Last week: The ROH World Women’s Championship tournament continued with Miranda Alize and Rok-C advancing after defeating Trish Adora and Angelina Love respectively, before LFI defeated Shane Taylor Promotions in an eight-man tag bout.
ROH TV Episode 521
September 11, 2021
Baltimore, MD
– Quinn McKay welcomed everyone to the show as normal, running down tonight’s card including the ROH World Tag Team Championship match between La Faccion Ingobernable taking on champions VLNCE UNLTD’s Homicide & Chris Dickinson.
ROH World champion Bandido & Rey Horus vs. The Briscoes
The Briscoes had a pre-match promo were they introduced their Spanish alter egos. Though speaking in Spanglish, Dem Boys were pretty easy to understand when referencing their mission statement: beat every team en route to becoming the ROH World Tag Team champions again.
Rey Horus was incredibly excited about finally going against The Briscoes. Bandido too was ready to showcase what lucha libre is all about against the baddest team in the land.
Code of Honor was followed before the former ROH World titleholder Jay Briscoe squared off with Rey Horus. Before they could lock up, Bandido said he wanted a piece of the eldest Briscoe brother. Jay was happy to come face to mask with the man holding the biggest prize in ROH, exchanging waist locks and hammerlocks. Muscling Bandido around, Jay found himself getting outmaneuvered when the champ got to his feet. The pace quickened and after a pair of hurricaranas from the opponents, Bandido and Jay found themselves at a stalemate heading into the commercial break.
During the break it was all Briscoes when they knocked down the now-legal Rey Horus. Horus found himself on the wrong part of town as Dem Boys double teamed him while peppering Bandido to knock him off the apron at any given moment. Bandido got the blind tag when The Briscoes set up their double team shoulder tackle, giving the World champ a chance to take down both Briscoes. Bandido almost pinned Jay off the standing shooting star press, only for Jay to knock him down when he got up. Mark tagged in, slowing Bandido down by dropping elbows & boots on his downed adversary. Flipping out of a suplex attempt allowed Bandido to tag out.
Horus caught Mark with an enzuguri when his opponent went for some kung fu action. Horus followed up with the leg drop that saw him come down high as if he was standing on the top rope. Mark kicked out of Rey’s follow-up pin, only to get caught in a double team facebuster-super kick combo. Jay ran in, pitching Bandido out of the ring as Mark tried to knock Horus out. Horus countered with the big boot, only to feel a Jay boot to the face.
Bandido reentered, clobbering Jay before Mark did the same to him. Mark rose with Rey, slugging it out until Mark executed iconoclasm on Horus to gain a two count. Using a back elbow to stop the running Mark gave Bandido the chance to tag himself in and flapjack Mark into the ace crusher. As Bandido executed a dive on Jay at ringside, Rey tagged himself in to pull off the Casadora Driver on Mark … to gain a near fall!
Jay ran in after dumping Bandido, catching a flying Horus on his shoulders. Mark came sailing off the top to hit Horus with the Doomsday Device. Mark made the cover, pinning Horus to keep their winning streak alive.
Pure Rules: Josh Woods vs. Will Ferrara
Will Ferrara expressed his feeling of coming home to ROH’s Pure division. According to Ferrara, his time training with Jonathan Gresham has proven he belongs in the Pure division.
Josh Woods’ statement was short & sweet: the Pure Championship belongs to “The Technical Beast”.
The early seconds showed just how dangerous & strong Josh Woods was by gut-wrench slamming his opponent across the ring off the initial collar & elbow. Will Ferrara showed great body control when Woods attempted to do another toss, grabbing on the wrist for takedown counters. Ferrara ended up getting caught by the waist again, hooking onto the ropes to stop another gut-wrench slam. Ferrara quickly re-acclimated himself and went after Woods’ left arm. When Ferrara went for an arm bar, Woods swept him into the Gorilla Lock. Thankfully for Ferrara, the ropes were nearby, but now he only had one ropes break left leading into the commercial break.
Woods was very happy pitching Ferrara across the ring via gut-wrench suplexes. When Woods went to grab him again, Ferrara countered whatever “The Technical Beast” had in mind via a double knee arm breaker that set up the cross arm bar. Ferrara kept rolling to prevent his opposition from reversing the submission, only for Woods to prepare a vertical base so he could stand and electric chair drop Ferrara. When Will pulled himself up, Woods grabbed him from behind for a German suplex attempt, Ferrara used his last rope break to save himself from the suplex, pulling off another arm breaker-arm bar attempt. And, once again, Woods freed himself with a suplex. Before Ferrara could recover, Josh executed Chaos Theory to pin a game Will Ferrara.
