Ring of Honor Review - September 21, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

David Finlay def. Rocky Romero in an ROH Pure Championship Tournament First-Round Match

This had a simple story of student vs. teacher as Romero helped train Romero. Finlay has been gone from Ring of Honor with an injury for almost two years, but he looked really good in his return here. This was a well-wrestled match that got even better once they picked up the pace down the stretch. I figured Romero would win given he's the veteran of the two, so Finlay winning instead was a pleasant instead. Finlay vs. Jay Lethal in the second round should be wondeful.

Matt Sydal def. Delirious in an ROH Pure Championship Tournament First-Round Match

Delirious seemed like a random participant in the tournament when he was originally announced, but the video packages illustrated their history together and how they've had a friendly rivalry dating back to the early 2000s. They had strong chemistry as a result and it turned out to be a fun affair, albeit the weakest of all the tournament matches so far. Delirious is actually a booker behind the scenes nowadays for Ring of Honor, so it made more sense for Sydal to advance, even though I don't believe he's currently signed with the promotion. In fact, he's slated to appear on a special Tuesday night edition of AEW Dynamite this week against Shawn Spears.

Overall Show

The great video packages that precede the matches profiling the competitors were even more helpful this week than they were last week, as I don't know if I would have cared about these matchups as much if we didn't get to hear from the four guys beforehand. This was the second week of the ROH Pure Championship Tournament and it was another super solid show with two quality matches. The opener was better than the main event, but both were enjoyable on the whole. Once the title tourney starts to wind down, I'm curious if more wrestlers will start to appear on ROH TV and restart their storylines from before the pandemic. I assume it's only inevitable because the stuff with the ROH Pure Championship won't last much longer. In the meantime, however, it's been thoroughly entertaining and I'm happy to have ROH back.