This Friday, December 20, Ring of Honor hosts its final PPV of the calendar year at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.
At this time, there are seven matches slated to be featured:
- Red Velvet (c) vs. Leyla Hirsch for the ROH Women’s World Television Championship
- Chris Jericho (c) vs. Matt Cardona for the ROH World Championship
- The Sons of Texas (Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara) (c) vs. The Righteous (Vincent and Dutch) in a Texas Bullrope match for the ROH World Tag Team Championship
- Jay Lethal vs. Q. T. Marshall
- Athena (c) vs. Billie Starkz for the ROH Women’s World Championship
- Brian Cage (c) vs. Willie Mack vs. Komander vs. Mark Davis vs. AR Fox vs. Blake Christian in a Survival of the Fittest match for the ROH World Television Championship
- Lee Moriarty (c) vs. TBD (Open Challenge) in a Pure Wrestling Rules match for the ROH Pure Championship
It’s fair to think that a surprise or two might be included as well. For one, we currently don’t know who Lee Moriarty’s title defense will feature. On a media call on Tuesday afternoon, Tony Khan touched on these matches and other topics.
The Hammerstein Ballroom is an iconic wrestling venue and Khan underscored the history of the venue, the atmosphere, and the fans. This will be Khan’s first time in the venue as a fan and as a promoter. [SlamWrestling’s George Tahinos will be there too, to photograph the action.] The iconic venue this Friday provides the possibility for a kind of home base for AEW and ROH and could lead to a “tradition” of doing shows in the Hammerstein Ballroom. ROH will be filming some content for its future shows this weekend in New York.
Billie Starkz and Athena main-evented last year’s Final Battle and Khan praised Starkz’s growth and maturity through her time in Ring of Honor, calling her a “young veteran.” Starkz is not only rivaling Athena for the championship but also learning from the champion. He pointed to their four-way match in Columbus last week. Athena won that match for a shot at the Tokyo Dome at Wrestle Dynasty January 5, 2025. This match will co-main event the night. Starkz has grown a lot since her debut on AEW TV years ago.
EJ Nduka will also be involved in a tag-team match, tagging with Lee Johnson. Khan pointed to the tag-team facing the Gates of Agony as a must-watch. They could feature on Zero Hour.
Red Velvet’s match this Friday is also a point of interest for many fans. Khan put her over, saying that she came into a “big spot” when she arrived and 2024 has been her best year in the ring. Her and Leyla Hirsch were the other two wrestlers in the four-way match that Athena won — a fantastic spotlight on the women of ROH, as Khan said. He said the match put both champion and challenger in a great spotlight.
The co-main event of the night will be ROH World Championship as Chris Jericho defends against Matt Cardona, who was a challenger in Adam Copeland’s “Cope Open” earlier this year, as Copeland defended his TNT title. Khan loved Copeland’s work there and love to work with him more. He put Cardona over as a New York guy, someone who can add that local feel to the show. Khan mentioned him as “a very good TV wrestler” and said that he can be a great champion going forward, provided he wins this Friday night. GCW and AEW could do some more work together, provided that Cardona wins his match against Jericho Friday. Khan said Cardona has been helpful in fostering that relationship, as he’s been a mainstay on the indies the last five years.
The Von Erichs — who currently hold the ROH World Trios Championships (Marshall and Ross with Dustin Rhodes) — are currently not competing due to an injury to Ross. The injury has taken longer to heal but he should be returning “soon.” Rhodes and Sammy Guevara are in what’s become a deeply personal rivalry with The Righteous. Khan called Rhodes one of the best talkers and that Guevara has a lot of potential and can learn a lot from Rhodes. The Righteous have pushed them and both teams have gotten the best out of each other in this feud.
Rhodes couldn’t get enough praise from Tony Khan, him being one of Khan’s favorite wrestlers he’d watch even as a kid. He pointed to the first match Dustin had in AEW against his brother Cody Rhodes at Double or Nothing as a cornerstone moment for AEW. Khan’s been watching Dustin Rhodes since he was seven years old and seeing him still able to lace up his boots all these years later is very special for him.
Lee Moriarty has had an exceptional reign and has built up a great rivalry with Matt Taven on ROH television of late. Taven has won every ROH title except for the Pure Championship. Khan is looking forward to Moriarty’s title defense this Friday night.
In the span of 16 days, Tony Khan is going to be really busy between Final Battle this Friday, AEW’s World’s End on December 28th, Fight for the Fallen on Max January 1, and then Wrestle Dynasty January 5 in Tokyo. Khan called World’s End “the end of an era” in AEW programming, as AEW moves to Max on top of TNT. Whether he’s feeling the stress of the busy schedule or not is undetermined, as he noted he’s appropriately excited and “whelmed.”
Ring of Honor Final Battle will be streaming live on ROH’s Honor Club.
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