BRM Reviews ROH Glory By Honor 2021: Night 1

[Big Red Machine]

ROH Glory By Honor 2021: Night 1 (8/20/2021)- Philadelphia, PA


SILAS YOUNG PROMO- This was a good heel promo, but why on Earth would you send a heel out to insult the fans as the first thing you do on a live show? I get trying to get them to cheer Rey Horus to stick it to Silas, but I would hope that the fans would be primed to cheer on their own after such a long absence of live ROH. Maybe they reacted poorly to the dark match?

REY HORUS vs. SILAS YOUNG- 6.5/10
Ian theorized that a win here over #3-ranked Rey Horus would immediately put Silas Young in the top five of the TV Title contendership rankings, so we’ve got some stakes here (you need to be in the top three to be able to challenge for the title, and in addition to bringing Silas closer to- if not putting him in- that spot, a loss would certainly drop Rey Horus out of it).
Silas won a good action opener after turning Rey Horus’ mask sideways to blind him. They had very good babyface/heel dynamics throughout.

SIX-MAN MAYHEM IN WHICH THE WINNER IS GUARANTEED A TOP-FIVE SPOT IN THE ROH WORLD TITLE CONTENDERSHIP RANKINGS: Mike Bennett vs. P.J. Black vs. Demonic Flamita vs. Dak Draper vs. Eli Isom vs. Danhausen-6.75/10
Dalton Castle and the Boys came through the crowd after everyone had made their entrance and got in the ring to cheer for Draper. Eli Isom told them to leave. Dorkhausen was also cheering for Draper. I wish someone would tell Dorkhausen to leave. Dalton went to the commentary booth. The Boys all followed behind him in a line, and are also now being called “chicks” to play in with the Dalton’s bird theme. Ian proceeded to ask Dalton about goofy sh*t he has been doing around the area like going to a shrimp-eating festival and ringing the “decoy Liberty Bell.” How about instead of this dumb crap, you call the action in the ring?
Lots of the usual action here, although I liked that they didn’t go all out with the dives and instead focused on individual match-ups. It made the big Tower of Doom spot feel a lot bigger than it would have if we’d already seen people go flying into each other a bunch of times. They had some good focus on the Isom vs. Draper match-up, which has turned into a rivalry in whatever this story is with Dalton Castle. Danhausen was shockingly inoffensive during this match, with only one spot that I thought was really stupid (the spot where he thought he won just because he rolled into the ring when everyone else was down, then tried to put a “curse” on Todd Sinclair. Also, you’d think that trying to put a curse on a referee would constitute harming a referee and result in disciplinary action by ROH). Flamita got the win, pinning Out-hausen. He makes sense as an upcoming challenger for Bandido, so this was a good step to get him there.

THE ALLURE vs. VITA VONSTARR & MAX THE IMPALER (w/Amy Rose)- 5.75/10
Chelsea Green joined Ian and Caprice on commentary for this match. This was basic tag team stuff with the basic psychology (although it was harder to get invested than usual because the person playing the “babyface” in peril was actually a heel). Vita eventually tagged in Max, who ran wild on Mandy. Angelina came at them from behind so they decided to chase her away. Thankfully they left the ring right by Vita so Vita could tag in and get the pin on Mandy instead of her team losing by count-out because her partner decided to chase after the non-legal opponent.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- hated it
Max came back. Meanwhile, Vita choked the already-defeated Mandy out with a chain. Amy Rose then had Max put Mandy through a table. Mandy is a jerk, so I don’t feel too bad for her, but it also felt completely unnecessary. This felt like something that happened because the booker wanted to have a table bump rather than something that happened for any natural reason. The announcers said that Max had some reason to want revenge on the Allure, but if that’s the case, then why not have them get it by pinning Mandy here and then eliminating Angelina from the women’s title tournament when they meet in the next round? Why is Vita involved and why do it in a way that feels like overkill?

