Ring of Honor
Final Battle 2024
December 20, 2024
Hammerstein Ballroom
New York City, New York
Watch: HonorClub
I traveled to New York City a week ago to see the 2024 edition of ROH Final Battle in person. The announcement of Ring of Honor returning (and AEW debuting) in the Hammerstein Ballroom was really exciting, but because of a variety of factors (my work schedule, the fact that it was so close to the Christmas holiday, and the fact that I’ve been going through a stressful period after what happened with my car), I could only go to one show. I would’ve loved to have gone to the Collision taping as well, but it just didn’t work out logistically.
I should note upfront that I unfortunately had to leave the show early because of the bus schedule (for buses going between New York City and Wilkes-Barre). Everything except the top two matches I got to see in full where I was there. I watched Chris Jericho vs. Matt Cardona and Athena vs. Billie Starkz on HonorClub in the last few days. Additionally, with this review being out nearly a week after the show (again, mainly due to the Christmas holiday and some other factors), I decided to take a different approach with this review. Instead of breaking things down match-by-match, I broke the show up into themes, and dissected everything from there. I don’t think this will become a regular thing for my solo reviews going forward, but it works out a little better in cases like this.
ROH Final Battle 2024
Zero Hour
- Grizzled Young Veterans def. The Dark Order
- HANAKO def. Harley Cameron
- The Undisputed Kingdom def. The Infantry
- The Gates Of Agony def. EJ Nduka & Lee Johnson
As is typical with Tony Khan PPVs, we got a Zero Hour pre-show that was packed with matches. In this case, three of the four matches were tag team bouts, so if you’re a fan of tag team wrestling, then this was the Zero Hour for you. If you missed the Zero Hour, then there really isn’t anything that I would say you absolutely need to see. Grizzled Young Veterans vs. The Dark Order and The Undisputed Kingdom vs. The Infantry were the best bouts on this portion of the card, though I’d say both landed in the *** – ***1/4 range. It’s been fascinating to follow the trajectory of The Grizzled Young Veterans over the last year, particularly once they entered the Tony Khan-verse. Going from debuting at Wembley Stadium and confronting the participants in the AEW World Tag Team Title Match to barely being on AEW television isn’t a great sign for a team that came back to the non-WWE wrestling world with a lot of fanfare (that’s not even including their very brief run with the New Japan Strong Openweight Tag Team Titles).
The Gates Of Agony vs. EJ Nduka and Lee Johnson (LEEJ is their tag team name) was solid as well, though some sloppiness at a few points here and there puts it just below the other tag team bouts on the Zero Hour. EJ Nduka was a nice pickup by AEW, but he hasn’t wrestled many matches since they signed him. Hopefully this tag team with Lee Johnson leads to him getting that in-ring experience he needs. Gates Of Agony got the win, but LEEJ turned heel and attacked them in the post match, so perhaps a more extended feud between these two teams is on the horizon. The lone singles match on the pre-show saw HANAKO from STARDOM pick up a win over Harley Cameron. Not much to say about this one, as it was easily the worst match on the entire card (it just seemed like a bad matchup stylistically and that’s sort of how it played out). I don’t have much to say about HANAKO, and as for Harley Cameron, my thoughts on her are similar to the thoughts over many others. Her in-ring work in AEW has been impressive given her relative lack of experience, and she’s been incredibly entertaining outside the ring. If she can improve as a wrestler, AEW could have something special on their hands.
Pro Wrestling Variety
- Atlantis Jr. def. Mansoor (with Mason Madden)
- Katsuyori Shibata def. Tommy Billington
- Jay Lethal def. QT Marshall
When I think of variety in professional wrestling, I don’t think of the type of variety that WWE (and the hardcore WWE fanbase) likes to promote. What comes to mind for me are shows or cards that present a variety of different wrestling styles. The first ROH iPPV I ever purchased was Final Battle 2010, and I feel that is the perfect example of a wrestling show that provided true variety up and down the card. You had a action packed tag team opener, a technical wrestling showcase, a fun women’s match, a couple of solid midcard match, a six-man tag that featured the babyfaces getting some payback on the heels and their manager, a hard-hitting World Title match, and an hardcore bloodbath between former tag team partners that closed the chapter on a story that had started a year earlier. While on a much smaller scale, I thought the first three matches on this Final Battle 2024 card provided that kind of variety.
