A Pay-Per-View event by Ring of Honor Wrestling
Ring of Honor Wrestling: Honor for All 2021, Is not a normal pay-per-view event, but an Honor Club special event for those that pay a subscription fee on Fiite.tv, and as such is a shorter event with less Money flowing into it- somewhat like a longer TV episode. Due to this fact, there is no crowd at ringside, And a much shorter card than usual main shows. With the company possibly on death’s door, and this being the penultimate event in their 20 year history, I wanted to go ahead and watch this anyway just to see how the storylines progress leading into Final Battle 2021, the so called “end of an era”. for those not in the know, Ring of Honor management has recently decided to layoff its entire staff and go on a long hiatus with uncertainty on whether or not they’re going to return in four month’s time. Here’s hoping for the best, but we have to be prepared for the worst. That said, this show appears to have a few solid matches booked and ought to be a fun way to spend some of my time holed up in bed with a stomach virus.
The Card:
- 1 Taylor Rust defeated Tracy Williams Pure Rules match 11:47
- 2 Holidead defeated Quinn McKay, Trish Adora and Vita VonStarr Four Corner Survival match
- Winner earns a future ROH Women’s World Championship match 13:52
- 3 The Briscoe Brothers (Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe) (c) defeated The Second Gear Crew (AJ Gray and Effy) Tag team match for the GCW World Tag Team Championship 8:33
- 4 Jonathan Gresham defeated Brody King Singles match to determine the #1 contender for the ROH World Championship 10:51
- 5 The OGK (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) defeated La Facción Ingobernable (Dragon Lee and Kenny King) (c) Tag team match for the ROH World Tag Team Championship 11:59
- 6 Bandido defeated Demonic Flamita No Disqualification match 13:33
My Thoughts:
As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything. I usually go through the show and pull a few things that I thought were significant or that I liked. You might think some of my choices are dumb and that’s okay – we all like different things!
Taylor Rust is Impressive
I had largely already given up on watching WWE NXT when Taylor Rust joined their roster last year, I have no doubt he had some solid matches but I doubt he was able to shine like he has these past few months on Ring of Honor. With WWE basically firing anyone that wasn’t named McMahon recently, I was pretty excited to see what he could do when given a chance, but sadly his time is now short. Hopefully some company will bring him in and give him the showcase that he deserves.
First taste of GCW
I will be honest here, I wrote GCW off as nothing more than a deathmatch company similar to the reason I don’t watch CZW Wrestling. It seemed that the only thing I ever saw about them was light tube matches with Nick Gage defending the title, which is a match type that I’m honestly not a huge fan of. Through the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast, however, I have been keeping up with a lot of their goings on, and may have to check a show out at some point. I know Matt Cardona had a feud with Effy for a while, so this was my first introduction to him and the GCW “style”.
Not to get all political, but……..to me, it’s actually interesting to have The Briscoes wrestle against Effy, considering the very reason why I actually don’t like The Briscoe Brothers is their outspoken stance on LGBT issues being similar to somebody’s racist uncle ranting at Thanksgiving dinner. To foil that, Effy is openly gay and a huge proponent of the recent acceptance of LGBT wrestlers. I guess I’ll commend the Briscoes for not cutting hate-filled promos in the lead up for the match, but I’m still not a fan until they actually do something to truly atone for Jay Briscoe’s hateful diatribes on social media.
Gresham is always great!
Every ROH show I watch, the bigger fan I become of Jonathan Gresham. His match here with Brody King was more of a “Hoss Match” that I’m used to seeing from him, but a great match nonetheless. Brody King is also one of those guys I can’t wait to see where he goes next month. With Malakai Black seemingly needing new members for ‘The House of Black” in AEW, you have my vote!
Conclusion:
This was by no means my favorite Ring of Honor show or anything, as it’s really short and doesn’t really do a lot of stuff for the ongoing storylines. It does, however, have great wrestling, as the company generally does, and lead me to some new people that I’m not used to seeing. I still think that the impending end of Ring of Honor looming over every event leading up to December 10th is somewhat depressing and casts a large shadow over everything that they do, But at least they’re doing their best and not just doing recap shows or something to save money. With this being behind a paywall, I’m not really sure if I could recommend spending extra money to see it, but perhaps looking up highlights on YouTube would be in order. Onward and upwards to the next show, and hopefully not their last.
Arcadia Pod 