ROH: Women's tournament continues while champions are missing from Honor Club

On last week's episode of Honor Club, the quaterfinals of the ROH Women's Television Championship tournament got underway with one match. Queen Aminata got the win over Taya Valkyrie. While there were a total of three matches this week, there was just one tournament match.

Leyla Hirsch took on Red Velvet in the opening bout. It was a good, hard-hitting matchup. Over the 10 minute match, Hirsch would dominate most of it. However, Red Velvet got the surprise victory. She will advance to face Queen Aminata.

While the tournament finals looks to be crowning the inaugural champion at Supercard of Honor, there's not much else happening. ROH's first pay-per-view of the year is four weeks away. The only consistent champion on Honor Club has of course been ATHENA.She defended her title against Nyla Rose in a first ever 2-out-of-3 falls tables match.

After successfully defeating the former AEW Women's Champion, who's next? It's rumored that STARDOM's AZM and Mina Shirakawa will be at Supercard. Either women would be an excellet opponent for the "Fallen Goddess".

PURE Champion Wheeler Yuta has not been on Honor Club in 12 weeks. Yuta defended it on AEW Rampage in January. To be fair, he has been injured. He is being advertised for the CMLL show in Mexico on March 29, which is exactly one week before Supercard.

In January, Mike Bennett and Matt Taven competed on three consecutive episodes of Honor Club. Of those three matches, two were Proving Ground matches. Their opponents have to either last 10 minutes or beat the champions to get a title shot. Neither team did. Their last title defense was in January against Iron Savages.

Kyle Fletcher hasn't defended the ROH TV Championship since episode 47 on January 10. He was away briefly after having visa issues. He returned at AEW Revolution and wrestled Will Ospreay on Dynamite in a non-title match. A few weeks ago, Ethan Page said he wants a shot at Fletcher. Now that he's back, it will likely be the Supercard match.

Bullet Club Gold won the Six-Man Trios Titles on January 17 on Dynamite. They have been too busy scissoring on the main roster to find time to make it to Honor Club. In fact, they haven't defended those titles at all.

Lastly, the ROH World Championship has not been on Honor Club since November 8. This was before the title was folded in the the Continental Crown title, which consists of the ROH World Championship, the NJPW STRONG Openweight, and the AEW Continental Championship. The title has been defended in both AEW and NJPW. Kingston has also held Proving Ground matches. He appeared in a video that aired on Honor Club in January. That's the closest he's gotten.

During the Revolution media scrum, Tony Khan was asked about Kingston being planned for Supercard of Honor. Khan confirmed that he was, but did not elaborate. We at least know that the working plan is for the Continental Crown to be defended. Kazuchika Okada indicated he wanted a shot at those titles. That match is more likely to happen on the inaugral AEW Dynasty pay-per-view on April 21.

Titles not being defended on Honor Club has been an ongoing issue since Khan relaunched Honor Club. He is clearly a very busy man, but too often, ROH falls by the wayside. Before you ask -- no, folding ROH is not the answer. AEW already regularly leaves people off TV with five hours of programming weekly. They don't have room for more talent if ROH was defunct. Page, Nyla Rose, Matt Sydal, Christopher Daniels, Lee Moriarity are just some of the wrestlers who are featured on Honor Club more often due to the lack of tv time in AEW.

There are only a few places where wrestlers can perform on TV (yes, ROH is on a streaming platform, but stop splitting hairs). If ROH folds, that also puts production crews, hair and make up, referees, office personnel, caterers, and more out of a job. If ROH goes away, that's one less place for people to work in a tv enviroment.

Khan must delegate booking and creative to trusted people to help ROH succeed. He is reportedly already doing this to an extent. ROH needs to stop being treated as an afterthought. Champions must defend their titles in ROH regularly. There should be more storylines focused on title feuds. These four corner survival matches need a goal like getting a shot at the tag team titles.

ROH is not too far gone that course correction can't happen again. It just needs to stop falling through the cracks and there needs to be a dedicated team to ensure this doesn't keep happening.