EC III vs. BRIAN JOHNSON- 6.5/10
The crowd is completely behind Johnson because apparently he’s from Philly. So what? My neighbor and I are from the same down, but if the dude is a jerk, I’m not going to like him.
EC III won via submission, working over Johnson’s hand. Johnson wrestled as the babyface here. He was still his loud and obnoxious self, but he didn’t do anything that would make it awkward if the fans kept cheering him (compare to Britt Baker in AEW, who is a heel, then cut a complete and total babyface promo in her home town before wrestling the match like a total heel)… until the end when he used a low blow. WHY do people do this?! And especially in Ring of Honor! You can just not cheat for one night! And even worse, after Ethan kicked out of the roll-up that followed the low blow, he jumped right back up and took control again. Just cut that stupid low blow out and this would have been much better!
To be fair, Ethan’s gimmick being what it is, it is possible that they assumed the fans would even cheer if Johnson cheated and wanted that to happen so Ethan could come to some sort of conclusion about honor not being real (at least among the fans), and if that turns out to be the direction that this goes, I will withdraw my criticism. Until then, however, the criticism stands.

MARK BRISCOE vs. BATEMAN (w/Dutch)- 5.5/10
This was supposed to be a tag match with the Righteous facing the Briscoes but “due to COVID protocols” it became a singles match, which I assume means that Jay has to quarantine due to a possible COVID exposure. Mark won clean but got jumped afterwards. Mike Bennett chased the heels off with a chair.

ROH PURE TITLE MATCH: Jonathan Gresham(c) vs. Rhett Titus- 6.5/10
Josh Woods was on commentary for this match because he faces the winner at Death Before Dishonor 2021. Tracy Williams and Jay Lethal were at ringside supporting both men. Gresham won a disappointing match cleanly with a roll-up. This was a perfectly fine professional wrestling match, but that’s all it was, and that’s not okay for a title match, and especially not in ROH.

POST-MATCH STUFF- good
There was a stare-down between Gresham and Woods as Gresham went to the back, but the real news here was Gresham telling the camera that his belt was the “real ROH World Title.”

STREET FIGHT: La Faccion Ingobernable vs. VLNCE UNLTD- 7.75/10
This started out as a regular match but was thrown out and restarted two minutes in because no one wanted to follow the rules. This would be fine, except that for some reason they decided to have the person who suggested restarting it as a no DQs match be Rush instead of giving the obvious big pop line to one of the babyfaces. Stuff like this and the way the title change was handled has me worried that either Rush is strong-arming Delirious to benefit himself, or Delirious is even worse at certain things than I thought. Yes, Brody got the pop-line after that, but why give the heel a line like that at all when you could just give it to the babyface?
Ian read a Tweet from someone named “Technico Lucha Fan” claiming to love LFI. Oh yeah? Then get a new f*cking Twitter handle.
Okay… can we stop it with the f*cking Doug references during weapons matches? Please?
This was a standard weapons match, but nothing particularly cray or spectacular. They did a good job of making Brody King in particular look strong.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Shane Taylor, who had been on commentary for this match, decided to go after Kenny King, who had cost him the ROH World Title… six months ago. Better late than never, I guess. LFI intercepted him in the aisle, but the rest of Shane Taylor promotions came out to make the save.
Security came out and did a shockingly efficient job of separating them. Taylor then saw Homicide in the ring holding a ladder in a way where he could quickly throw it onto STP if he felt the need, so he started jawing with him. Shane Taylor vs. Brody King seems like a PPV match worth building to.

ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH: Bandido(c) vs. Flip Gordon- 8/10
EC III was on commentary and said a bunch of useless, empty bullsh*t. He’s apparently a heel now, having turned because… um…
Flip and Bandido had a great athletic match, with Bandido exercising some demons, by kicking out of everything Flip had used to beat him in the past, coming back, and the getting the win. A fine first title defense for Bandido.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- decent
EC III came down to the ring to have a stare-down with Bandido. Brody King came out and insisted that he should be the next challenger. Ethan shoved him, starting a brawl. While they were brawling, Demonic Flamita came out and attacked Bandido from behind. Brody King (having been separated from EC III by security) pulled Bandido to safety.


This was a decent show from ROH. The wrestling certainly could have (and, because this is ROH, really should have) been better, but nothing was bad, either. I have some other thoughts about card construction, but I’m going to save them until after tomorrow night’s show, because part of it relates to the construction of the weekend as a whole.