#everything would be different and the foundation of what AEW is would be gone

[banannabethchase]

I am trying really hard not to freak out about that Bucks bio update but unfortunately I am autistic and anxious and therefore unable to have a balanced reaction to anything that happens that I don't automatically understand.

[wrestlingisfake]

Best in the World preview

After getting confused about MLW Battle Riot, now I feel like I have to check to make sure all these shows are actually available to watch live!

Best in the World is $29.99 on Fite.tv, or $14.99 for Honor Club members, or free for Honor Club VIP members. (HonorClub is really only worth signing up for if you're already going hard for ROH.) The pre-show starts at 7pm EDT, and the main show begins at 8pm EDT.

Rush vs. Bandido - Bandido won the Survival of the Fittest tournament for the right to challenge Rush here for the ROH world title. Rush won the belt for the second time in February 2020 and, thanks to the pandemic, has only defended it three times since then. But this show kicks of Ring of Honor's return to live crowds, so maybe now we can get back to normal. This is the company's big chance to get the Rush era back on track, or to turn the page and start a new era with Bandido.

There really isn't anyone else like Rush in ROH. He just clobbers dudes, wins all the time, and looks like a star. He's not exactly Brock Lesnar, but he has an aura that makes him feel like he should be in a bigger company, and no one on this roster can carry his jock. I would figure the plan is to set up a rising young star to finally figure out how to beat this guy. Bandido would make sense in that role, but it's anyone's guess if that's the plan for him.

AEW wanted very badly to sign Bandido in early 2019, but he went with ROH instead because at the time no one knew if AEW was actually going to work. That gave ROH a huge opportunity to build their future around a top prospect AEW wanted but couldn't get. Instead Bandido spent the past few years lost in the shuffle with Lifeblood and the Mexisquad. I really feel like ROH dropped the ball with this guy. The fact he's suddenly on top now doesn't totally make up for that.

It's tough to pick a winner here. Rush is the logical favorite, but ROH might want to shake things up as they go back to doing shows in front of live crowds. An upset win for Bandido would create a lot of options for fresh title matches at upcoming shows. But if Rush retains, ROH will have the same problem Smackdown is having with Roman Reigns--how do you convince the audience that anyone is left that can beat this guy?

Jonathan Gresham vs. Mike Bennett - Bennett won a seven-man gauntlet to earn this match for Gresham's ROH pure championship. This title is contested under "pure wrestling rules," which basically limit rope breaks and add tighter restrictions on punches to the face and outside interference. Gresham is an expert at this type of match, whereas Bennett is new to the format.

Bennett (along with his wife Maria Kanellis) was a mainstay in ROH, and then had a decent little run in Impact before going to WWE as "Mike Kanellis." Everything went wrong with that WWE run, but at least that's led to Bennett receiving a lot of sympathy from fans as he picks himself up and keeps going. Since returning to ROH, Bennett has mainly been supporting Matt Taven in his feud. So this is an interesting way to get him spun off into his own thing.

The pure rules stuff doesn't do a lot for me, but I like the idea of a styles clash where one guy is completely out of his element. Gresham should wrestle rings around Bennett, but Bennett should be so tenacious that Gresham can't quite put him away. It wouldn't hurt Bennett to lose, although a Bennett title win would probably be such an insult to Gresham's pride that it could set up an intense long-term rivalry.

Honestly my main interest in this match is that I recently listened to a WARHORSE interview where he said he almost quit wrestling but Mike Bennett talked him out of it. So Bennett seems like a cool guy and I'm pulling for him.

Jay Lethal vs. Brody King - Back in March, King disrupted the feud between The Foundation and Los Faccion Ingobernable by introducing his own stable called Violence Unlimited. That's pretty much all there is to this match--it's just a Foundation guy and a VU guy facing off in the latest round of a three-way war.

It stands to reason that the winner of this match would move on to start something with LFI's leader, Rush. So unofficially this feels like a match to decide the next contender for the world title. However, Rush already defended the title against King in December and Lethal in February. So I don't know, maybe these two will just clobber each other and it won't matter who wins. That's how a lot of ROH matches feel to me, honestly.

