ThROH The Years: A ROH retrospective podcast

[Hobbes]

THROH THE YEARS IS GOING TO JAPAN. Today's episode covers ROH's first ever show in The Land of the Rising Sun, Live in Tokyo. We talk about a match you should see that may have fallen under your radar before trying to figure out what a "Fight Without Honor" even is. Also, we tell you who is big in Osaka. You probably won't guess it.
 

https://redcircle.com/shows/throh-the-years/ep/676cc641-366c-4187-b369-846c3b8cfac0

[Hobbes]

Today on ThROH The Years we cover one of ROH's shortest shows, Live in Osaka. We explore the reasons this event is strangely flat and delight in some of the most boring tour diaries you've ever seen. We tried our best with this one.

 

https://redcircle.com/shows/throh-the-years/ep/d8053f00-2bca-4aa1-96bd-d831018a0ba1

[Hobbes]

On the new ThROH The Years we start a two-parter with Race To the Top Tournament Night One. We talk a lot about tournaments in general and why the first round of this one doesn't hit like we hoped it would. Our love in for Kevin Steen continues, we say farewell to Jimmy Rave and Trevor inadvertently says 6-7 twice.

https://redcircle.com/shows/throh-the-years/ep/06934343-9830-4e97-8623-bce255f29821

[Hobbes]

To close out 2025, ThROH The Years reviews one of the weirdest ROH shows we've ever seen, Race to the Top Tournament Night Two. The promotion ventures into WWE style booking, Russo style logic, and Vince McMahon style humor. There are also lights. Oh the lights. Oh and Generico and Claudio have a really cool match.

https://redcircle.com/shows/throh-the-years/ep/29e479c5-9a99-4841-a89a-8b5a19a6a927

[Hobbes]

On a new ThROH The Years podcast legend Joe Gagne returns to talk about Death Before Dishonor V, Part 1. We talk about a great double main event, some interesting undercard matches that go in unexpected directions, and reveal if any of us have used crutches. A show so good that people were shooting outside the building! PROJECT 161 PROJECT 161 PROJECT 161

https://redcircle.com/shows/throh-the-years/ep/ae7618f2-c206-4d38-a12c-1ac03f7972d9

[El McKell]

Matt responding to being jokingly accused of being the shooter outside the building with “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I wasn’t at this show. I’ve never been to Boston!” Was so funny.

[Hobbes]

On 1/22/2026 at 5:24 AM, El McKell said:

Matt responding to being jokingly accused of being the shooter outside the building with “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I wasn’t at this show. I’ve never been to Boston!” Was so funny.

I STILL THINK HE COULD BE INVOLVED

[Hobbes]

ThROH The Years closes out Death Before Dishonor V Weekend covering a big fun show. Trevor is grumpy about booking, but we see some great matches and Bill Apter. We also find time to talk old VHS tapes and Somas! Hold me closer, tiny ladder.

https://redcircle.com/shows/throh-the-years/ep/b8d7ef9b-66ee-44a0-a75f-e9c0b4279afe

[El McKell]

On WCW editing down their PPVs to under 2 hours, I think Bill Watts has said something online the lines of the Turner Home Video people thought it'd help them in the rental market because short movies did better rental numbers than long movies. This annoyed him because WWF's longer VHSs were doing much better business than WCWs.

[hhhisthegame]

On 10/3/2025 at 1:12 AM, Hobbes said:

Sorry I'm just getting to this post. What a great reply! You're like the dream listener, where sometimes I worry if I'm explaining things too much for people who already lived through it, so it's nice to know the context helps some people. The Jimmy/Lacey stuff, you are in for a ride Sir.

Thanks for listening. You get to enjoy the show as a weekly show...if you just wait years for us to build a backlog.

Oh, no, definitely not explaining things too much! It's been really cool to experience this for the first time with your guys podcast as a companion piece. You are both great at breaking everything down but also poking fun at the sort of weird and charming bits of ROH, and that makes it a lot more fun for me, since those are some of my favorite parts. As for weekly though, I just can't keep up with watching that much, since I'm trying to rewatch WWE and TNA (I was watching both of those at the time) along with my first-time ROH watch lol. I dunno how many others are actually watching through for the first time with your podcast, but I think more should because it's really very rewarding. 

I watched Tag Wars and Dissension but it was a while ago and I never did post my thoughts, and at this point it's too late. I don't remember what I would have said, but my main thing is that i really dislike the Prazak/Leonard commentary team, and always miss Gabe on commentary...Gabe used to say funny or silly things throughout the match, even if it was unintentionally funny. He wasn't a good commentator, but he did entertain me. I always feel like Prazak and Leonard never say anything interesting at all. I feel like it's very easy to tone them out because they tend to do more play by play than any interesting color or analysis, or discussion of the characters and stories.

And scattered remaining thoughts about those shows were that the angles with CZW have already been great, even if I see your guys point about the inaccuracies of Cornette's promos (the delivery is great though). Oh, and the Jimmy Jacobs developments with BJ Whitmer have been great, and I've loved the progression of that storyline with him costing them the titles and getting turned on. I'm excited to see what happens there. Finally, I'm going to miss the Embassy with Shelley and Abyss, as I know they are on their way out, and I've loved their group together. Shelley teaching Abyss to throw toilet paper before their match on Tag Wars was amazing. They, Nana, and Rave, all work great together. Definitely the best version of the Embassy so far and I dunno how they're gonna rebuild. Abyss added something really fresh to ROH.