The show kicked off with an entertaining opener that saw Atlantis Jr. from CMLL defeat Mansoor. This took a bit to get going, but it turned into a solid contest down the stretch, with the big moment of the match (which got one of the biggest pops of the night) being the returning Danhausen thwarting attempted interference from Mason Madden. Seeing Danhausen back was a legitimate surprise, especially considering all of the skuttlebutt surrounding him and his future (or lack thereof) with Tony Khan operated wrestling promotions. I presume Danhausen helping Atlantis Jr. was just him setting something up with MxM Collection, but the possibility of Danhausen appearing in CMLL is super fascinating.
Following that was a straight, no-nonsense affair between Katsuyori Shibata and Tommy Billington. We’ve seen Tommy Billington a couple of times in AEW already this year, but this was his first appearance in ROH, and his first appearance on a Tony Khan-verse show in the United States (the fact that, at least per cagematch, he hadn’t wrestled in the United States in well over a year….and that includes his AEW matches this year….leads me to speculate that he was trying to get a visa). This was such a fun match to watch, and given the direction that pro-wrestling in the United States is going, it’s the kind of wrestling we need more of. It was a shade under ten minutes, but it was a blast while it lasted. My immediate reaction after this match was that these two should form a tag team, and based on the post-Final Battle TV Tapings, it looks like we might be heading in that direction.
The third match on the card was essentially a Randy Savage tribute match as Jay Lethal (in his Black Machismo gimmick) defeated QT Marshall, who was basically cosplaying as nWo Randy Savage. Seeing Jay Lethal as his Black Machismo character in ROH did remind me of the time he and Delirious (on the infamous Night Of Hoopla show in 2013) reenacted the Randy Savage/Ultimate Warrior match from WrestleMania VII move-for-move. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this one (even with the surprise appearance of Black Machismo), and the first few minutes didn’t exactly keep my attention. However, things got better as the match progressed, and the closing stretch of the match (which kicked off after Jeff Jarrett smashed a guitar over Aaron Solo’s head) featured some really good back-and-forth action. Even though he’s not doing much these days, Jay Lethal showed that he’s still very capable of putting on really good matches. As for QT Marshall, he showed here (and in the match with Big Boom AJ at Full Gear) that he excels in this role as the goofy undercard heel who never wins his bigger matches and always shows ass against any babyface he comes up against. His stuff outside the ring (and online) can be cringy, but when he gets in the ring, he typically delivers.
A fun opener featuring a CMLL star and a big return, a hard-hitting technical showcase, and a match that (I guess you could say) featured some of the better elements of sports entertainment mixed with good wrestling. That’s the kind of variety I can live with in my pro wrestling.
Multiple Title Matches Disappoint
- ROH Women’s World Television Title – Red Velvet (c) def. Leyla Hirsch
- ROH World Tag Team Titles – Double Bullrope Match – The Sons Of Texas (Dustin Rhodes & Sammy Guevara) (c) def. The Righteous (Vincent & Dutch)
- ROH World Title – Chris Jericho (with Bryan Keith) (c) def. Matt Cardona
- ROH Women’s World Title – Athena (c) def. Billie Starkz
The main card of Final Battle 2024 featured six title matches, and for a variety of different reasons, four of them I would classify as disappointments.
For the second year in a row, Athena and Billie Starkz main evented Final Battle with the ROH Women’s World Title on the line. In my review of last year’s Final Battle, I noted that while I didn’t mind having someone with a long, dominant title reign, I wasn’t as big of a fan of it if there was no end goal in sight. Well, you had Billie come back to Athena’s side after she lost last year, which was followed up by Billie being more heelish enroute to winning the ROH Women’s World Television Title. She then lost the title to Red Velvet, and her feeling continually underappreciated by Athena led us to the rematch one year later. You’d think this would all be a setup for Billie to finally get the win, right? Well, that didn’t happen, as Athena defeated Billie Starkz to once again retain her title.