Tracy Williams & Rhett Titus vs. Homicide & Chris Dickinson - Williams and Titus (of the Foundation) are defending the ROH tag team title. The challengers are representing Violence Unlimited. Dickinson came to ROH by way of teaming with Brody King on NJPW Strong, so he made good sense in King's ROH faction. Homicide was at the very first ROH show in 2002; before aligning with VU, it had been seven years since he appeared in the promotion.

This is another match where I can't get a feel for where things are headed, and I'm not sure it makes much difference. I guess my gut says they should put the title on the new team to get them over.

Tony Deppen vs. Dragon Lee - An injury forced Lee to vacate the ROH television title, which Tracy Williams won for the Foundation, who lost it to Violence Unlimited's Deppen, and now Lee wants to get it back for Los Faccion Ingobernable. Once again, I'm not sure it matters which guy ends up with the belt, but I'll go with Lee to win since the injury situation probably messed up their plans.

Shane Taylor & Moses & Kaun vs. Dalton Castle & Dak Draper & Eli Isom - Shane Taylor Promotions is defending the ROH trios title. Castle has been doing this weird passive-aggressive thing with Draper and Isom, so his latest move is to arrange this title shot behind their backs. It might be interesting to put the title on three guys who want championships but not with each other. But I'm fairly confident this just ends with Castle's team falling apart because he's a dick.

EC3 vs. Flip Gordon - When EC3 started here as a heel, he recruited Flip to help him fight Jay and Mark Briscoe; later as EC3 went babyface, he took exception to Gordon's cheating tactics. So now Flip is the target of all the weird cryptic multimedia presentations that EC3 likes to do for his opponents.

Flip used to be a beloved babyface, and it was just mildly amusing that he was a flat-earther in real life. Then he turned heel, and then he caught heat for complaining about face masks during the pandemic. So I'm pretty sure any goodwill Gordon had with the fans is gone by now. I don't see much upside in giving him the win now; pushing EC3 is the better bet for ROH.

Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe vs. PJ Black & Brian Johnson - I guess the Briscoes were having some issues but they've worked them out, so they're back in the hunt for the tag team title. Meanwhile Johnson seems to be getting frustrated under the mentorship of Black, and they're regrouping by making their own tag title run. Presumably the story of the match is that both teams want to be back on the same page, but only one of them really is. Pretty sure the Briscoes win this one.

Josh Woods vs. Silas Young - This is a "last man standing" match, so the match can only end when one participant is on the ground and cannot stand up again before the referee's ten-count.

Woods became Young's protege all the way back in September 2019, forming a tag team called, uh, "2 Guys 1 Tag." Right from the start I didn't expect that to last very long. But as it happened, what with the pandemic and all, Young didn't turn on Woods until March 2021.

You'd assume the point of all this would be to have Young put Woods over and establish Woods as a rising star for ROH's future. But it feels like every time ROH sets up something like this, they have the bitter old bully win to get heat. By the time they set up a rematch for the face to finally get vindication, I've usually given up and lost interest, which defeats the purpose of dragging the story out so long.

Demonic Flamita vs. Rey Horus - This is scheduled for the pre-show. Flamita, Horus, and Bandido were all in a trio called Mexisquad up until Flamita snapped and turned on the other two. Now he's "Demonic Flamita." I'm guessing the idea here is to give Flamita an impressive victory here to build up Bandido vs. Flamita to be a bigger deal.

PCO & Danhausen vs. The Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas - This is also scheduled for the pre-show. PCO is basically a wrestling Frankenstein monster, but he's also Qubecer Pierre from the WWF in 1993, which still blows my mind. Danhausen is sort of like if Conan O'Brien played a character on What We Do In The Shadows. I like the idea of these two teaming up, and I hope it goes somewhere beyond prelim matches. I think the Bouncers (Bruiser and Milonas) turned heel when I wasn't paying attention, but that wouldn't be hard since I never pay attention to them. They should be easy pickings for PCOhausen.