ROH crowns new tag team champions on AEW programming

On the August 17, 2024 episode of AEW Collision, The Kingdom (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) put their ROH tag titles on the line against a brand new tag team, Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara. They’re so new, they’d only been teaming together for about two weeks. 

In fact, Rhodes had never even appeared on ROH programming until this year’s Death Before Dishonor. He did wrestle Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH World Title in 2022 on Rampage. Guevara never appeared on ROH programming until Episode 76. He competed in a four way for the ROH World Title at Full Gear 2022.

So, why did they get a title shot? That’s a good question. There was an ongoing story involving Rhodes and The Von Erichs and The Undisputed Kingdom. The former defeated the latter to win the vacant ROH Trios Championship at Battle of the Belts IX. The champs defeated Dark Order at Death Before Dishonor to win a shot at the titles the next night. 

The following week on Honor Club, Dark Order attacked Rhodes after the Von Erichs had left the building. A debuting (and returning; he was suspended earlier this year when he broke Jeff Hardy’s nose and he suffered a concussion in what would be his final AEW match) Guevara saved his fellow Houstonian. There were some shenanigans on episode 77 involving all of the above and that led to the title match.

After 234 days as champions, The Kingdom lost their titles to a brand new tag team. On AEW programming. Not so fun fact: no titles have changed hands on weekly Honor Club programming under Tony Khan. They’ve occurred on ROH or AEW pay-per-views or AEW programming. It was an unceremonious way to lose the titles they held for so long. 

The biggest head scratcher is why the titles were put on a brand new team. The Infantry was right there. They are one of the most over teams in ROH and one of the most consistent teams. There’s The Righteous, Top Flight, Spanish Announce Project, Gates of Agony, any two members of Premiere Athletes…you get the point. It’s frustrating that teams that have consistently been Honor Club and built the division over the last two years were completely overlooked. And for what? 

If they were going to put the titles on a new team over a team that's been in ROH for a while, they should've put them on MxM Collection. They're already hugely popular, have been killing it on the indies, and already split their time between ROH and AEW.

I say this as someone who is a Dustin Rhodes fan and who likes Guevara, there was no reason to do this. Rhodes does not need to be a double champion. He’s had the Trios Champion for only a few weeks. What’s their plan? What if Rhodes is a double champion going into Final Battle? Is he going to defend one set of titles to open the show and come back later in the show to defend the other one? While he can absolutely still go, are we really going to ask a 55-year-old man to compete in two title matches on the same show? 

I have a theory that if ROH is indeed heading to TV, Warner Brothers Discovery wants a Rhodes to have a title. He has one, with the Von Erichs, no less. Guevara is a pillar of AEW. Wrestling fans are familiar with both men, so that’s likely one of the reasons the titles were put on them. That’s not a good enough reason. Either keep the titles on The Kingdom, who are heavily featured on AEW programming until ROH is established on TV or put it on a team you’re building up. 

Following their surprising upset, Rhodes said that they’ll elevate the titles. My hope is that they elevate the division. Tag team wrestling as a whole is on life support across all major promotions. The divisions aren’t booked properly. AEW went from having one of the most stacked divisions to focusing on the same three teams. ROH is following the same path. To their credit, The Kingdom regularly defended their titles or had Proving Ground matches. Perhaps once ROH gets on TV, they’ll work on revitalize the division. Maybe Khan will allow someone who loves tag team wrestling to have more influence over the booking.