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 a year of dormancy due to the pandemic. But instead of one night, the men & women of ROH fought in Philadelphia for two consecutive evenings with the latter featuring a Steel Cage main event. Lets find out what went down in the “City of Brotherly Love”.
“Glory By Honor XVIII: Night 1” Results; August 20th, 2021; Philadelphia, PA
– Dark Match: Rok-C & Miranda Alize defeated Sumie Sakai & Chelsea Green
– Silas Young defeated Rey Horus
– Six-Man Mayhem: Demonic Flamita defeated Mike Bennett, PJ Black, Danhausen, Dak Draper, and Eli Isom
– Vita VonStarr & Max The Impaler defeated The Allure (Mandy Leon & Angelina Love)
– EC3 defeated Brian Johnson
– Mark Briscoe defeated Bateman
– ROH Pure Championship: Jonathan Gresham defeated Rhett Titus to retain
– VLNCE UNLTD (Brody King, Tony Deppen, Chris Dickinson & Homicide) defeated La Faccion Ingobernable (RUSH, Dragon Lee, Kenny King & Bestia del Ring)
– ROH World Championship Match: Bandido (c) defeated Flip Gordon
Hundreds of miles west where a former ROH World champion shook up the wrestling world, Ring of Honor returned to their original home city for another night of memorable action. Topping off the card was none other than the ROH World Championship match where Flip Gordon finally cashed in his ROH World title shot he earned last year to face a man he had defeated twice in singles competition between 2019 and 2020. Gordon did what he did in their second match by trying to punish Bandido instead of being like he was in 2019 where the challenger wanted to go high-flying move for high-flying move with someone who is a master of taking to the sky.
Instead, Bandido had to fight through onslaughts like suplexes on a floor, power bombs, and even having his patented maneuvers countered. But the champ wouldn’t be denied, even surviving the same moves that stopped the masked man over a year ago including the Flip-5. Just when it seemed Gordon was on the verge of winning it all, Bandido took the momentum of being kicked twice on the jaw by executing a destroyer to set up his 21-Plex for the pin fall & his first successful defense of the ROH World Championship. But Bandido’s night wasn’t over as his celebration was interrupted by none other than EC3. Brody King followed, only to start a fight with EC3 instead of the champ himself. Unfortunately for the champ, Bandido didn’t leave unscathed as Demonic Flamita attacked his former ally to close the show; setting the stage for their inevitable title clash maybe as soon as “Death Before Dishonor”
Flamita had a busy night, winning a very energetic Six-Man Mayhem bout where the winner would get a spot in the World Championship rankings. Though Flamita won, it was Danhausen, Isom and Draper who really shined with the latter two spending a lot of time fighting each other as Dalton Castle provided his insight on commentary. Fan favorite Danhausen showed why ROH’s six-way bouts are so unpredictable by landing big moves out of nowhere and even cursing the referee when he believed he won. Danhausen pretty much cleared the ring leading to the match’s conclusion, only to feel that Demonic Muscle Buster from Flamita that ended this one in the Flamita’s favor. The reason Danhausen was caught off guard: his opponent for “Glory By Honor: Night 2” Dalton Castle leaving his spot at the commentators’ table and distracting the very nice, very evil gentleman.
Even more chaotic than the six-way was the semi-main event. After a minute of uncontrollable fighting, the match was restarted as a Street Fight under the request of Brody King where both teams went wild in battering one another with weapons including chairs and Homicide’s patented fork. Tony Deppen found himself on the wrong end of being placed on a table for an intended Bestia senton splash. Brody King would save the former Television champion before power bombing Bestia through the table. Stunned & hurt, Bestia found himself on the receiving end of Brody’s lariat and the three count to give VU a big win. Though not in action tonight, Shane Taylor Promotions refused to be forgotten. STP attacked LFI as VU walked off in joy of seeing the violence unfolding. STP have proven to be the unsung force in this brewing faction war, focusing on Six-Man Tag division dominance; that apparently changes from here on out.
The rest of the show was quite solid with the Pure Championship match and Young-Horus being the biggest highlights beyond that aforementioned matches. The Pure title bout saw The Foundation stablemates attempt to out-grapple one another for the match’s majority with the tide moving into a more aggressive territory when both tumbled over the top during a suplex. Though both champion and challenger had rope breaks left, they were of no use as “The Octopus” and Titus wanted to surprise the other with a flash pin. Gresham’s flexibility & incredible ability to lock in a pinning combination out of nowhere saw Rhett get pinned after fifteen minute of Pure Rules action. The event’s official opening contest was a fine clash of styles where Young attempted to ground the high-flyer and Rey taking advantage of “The Last Real Man’s” big mouth as he continuously jaw-jacked with the crowd. Sadly for Horus, the masked man forgot the whom he was dealing with as Young has no qualms of being dishonorable; gouging Rey through his mask’s eye-holes as a distraction to set up Misery that inevitably ended the match with a Silas pin fall.
