WEEKLY OVERVIEW – ROH (thru 12/11): Top stories of week, major show lineups, live event results, schedule of live events, noteworthy social media posts, more

The following article is part of our Weekly Overview Series to help put in perspective major wrestling promotions with a weekly overview, looking at news and roster developments, results, future line-ups, social media activity, key interviews, plus a timely commentary at the end. We will be featuring similar features on other promotions each week and each will be updated weekly.

•Top Stories of the Week

Joey Mercury had another series of tweets over the past week. The largest news item was “The List,” that Mercury posted. This list is allegedly the list of talent that will be let go by ROH in January. The list includes:

“Brody *conditional” – My guess is that this is conditional on Scurll
Crossed out name
“Cabana”
Crossed out name
“Rhett”
“Shane Taylor”
“TK O’Ryan”
“Boys”
“Tracey Williams”

PCO was on Main Event Radio this week. He discussed ROH and how well they treat their employees. He also talked about how he would like ROH to compete more with WWE and AEW.
Matt Taven was on the PWTorch VIP Podcast of Honor this week. He talked his lead up to Final Battle. He also talked about his run as World Champion.

•Live Event Results

There were no live shows this week.

•Upcoming Major Show(s)

ROH Final Battle
Baltimore, MD at UMBC Arena
12/13/19

Rush (c) vs. PCO for the ROH World Championship
The Briscoes (c) vs. Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham for the ROH World Tag-Team Championship
Shane Taylor (c) vs. Dragon Lee for the ROH World Television Championship
Matt Taven vs. Vincent
Mark Haskins vs. Bully Ray in a Street Fight
Jeff Cobb vs. Dan Maff
Marty Scurll & Flip Gordon vs. Bandido & Flamita
Angelina Love vs. Maria Manic
Rhett Titus vs. Kenny King
Dalton Castle & Joe Hendry vs. Silas Young & Josh Woods

ROH Final Battle Fallout
Philadelphia, PA at 2300 Arena
12/15/19

Alex Shelly vs. Jonathan Gresham
Bateman vs. Tracey Williams
Flip Gordon vs. Rey Horus
Dan Maff and Jeff Cobb vs. PCO and Marty Scurll
Sumie Sakai vs. Nicole Savoy
Mark Haskins vs. Hallowicked
Crowbar in a match
Dak Draper in a match

•Upcoming Events

ROH Final Battle (PPV) 12/13/19 in Baltimore, MD at the UMBC Event Center
ROH Final Battle Fallout (TV Taping) in Baltimore, MD at the UMBC Event Center
ROH Saturday at Center Stage (Honor Club Event) in Atlanta, GA at Center Stage
ROH Honor Reigns Supreme (Honor Club Event) in Concord, NC at Cabarrus Arena

All current live events are located on rohwrestling.com.

•Latest TV Highlights: 12/8/19 ROH Wrestling

ROH TV Results
December 8th, 2019
Airing on Sinclair Networks and rohwrestling.com

Mark Haskins had an in-ring promo to set up his match with Bully Ray. Bully Ray handed cash to “The Mercenary” Flip Gordon. As a result, Gordon powerbombed Haskins through a table.
Bateman defeated PJ Black. Bateman will face Tracey WIlliams at Fallout.
Shane Taylor (c) defeated Danhausen to retain the ROH World Television Championship

Check out the full detailed recap by Jason Powell at prowrestling.net.

•ROH in the Media

Episode 2 of the PWTorch VIP podcast Podcast of Honor is up!

Ryan Sullivan and I preview the Final Battle PPV. They also interview former world champion Matt Taven. In the interview, Taven discusses his upcoming match against Vincent and where he goes next in ROH. Ryan and Tyler also discuss the Final Battle Fallout TV tapings that take place two days after the PPV.

VIP AUDIO 12/9 – Podcast of Honor w/Ryan Sullivan & Tyler Sage: Interview with former ROH World Champion Matt Taven and Preview of ROH’s Final Battle PPV (59 min)

•Social Media Scene

How many camera moves can they fit in one promo?

Final Battle is just a few days away!

It’s @rushtoroblanco vs @PCOisNotHuman for the ROH World Championship!

We asked the Stars of #ROH who they think will be victorious at #FinalBattle & win the gold… pic.twitter.com/wGpajO5UzG

— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) December 11, 2019

What a handsome devil of an action figure.

Never mind the #Christmas decorations…how good would @theDALTONcastle look under your tree? Order the the brash and bold @ringofhonor star in time for the holidays! #ROH #MerryChristmas #HappyHolidays #ftctoys #figlife @FullyPoseable @WrestleFigNews https://t.co/L1ZuktcZH1 pic.twitter.com/RNiP7oN8UT

— Figures Toy Company (@FiguresToyCo) December 10, 2019

Wholesome meme fuel.

Nightmare Fuel 😰 pic.twitter.com/Fld8N5HjTE

— Cheeseburger 🌸🙏🏾 (@CheeseburgerROH) December 10, 2019

•Closing Commentary

Final Battle is upon us. While in a vacuum this card is pretty exciting, there is almost no buzz for the show. This may be due to the stacked weekend. Final Battle on Friday, NWA’s Into the Fire on Saturday, and WWE’s TLC on Sunday.

I think that ROH will and should have the best show out of these three. But WWE is WWE, and NWA is having their first show since going weekly on YouTube. It is almost certain that ROH will have the lowest viewership as a result; no small part is the WWE is airing free programing on FOX at the same time.

ROH may need to look into running Saturday PPVs in the future to avoid competing with a few hundred thousand wrestling fans being glued to a free show. They could still do TV tapings on Sunday, like they are doing this weekend, to keep the cost effective way of getting talent in one weekend of the month.

If the show is not overly booked (I’m looking at you, Bully Ray Street Fight), I think this has the potential to be a moment where ROH starts to transition into a new era, one that is based on good wrestling and storylines, and not behind-the-scenes drama.

Tyler has been a wrestling fan for 20 years. He’s from Columbus, Ohio. His Twitter account is @ringoftyler and he hosts a podcast over at @tandbwrestling.