A Wrestling Pay-Per-view by Terminus, presented by Fite.TV

For me, one of the more exciting projects to come out of the ROH hiatus is Terminus, a new promotion headed up by AEW’s Baron Black and current ROH interim (classic belt) Champion Jonathan Gresham. Going into this, I wholly assumed that the company would be build on the rules found in the ROH “Pure Championship”, with a bigger focus on matches that are more “sports-like”. I don’t necessarily mean worked MMA matches, because those are usually bad, but a wrestling style that has been tearing up the US Indy scene for a while. This “back to basics” approach will excite modern wrestling fans, and older fans alike.

With this emphasis on strict rules, it will be interesting to see some different finishes we may not be used to. Hopefully they have situations where matches go into OT, people get disqualified, or manage to have a well-placed purposeful technical foul to get heat. I’m excited to see what happens, and hope they book this to their advantage.

For anyone wanting to watch this, I would recommend Fite.TV. you can get some FITE credits (10 dollars I believe) with the following code: “6m6lyyn”. I’m sure there are other ways to watch it, but FITE has a solid interface and has been worth it so far.

The Card:

• Lee Moriarty def. Josh Woods
• Terminal Eliminator 4-Way: Daniel Garcia def. JDX, Adam Priest, and Invictus Khash
• Mike Bennett def. Moose via disqualification
• Diamante def. Janai Kai
• IMPACT Digital Media Championship: Jordynne Grace def. Kiera Hogan
• ROH World Championship: Bandido def. Baron Black
• Joe Keys & Dante Caballero def. Tracy Williams & Fred Yehi
• ROH World Championship (Original): Jonathan Gresham and Josh Alexander resulted in a draw via double-pin

My Thoughts:

As I’ve stated before, my methodology for this is to avoid giving arbitrary star ratings or anything resembling the typical ratings people give in wrestling reviews. I stopped awarding “grades” to things long ago, after my gig at a videogame site slid into them manipulating scores. I usually go through the show and pull a half-dozen or so 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!

Pre-Show Sound Issues:

Oooof, this was tough – technical issues are bound to happen, but I’m amazed nobody stepped in to stop Suge D from using his microphone – It was hard watching the pre-show due to sound cutting in and out for around minutes. Luckily this only killed the preshow, but considering I have not seen some of the talent on this roster, I was sad to miss their promos. I did find that watching on my laptop with headphones actually led me to hear the quiet parts, just at the risk of blowing my eardrums out when it went back to “normal”. It was also interesting to see that the show got delayed for a while, I guess there was terrible weather that caused some talent swaps on the card, so I wonder if that was the reason?

First Match:

No matter how it is, the first match for any promotion is always memorable. Luckily we got something great with a match between ROH Pure Champion, Josh Woods, and Lee Moriarty. Not a particularly long match, this match was a good introduction to the style, with commentary using most of the time going over the new rules.

Janai Kai is Interesting:

In a night of firsts, this was the first time I have ever seen Janai Kai in a fairly competitive match. She did pop up briefly in an episode of AEW Rampage, but it was an enhancement “squash match” for the most part. Using her background in some sort of kickboxing, she definitely earned her name “The Kick Demon” in this match. She is now on my radar, and it will be interesting to see where she pops up next!

Always a Highlight:

I usually gush on these reviews about how much I enjoy seeing Jonathan Gresham, jokes on you guys I will purposely not focus on him this time! Instead I will be pointing out how awesome his girlfriend Jordynne Grace is! When she initially signed with Impact Wrestling rather than AEW after her awesome appearance at All In, which was basically a proto-AEW show, I was disappointed. AEW needed women, and she was so good. That said, she has been amazing over at Impact, winning belts left and right and even taking on dudes twice her size. She and Keira Hogan put on a hell of a match here, even though I’m still not too sure what exactly the Impact Wrestling Digital Media Championship signifies (TV title analog I’d imagine?).

Tony Khan: Baron Black is Way Too Good to Be 0 and 1 Million in AEW:

AEW made a big storyline, in 2020, out of the fact that both Peter Avalon and Brandon Cutler feuded after realizing they were both at somewhere around 0 and 16, Cutler won and went on to get a big winning streak before an injury and becoming a “young boy” for The Elite. This entire time, Baron Black has been on AEW Dark and AEW Dark Elevation eating losses left and right. He’s got to be well over 50 in the red. His match with Bandido here shows he can go the extra mile and be higher on the card, here’s hoping this show being a success jumpstarts that a bit! I’d love to see him start a bit of a streak, somewhat like “Captain” Shawn Dean. The 2020 “extras” should be the “new blood” starting to get mini-pushes now, make it happen!

The Walking Weapon Does it Again:

Match of The Night!

I feel like Josh Alexander is one of THE guys to watch in 2022. With his Impact Wrestling contract set to expire in about a month, and his former World Champion status with a win over Christian Cage on his resume, I can imagine most companies will be tripping over themselves to talk to him. Once again, he pulls of a spectacular match here against Jonathan Gresham, who is without a doubt one of the best technical wrestlers working today. I didn’t expect him to win the Interim ROH Championship, but the match was solid and I can’t wait to see the sequel. With a double pin making that future match inevitable, I’m ready!

But…….not until AEW’s Santana has his say!

Conclusion:

While no HUGE, expensively produced show, Terminus – All Roads Lead Here shows a lot of promise for it’s smaller size. It reminds me a lot of GCW, in the way that it already seems to have a core group of passionate fans that will hopefully get more and more shows produced. With partnerships from major promotions, and cross-promotion from the upcoming return of ROH, I assume Terminus 2 will be even better. The only downsides for the entire show were a couple of minor hiccups on the technical side and the fact that bad weather caused the show to not be as packed as it should have been. Georgia isn’t known to handle things like snowstorms very well, so I’m sure Atlanta was ground to a halt.

Match quality here was great, and the rules are interesting, if not somewhat refreshing. Some will not like the “THIS IS A SPORT” production style, but for others that tire of variety shows and other nonsense dominating wrestling shows, it’s a much wanted alternative. In the last year, so many great things have happened in the world of professional wrestling, even when things looked bleak. When ROH announced layoffs, many feared the worst, but between this and other projects like Free The Narrative, I hope we are on the cusp of another “Golden Age”.