The most disappointing aspect of the card had to be the fact Jay Briscoe apparently broke the Covid-19 protocols and was removed from the card; leaving his brother to fend for himself against Bateman. While a good match that Briscoe won via the Froggy Bow, one must believe the original tag match would’ve been that much better and crazier. Not surprisingly, but definitely upsetting for the Philly crowd was hometown boy Brian Johnson losing to EC3 in a fine match via his Purpose submission. And then there was The Allure getting a taste of what’s to come with Max the Impaler joining Vita VonStarr to obliterate Mandy Leon as Angelina Love attempted to avoid the barbaric Wastelander before their Women’s Championship Tournament match.
Overall, ROH’s first night in Philadelphia with fans in attendance since “Final Battle 2019” proved to be a strong show with three highly entertaining bouts (the semi-main and main events, and the opener), a very enjoyable Six-Man Mayhem encounter, and not a bad or below average match on the card.
“Glory By Honor XVIII: Night 2” Results; August 21st, 2021; Philadelphia, PA
– Dark Match: Trish Adora defeated Sumie Sakai
– Dalton Castle defeated Danhausen
– Pure Rules Match: LSG defeated World Famous CB
– Rok-C & Miranda Alize defeated Chelsea Green & Willow
– ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship: Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor, Moses & Kaun) defeated Incoherence (Delirious, Frightmare & Hallowicked)
– Mark Briscoe & Brian Johnson defeated Flip Gordon & Demonic Flamita
– The Foundation (Jay Lethal, Jonathan Gresham, Rhett Titus & Tracy Williams) defeated VLNCE UNLTD (Brody King, Tony Deppen, Chris Dickinson & Homicide)
– La Faccion Ingobernable (Dragon Lee & RUSH) defeated MexiSquad (Bandido & Rey Horus)
– Steel Cage Match For Matt Taven’s Future ROH World Championship Opportunity: Vincent defeated Matt Taven
A lot of firsts and lasts made up this week of wrestling and for ROH “Glory By Honor” that was represented by “The Last Stand” of the feud between old friends & tag team partners Matt Taven and Vincent inside a Steel Cage. The fight commenced at ringside and went around the arena before Vincent was able to lock himself and his enemy in the cage. Though caged, Vincent wasn’t alone as the match progressed. Both suffered from some brutal attacks, but it wasn’t until The Righteous made their presence known did things get bloody.
Bateman brought out barbed wire that was both strung up in the corner of the cage to cut Taven’s face & arms, as well as turned into a steel crown of thorns for Vincent. Taven gave Vincent a taste of his own medicine by retrieving an ax to further cut his adversary’s bloody face. Vita VonStarr went to save her leader by handing him a bag of thumbtacks, only for Taven to intercept the instruments of destruction. The thumbtacks pierced the bodies of Taven (via a missed frog splash off the cage’s top), Vincent felt the Climax into the sharp steel, and even Vita got back dropped onto the tacks when she failed to cross body block Taven from the cage’s top.
But the tables that Vincent set up outside of the cage before they entered the structure proved to be Taven’s undoing. Dutch arrived with Taven spotting the big man trying to climb the cage, “The Trend” knocked Dutch down to put him through the tables. But Taven focusing on the big man allowed Vincent to recover and catch Taven with a super version of Orange Sunshine (the Acid Drop) to pin the former ROH World champion and earn his shot at the gold Matt previously held. Beyond some mechanical issues with the cage door breaking at the match’s start (thankfully being fixed soon after and Vincent’s chain holding it together), this was a hate-filled, bloody bout perfect for the stipulation. While the interference definitely took something away from the idea of a cage keeping things one-on-one, the interference didn’t take away from the bout’s barbarity that the fans in attendance loved.
Two other bouts the crowd was almost magma for occurred directly before the main event. The lucha-infused semi-main event was everything one would’ve expected considering the names involved and then some. The wild amount of moves performed, the counters pulled off, the impressive pin fall break-ups including Rey doing a stepping kick after running across Dragon Lee to stop the TV champ from pinning his partner were almost too much to keep up with. Though the action was frenetic and downright unbelievable at times, there was a bigger story in regards to RUSH as he seemingly suffered a knee injury during the bout’s latter half. Lee had to do a lot of heavy lifting for his team as RUSH showed the heart of a champion by fighting through the pain until Lee put Horus in position for Bull’s Horns so RUSH could pin Rey. Though enemies here, Lee and Bandido showed respect while big brother RUSH promised to end the ROH World champion.
