ROH: A Beginner’s Guide Before Final Battle 2018

ROH’s International Partnerships

One of the things that characterizes ROH as a promotion is their willingness to work with other companies. In both their early days, ROH and TNA partnered together to share talent, and they even had the X-Division title defended on ROH shows. While this partnership was an on-again-off-again, (and on-again now?) relationship over the years, it was a small foreshadowing of ROH developing partnerships with other promotions.

ROH is now known to work extensively with NJPW (which has helped the growth of both in North America), CMLL (Mexico’s biggest promotion, and the longest running promotion in the world), and the UK’s Rev Pro. All four promotions share talent and even have crossover storylines.

These partnerships have led to the development and showcasing of many stars from different promotions all over the world. The partnership between ROH and NJPW is particularly strong where stars from both companies are regularly featured on each other’s shows, and titles are defended and won on other promotion’s shows often enough that if an ROH title defense is announced for an NJPW show – or vice versa – you might actually see a title change.

With that being said, I will now give you a run down of ROH’s current champions, current stables, and major stories so if you decide to check ROH out, you’ll be able to walk in knowing who some of the top stars are.

The Champions

First, we are going to look at the champions in ROH, as they are the top stars in the company.

WOH World Champion – Sumie Sakai

Earlier this year, Ring of Honor introduced their Women’s championship in a tournament that saw Sumie Sakai win. A long-time veteran who has been wrestling for over 20 years, Sumie also has a background in mixed martial arts. She has been seen all over the indy scene in North America for years, including making appearances for CHIKARA, SHIMMER, and ROH.

Respected for her experience, Sumie was still a bit of an underdog going into the Women of Honor tournament. However, once the finals came, Sumie managed to win the title, defeating Kelly Klein, who  Klein was one of the favourites to win the whole thing, along with Tenille Dashwood (WWE’s Emma). Instead of giving us the finish we expected, Sumie Sakai emerged victorious.

Sakai has held the title since April 7, 2018 and is the inaugural champion. She has defeated all comers and looks to continue to establish the legacy of the WOH World Championship as a strong world championship. Ring of Honor has recently announced that the women’s title is a world championship, mainly because it was defended against international superstars and around the world.

So what’s next for Sumie? Time will tell. We know that there are a lot of women waiting in the shadows to take the title from Sakai.