Despite this result, I’m feeling more confident than ever (especially with the follow-up on ROH television) that Billie Starkz is beating Athena to win this title eventually. That is the story they’re telling here. The big problem with that is that not only have they missed the peak (last year was the time for Billie to beat Athena), but the story has dragged on so long that almost nobody cares anymore. Don’t let anybody fool you….this isn’t a hot storyline, and it hasn’t been hot for a very long time. What makes it even worse is that Athena’s title defenses going forward will continue to not matter one iota, because we all know she’s not losing until she faces Starkz again.
The idea of one wrestler struggling to beat another wrestler in a big spot is a good story in theory, and can be great if pulled off the right ways, but you need the right set of circumstances for it to work. In New Japan, we saw the story of Okada struggling to beat Tanahashi specifically in the Tokyo Dome (Okada had beaten Tanahashi plenty of times before, but not at Wrestle Kingdom). The different between that story and the Athena/Billie Starkz story is that not only did it involve two of the greatest wrestlers of this generation (maybe of all-time), but you had confidence in the booking and the long-term storytelling (which includes filling in gaps between those Wrestle Kingdom matches) that Okada would finally overcoming that hurdle in a satisfying way. I’m sure that Starkz finally beating Athena for the title will get a big pop when it happens, but will it mean as much or be as satisfying? I don’t think it will. We’re also not in a situation where Starkz has beaten Athena elsewhere (like Okada had with Tanahashi), and this is just a “she can’t beat her at Final Battle” story. Extending the story is one thing, but if you can’t fill those gaps in between matches effectively, you’re just not going to hold people’s attention.
Another example I’m reminded of involved WALTER, and more specifically, his feuds on the European indies with David Starr and Jordan Devlin. Those stories were built on WALTER being this imposing, dominant force that both Starr and Devlin absolutely struggled to overcome. If you have that incredible final boss that’s near impossible for even the best guys to beat, then you can pull off that story pretty easily. Athena has been booked as a dominant champion every step of the way, but her reign (particularly in the last year when she’s gotten more heelish and has needed help from both Billie Starkz and Lexy Nair) just hasn’t come off that strong. The dominance of her title reign just isn’t translating that well in reality, so that’s playing a role in all of this as well.
Then there’s the match itself. While this was a good match from a technical standpoint, it was far from perfect. Firstly, the match was just too long. These ROH PPVs are too long in general (I get they don’t have limits because they’re on HonorClub, but do these shows really need to go four hours?), but twenty-five minutes was just too much (the same could be said for the semi-main event). The wrestling throughout was generally solid, but there were a number of rough points throughout the match as well. The botched poison rana near the finish is a moment that stood out, as (watching through HonorClub) it seemed to noticeably suck the energy out of the crowd. Athena did a fine job in her role, but it’s clear that Billie Starkz is still a work in progress. She’s definitely improved in some areas, and is still a total maniac with some of the stuff that she does (like that swanton off the second turnbuckle to the floor), but there are still areas of her game that need work (and I know there are others that would be more harsh on her than I would, in terms of her critiques). Starkz did come close to winning this match on a few occasions, but an exposed turnbuckle would be her undoing. Even though I thought the match was good on the whole, it was definitely a very weak main event.