The eight-man tag featuring The Foundation taking on VLNCE UNLTD was nothing like what happened in the lucha tag. The Foundation meticulously picked apart Tony Deppen’s legs after a hot start were everyone got a piece of the action including Homicide letting Jay Lethal remember why they hate each other so much. Showing why VU can’t be predicted in keeping things honorable, someone from the team retrieved a table after Deppen valiantly fought his way to a tag. Gresham, who was enjoying inflicting potential career-shortening damage to Deppen, ended up being put through the table by a Dickinson Death Valley driver. Though down a man, the impairment done to Deppen prevented him from taking advantage of their numbers when his fellow stablemates took everyone to floor except a prone Lethal who had just felt a doomsday ace crusher. Tony attempted to counter a back drop, landing on his bad leg that left him wide-open for Lethal Injection. VU was furious with the loss, laying waste to the Foundation before Dickinson called out any group of pure wrestlers like The Foundation to stop them from proving there is honor through violence. Just a fantastic pair of tag matches that need to be seen (and sign Tony Deppen).
In actuality, a majority of the event was tag matches for better and for worst. On the positive side was the women’s tag bout. The ladies never let up and had the crowd going throughout with Chelsea being the opportunist by getting blind tags and taking advantage of reversals, while Willow proved to be the bruiser for her unit. Unfortunately for Willow, her attempt to moonsault Rok ended with her hitting nothing but canvas before Rok-C finished her off with the Code Rok. Not to be outdone was the Six-Man Tag Team title bout where the ultra-popular Shane Taylor Promotions defended against the debuting & reuniting Incoherence who were accompanied by former CHIKARA star Ultramantis Black.
Though outweighed, the challengers used their lucha style to keep the champs running and off balance until they were able to perform big dives both in the ring & out. Incoherence did a wonderful job following through on the positive words of Ultramantis on commentary, almost winning the gold after Delirious used Shadows Over Hell off his partners’ execution of Headless Horseman on Taylor (a super doomsday bulldog into the ace crusher). Thankfully for Shane, Moses & Kaun were there to save their ally; giving Taylor the time to recover and finish off Frightmare with his Marcus Garvey Driver. As stated in the preview for this match, hopefully this isn’t the last of Incoherence as a unit or by themselves in ROH because they really showed out against the baddest champs in the land.
Brian Johnson returned to his hometown for another night of action when Mark Briscoe recruited him to replace Jay Briscoe against the less-than-cohesive Demonic Flamita and Flip Gordon. In a solid encounter, the show’s scariest moment occurred when Flamita, who did most of the work for his team, wanted to use a chair against Gordon’s orders. Demonic opted out of the match rather vulgarly, only for Flip to walk into a Jay Driller on the chair as the referee tried to convince Flamita to return. Gordon visibly spiked his head on the chair and was left shaking his left arm to potentially get some feeling in the numb limb. The fun undercard bout was definitely forgotten due to concern over Gordon’s health.
Not to be forgotten were the two opening bouts where Castle and Danhausen had a fun encounter full of curses, teeth, attempted Bird Boy theft, and Dak Draper actually helping Castle before “The Peacock” caught Danhausen with a match-ending Bang-a-Rang. Following Castle’s big win was LSG picking up a victory over World Famous CB in a strong Pure Rules match. CB focused on submissions that he hoped would force rope breaks aplenty. LSG wisely countered the submissions & high-impact maneuvers with pinning combinations while using his rope breaks cautiously. When “The Human Rocket” had no rope breaks left, LSG lured CB into a false sense of security; using a crucifix to surprise him after the Rocket Bye Baby. Shockingly, CB refused to follow the Code of Honor afterward.
It also must be noted several matches for “Death Before Dishonor” in the same arena in three weeks were announced including Bandido defending the ROH World title against Demonic Flamita, EC3, and Brody King in a Four Corner Survival, and STP going against LFI’s RUSH, Kenny King & Dragon Lee. In one of the more interesting announcements for ROH’s upcoming pay-per-view is a mystery match featuring two recent free agents; not to mention the crowning of the first ROH World Women’s champion happening at that show with the tournament’s finale. Top to bottom this was a strong show as one can get with a Match of the Year candidate in the semi-main event. As of now, this is ROH’s event of the year.
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