Hello everyone, sorry for the delay. This week on ROH we have two women’s matches, a single match featuring The Living Dead Girl, Abadon, and the international superstar Viva Van, and a street fight for the ROH World women’s television championship between the reigning champ La Red Velvet against her current arch nemesis, Diamante.
First we have the single match with Abadon defeating Viva Van in a short five-minute match. The match started hot with Viva Van declining to shake the living dead girl’s dead hand by slapping her right in the face, which only made Abadon laugh. Abadon hits a scorpio kick followed by another kick.
After a while, Viva Van proved to not be intimidated by Abadon by yelling and taking control after hitting a kick of her own. Both competitors made the best of what they were given, and after a cutter, Abadon was able to hit the Black Dahlia (a leg wrap DDT) for the win. Post match, she shakes Vivan Van hand energizingly while Van lays on the mat.
I really do not know why they haven’t signed Viva Van yet, but at least they made the match seem more fair or even than a normal squash match. I think the comedic layer to the Abadon character could help her in the long run, and it gives her more dimension; it reminded me of bettlejuice.
Next we have another Emergency Minion Empowering Meeting with Lexy Nair and Billie Starkz now that Billie is ready to apologize to the Minion Overlord and Forever ROH Women’s Chapion, Athena. When Billie was about to apologize, Athena appeared, and after looking her up and down, she questioned Billie’s “Grandma nursing home project” flower top, only for the ROH baddie Leila Grey to interrupt, saying that there is nobody better than Top Flight. They laugh at her, and Athena sets up a proving ground match next week between the two.
After that, we see a from the vault segment with a proving ground match from 2023 between Hyan and Athena.
Now onto the main event street fight. We first see the moments that made the match possible, when Diamante attacked Red Velvet last month and when Red Velvet returned last week to confront her.
With the confidence of an experienced street fighter, Diamante tried to attack Red as she was making her way to the ring; she missed, and they brawled at ringside.
Diamante takes control after a painful German suplex; they go back and forth. Diamante was able to put velvet inside the trash can, followed by a drop kicked, only to get a two-count.
Feeding herself from the boos of the crowd, she chokes Red Velvet with a chain. The champion recovers and hits a running bulldog onto a chair, then throwing Diamante onto the trash can. After bringing a ladder to the ring, Red Velvet attempted a senton from the second rope. Diamante moves and hits Velvet with a frog splash.
The final moments of the match came after a superplex through a table. As both wrestlers were down, Red Velvet was able to hit her finisher onto the title for the win.
Watching this episode made me think about how much things have changed for women in wrestling. We used to maybe get ONE gimmick match per year if any back in the day, while now it seems that we get them any given day across all the promotions. I am happy Velvet retained and that they at least got the main event spot to showcase themselves. But like they say, there’s always room for improvement, and it seems that it will always be a work in progress.
I also loved how good Athena is as a heel, and in these backstage segments, she has been able to showcase her personality way more than when she was in the WWE, and I can’t wait to see the storyline progression with Billie.
What did you think about the street fight and the show? Let us know in the comments below.
