ROH: The tag team titles belong on a team on Honor Club

On Thanksgiving night, ROH had a new episode. The match that I was looking forward to the most was the four-way tag team match between Workhorsemen vs. The Infantry vs. Iron Savages vs. West Coast Wrecking Crew (they’re a NJPW STRONG standout and made their Honor Club debut). The Workhorsemen got a much needed win and it should be spurring them toward title contention. The match delivered just as I expected and it reinforced the fact that the tag team titles need to be in ROH regularly.

At Supercard of Honor, there was a tag team ladder match to crown new champions following the untimely death of Jay Briscoe. The Lucha Bros. won the titles and then they rarely defended them. At Death Before Dishonor, Aussie Open defeated the Lucha Bros. to become champions. Their reign would last a whopping 37 days as they would drop them to Better Than You Bay Bay at ALL IN in London.

Shortly into Better Than You Bay Bay’s reign, Adam Cole was injured. Instead of vacating the titles, MJF refused and had defended them twice. He retained the title in the handicap match against The Righteous. On Zero Hour before Full Gear, he teamed with Samoa Joe to retain the titles against The Gunns. On this week’s Dynamite, Cole said that he would be out for a long time. And yet, they still didn’t vacate the titles (the one champion who did vacate didn’t need to).

MJF has never once stepped foot into an ROH ring and barely even remembers he holds the title. They’re clearly keeping the titles on him to sell Honor Club subscriptions since that’s where Final Battle will air. With his sights set on Joe for their AEW World Championship match 15 days after Final Battle, MJF probably hasn’t even thought about defending them at ROH’s last pay-per-view of the year. He’s on the poster, so that’s the only thing that gives me any hope that he’ll actually be in Garland, Texas.

As you can gather, ROH hasn’t really given a damn about the ROH tag titles since Mark Briscoe chose to vacate them. Some fans have said their treatment of the titles is a slap in the face to Jay Briscoe’s memory. I would have to agree. There is little effort into their booking or defenses. It’s a shame because ROH has a good tag team division that could be great with more focus and effort.

In addition to the great teams that wrestled on the current episode, there’s also Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal, Darius Martin and Action Andretti, Cole Karter and Griff Garrison, Spanish Announce Project, and sometimes The Outrunners. The Kingdom has been heavily featured in the tag division before joining with Roderick Strong in AEW.

The way ATHENA has been the center of the women’s division, any of these tag teams could be a team to build the division around. Give the fans a reason to invest in the tag division. Final Battle is on December 15. It’s time to crown new champions and go into the the new year with a renewed focus on the tag team division.