a bunch of bums, but still, it reeked of desperation. Anyway, this was a very average outing and by no means main event material. It was certainly a contest that happened.

Overall Show

Conveniently, Red Velvet announced she's finally cleared to compete and declared herself the real ROH Women's World Television Champion. Good luck beating Mone, girl, you're going to need it. As for the show itself, the opener was filmed in a different arena than the rest, for what it's worth. Yeah, that's all I got. This was a total throwaway show. I'm looking forward to Bandido and Dorada running it back next week, but ROH TV was a chore to sit through this week, which isn't really anything out of the ordinary.

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