5 major takeaways from Ring of Honor's 'Honor United' tour in the UK 

Ring of Honor, Honor United, Newport
Ring of Honor, Honor United, Newport

I was lucky enough to be able to go and see Ring of Honor during its recent 'Honor United' tour in the UK, with the prestigious wrestling company coming to England for three dates, London, Newport and Bolton.

I attended the Newport date and I was able to see almost all of ROH's top talent in action, including Flip Gordon, Marty Scurll, PCO, Jay Lethal, Kelly Klein, Shane Taylor, Matt Taven, Dalton Castle and The Briscoes.

One thing I will say straight away is that a lot has been said about Ring of Honor as a wrestling company and its place in the industry going forward, and a lot has been made out of the attendance of some of its live shows both across the pond in the US and in the UK - certainly the Newport show I attended could've had a bigger audience.

But all of those issues people are mentioning online, all of the talk of doom and gloom for the company, certainly does not reflect in Ring of Honor's live product. It certainly does not speak for the immense wealth of talent that they have and the quality of the show that I saw, because it was really, really good.

So what were my major takeaways from my Ring of Honor live event experience?


#5. Ring of Honor cares about its live experience

Woman of Honor Champion Kelly Klein making her entrance with pyro!
Woman of Honor Champion Kelly Klein making her entrance with pyro!

It becomes immediately clear as soon as you enter the arena that Ring of Honor cares about the live experience that it gives fans and how it presents itself professionally and as entertainment.

The ring set-up and stage are sleek and professional and the whole thing makes the show and the company look like a big deal. It certainly stands out from most independent promotions and informs you visually that Ring of Honor is a major company.

But it's also the little things. The seating for Ring of Honor was laid out with signs clearly telling people exactly what seats were where. This may not sound like a big deal, but it's important to point out that even though they're a major company they spent time making personalised seating plans for each venue and putting them up every x amount of chairs to make it really easy for people to find their seats.

Then there's the production value of everything. The Titantron video is great, the announcement at the start of the show is fun, full of humour and wit and really sets the scene for a different kind of wrestling show and they even have pyro (albeit limited pyro.) They had all of their champions on the show, so the audience could see every belt as well.

I'll admit that my expectations were low heading in, because I had seen all of the talk online, but I left Newport thoroughly impressed.

#4. The Ring of Honor roster is really good

Kyle Fletcher taking to the skies after a series of suicide dives from everyone else at Ring of Honor
Kyle Fletcher taking to the skies after a series of suicide dives from everyone else at Ring of Honor

A lot has been said about someone like Matt Taven being the Ring of Honor World Champion for as long as he was. I'll admit that I wasn't too high on him as a wrestler either but Matt Taven live was fantastic and really turned me around.

The guy has an amazing awareness of what is going on around him and knows how to play up to the audience. At one point Joe Hendry shouted out 'Joe Hendry' and the audience was supposed to shout 'So Prestigious' but only a handful did. Taven then hilariously stopped the match and taught the audience how to properly respond to Hendry's chant. The next time Hendry did it, everyone in the audience responded and Taven responded incredulously.

Another former ROH World Champion, Dalton Castle was positively hilarious and oozed charisma during his match against Hikuleo. He was so entertaining that it became obvious why he got so over and ROH made the decision to put the belt on him.

And I think that has to be said for all of the roster that I saw. They were wrestling in front of a crowd that was smaller than I think they'd all have liked, but they were all excellent at playing to the crowd, getting them involved and making it a good experience, and more importantly, all of the matches were great. You could have forgiven the wrestlers for phoning it in a bit or taking it easy, but none of them did. (Especially PCO)

I saw The Briscoes Vs. Kyle Fletcher and Lucky Kid Vs Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham, Rush and Jeff Cobb Vs Colt Cabana and PCO, Kelly Klein Vs Lana Austin, Shane Taylor Vs Danny Jones, Marty Scurll and Flip Gordon Vs Flamita and Tracy Williams, Dalton Castle Vs Hikuleo, Joe Hendry Vs Matt Taven and Mark Haskins Vs Kenny King. I couldn't tell you which was my favourite match, they were all genuinely good.

#3. They use storylines to book their whole tour and the shows themselves

ROH uses the Honor United tour to build the Briscoes Vs Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham
ROH uses the Honor United tour to build the Briscoes Vs Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham

The first thing we saw in the show was Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham revealing that they don't care what they do anymore in Ring of Honor, because no-one else does so they'll do what they want. The Briscoes then came out and confronted them and this led to a Triple Threat match for the title later on that evening.

The match itself continued the storyline between Lethal and Gresham and The Briscoes leading to a post-match angle. The company would later go on to announce that Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham Vs The Briscoes would take place at Final Battle on December 13th (although news of Lethal suffering a broken arm in Bolton might scupper that)

Joe Hendry stopped Hikuleo putting Dalton Castle through a table and then Dalton Castle helped Joe Hendry defeat Matt Taven later on in the evening.

During the main event both Jeff Cobb and Rush wanted to be the guy to win the match leading to the two men falling out, having a pull-apart brawl and a title match being announced for the next show in Bolton (the day after)

Brody King was declared unable to compete before the show began so instead of just replacing him they worked an angle where ROH announcer Colt Cabana interviewed Scurll and Gordon after a win and Scurll asked Cabana to replace King and team with PCO against Rush and Cobb.

It's rare for what is essentially a 'house show' to inform storylines going forward for the company in general, but to also make storyline reasons for the matches it books for that show itself. I appreciated this greatly!

#2. Wrestling fans still need a lot of work when it comes to women's wrestling

Mark and Vicky Haskins lock in joint submission moves
Mark and Vicky Haskins lock in joint submission moves

For the most part the crowd at Ring of Honor's Honor United Newport were fun-spirited, louder than crowds twice its size, and well behaved. But if the section of the crowd I was in is anything to go by, there's still a long way to go when it comes to how female wrestlers are treated by the audience.

There was one Woman of Honor match on the card - Kelly Klein Vs. Lana Austin and one match where Mark Haskins and Kenny King both brought female valets to the ring. Some of the comments that were quietly made about the women involved in these segments were genuinely atrocious.

But what was worse is that sometimes certain members of the audience thought it was appropriate to shout some of these comments out to the female wrestlers in question.

For me it was one of the only negatives of the evening that certain sections of the crowd had no interest in treating the women like athletes, giving them respect as human beings or seeing them as anything other than objects. One gentleman behind me only got his phone out to take pictures/record once during the whole show, and that's when Vicky Haskins walked past him. Shameful.

#1. Ring of Honor needs to start proving they still have a place in the wrestling industry - Their live shows are a great way to start

Ring of Honor
Ring of Honor

One of the issues with Ring of Honor is that I don't think the wrestling audience really know where it fits in anymore, what it's identity is as a wrestling company and what sets it apart. Especially now that the market is extremely crowded with MLW, AEW, Impact and NXT all offering similar alternatives to WWE.

However, as I've previously mentioned, their live show is excellent and you immediately see that despite losing their place a bit, Ring of Honor still know how to put on fantastic wrestling shows and how to make the most of their talent.

They've made some great moves recently, they've signed a new contract with Matt Taven and hopefully they'll be able to encourage many of their other stars like Marty Scurll and Rush to stay, they've announced a television deal in the UK on the same day as Impact Wrestling which is great for UK wrestling fans.

But they need to do more, they need to play the game a little bit more and they need to get their name out there again to push past the mistakes they may have made in the past. They need to remind people that this is the company that made many of the wrestlers we see in the other wrestling companies at the moment.

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