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Also, instead of doing this as a ranking of #1 to #10, I did the list in chronological order so you can see how the company progressed as it slowly took the steps from running in front of a few hundred people in the Murphy Rec Center to packing over two thousand into the Hammerstein Ballroom.
The Era Of Honor Begins: 2/23/2002 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
While this was obviously important simply for being the first ROH show, to tell the full story of The Era Of Honor Begins, it's important to know how this show defined what Ring of Honor stood for and how it identified itself. After so many years of hardcore and sports entertainment during the Attitude/nWo Era, and with so many other indy companies trying to fill the hardcore void ECW had left when it closed, they went the other way and designed a company where the wrestling mattered above all else . They developed the Code of Honor, a code of conduct everyone in the company would be held to, and the point about the wrestling-centric nature of ROH was made in the very first segment when the character-driven Christopher Street Connection were attacked and quickly defeated by Da Hit Squad, and then an evening of all out in-ring action where the wrestlers were allowed to work their art without restriction ensued. The main draws of the show were Eddie Guerrero and Super Crazy, who wrestled one another for the IWA-Puerto Rico Intercontinental Title, but the match that closed the show was a Match of the Year candidate between Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, and Bryan Danielson. This demonstrated that even if nationally or globally known names came to ROH, the focus would always be on the young guys who could use ROH as a platform to make a name for themselves without being held down by the established stars like we had seen in WCW and, to a lesser degree, the WWF.
Crowning A Champion: 7/27/2002 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
As the name implies, this was the show where the first ever ROH Champion was crowned. After the first two rounds which took place on the previous event, Road to the Title, only Low Ki, Christopher Daniels, Spanky, and Doug Williams were left standing, and those four competed in a four way, 60 minute Ironman Match for the title. The match took place under brutal conditions as it happened on an especially hot Summer night in Philly, and the building temperature reched nearly 100 degrees by the time the match got going. In the end, Low Ki stood victorious, edging out Daniels 3-2 to become the first champion.
Wrath Of The Racket: 8/9/2003 in Dayton, Ohio
After a year and a half of running exclusively in the northeastern US, ROH finally took a chance on pushing their geographic boundaries westward and ran their first ever event in the Midwest. It turned out to be a good move, as Dayton became one of the main cities on their tour from that point on, and it opened them up to running future shows in places like Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. This show also featured the ROH debut of Jim Cornette, who would be involved with the company off and on and in several different capacities in the years to come. Cornette managed Christopher Daniels and Dan Maff as they challenged AJ Styles and Homicide for the ROH World Tag Team Title in the main event.
At Our Best: 3/13/2004 in Elizabeth, New Jersey
This was originally intended to be a triumphant day for the company as it would be their first try at piggybacking off of Wrestlemania, running this event the day before the big show across the river in New Jersey, and even bringing in Wrestlemania 1 main eventer Roddy Piper to appear on the show. Then the Rob Feinstein scandal happened, Piper pulled off the show, and the entire future of the company was left in question. With the shadow of everything that had happened (and would continue to), ROH pushed ahead: they brought in Dusty Rhodes as a last minute replacement for Piper and went on to knock one out of the park as AJ Styles and CM Punk battled over the Pure Wrestling Title with Ricky Steamboat refereeing, Jay Briscoe had what was then the match of his life against Samoa Joe in a cage for the ROH World Title and gave it everything he had despite bleeding buckets by the end, and the Carnage Crew defeating Special K in the Scramble Cage to blow off a nearly year-long feud. They had not just "put on the best show they could given the circumstances," they had gone above and beyond to have one of their best shows ever at that point. They still had a ways to go before the company was completely transitioned to Cary Silkin's ownership, but this gave people hope they might not have had coming in.
Manhattan Mayhem: 5/7/2005 in New York City, New York
The company had technically run within the legal boundaries of New York City before when they had their first anniversary in Queens, but the real goal was running in Manhattan, and they finally achieved it shortly after their third birthday. Even better, they sold the place out and everyone on the show worked their asses off to try and have the best show ROH had ever done and prove that they deserved to be in New York. There was not one bad match on here, and several memorable moments happened like Jimmy Rave trying to shred the "Straight Edge" tattoo off of CM Punk's stomach with a cheese grater after beating him bloody and pinning him in a Dog Collar match, Samoa Joe defeating Jay Lethal to win the Pure Wrestling Title, and New York's own Homicide and Low Ki defeating Joe and Lethal in an impromptu tag team main event. They knocked it out of the park, and their success led to bigger venues over the years and made New York the main stop on ROH's tour.
Joe vs Kobashi: 10/1/2005 in New York City, New York
The most obviously notable thing about this show was Kenta Kobashi making an extremely rare trip to work in the United States, facing Joe in what has become a legendary match, and one I was lucky enough to witness live. They also sold out the building yet again, prompting ROH officials to make this the last (planned) show in the New Yorker Hotel, as they moved on to the much more spacious (and much less accessible) Basketball City when they returned to New York City in 2006. Most importantly, however, was that this show was a critical part of the process that brought over so many wrestlers from Pro Wrestling NOAH over the next several years. Kobashi went back to Japan with great things to say about Ring of Honor, and within months you had Naomichi Marufuji and KENTA appearing semi-regularly and, eventually, Takeshi Morishima coming in and winning the ROH World Title.