Anyway all this brings me to Unscripted II 

I always watch the Long Island shows with a special eye, because I grew up on Long Island, less than a half hour from Sports Plus. MANY childhood birthdays were there. It was a pretty fun place with both games and some indoor rides. I was a wrestling fan at the time, but I didn’t know Ring of Honor well - I had heard of it, but never seen it. I knew the names of guys like Bryan Danielson and CM Punk, and I was a big TNA fan, but I had never watched an ROH show since it was DVD only. I was just turned 14 at the time of this show. It’s crazy to me the amount of wrestling history that my friends and I could have seen had we been a little older or following it more closely at the time and gone to these Sports Plus shows. From CM Punk signing his WWE contract to Danielson’s ROH title win, a lot of history happened here. And now, on this show, CM punk’s final match ever. I was curious to see what else happens on this show, the story behind it seems like a mess! Thanks once again for covering it in so much detail on the podcast, it’s very interesting seeing the diverging paths of who chose ROH and who chose TNA. It seems like the ramifications will be huge for both companies, and rewatching them both in sync has been interesting to see how this plays out. I'm a little sad though to see that TNA guys will be exiting ROH as I mentioned before. It's been really interesting seeing them develop across two companies. 

For example, it's interesting to see that Jay Lethal is actually starting to get a bit of a push out of nowhere in TNA after being a job guy for a few weeks before this. He gets his first-ever win in TNA on that Against All Odds PPV that caused so much havoc in ROH, and his second win on the next Impact in a triple threat with Roddy and Shannon Moore. Just interesting to see that TNA seems to be committing to him around the same time he's on his way out of ROH. Shelley is also getting more individual attention as this is about a week before he films those vignettes stalking Sting for Jarrett and starts the paparazzi productions angle. Aries/Strong had actually been getting more TV time before this too, and some backstage segments, but I wonder how much their ceiling would have been anyway had this not happened. Still, I wonder whether it's a coincidence, or the bigger commitment to guys like Shelley and Lethal from TNA had something to do with their ROH exit. 

One note is that you guys were talking about the idea of Low Ki coming in, and wondering if he ever did team with Homicide. I don't think he does but one thing I'm not sure if you guys missed is that this is before Hernandez came into TNA and they seemed to be having trouble finalizing the last member of LAX, which was still new. Apollo no-showed and they replaced him with Machete. The rumors were that Low Ki might join that group, which would have been a very interesting alternate timeline, if Low Ki was the one to join instead of Hernandez. 

I was pretty excited to see Gabe back on commentary for this show - I missed him lol.  

God one of the funniest sagas for me in the last few months of ROH has been Colt’s attempts to cut serious promos. No offense to Colt, but most of the attempts are unintentionally hilarious, which I find really endearing. I have to go with you Trevor on this one, over Matt. I did think the Colt promo was a bit over-the-top and ridiculous. I think I'd say that even more strongly than you did (I thought it was VERY over-the-top and ridiculous). He can never help himself but throwing in funny lines like “May 6th, I was born. I’ll always remember that.” Or say that he hasn't shaved when he very clearly has. I didn't find this to be a good promo or a good delivery but yet it was amazing. The fact that there’s an obvious cut in the middle of this means it probably isn’t even one take. I could watch Colt cut these serious promos all day. 

That said, the Cabana match on this show was actually effective this time - probably best match of the feud so far in terms of Cabana seeming serious...in other ones he seemed to be working comedy matches even while not playing a comedic character. 

I agree with Matt on the Long Island crowd. I dunno if it was the snow storm affecting the mood, but I was shocked to hear the tepid reaction to CM Punk. I know you guys said it had only been a few months which is fair but I would think a beloved ROH guy making an appearance despite being signed to WWE would be crazy enough to still make a huge splash, given WWE never allowed stuff like that. 

Also I dunno about the sound system (you guys mention not noticing if it was new) but I did make note while watching that I could actually hear the audio on the arena mics which isn't always the case lol, though that might have changed earlier. 

I also made the same note you guys did about Azriel getting rocked by that collision in that four corners match. I actually found it kind of sad to see that neither the refs nor the wrestlers seemed to notice how out of it he seemed. They kept trying to get him up. I'm surprised he was able to continue in the end. The match wasn't great, but I wonder how much that affected it. Trevor, you mentioned Gabe saying tags don't count in this match. I didn't hear that (though could have missed it) I did hear him say that TAG ROPES don’t apply to a four-corner match, which I found funny. I dont even see why that would be or what the point of clarifying it is. Gabe seems to think the tag ropes add much more to a match than I do, by making such a big deal of it on each show.

I agreed with you guys on Strong/Whitmer - I didn't find it to be a special match. Or any of the matches on this show (though the main event was fun). As you guys mentioned Nigel/Aries was the best match, though I'm sad to hear we'll be losing the scamp Nigel, I really love him in that role. I don't yet know the later Nigel (besides his eventual appearances in TNA) but I really have found him to be great even now in the past year.

The end of the show was truly something to behold, really surreal seeing Punk spend his entire ten minute promo attacking one fan, and then running out to make snow angels in his trunks, but I guess I wouldn't have it any other way because it really did feel like seeing a hidden gem in this guy's weird career. It was just so...CM Punk. Thank you for reading that Wade Keller quote about this, because that really made me laugh lol. 

(On a side note, it's also pretty odd hearing these podcasts which I believe came out before All In and the Punk/AEW implosion. Listening today, wow, you guys knew so little about what was to come.)