A big stare-down occurred between Woods and Pure champion Jonathan Gresham, who was on commentary for this previous bout. Gresham left the commentators’ table, shaking Woods’ hand before blowing a kiss at his future title challenger.
– Last week saw Miranda Alize and Rok-C advance to the finale of ROH’s Women’s Championship tournament that will occur at “Death Before Dishonor” on pay-per-view.
ROH World Tag Team Championship: VLNCE UNLTD (Chris Dickinson & Homicide) (c) vs. La Faccion Ingobernable (ROH World Television champion Dragon Lee & Kenny King)
The challengers were ready to show that the dragon has returned to spit nothing but fire. Kenny King reminded the champions and everyone who’s forgotten that they never lost the title due to Dragon Lee being injured and tonight they reclaim what should already be theirs.
Homicide started talking for the champions, stating how disrespectful King has been to people who were loyal to him. After promising to embarrass Dragon Lee, Homicide let Dickinson remind everyone there is honor through violence.
No Code of Honor as Homicide and Kenny King started this one off for their respective teams. King’s height advantage allowed him to cinch in a solid side headlock before utilizing a shoulder block when the pace quickened. Homicide felt a trio of arm drags to cinch in the arm bar. Homicide being stuck in the arm bar no matter what he did saw the champion back his way into the champions’ corner so Chris Dickinson could tag in prior to the commercial break.
It was Dragon Lee becoming the legal man so he could run into “Dirty Daddy” Dickinson. Big shoulder block topped by the back elbow from Dickinson allowed the champions to double team Lee off the inverted atomic drop topped by a big boot from Homicide. Lee found himself at ringside being abused with King failed to save him. Reversing an Irish whip in the ring allowed Lee to send Homicide into an illegal kick from King as Kenny stood on the apron.
Homicide surprised King with a small package, only for Kenny to kick out and clothesline a rising Homicide. Lee became the legal man, standing on Homicide’s head while executing a single-leg Boston crab. Homicide attempted to fight back, but took a pair of kicks to the face when he missed Lee in the corner. Stinger splash missed for King on Homicide, allowing “The Notorious 187” to go for the flying headbutt. King moved at the last second, only for Homicide to do the same when King went for the slingshot leg drop heading into the commercial break.
Dickinson and Lee tagged in with the prior mowing through the masked man after rolling through a flying body scissors. Lee almost got caught in the arm bar, pressing off the mat to pin Dickinson for two seconds. When Dragon got up for another running attack, Dickinson executed a Death Valley driver … to gain a near fall!
King tagged himself in, running into Homicide’s ace crusher for another two count that infuriated Homicide. King recovered, blocking the lariat to pull off a tiger driver on Homicide … to attain a near fall!
Once again it was Lee and Dickinson becoming the legal men. Homicide and King were still fighting as Lee dumped Dickinson. Homicide found himself stopping a superplex, only for Lee to knock him into the tree of woe for the double stomp. Royal Flush from King on Dickinson gave Lee the chance to go for the pin, but “Dirty Daddy” kicked out before the three count.
Sending Homicide to the floor, King wiped out the tag champion as Lee initiated a forearm exchange. Dragon caught an incoming arm to ripcord knee strike Dickinson. When Lee went for the Incinerator, Dickinson caught him coming with a dragon screw leg whip. The TV champ recovered quickly, countering a running attack by knee striking him again. Dickinson rallied to his feet, turning into the Incinerator … for the three count! New champions!
Overall: This was the tale of two episodes in terms of what it wanted and what it needed to accomplish. From an in-ring perspective, this offered nothing but high quality action including the tag team bouts getting the necessary time. The Briscoes picked up a big win, and Lee & King regain the title they never lost with the latter happening clean, once again, to prove how dangerous LFI are. The Pure Rules bout also allowed Woods to garner a much-needed victory heading into the PPV while Will Ferrara really impressed in his return in the same way guys like World Famous CB, LSG, and Eli Isom did by entering the Pure Division.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the fact this was the go-home episode leading to “Death Before Dishonor”. As a promotional tool for the upcoming PPV, this episode definitely didn’t do much to boost the event outside of Woods being confronted by Gresham, the recap of Rok-C and Alize fighting for the World Women’s Championship, and running down the card after the main event. Something as simple as promos from some of the competitors involved in the PPV as the card was being shown like ROH has done in the past would’ve helped alleviate that issue of lacking PPV promotion. Beyond that nitpick, here’s to another must-see, easy-to-watch episode of ROH TV.
