This writer was at Best in the World live. It was a dream to be in that kind of Ring of Honor event, after having not participated in what feels like ten years. And boy did it execute!

  • Roderick Strong and Michael Elgin.
  • Anything with the Young Bucks and AJ Styles is going to wow, and boy did it!
  • And of course, the main event. Although these two champions weren't booked to have the strongest reigns of all time, the fans were hot and really deep into it. All the fans cheered for Lethal to win the title. A Lethal Injection really got the crowd hot, prior to Ring of Honor giving the go after another one. Lethal's parents were even in the crowd to build up the match.

Jay Lethal pulled off a killer promo about the company and his ability as a wrestler that everybody loved and agreed with. This is unlike a certain company that keeps giving belts to only who management believes should be there, no matter what audiences say in their business.

Heck, Lethal gave a similar promo last week and stated that he would be proud as the best first generation wrestler to defend the belts twice a night.

And of course, now a week later, (or one day taping wise,) Lethal is booked to be a heel champ again. And the Briscoes are still after the World Title. And nothing's changed in Ring of Honor for the past year or so, as if World Wrestling Entertainment was booking.

Lethal's promos mean nothing and the fans don't know how to react, because Ring of Honor although accomplishing good wrestling isn't pulling off the storylines that founding booker Gabe Sapolsky delivered that gave fans the greatest moments of wrestling history for the #3.

There goes the end of the Jay Briscoe era.

Oh wait! We're still in it!

We don't need to get into the public relations disaster of having Briscoe as champ after his homophobic twitter post. Although it doesn't help, it's not the first time it happens in wrestling, and Briscoe's donated money to try and fix the situation.

There's a certain logic to booking Briscoe as a World Champ: He's been in the company forever. So book nostalgia matches. Heck, his title win was even off Kevin Steen, a wrestler that Jay and his brother feuded with in ROH in a historic feud. He feuded with his brother, and all their history in one of the big PPVs of Ring of Honor, Best in the World. He even feuded with an up and coming wrestler that would eventually be his successor in Adam Cole.

Briscoe losing the belt was sort of a mess due to his ROH contract. He then feuded with Adam Cole, after Cole turned heel post-title win jumping Briscoe from behind. The level of storyline writing wasn't exactly the quality of WWE,

However, his second title reign became a disaster. He took the belt off a guy who got a 5 star match from David Meltzer, Michael Elgin, a man audiences expected to be a fighting champ to deliver these types of matches. However, after rumors of Elgin jumping to another company after the win and then a suspicious claim of his inability to draw as champ, the Ring of Honor staff made Jay Briscoe the second two-time Ring of Honor champ.

And boy this was a long reign and not for good reason. See, in case you haven't noticed, Dixie Carter's wrestling fed, had cut way too many corners with their wrestling roster, causing TNA lifelong member and reigning World Champion AJ Styles to jump from the company. Later, Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian, a tag team like the Briscoes, jumped ship too. A lot of talent that Ring of Honor had lost due to superior TNA contracts was coming back to ROH. Yet, Ring of Honor had yet to capitalize on this situation, say having AJ Styles become the World Champion and biggest star of NJPW and their elite gaijin stable, the Bullet Club.

Like, this is founding Ring of Honor staff member, Gabe Sapolsky's dream. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling talent jumping ship to Ring of Honor, so that he could book dream matches and feuds such as Jay Briscoe - AJ Styles or the Briscoes - Daniels and Kazarian or the Briscoes - Chris Sabin and a member of the Time Splitters. So many dream matches could be made to elevate both Ring of Honor and Jay Briscoe's status. Instead, we just get a really long reign by Jay Briscoe, where he doesn't really feud with anybody, with matches that are three star, compared to AJ Styles or the Young Bucks or ACH's five star matches. Briscoe doesn't even need a 5 star match to be a successful champ. He just need a ROH equivalent of a WrestleMania moment.

I really don't get why the heads would be in charge of a company with such a legacy and not execute, such a sound strategy of delivering a simple should I say entertaining wrestling product? I don't know all the behind the scenes situations such as contracts, backstage politics, or situations not in front of the television.

It's not Jay or Mark Briscoe's fault. It's Ring of Honor's. Hopefully, Death Before Dishonor was a good sign of changes to come for Ring of Honor.