Mike’s Quick Thoughts on ROH Death Before Dishonour 2023

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I thought I’d give some quick thoughts on the ROH Death Before Dishonour (Sorry I’m British so I spell it with a “u”) pay per view from last night, seeing as I eventually purchased it after umming and ahhing a bit over it. Spoilers included of course!

I almost didn’t buy the show because I wasn’t sure about whether the card was worth splurging on. It looked perfectly cromulent as Scott would say, but there wasn’t that big eye catching bout that made me think I HAD to see it. However, ultimately I decided to give it a watch just because I was interested in the two World Title matches and it beats watching Rampage on a Saturday morning.

Opener
Gravity Vs Komander w/ Alex Abrahantes

I was making my breakfast whilst this was on so I wasn’t paying enough attention to give it a rating. What I saw I was entertained by, and I did like the finish where Komander was too focused on doing cool stuff and it allowed Gravity to snap off a roll-up for three. I also smiled at them booking Gravity Vs PAC for Wednesday. Hopefully Gravity remembers that he’s booked to wrestle someone!

Match Two
ROH World TV Champ Samoa Joe Vs Dalton Castle w/ The Boys

This was decent, with Castle hanging better against Joe than you’d think thanks to The Boys and their “clean cheating”, such as putting Castle back in the ring before Joe could dive out onto him etc. Joe eventually bullied Heel authority figure (I’m so SICK of that gimmick) Stokely Hathaway (who was sitting on commentary) into bouncing The Boys from ringside and that set up a low blow on Castle whilst the ref was distracted for the finish. **1/2

Match Three
ROH World Tag Champs The Lucha Bros Vs The Kingdom Vs The Best Friends Vs Aussie Open

This was a fantastic match. I was initially rather critical of the booking of this because it felt like a multi-person match for the sake of having one, but I haven’t been watching the TV so if they built this up for a while in order for it to make sense then please accept my apologies. Once the match started it was excellent though, with exciting action and some good storytelling.

I have to give credit to Ian and Caprice on commentary for doing an exemplary job of keeping up with everything, and also explaining why someone would occasionally have to tag out to someone who wasn’t their partner, such as when Trent? had to do so due to being so beat down that it was either that or risk losing the match. I appreciate that sort of stuff and its good announcing. The sequence where everyone hit a version of a piledriver was slickly done and the crowd were INTO the near falls.

I know some were disappointed that they’ve put Aussie Open in ROH instead of AEW, but they’re a great team and I’m sure they’ll use this time in ROH as a Launchpad to bigger and better things. Best Friends had it won but The Lucha Bros pulled out the referee, leading to Aussie Open then going on to win. This is a “must-see” bout. ****

Match Four
ROH Six Man Tag Champs The Mogul Embassy (Bishop Kaun, Brian Cage and Toa Liona) w/ Prince Nana Vs Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi and Leon Ruffin

Master Wato was the highlight for me in this one, as he continues to improve at a pretty impressive rate compared to how he was in 2020. Wato really does feel like a future star now, when in the past he felt like a young guy out of his depth with a gimmick he didn’t know how to do. Taguchi was Taguchi, with his comedy antics mixed in with solid wrestling when he could be bothered, and Ruffin was a perfect babyface in peril (I mean, just LOOK at him). Embassy were kind of just “there” for me in this one, including Cage, who is becoming a “just a guy” to me these days, despite his impressive size and athleticism. Things got a little bit sloppy towards the end, but they offset that somewhat with some tightly executed near falls and I had fun with it when all was said and done. The Embassy eventually killed Ruffin three on one and that was the finish. **3/4

Match Five
ROH Pure Champion Katsuyori Shibata Vs Daniel Garcia

I think it would help if they did a bit more to make the Pure Rules feel a bit different from regular rules. Maybe make it like Catch Wrestling rules or Mountevans Rules where you have rounds and every match is Two out of Three Falls? At the moment Pure Rules mostly just have the rope break gimmick and the no punching, which I don’t think does enough to distinguish it from other matches, whereas if they went full on World of Sport with it then it would give it a real Old School feel that would stand out against all the other stuff you see in ROH. As for the match, I might be performing some form of blasphemy here, but Garcia doesn’t really do anything for me.

