Written by Kimmy Sokol
Ring of Honor may be on hiatus until April’s Supercard of Honor show, but they are continuing to produce content on a weekly basis. This week, ROH aired their one hour behind-the-scenes documentary about their vaunted women’s tournament which took place over the summer. The documentary, which aired on ROH television and is currently on their website, is a treat for fans of the promotion.
The documentary begins with Maria Kanellis-Bennett a member of the ROH Board of Directors and the women whose idea was to restart the women’s division in ROH. Kanellis-Bennett speaks about her roles in the wrestling world and why this role in ROH means the most to her. When she returned to ROH after the pandemic she asked the company where the women’s division was and thankfully they had the same question.
The most heartwarming part of the documentary comes when the members of the tournament discuss what this it meant to them. Whether it was proving that they are good enough, or getting kicked out of their home right before the life changing call, or gaining a new sense of confidence — it’s apparent this tournament has truly changed lives. We also can see the behind the scenes footage of Chelsea Green’s debut with the company and how nervous she was. We see Maria tell Chelsea she owned the moment and how everyone claims that Chelsea does not know what she’s doing, but in reality she does (it was a proud mentor moment).
We then go behind the scenes of the matches and we see the nerves of the wrestlers and the excitement that went into the matches. We see the reactions to those who advanced and Maria cheering everyone on as she produces the tournament. Although the tournament was stacked Maria put it best “Putting your work into something and watching it succeed and watching it work I’m just extremely proud, but we have to have a final two”.
The documentary ends with going behind-the-scenes of Death Before Dishonor and showing the families of both Miranda Alize and Rok-C and how they are proud to watch them in the finals of the tournament. The final shots we see are of Rok-C celebrating her win as she says, “All I’ve ever wanted to do was make 10-year-old little me proud and I know that winning the Ring of Honor women’s world championship would definitely make little me proud”.
The documentary was incredible with the only negative being that we did not see a lot of Bobby Cruise who also had a lot to do with the tournament. The whole documentary proved that if you dream of something, you can make it happen. This was Maria’s vision for a long time and her dreams as well as everyone else’s who was involved came true as well. Although we do not know what is next for ROH after April 1st, we hope that the women’s division is represented proudly. The current champion is Deonna Purrazo who beat Rok-C on the January 13th episode of Impact Wrestling.