In the semi-main event spot, Chris Jericho (who had a LONG entrance set to “New York New York” by Frank Sinatra) retained the ROH World Title over Matt Cardona. As I write this review, cagematch currently has this match at 2.82 rating, which (if you translate that to a star rating) would be somewhere between *1/4 and *1/2. Did I think this match was that bad? No, not really. It would probably land somewhere in the **1/4 – **1/2 star range for me, but that’s not that much better. For the most part, I thought the wrestling was….fine. The big issue for me is that I just….didn’t care. I really don’t care about Matt Cardona (especially as a babyface), and this version of Chris Jericho (while some of his King Of New York bits were funny) just doesn’t excite me as the ROH World Champion right now. Maybe it’s a different story if Jericho had a better opponent, but on the whole, this matchup didn’t excite me on paper, and ultimately, it didn’t deliver. The interference from Bryan Keith and Big Bill certainly didn’t help. This was the worst match on the main card, and given that it got the most attention in the build, I feel it’s fair to consider it a flop.
What followed in the post-match was the surprise return of Bandido (I say surprise because all of his return vignettes had been airing on AEW television, who ran out to make the save for Candona as Jericho and the rest of The Learning Tree were attacking him. Unfortunately, Bandido’s return went wrong almost immediately, as he appeared to give himself a bad concussion off a springboard dropkick onto Jericho. The clearly shaken up Bandido then struggled for the next minute as Bryan Keith and Big Bill struggled to work around him. I feel so bad for Bandido. He suffered a wrist injury in a match with Konosuke Takeshita in middle of 2023, which kept him out for an extended period of time after one of his surgeries didn’t go well and (if I recall correctly) caused the injury to not heal properly, and now he’s finally back, and he managed to give himself a concussion on his very first bump. That is just the worst possible luck. I’m just hoping he heals up soon.
The Double Bullrope Match for the ROH World Tag Team Titles, which saw Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara (now known as The Sons Of Texas) retain against The Righteous, was easily the best match of this group. What was disappointing about this match wasn’t the work. This was a really fun hardcore brawl that saw all four guys work pretty hard. What disappointed me about this match was the lack of blood. Given the build, this was a match that really needed to be a bloodbath, and it just wasn’t. Now I’m sure a big reason for the lack of any blood was the fact that they were in New York, but if New York is going to be as stringent as they are when it comes to blood, I would really just avoid doing these types of matches in New York altogether. You want to do stuff like Ladder Matches or generic hardcore matches/street fights? That’s fine, but if you’ve got a match like this, where blood is really necessary to make it work with the story that’s being told, then I would either book the show in a different state or just save that particular blowoff match for another time when you can do blood. Again, this was a very good match for what it was, with a number of cool spots (and I’m a fan of both teams), but the presence of blood would’ve added so much juice (no pun intended) to this one, and would’ve taken it from pretty good to legitimately great.
I’m throwing the ROH Women’s World Television Title bout between Red Velvet and Leyla Hirsch in this section because I wasn’t sure where else to fit it in. I don’t think it’s totally fair to call it a disappointment given that it was a match that I had no real opinions or takes on going into it. Had I written a preview for this PPV, I would’ve said that it’d probably be an ok match that the crowd wouldn’t really care about, and when the dust settled, that’s pretty much what we got here. There were a few fun spots down the stretch, but for the most part, the crowd just didn’t care about it. I sort of understand why the ROH Women’s World Television Title was created (probably to give the women in ROH something else to fight for with Athena going through this long run as the ROH Women’s World Champion), but it really is one of the most useless titles in pro wrestling right now. If AEW/ROH needed another title for the women’s division, it should’ve been a tag team title, not a singles midcard title. The only notable thing coming out of this bout was Red Velvet turning heel, as she used a piece of the turnbuckle as a weapon on Hisch. Otherwise, a totally forgettable match.
Survival Of The Fittest Steals The Show
- ROH World Television Title – Survival Of The Fittest – Komander def. Blake Christian, Mark Davis, Brian Cage (c), AR Fox, & Willie Mack
Before I talk about how awesome this match was, I have a bone to pick (as someone who’s followed ROH for a long time) with Tony Khan. You can just put together a six-man elimination match and slap the Survival Of The Fittest name on it. You have to do it the right way. Where were the qualifying matches?! You can’t have Survival Of The Fittest without qualifying matches. It’s not that hard, Tony!