He’s a good wrestler, and his facials are certainly good as well, but I don’t know, I’m just not seeing it with him. Shibata got the better of things in the early going until Garcia bailed to the floor and cut off Shibata before working the arm. Garcia just HAD to wacky dance though (You’re no Alex Wright buddy) and that led to a slap battle, which Shibata of course won and that led us into the comeback. Once they got into the trading submission stuff I had fun with it and the second half of the match was enjoyable. I will give it to Garcia, he popped me by pulling out a Courting Hold at one stage. It’s incredible that Shibata can work at this level considering they had to take his brain out of his skull at one stage (love you Dave). Shibata eventually got the PK for the win after an exciting finishing stretch. ***

Match Six
Fight Without Honour
Stu Grayson, Dutch and Vincent Vs Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds and John Silver

The Super Smash Bros EXPLODE!!!

This one was strange as it was essentially six Heels going at it, unless Dark Order are Faces in ROH but then Heel in AEW? This was the hardcore part of the show, which works a lot better in cases like this where you only have one match of this kind on the show. At the end of the day I think wrestling works best when you present a Three Ring Circus, as variety is the spice of life. You might not like the hardcore wrestling, but that’s why the show also has technical wrestling, character based wrestling and high-flying wrestling as well. Ideally they’ll be something for everyone, and if watching guys use weapons and bleeding isn’t your thing, you will hopefully have something either before or after it that you might like. I much prefer this way of doing things than filling an entire show with one kind of match type.

This had all the stuff you’d expect from this kind of match. Tables, thumbtacks, weapons wrapped in barbed wire, bleeding, you name it. Almost everyone started bleeding in this one, including Uno as he had his mask torn up in classic Lucha fashion so that we could see the blood on his face. It’s been quite the transformation from the 00’s when Stu Grayson used to be a scrawny high-flyer called Stupefied, compared to the muscular beaded man he is today. Lego’s eventually got introduced, and we had an I AM THE TABLE™ moment when one of the Heels failed to splash Silver through a table at ringside. Though the Lego spot was cute, I felt it was a bit out of place here in this blood filled grudge match. There had been precious little comedy like that up to that point. The crowd got a kick out of it though I suppose.

Whether or not you’ll enjoy this one depends on how you feel about hardcore wrestling. As far as matches in this particular genre go, I think they delivered on the remit and it was certainly both violent and exciting in equal measure. Again, I wouldn’t want an entire show full of matches like this, but as a special attraction I think there’s a place for it, especially as there was a storyline reason for having it here due to the Grayson betraying The Dark Order and revenge being required in order to settle the issue. There was even an “EC-DUB” chant at one stage when Grayson took a tumble off a ladder through some tables, leading to The Dark Order slamming Grayson into the tacks and Lego’s back inside the ring for three. ***2/3

Double Main Event Part One
ROH World Champ Claudio Castagnoli Vs PAC

You know what OSW Review say, if you have two Main Events then you have NO Main Event! In all seriousness, I like them putting the two singles Titles on an even level like this, as both Claudio and Athena are awesome and they have earned the right to be on equal footing with one another. Claudio kind of established himself as the babyface for the night early on by doing Giant Swings and actually playing to the crowd, whilst PAC tried to deny the fans their satisfaction by running away from or countering Claudio’s crowd pleasing offence. I think it would be scientifically impossible for two wrestlers this good to have a bad match unless absolutely everything went wrong, and that wasn’t the case here, as they worked well together and both wrestled and looked the part here in this World Title bout.

PAC eventually managed to cut Claudio off and work some heat, with them doing a really good job of making it look believable that the smaller PAC could beat up a comparative giant like Claudio. I think it helps that PAC is next level hench of course. One spot I didn’t really care for was that PAC set up a table earlier in the match but ended up getting thrown through it. I liked the whole “Heel hoist by their own petard” aspect to it, but I just didn’t think a straight wrestling match like this really needed a table spot, especially as we’d JUST had a big hardcore match. PAC was also back up and fighting pretty quickly after it too. If it was going to be the penultimate move in the match with them taking it some STRAIGHT after then I would have had less of an issue with it, but they did a reasonably long section of near falls following it.

