Ring of Honor Review - September 18, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Mistico def. Mansoor

Mistico has a big championship clash coming up soon with MJF, so it makes sense to give him a string of wins before then. However, I'd rather see him more on AEW TV since that's where he had his last match with MJF. Mansoor was a good opponent for him because he's skilled in the ring and can easily absorb the loss. This worked well as the opener.

Olympia def. Viva Van in a Pure Rules Match

Olympia will face Billie Starkz in the first round of the ROH Women's Pure Championship, but I have no idea why they couldn't have gotten that out of the way here instead of giving Olympia a random win over Van here. I understand it was designed to give Olympia a momentum boost, but this tournament already took forever to get underway and there's no reason to drag it out even longer. This was a solid showcase for Olympia, though.

The Beast Mortos def. Alan Angels

Angels is, of course, a former member of The Dark Order. He left AEW years ago and was a nice fit in TNA for a few years before leaving earlier this year. I have zero desire to see him involved with Dark Order again, but I'd like to see more of him on his own in Ring of Honor. That said, this was essentially a squash for Mortos. Angels score some offense, but this was all about Mortos for the most part.

AEW World Trios Champion Katsuyori Shibata def. Matt Mako in a Pure Rules Match

What's ROH's obsession with Mako all of a sudden? He's been on several shows lately and I'm almost positive he's lost every single time. He's perfectly fine in the ring but isn't remotely interesting and is having competitive matches with guys like Wheeler Yuta and Shibata. This was a well-wrestled match, but doing Pure Rules matches on the same show felt excessive and unnecessary.

The Death Riders (Marina Shafir and Wheeler Yuta) def. Aleah James and Man Like DeReiss

I'm honestly shocked we don't see more mixed tag team matches from Death Riders. That said, Yuta and Shafir are the most boring members of the group, so their matches don't do much for me, either. The best parts of this match were whenever DeReiss was on offense. He was fun to watch. Death Riders plaguing AEW TV is one thing, but there's no need for them to be on ROH TV most weeks, too.

Satnam Singh def. CPA

I'm convinced that Satnam Singh matches solely exist to remind viewers that he's still under contract to the company. His group with Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal isn't a thing anymore, so Singh has been left to flounder on his own. He dominated this accountant dude in a matter of minutes and that was it. The less said about this, the better. These are a waste of time until Singh does something of note again.

Yuka Sakazaki def. Janai Kai in a Pure Rules Match

Ah, another match that had no business being a Pure Rules match. Again, I get it: Sakazaki is involved in the ROH Women's Pure Championship Tournament, but it's painful to see the competitors face random women instead of each other. On the bright side, Kai is an impressive prospect based on what I saw from her in MLW, so hopefully we continue to see her pop up on ROH TV (and eventually not in an enhancement role). This was serviceable.

ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champions Shane Taylor Promotions (The Infantry and Shane Taylor) def. AR Fox and The Kingdom

This was an open challenge from Shane Taylor Promotions. Why not give Fox the win over Shane Taylor last week to give him and The Kingdom more of a threat to the titles here? Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable main event while it lasted, but it would've benefited from having more time. On the bright side, I'm all for Shane Taylor Promotions being defending champions unlike The Sons of Texas.

Overall Show

Thankfully, this was a shorter show than last week at just over an hour, but the card could've been trimmed down a bit with a few less matches. For example, why bother putting Singh in action? Why not further the ROH Women's Pure Championship Tournament? That stuff aside, this was an adequate episode, even though the bigger names and champions were nowhere to be found.

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