Now onto the match. This was third from the top, and the last match that I got to see live (in full). Up to this point in this show, there had been a number of really solid matches, but nothing that I would call great (the Pure Title Match was the only bout that came close). That all changed with Survival Of The Fittest. This was an absolutely fantastic match that was EASILY the best thing on the entire show. In continuing with the theme of variety that I talked about earlier, this match gave us a high-octane, action-packed spotfest that was filled with guys doing insane spot after insane spot. It was a blast to watch from start to finish, and the booking added a lot to the match as well.
The first two eliminations (Willie Mack and AR Fox respectively) were scored by Brian Cage, and in the moment, I had the thought that perhaps Cage would run the table and score all of the eliminations (wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened in Survival Of The Fittest), but then to the surprise of pretty much everyone in the building, Mark Davis eliminated Brian Cage, which guaranteed that a new champion would be crowned. Just moments after Davis eliminated Cage, Blake Christian gave Davis a low-blow and rolled him up for the elimination, meaning that either he or Komander would walk out of the Hammerstein Ballroom as the new champion.
I thought putting Blake Christian in this spot was a brilliant booking decision. Obviously low-blowing Mark Davis after the shock elimination of Brian Cage was going to position Blake as the heel, but something I noticed during his entrance (as someone who was there) is that the crowd wasn’t totally receptive towards him to begin with (a mixed reaction at best). I’m not sure if a large portion of that crowd followed GCW, or if maybe Tony Khan was aware of the reactions to Blake in GCW, but a decent chunk of the audience that night was already in a state where they were going to boo Blake if he got anywhere close to winning. When you combine that with how the eliminations played out from a booking standpoint, and Komander being viewed as an underdog, and you had all the perfect ingredients for an insane final stretch. Eventually, Komander was able to put Blake Christian away to secure the victory and win his first championship in the Tony Khan-verse after coming up short in the Survival Of The Fittest Final at last year’s Final Battle. Komander has lost A TON since coming to AEW/ROH, so hopefully this result (and his win over Claudio Castagnoli in the Continental Classic) means that he’s out of that position of “great wrestler who always loses matches”. If there’s one match you need to check out from this show, it’s this one.
Nigel McGuinness Returns To ROH
- ROH Pure Title – Lee Moriarty (with Shane Taylor) (c) def. Nigel McGuinness
Coming into this show, Lee Moriarty had issued an open challenge for anyone to face him for his ROH Pure Title. The person who answered the call was none other than Nigel McGuiness, who (as longtime ROH fans know) had the greatest reign in history of this championship back in 2005-2006. They did sort of tip this off in the new short doc on Nigel McGuiness that was aired before the Zero Hour started (Nigel noted that Moriarty had been helping him train/prepare for his comeback earlier in the year), but it was still awesome to see him answer the challenge. After some banter between Nigel and Shane Taylor, the match finally got underway under the original Pure Title rules (the biggest differences were no judges at ringside, and usage of either the first or second closed fist leading to that wrestler losing a rope break), and Nigel used old tricks to force Moriarty to use two of rope breaks right out of the gate. That led to Shane Taylor requesting a second referee to be at ringside to keep an eye on Nigel.
From there, the match was a really good back-and-forth affair, with both wrestlers eventually using up all of their rope breaks. Nigel came close to winning on a few occasions, but in the end, Moriarity managed to retain the title after forcing Nigel to tap out. While the result wasn’t much of a surprise, getting to see Nigel McGuinness wrestle live for the first time was such a treat (especially as a longtime ROH fan). Even though I had to leave early to catch my bus home, that made the whole trip worth it.
Final Thoughts
While Final Battle 2024 was easily the weakest edition of the show since Tony Khan bought the company in 2022, it was still a pretty solid PPV that had a number of really good matches. Survival Of The Fittest is a match you need to go out of your way to see, while the Pure Title bout is worth checking out if you’re a fan of Nigel McGuinness (or if you’re a longtime fan of ROH). The undercard had some other solid matches, but the show didn’t exactly end on the highest of notes with two title bouts that underwhelmed at best or (depending on who you ask) were awful at worst.
