ROH: A Beginner’s Guide Before Final Battle 2018

Women of Honor

The Women of Honor is ROH’s women’s division, and has featured various women over the years. Currently, their biggest stars are Sumie Sakai, the champion, Tenille Dashwood (WWE’s Emma, who is currently out injured), Madison Rayne (a former TNA Knockout’s Champion), and Kelly Klein. While the division, in its current form, is relatively new, it has slowly been establishing itself as a place to watch for women’s wrestling.

The roots for Women of Honor was found in the early days of the promotion with Sara Del Rey, who is now one of the head trainers at the WWE Performance Center. Before helping revolutionize the women’s division in WWE through training many of their current stars and putting together some of the highly acclaimed matches seen on NXT television, Del Rey was having great matches all over the world, including in ROH.

Allison Danger, Del Rey, and Daizee Haze played a big role and paved the way for future women to wrestling in ROH. While the division went on a hiatus eventually, the foundation laid by women like Del Rey helped setup what was to come.

The division had a rocky start, but has finally seemed to stabilize. However, ROH would greatly benefit from working with SHIMMER, SHINE, and Stardom to have more talent brought in. They have established a relationship in the past with SHIMMER, and Stardom is currently one of their sister promotions. More crossover would benefit them greatly and provide fresh matchups for the division.

The tournament to crown the inaugural Women of Honor Champion featured several stars from Stardom, including Mayu Iwatani, who is one of the best wrestlers in the world today. Mayu was known as one of the top three stars in Stardom. The other two? Kairi Hojo (Kairi Sane) and Io Shirai. Needless to say, if ROH keeps their partnership with Stardom going, we can expect many great women’s matches in the future.