Respect Is Earned: 5/12/2007 in New York City
Flash forward to early 2007: ROH had come off a huge year in 2006 when they ran their first shows in England, ran the hot CZW angle for the first half of the year, Homicide's quest for the title for the second, KENTA and Marufuji were making big waves every time they showed up, and now Morishima had squashed Homicide and became the most dominant champion the company had ever had. That was all well and good, but ROH showed they were a true player when they took the next logical step and announced that they would debut that summer on pay per view, a show that would be taped in their new home in New York City at the legendary Manhattan Center. They pulled their fourth straight sellout there, doing so without announcing any matches ahead of time, and proceeded to put on what at that time may have been their best show from a pure in-ring standpoint. People on that show had matches that, in some cases, I frankly didn't think they had in them, culminating with Bryan Danielson returning from six months on the shelf with an injured shoulder to team with Morishima and beat Nigel McGuinness and KENTA when he tapped his old rival KENTA out to Cattle Mutilation. It was a move some people weren't quite sure about given what PPV had done to ECW, but it was done in a smart way that would minimize costs and served to elevate ROH's place in the eyes of a lot of people.
Glory By Honor VIII - The Final Countdown: 9/26/2009 in New York City, New York
I'm not going to mince words: 2009 was a BRUTAL year to be an ROH fan because so much attention was paid to ROH on HDNet and the PPVs that turned out to not draw in as many fans as they had hoped, that the regular house show/DVD tapings became almost unwatchable. Almost nothing interesting happened on the average show that wasn't in New York or Chicago, and the already demoralized fans now had to face the news that Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness, the two top stars in the company, were leaving to go work for WWE. They ended up having a terrific match in the main event, with Danielson winning by referee stoppage after knocking McGuinness out, and a touching postmatch moment when both got to say goodbye to the fans, but people had to wonder what the future held for the company when those two left.
Luckily, a couple of things happened to give fans hope: first of all, the American Wolves defeated Kevin Steen & El Generico in Ladder War II to retain the ROH World Tag Team Title and end their nearly year-long feud with the former champions. Even more impressively, Eddie Edwards wrestled the match with a giant cast on his arm after breaking his elbow only the night before, a display of toughness that made him with the New York fans. Also, Jim Cornette returned to ROH after a frustrating few years in TNA and announced that he had signed on as the new Executive Producer for the company, a title he holds to this day.
The Big Bang: 4/3/2010 in Charlotte, North Carolina
After two years on PPV, Ring of Honor finally decided in late 2009 that the medium just wasn’t bringing the results they were looking for, but technology had finally made an acceptable alternative available as they instead turned to the relatively new Internet PPV concept, or iPPV. While Final Battle 2009 was technically their first iPPV, this was the first one that was given the full supercard treatment with months of build on TV similar to what you used to see from the WWF and WCW when they only ran PPVs every few months in the late 80s and early 90s. They saved all the biggest matches they had been building to like Tyler Black defending the ROH World Title against Austin Aries and Roderick Strong in a three way, the Kings of Wrestling challenging the Briscoes for the ROH World Tag Team Title, El Generico finally snapping and attacking Kevin Steen in their match, Davey Richards officially announcing his quest to be World Champion, and even the surprise return of Christopher Daniels for this event in order to set the bar for what they hoped to accomplish on this new medium.
The Big Bang also began the series of events that would lead to ROH being purchased by Sinclair Broadcasting. Gary Juster was involved with the promotion of the Big Bang, and he and Cornette worked with Cary Silkin to broach the idea to Sinclair and try to work out a deal to sell the company. Though it would be over a year before a deal was done, the fact remains that this show was successful at what it set out to do for the short term, and also in ways nobody expected at the time.
Best In The World: 6/26/2011 in New York City, New York
ROH has had to define and redefine itself a few times over the years, and most recently it had to do so again after the Sinclair purchase. A lot of people saw the way WCW had turned into a parody of itself after being bought out by Turner Broadcasting and being forced into the corporate way of doing things, and they wondered if the same fate was in store for Ring of Honor as part of Sinclair Broadcasting. Best In The World 2011 dashed those fears in the best way possible, by putting on a wrestling show that was so good that it got a lot of votes for Show of the Year. In addition to El Generico beating Christopher Daniels to win the ROH TV Title, Jay Lethal’s return to the company after several years, and the Young Bucks working a dark match before the iPPV went live, the show was headlined by the very long awaited second match in the series between Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards as they met in what turned out to be an extremely stiff main event with the ROH World Title on the line. Davey won the title from Eddie and became the flagbearer for ROH under the Sinclair regime, a position he has yet to be knocked out of.
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I’ve got one more up my sleeve: tomorrow I’ll be back with my personal picks for the top ten storylines in ROH history, as well as a preview of Sunday’s Tenth Anniversary Show. In the meantime, for more information on ROH and this weekend’s show, head over to the ROH website here.
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