Ring of Honor is rebooting their Women’s Division but will it work

Ring of Honor recently celebrated their 19th Anniversary in business but with one division missing.

Since returning to active operation after a pandemic shutdown, Ring of Honor has been trying to get back to normal. Well, as normal as possible given the current circumstances impacting everyone and everything in the world.

The thing is that they’ve been doing business without a Women’s Division, which seems odd at this point in wrestling. But ROH is looking to change that on April 28 by relaunching their Women’s Division via YouTube. How that will work out remains to be seen.

Remember Ring of Honor?

In the wake of the ECW closing its doors and being absorbed into the WWE in 2001, Ring of Honor was born. Its first event featured Eddie Guerrero and Super Crazy facing off as well as Christopher Daniels, Bryan Danielson and Low Ki in a triple threat match.

Looking back on it now, that first event had an absolutely stacked card. This would set the tone for ROH going forward as the company would continue to have huge shows with a great mix of highly respected talent and relative newcomers.

Some of the industry’s biggest stars had influential runs in Ring of Honor. That includes the likes of Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Damian Priest, Adam Page, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, and The Young Bucks. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

While ROH might never have been the top player in the game, they established themselves as a respectable halfway point between the indies and bigger companies like WWE. But things have also gotten a little weird around their Women’s Division.

Women of Honor

Ring of Honor has a long history of great Women’s Division matches under the banner of Women of Honor. The first match of their new division went down in 2002, shortly after the inception of the company.

Sumie Sakai, Amazing Kong, Mickie James, Angelina Love, Brandi Rhodes and Velvet Sky have all been members of the division. But they didn’t have their own championship. Up until 2018, the Shimmer Championship was often defended on ROH programming.

Then a tournament was held to determine the inaugural Women of Honor World Champion, which was Sumie Sakai. A short time later, Kelly Klein was in her third reign as the champion in 2019 when her contract wasn’t renewed after she spoke out against ROH on a variety of topics.

She criticized the company for not having proper concussion protocols as well as having low pay. Ring of Honor producer and road agent Joey Mercury apparently agreed as he left the company in protest over similar issues.

The Women’s title was decommissioned at that point. The intention was to launch the new ROH Women’s World Championship in early 2020. Unfortunately, the pandemic upended those plans, and Ring of Honor has essentially been operating without the Women of Honor since.

The Women of Honor return

The pandemic shut down Ring of Honor’s operations for several months. ROH finally made a return without crowds in attendance and a limited roster. The Women of Honor were nowhere to be seen, except for occasional appearances on commentary or as managers.

At the 19th Anniversary show, Maria Kanellis-Bennett made the announcement that the Women of Honor would finally return to ROH. This summer, there will be a tournament this summer to decide who will be the inaugural ROH Women’s World Championship.

On top of that, the ROH YouTube channel will have Women’s Division Wednesdays that will focus on the Women of Honor. The intention is to highlight both the established female stars of ROH while also bringing in some new talent.

At this point, Ring of Honor desperately needs to rebuild it’s Women’s Division. After the Kelly Klein controversy, suddenly shuttering their established title and their pandemic woes, they have been left with a division that is all but demolished. They are essentially building from scratch.

In the modern wrestling era, a competitive Women’s Division has proven to be important. AEW’s has finally found its footing while the Women’s Division on Raw has run aground. If ROH wants to remain a factor in the business, it needs Women of Honor running at full steam.