The near falls themselves were well done, with Claudio getting more belligerent as it went on due to PAC winding him up earlier in the bout. Claudio Castagnoli being big, mean and imposing always works, so this section of the match was great. PAC’s selling was really on point now that he needed to be on the defensive, and the crowd got into the action. Overall this was a great match, with only really the table spot taking it down for me. To me something like that is a shortcut that lesser workers would need to use. Claudio and PAC are top level wrestlers and they don’t need to do stuff like that in their matches, especially on a show where we’ve already had our quota of table bumps in a previous match. Aside from that though, this was as good as you’d expect from two so highly talented grapple merchants. Wheeler Yuta ended up preventing PAC from undoing a turnbuckle pad and that led to a Riccola Bomb for three. ***3/4

Post-Match we had Death Triangle beating up The BCC, which led to The Best Friends of all people running down to rescue them, which is certainly an intriguing direction to go in. Orange Cassidy showed up following that and tried to take out Yuta, but he ended up clocking Claudio instead by mistake. I’m confused as to who the babyfaces are supposed to be in all of this, but I’m certainly interested in seeing where they go with it. Maybe PAC is the one to finally take the International Title from Orange?

Double Main Event Part Two
ROH World Women’s Champ Athena Vs Owen Hart Tournament Winner Willow Nightingale

Going in to this one I had no idea who was winning and, I could make genuine arguments for either of the wrestlers to leave as Champion, which is what you want from a big Main Event Title match so kudos to ROH for putting this one together. There was a funny moment early on where Athena gave Willow a back suplex onto the apron for the cut off, and the director cut to a shot of Willow’s parents in order for a dramatic visual, only for her mum to be laughing. I’m sure she’s a lovely lady but I think we need to show her some Helen Hart tapes so she can learn how to play the “worried mother watching her child get battered” role a bit better. Willow did do an excellent job selling in the heat, as it’s one of the better aspects of her game.

Every time I watch Athena I’m kind of amazed that WWE had her under contract and couldn’t do more with her. I had to laugh as well as there was a moment where Willow was up against the ring steps about to be killed, and her dad had his phone out recording it with nary a look of concern on his face! Honestly Willow’s parents have been the star of this match for me, sign them to multi-year contracts and book Willow in increasingly dangerous and violent matches whilst they sit ringside and have the time of their lives! I’m just kidding of course, and wish them well. The match built nicely, with the big moves coming more and more as things wore on. The crowd stayed with it as well, “oohing” in unison when Athena got a wacky Pedigree styled moved off the second rope at one stage.

Athena showed some crazy level strength at one stage by muscling Willow up from the mat into a big sit-out powerbomb. Ian gets big bonus points from me by calling the Spicolli Driver the Spicolli Driver, with Willow getting one from the second rope to Athena at one stage for a two count. If Spicolli didn’t invent the move (and I believe there is some debate around that) he was on the ground floor with using it and popularised it over time, so I’m fine with him getting his name on it. Athena ended up getting her twisty cutter off top onto Willow, but Willow kicked out at two for the mega pop in a fantastic moment. The wrestling was great here but the crowd really added to how fun it was, and good on them for respecting the quality of the work on display, because there was a time where it didn’t matter what the women did the fans would sit on their hands regardless, so it’s nice to see we’ve moved on from that. Athena ended up getting another cutter and went to the Just Facelock, which led to Willow passing out for the decision. Still, Willow gave a great account of herself in defeat and gained something in the process of losing, whilst Athena continues her dominant reign. They can probably “make” someone if they get it right when it comes to Athena being dethroned. ****

In Conclusion

This was an easy thumbs up for me. This was like a Wrestling Buffet, where there was something for everyone, and if that’s the identity that ROH is going for then I think it’s a good idea. You had Lucha, big dudes doing power stuff, comedy, technical wrestling, Strong Style, character wrestling, hardcore wrestling, high-flying, a little bit of blood and they made the belts seem important by having them contested for by good wrestlers in hard-fought contests. There’s a good chance that if you’re a wrestling fan there’s at least something on here that you will enjoy, and that’s a real positive. So long as ROH keeps delivering on pay per view to this level then I’ll keep buying their shows!

You can also read Thomas Hall’s review by clicking HERE