12 amazing matches, a historic main event, and only one new champion was crowned! Going into this show last week, a lot of people were not looking forward to Death Before Dishonor 2023. However, in typical ROH fashion, they always deliver. The cherry on top of this whole thing is that I was there live! So, here we go!
Zero Hour:
Pure Rules Match: Josh Woods vs Tracy Williams: This would not have been the way I would have started zero hour, but ROH continues to exceed my expectations. This match was good, like this last week on ROH TV Woods seems to be a viable contender for the Pure Championship. Maybe he will be the one to defeat Shibata once and for all.
Winner: Josh Woods
Action Andretti & Darius Marin vs The WorkHorsemen (JD Drake & Anthony Henry): Andretti & Martin are a fantastic team. Now that we have new tag team champions I would not be surprised if these two are first in line for a tag team title shot. Poor WorkHorsemen can never get the rub…
Winners: Action Andretti & Darius Marin
Leyla Hirsch vs Trish Adora: This match ruled. Adora and Hirsch are two women trying to get a rub in the ROH Women’s Division. Both have a bright future within ROH, but at the moment Hirsch is the one they are trying to build up since returning a couple of weeks ago. After the match, Hirsch continued to beat down Adora when Skye Blue comes and makes the save! Sign me up for Hirsch vs Blue.
Winner: Leyla Hirsch
AR Fox vs Shane Taylor: AR Fox with the big International Championship match on Dynamite this week! This match was fine, but I felt that the crowd was red hot for the women’s match and the tag match and that should have closed out Zero Hour. Fox wins as he builds momentum for this week’s show in Albany.
Winner: AR Fox
Main Show:
Gravity vs Komander: Well, this was one way to kick off the show. There were a lot of people at the beginning of the match that did not know who Gravity was, but by the end were not only impressed but wanted to see more. I was shocked he got the win over Komander because Gravity is not signed to ROH/AEW while Komander is. Fun match to start, but one shocking winner.
Winner: Gravity
ROH TV Championship: Samoa Joe vs Dalton Castle: Looks like Stokley Hathaway has found a new client! This match was fine and did not have any outside interference until Hathaway got involved. He was on commentary and made the referee throw The Boys out. Hathaway was able to distract the ref which helped Joe get the advantage and retain his title. The two celebrated after the match was over. Never knew I needed this partnership, but here we are!
Winner: “And Still” Samoa Joe
ROH Tag Team Championships: Lucha Brothers (Rey Fenix & Penta El Zero Miedo) vs The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs The Best Friends (Chuck Taylor & Trent Baretta) vs Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis): Team Bill won because of this match and that made me sad. Regardless, this match was awesome. Aussie Open looked great as this was their first match back since Davis returned from injury. The Kingdom has been on such a role in ROH as of late you knew they were going to deliver. The Best Friends and Lucha Bros can never do any wrong and that showed in this match. This was also my match of the night even though my team sadly lost. Congrats to the new champions, and Team Bill…
Winners: “And New” Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis)
Six Man Tag Team Championships: Mogol Embassy (Brian Cage, Kaun, & Toa Liona) vs Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Leon Ruffin: This match was way too long. Like most of the Mongol Embassy matches I figured this would be short and to the point and that was not the case. As everyone figured, the six-man champs retained.
Winners: “And Still” Mogol Embassy (Brian Cage, Kaun, & Toa Liona)
ROH Pure Championship Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs Daniel Garcia: Poor Daniel Garcia. This match was great as Garcia brought the sports entertainment factor to this match. However, he lost. This confuses me since Shibata is rarely on ROH TV so I had assumed we were crowning a new champ. Oh well.
Winner: Katsuyori Shibata
Fight Without Honor: Dark Order (Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds, & John Silver) vs The Righteous (Dutch, Vincent, & Stu Grayson): This was better than I thought it would be. We had legos, tables, thumbtacks, ladders, tables, blood, and more! This was the end of the blood feud and what a way to end it. Uno even had his mask ripped off which shocked me. The Dark Order get the most deserving win as they send The Righteous away… for now.
Winners: Dark Order (Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds, & John Silver)
ROH World Heavyweight Championship: Claudio Castagnoli vs Pac:
When they showed this graphic in the arena I was so excited that we were going to get a women’s main event! To me, this was not the most exciting championship match in the world, and Yuta even helped Castagnoli retain the title. After the match, Lucha Bros came out to even the odds against the BCC, when all of a sudden Best Friends and Orange Cassidy came out to send the BCC packing. Orange Cassidy vs Pac in the near future?
Winner: “And Still” Claudio Castagnoli
ROH Women’s Championship: Athena vs Willow Nightingale: For those who are new here, I was involved with the revamping of the ROH Women’s Divison in 2021. Maria explained the whole vision to me and hoped that one day a women’s main event would happen on pay-per-view in ROH. This past weekend that happened. Personally, I could not think of two better people to make that history than Athena and Willow Nightingale. Between the callbacks to the previous Women of Honor, the entire New Jersey crowd chanted for Willow to win, and even the chants for women’s wrestling! I am a proud minion, Athena retains!
Winner: “And Still” Athena
Overall: I really enjoyed this show. Being there live and being able to go on the media scrum was also such a surreal experience for me. From having nothing last week for this show to 12 amazing matches, ROH definitely delivered.
ROH Death Before Dishonor 2023 is streaming now on Bleacher Report and Watchroh.com
