Biased Thoughts: Ring Of Honor in Honor Club #1
Universal Studios. March 2nd 2023
Mark Briscoe vs Slim J (***1/4) Really fun match and great to see Mark Briscoe in the first match on this new era of Ring Of Honor.
Tony Deppen will challenge Samoa Joe for the TV Championship next week, sounds really fun.
The Kingdom vs The Infantry (Squash) Match to establish The Kingdom as contenders of the ROH Tag Team Championships.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Blake Christian in a NJPW TV Championship match (***3/4) Really good match with classic ZSJ stuff mixed with some very good high flying from Blake. Fun stuff, I liked the promo segments before the match.
Mark Sterling tried to convince Takeshita to not do their match but he rejected the offer. Takeshita rules.
Christopher Daniels vs Rohit Raju (**3/4) Another match to establish the players in this new ROH, fun match.
Rhett Titus and Tracy Williams set up a match vs (OI OI OI) Aussie Open for next week, this will be great.
Konosuke Takeshita vs Josh Woods (****) Yeah this was great, Josh Woods was awesome and Takeshita is a lock of having a great match everytime he is wrestling. Great stuff.
The Embassy vs LSG, Joey Keys & Rex Lawless (Squash) This was the squash in the show and it was the correct one to do it. The Embassy have potential, specially Toa Liona.
Ari Daivari vs Metalik (***1/4) Metalik was great here and Daivari was good. This was fun but I think there have been almost no angles, this is the first episode it should set up more things for the future.
The Renegades vs Skye Blue & Madison Raine (***) This was a carry job by The Renegades that I don´t know why they are loosing vs Raine and Blue. I thought it was gonna be bad but it was actually solid.
Wheeler Yuta is here to said that he is nobody´s junior and Tim Thacher came out to challenge for the ROH Pure Championship.
Willow Nightingale vs Lady Frost (Squash) Lady Frost had the time to show some interesting things, Willow was solid. The post match was good with Willow challenging for the ROH World Women´s Championship that Athena has.
Claudio Castagnoli vs AR Fox for the ROH World Championship (****) This was a classic main event where the underdog almost overcomes the powerful Champion. Great stuff. Now the post match is the main deal, Eddie Kingston just quit AEW and debuted in ROH and challenged Claudio to a match and I can´t wait. This guys had a critically acclaimed feud in the indies a decade ago but the blow off wasn´t done, this feud could be big if booked well and with freedom of been in a streaming platform I expect some tremendous content.
General Thoughts
This episode was really good with three notebook matches and some good promos as well of segments, I think Kingston debut could fill the big angle that the first show needed.
Without entering into fantasy booking territory this place is perfect for developing and as well to create a major fanbase for indie/overseas wrestlers that AEW might want to bring in as well of serving perfectly for the excursions of NJPW young lions but not only develop but as well grew ROH with some wrestlers that aren´t been used for any reason in AEW and that can have a more important spot in ROH like Miro for example.
Some of the talents I would want to see in ROH either signed or in excursions are Titus Alexander, Nick Wayne, Kazusada Higuchi, Yuki Ueno, MAO, Chihiro Hashimoto and Veny.
Also last but not least, the AEW and ROH rosters should be split, AEW itself has a lot of wrestlers to have two separated rosters.
Rating of the show: 7.5/10
Extra Notes
- For been the first show going two hours was fine but I think 60-90 mins would be the perfect length.
- I think Khan should use more multiman tag matches in AEW and now ROH, I thin work better than having squash matches when you want to establish the places in the card.
- Hopefully we get a shit ton of tournaments, tournaments are the most fun thing in japanese wrestling, so ROH been in a streaming hopefully we have a lot of them. I don´t know if they could pull of a G1 style tournament but would be great.
