ROH: Two new champions crowned at Death Before Dishonor

On July 26, ROH had its summer pay-per-view, Death Before Dishonor. Six titles were on the line. Due to interference from former ROH TV Champion, Kyle Fletcher and Don Callis, The Kingdom retained the tag team titles. Atlantis, Jr. survived five other wrestlers in a Survival of the Fittest match to retain the TV title. Mark Briscoe defeated Roderick Strong in an excellent main event to retain the World Championship.

With a distraction from her minion, Billie Starkz, and an assist from her other minion, Lexy Nair, ATHENA retained the Women's Championship. On Wednesday, the "Fallen Goddess" surpassed 600 days as champion. She is just 46 days from breaking Samoa Joe's record for longest reigning World champion. She's already surpassed his reign when he was TV champion (574 days). She is 53-0 in ROH-sanctioned singles matches. 

Her title reign continues to be impressive and record-breaking, yet AEW nor ROH acknowledged this feat on Wednesday. There was no graphic (Jade Cargill got one when she reached 500 days as TBS Champion). Hell, they didn't even bother to retweet the champion's own tweet about it. 

While Briscoe wrestled on Dynamite, there was no mention of ATHENA's achievement. That's not really a surprise when she doesn't get to defend her title on AEW programming like the other male champions do regularly. Yes, she got to defend it on Battle of the Belts X, but it's the only time she's defended it on AEW programming that wasn't Dark.

Speaking of Starkz, she defended her Women's Television Championship for the first time since winning it as Supercard of Honor. She had five Proving Ground matches in her 112-day reign. She lost the title to Red Velvet in her first defense. That leaves many people asking why she won it in the first place when Velvet was in the tournament to crown the inaugural champion. 

It’s a fair question, but it was so that ATHENA and her protégé could be champions simultaneously. Losing the title sets the stage for Starkz to potentially dethrone her mentor at Final Battle, where she lost last year when she tried to dethrone ATHENA

There was one other title change at Death Before Dishonor. Back on episode 71, Lee Moriarty lasted over 10 minutes in a Proving Ground match with Wheeler Yuta. Since he did, he earned a title shot. Naturally, that shot came at the next big show. The Proving Ground match was fantastic, but the rematch with the title on the line was even better. In fact, it was Match of the Night (along with ATHENA vs.Queen Aminata) for many fans. Moriarty defeated Yuta after nearly 20 minutes to become the new Pure champion. 

Although it happened on Collision, there was one more title match. At Death Before Dishonor, Dark Order wrestled The Von Erichs and Dustin Rhodes. The winner got a shot at the newly un-unified Six-Man Tag Titles against Undisputed Kingdom the next night. The Von Erichs and Rhodes won on Friday and again on Saturday to become the new champions. 

Did they separate the Unified Trios Championships so that members of two of wrestling’s royal families could win titles in Texas? Highly likely. I’m not mad at it. The titles should’ve never been unified in the first place. It’s very cool to have Marshall and Ross carry on their family’s legacy in wrestling and in Texas. This is Rhodes’s first AEW title in his five years there and his first since holding tag titles with his brother a decade ago. 

Episode 75 featured the Six-Man titles defended in an actual title match and not a Proving Ground match (it should be noted that it was the only title match on the show and it opened the show). Yuta wrestled, but Moriarty appeared via video. ATHENA and Briscoe's post-match comments that were shown on social media aired during the episode. The Kingdom was confronted backstage by The Infantry. Red Velvet and Atlantis, Jr. did not appear on the episode.

With the new champions and a several-week residency at the ESports Stadium, hopefully Honor Club will start getting back on track and have more meaningful stories and matches than it did in the time between Supercard and Death Before Dishonor.