Welcome to another edition of The ROHbot Report – the only article you need for all the Ring of Honor news you have to know. One of ROH’s original big events returned after two years of dormancy due to the pandemic. Faces both new & old enter Philadelphia with the intent of shaping the rest of 2021 in the honorable realm.
“Death Before Dishonor XVIII” Results; September 12th, 2021; Philadelphia, PA
– ROH World Championship #1 Contender Honor Rumble: Alex Zayne defeated Danhausen, Dak Draper, Brian Johnson, Rey Horus, Silas Young, PJ Black, Brian Milonas, Joe Keys, Beer City Bruiser, PCO, Sledge, Flip Gordon, Dante Caballero, Caprice Coleman, and World Famous CB
– Dalton Castle defeated Eli Isom
– Taylor Rust defeated Jake Atlas
– VLNCE UNLTD (Homicide, Chris Dickinson & Tony Deppen) defeated John Walters, LSG & Lee Moriarty
– The OGK (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) defeated The Briscoes
– Pure Championship: Josh Woods defeated Jonathan Gresham to become the NEW CHAMPION
– Six-Man Tag Team Championship: Shane Taylor Promotions (O’Shay Edwards, Moses & Kaun) defeated La Faccion Ingobernable (Dragon Lee, Kenny King & Bestia del Ring) to retain
– ROH World Women’s Championship Tournament Final: Rok-C defeated Miranda Alize to become the NEW CHAMPION
– ROH World Championship (Four Corner Survival Elimination Match): Bandido (c) defeated Brody King, EC3, and Demonic Flamita to retain
As promised due to the circumstances, history was made in Philadelphia as Ring of Honor brought back its “Death Before Dishonor” event with four titles on the line and a guaranteed new champion as the first ROH World Women’s champion would be crowned when Miranda Alize took on Rok-C in what would be the semi-main event. Refusing the Code of Honor was Alize as “The Lucha Baddie” attempted to get in Rok-C’s head. Instead it was “The Prodigy” doing her best to stay one-step ahead of her more experienced opposition by countering her grappling, almost landing big attacks, and characteristically posing to infuriate Alize.
Miranda responding with a sickening slap fired up Rok, but also left her prone to being yanked by her hair against the canvas that turned the tides in Miranda’s favor. Alize slowed the match down and relished in dishing out punishment on the crowd favorite including biting her opponent’s fingers as a way to avoid a fiery comeback. Alize’s mockery of Rok-C not only emotionally charged “The Prodigy”, but also gave her the energy to mount a comeback when they ended up in the corner.
Rok’s momentum continued rising even when Alize started retaliating such as a moment when both women went for dives and ended up colliding at ringside for a near double count-out. The damage done to Rok gave Alize the chance to sweep “The Prodigy” into Miranda Rights. The submission that ended Trish Adora’s chances to fight for the gold wasn’t enough to put away Rok, but did hinder her from rising quickly as Alize switched gameplans. Miranda had the Drive-By in mind when Rok countered with Code Rok/Red for the three count to become the new titleholder. An absolutely phenomenal match that used a story as old as time to generate such pure emotion from the crowd who wanted to see “The Prodigy” win. Absolutely a perfect way to coronate the start of this new era of women’s wrestling in ROH.
There were no promises another title would change hands during this event, but every title challenger was determined to ensure otherwise including “The Technical Beast” Josh Woods as he fought Jonathan Gresham for the Pure Championship in a rematch from their Pure Championship tournament bout over a year ago. As expected, a majority of the bout stayed close to the mat with both looking for ways to convince the other to utilize their three rope breaks.
Interestingly enough it was their growing aggressions during the match that caused them to lose those finite rope breaks when a rather dishonorable shoving exchanged ended with them in the ropes. Woods eventually catching Gresham in a kimura lock saw “The Octopus” making it to the ropes and the challenger refusing to relinquish the hold; forcing the ref to take another rope break from both competitors. Then the unexpected happened as Gresham used a small package that Woods attempted to counter, resulting in both mens’ shoulders on the mat for a double countdown.
Gresham refused to let his title reign have a draw connected to it, demanding that the match be restarted. When the bell sounded for a third time, they went toe-to-toe with forearms, knee strikes & kicks. Those strikes resulted in them fighting into the ropes and costing them their final rope break. They had big hopes for a grand maneuver to finish the other off, or, in the case of “The Octopus”, a flash pin. Unfortunately for The Foundation member it was Woods countering Gresham’s takedown attempt with a reverse tombstone wheelbarrow suplex that violently slammed the titleholder on his upper back & head to pin Gresham for the Pure Championship.
The former champion presented Woods with his first ROH championship in a great show of sportsmanship to cap off a rather thrilling contest. Beyond a referee error where it seemed Gresham didn’t kick out during a near fall and the fans not necessarily into the early grappling exchange, this definitely lived up the hype of two premier pure wrestlers doing battle on a grand stage with Woods finally reaching the Pure division’s mountaintop. Also, condolences to Woods’ family after the loss of his father who would’ve been there to see his son win his first ROH title.
