ROH Best in the World 2021

Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena – Baltimore, MD – Sunday, July 11, 2021

Ian Riccaboni, Caprice Coleman, and Brian Zane are on commentary,

~Results and Star Ratings~

1. Hour One: Rey Horus defeats Demonic Flamita at 9:49. ***¼
2. Hour One: Danhausen & PCO defeat The Bouncers (Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas) (w/ Ken Dixon) at 9:05. ***
3. The Briscoes (Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe) defeat PJ Black & Brian Johnson at 8:07. **¾
4. EC3 defeats Flip Gordon at 11:12. *
5. ROH World Six Man Tag Team Champions Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor, Moses & Kaun) (w/ O’Shay Edwards) defeat Dalton Castle, Eli Isom & Dak Draper at 10:55 to retain the titles. STP have been the Champions since 2.19.21, and this was their third defense. ***
6. Josh Woods defeats Silas Young in a Last Man Standing Match at 14:08. ***½
7. Brody King defeats Jay Lethal at 10:43. ***¼
8. ROH Pure Champion Jonathan Gresham defeats Mike Bennett at 19:21 to retain the title. Gresham has been the Champion since 10.30.20, and this was his sixth defense. ***¼
9. Dragon Lee (w/ Bestia del Ring) defeats ROH World Television Champion Tony Deppen to win the title at 10:13. Deppen had been the Champion since 4.30.21, and this was his second defense. ***
10. VLNCE UNLTD (Chris Dickinson & Homicide) defeat ROH World Tag Team Champions The Foundation (Rhett Titus & Jonathan Gresham) at 11:03 in a Fight without Honor to win the titles. Titus and “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams (out with an injury and being replaced by Gresham) had been the Champions since 3.26.21, and this was their third defense. **½
11. Bandido defeats ROH World Champion RUSH at 16:02 to win the title. RUSH had been the Champion since 2.29.20, and this was his fourth defense. ***¾

JZ Says

Hour One kicked the night off with a grudge match between Horus and Flamita, former tag team partners in MexiSquad. I like both of these guys a lot, so I’m not upset that Horus essentially scored with a flash pin to get the win. That leaves the door open for a rubber match, and that works for me. The main event of the pre-show was the new team of PCO & Danhausen against the Bouncers, and it was enjoyable. They followed the tag team formula and kept the crowd into it, and that’s really all you want in this spot. Danhausen is just so much fun to watch. PCO got the pin on Bruiser with the PCO-sault. Sledge came out after the match to confront PCO.

Elsewhere on the preshow, it was announced that “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams is injured and will not be able to compete in the Foundation’s tag team title defense tonight. Jay Lethal will take his place, after his singles match against Brody King earlier on the card. Also, Matt Taven challenged Vincent to a Steel Cage Match at Glory by Honor Night 2 in Philadelphia on August 21. Vincent asked Taven to put his World Title shot on the line, and Taven accepted. The Righteous then beat Taven down and left him laid out.

The show proper opened with the Briscoes defeating the reunited PJ Black & Brian Johnson. While these aren’t my favorite duos in ROH by any stretch, when you need to fire up a live crowd, Jay and Mark are a good choice to do that. #DemBoys got the win after Jay hit Black with a Jay Driller and Mark followed with a Froggy ‘Bow. I have no idea what EC3 and Flip Gordon were going for in their match, but none of it worked. Gordon is a distressing personality on social media and is good but not good enough to put up with all his extracurricular bullcrap. EC3’s character hasn’t been well-defined, and the crowd was mostly silent through this. Not a good follow-up to the opener. EC3 used “The Purpose” (crossface) to get the surprising win. Gordon has zero momentum going into his title shot in August, they should probably work on that between now and then.

Shane Taylor Promotions made their third successful defense of the least important title in ROH, the World Six-Man Tag Team Titles. I like Shane Taylor and the S.O.S., and I also like all three of the challengers. However, the match felt thrown together and the titles themselves are clearly not needed. That being said, they made the most of their time with a fun bout that ended when Taylor hit Draper with Welcome to the Land. Woods and Young had a very good Last Man Standing match, and the finish was great. They finally delivered on a German Suplex from the apron to a table on the floor. That was enough to keep Young down and give Woods the win.

The first match announced for this show, Jay Lethal v Brody King, turned out to be a dominant victory for the leader of VLNCE UNLTD. Lethal has been a total pro in putting over newer talent, and King comes out of this looking great. Jonathan Gresham once again successfully defended his Pure Championship, this time against Mike Bennett. The match was hastily thrown together, and I never really bought Bennett as a threat to the title, but they really worked hard trying to make me believe, and I appreciate that. I would’ve cut a few minutes out.

Dragon Lee became a two-time ROH TV Champion with a win over Tony Deppen. The match was good, but I’m just way out on VU. Deppen doesn’t seem to fit with this group at all, as his shouting promos and angry demeanor seem forced. On the other hand, Dragon Lee is amazing and I’m glad to see him with the title again. Speaking of VU, they became the Tag Team Champions by defeating Rhett Titus and Jonathan Gresham – the third Foundation member to be inserted into the match. Titus and Tracy Williams were the Champions, but Williams is too injured to defend, so Lethal was slated for the match. Lethal then got hurt wrestling Brody King, so Gresham had to step in at the last minute. The exhausted Gresham fell prey to a Cop Killa from Homicide.

The main event was a terrific match that ended in a truly shocking upset when Bandido became the thirty-fifth ROH World Champion when he pinned RUSH with a victory roll. RUSH dominated a lot of the match inside and outside the ring, but Bandido was resilient enough to hang in there until the surprise roll-up. I thought Bandido had a zero percent chance of winning, but I’m thrilled that he did. Besides putting the World Title on someone awesome, this also puts tremendous value on winning Survival of the Fittest and throws a wild card into the faction warfare dominated storylines at the top of the card.

After the match, LFI beat Bandido down, which was a bit of a buzzkill. But I’m still stoked to see Bandido’s title reign unfold. This was a very good show and continues the great roll ROH has been on this year.