The other two title matches were very entertaining with the main event presenting a Four Corner Survival elimination bout that didn’t let up. The hoss battle between EC3 and Brody King gave way to the high-flying lucha action expected of former allies Bandido and Demonic Flamita. Eventually EC3 took control and almost seemed to be on the verge of eliminating the World champion after tossing him onto his opponents when Flamita attacked him with a chair behind the referee’s back. EC3 grabbed the chair and attempted to retaliate, only to be seen and disqualified courtesy of the rather lacking officials during this show.
In a surprising twist, Flamita took it upon himself to reform MexiSquad in hopes of himself and Bandido eliminating Brody King. King had to survive an onslaught of double teams. But their tempers would get the better of the with Bandido power bombing DF. Flamita fought back and actually had Bandido set up for that muscle buster codebreaker when King kicked Demonic into the VU member’s King’s All Seeing Eye Michinoku driver variation that put Flamita’s shoulders to the canvas for three seconds & the second elimination.
It was down to two and King wanted to bash the fast-moving champion. Any time King got a hold of Bandido it was to execute a wind-removing maneuver like the uranage or a sickening knife-edge chop. Bandido held his own and found his moments to stop Brody’s dominance by executing moves such as the dragonrana and the shooting star press. It seemed to be anyone’s match as neither stayed down for those precious three seconds and they still had ammunition in their repertoire including King’s Ganso Bomb.
Like he did at “Best in the World” in July, Bandido countered a big maneuver with the crucifix in the la magistral. King couldn’t kick out in time and Bandido successfully defended his title against three big challengers to cap off a very entertaining FCS match. But Bandido’s future isn’t easy as displayed when The Foundation arrived with Gresham focusing on the World Championship. Vincent & The Righteous also made their presence known as Vincent has a World title shot awaiting.
The Six-Man Tag title match started off controversially when Kenny King laid out Shane Taylor with a steel chair. O’Shay Edwards stepped up for his Shane Taylor Promotions’ ally via the Freebird Rule, allowing for LFI to take on a new trio that was game for war; and war it was as they went wild from bell to bell. Thanks to the bout being contested under Lucha Rules, wrestlers were able to pop in & pop out at any time including moments like Dragon Lee entering, only to run into a power bomb from Moses that forced the Television titleholder out of the ring and his father Bestia in to defend his son’s honor.
LFI’s better handling of the rules allowed them to isolate specific people while reentering & exiting quickly with Kaun being mostly picked apart. It seemed STP’s time as champions was winding down when Moses got caught by King’s blockbuster. Before King could take advantage of his situation, Shane Taylor entered the ring and paid him back for that chair shot; leaving Kenny prone to a pin fall courtesy of Moses. A sprint of a bout if there ever was one with STP proving they can get just as dirty as LFI.
A majority of the other matches were just as strong as what came after it including The OGK stopping The Briscoes’ recent winning streak in a strong tag team encounter. Dem Boys kept Mike Bennett & Matt Taven reeling for the match’s majority with the latter having flashes of greatness before being shut down. Then the somewhat unexpected happened when Taven countered the Jay Driller with a small package that resulted in the former two-time World champion getting pinned. The Briscoes didn’t care for the loss, barely following the Code of Honor.
The show’s other six-man tag was fast-paced as well with the debuting Lee Moriarty definitely showing why he was a such a hot prospect before being recently signed by AEW as he went from grappler to high impact anchor for his team. Unfortunately for the one-time trio taking on a highly-united VLNCE UNLTD, they were way in over their heads. Deppen knew when to strike to save his allies and Homicide & Dickinson capitalized as seen during the match’s closing moments when the former TV champion saved Dickinson from the Muta Lock, setting up “The Dirty Daddy’s” Death Valley driver on Moriarty for the pin. The Foundation expressed their need to maintain the purity of ROH’s youth even if it means going through VU.
The rest of the undercard was solid with Castle getting a big win over Eli Isom courtesy of his Bang-A-Rang off the distraction from Dak Draper. Taylor Rust overcame Jake Atlas that seemingly saw the latter getting concussed or knocked loopy during the match’s final moments; not being able to perform up to the same standard expected of him in a failing effort to bring his ROH record to 1-1. The Honor Rumble provided the typical battle royal action and a few surprises including the eventual winner as Alex Zayne returned to a very receptive crowd who were happy to see him overcome eventual runner-up PJ Black. This year’s battle royal also included Flip Gordon returning to his days of being The Elite outcast both mentally and from an aesthetic perspective playing off his taking a Jay Driller on a chair and potentially suffering from memory loss last month.
In the end, “Death Before Dishonor” was another highly entertaining event that proved to be easy viewing; arguably the company’s best show of 2021 thus far. It’ll be interesting to see how ROH handles all of its title divisions with two being headed by fresh faces, Bandido having challengers coming from every corner, and the tag team divisions really being a two-faction war with LFI and STP growing more fierce.
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