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Tonight on AEW Rampage, Wheeler Yuta defeated Katsuyori Shibata to become a three-time Ring of Honor Pure Champion!

We learned last week that the ROH World Television Championship recently vacated by Samoa Joe will find a new home at FINAL BATTLE 2023 in a Survival of the Fittest 6-Way Elimination bout! For more on the history of this Ring of Honor staple that dates back to 2004 check out this article, and stay tuned in the coming weeks as the competitors are determined for this championship bout! In addition, this past Saturday night during AEW's FULL GEAR 2023 event, Eddie Kingston successfully defended the ROH World Championship against Jay Lethal and MJF, with Samoa Joe subbing for Adam Cole, maintained possession of the ROH World Tag Team Championship as well. We also learned that Eddie Kingston raised the stakes of the Continental Classic Tournament by putting both the NJPW STRONG Openweight Championship and ROH World Championship into the mix to, along with the Continental Championship, create a North American Triple Crown championship! This week, with FINAL BATTLE 2023 in their minds, the athletes of ROH are back in action exclusively on Honor Club starting at 7pm ET/6pm CT! In addition, Honor Club is the home for ROH's 20+ years of professional wrestling history, featuring some of the greatest athletes that have defined the sport this century! TAG TEAM BATTLE... AEW Women's World Champion Athena & “Minion In Training” Billie Starkz vs. Marina Shafir & Ronda Rousey Yes, this is real; one of the greatest fighters in the history of mixed martial arts, who crossed over into professional wrestling with spectacular results, is making her debut in Ring of Honor this Thursday night on Honor Club! Ronda Rousey, a Bronze Medal Judo player in the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2018 Hall of Famer, has been tied to Marina Shafir for many years as part of the Four Horsewomen with Shayna Baszler and Jessamyn Duke. Despite their long history, the two only had their first outing as a team on October 26th and actually took on ROH Women's World Champion Athena and Billie Starkz as part of a Pro Wrestling REVOLVER event on November 16th that ended in a No Contest when Athena attacked Rousey with the ROH title belt. This Thursday night on Honor Club, Rousey and Shafir will have a second chance at the victory that was stolen from them at the PWR event. It's one of the biggest bouts in the history of ROH ON HONOR CLUB, possibly the biggest, and it is taking place this Thursday night! ROH PURE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH... Katsuyori Shibata(c) vs. Trent Beretta For the very first time in his twenty year career, Trent Beretta is entering into a Pure Rules bout, but not just a standard Pure Rules situation, but an actual Pure Championship match against the man who's reigned atop the division for nearly 240 days: Katsuyori Shibata! This past Wednesday on DYNAMITE, as part of AEW's Thanksgiving Eve tradition, the ROH Pure Champion united the FTW Champion and the AEW International Champion to score a victory in Trios competition, and now Shibata is back in Pure Championship action with this bout on Thursday night! Trent is heading into this having recently challenged for the TNT Championship against Christian Cage, so that taste of titles is still fresh on his tongue, and with having not held a singles championship in nine years, Beretta is hungry to add a new one to his resume! Can Trent be the first man to hand Shibata a ROH loss since Kyle O'Reilly in 2016, or will “The Wrestler” continue to dominate the Pure Division? ROUND TWO... “All Ego” Ethan Page vs. “The Premiere Athlete” Tony Nese It was just over a month ago that Tony Nese defeat “All Ego” Ethan Page, bringing an abrupt end to the five match win streak Ethan had amassed since returning to ROH competition after nine years. Now it's not as if “The Premiere Athlete” scored that victory on his own merit, “Smart” Mark Sterling is always around to lend a hand with that, but “All Ego” made sure to get his back when he helped Serpentico score a victory over Nese a few weeks later. “All Ego” came to Ring of Honor with the intent of righting a ship he felt had drifted off course, to find his love for professional wrestling once again after many months wrapped up in drama and contracts and the other distractions that divert a professional wrestler from the primary goal of championship success. And isn't that the ultimate purpose of every wrestler in Ring of Honor? Don't they all want to become champions; be it the Pure Championship, the World Television Championship, or the World Championship? Will this be the night Ethan Page rids himself of Tony Nese and Mark Sterling and moves on to the goals he had when he first came back to Ring of Honor back in September? Is the Survival of the Fittest in the winner's future? Is the ROH World TV Championship on the horizon for Ethan Page or Tony Nese? ALSO FEATURING: -Four Corner Survival: Jack Cartwheel vs. Fred Rosser vs. Willie Mack vs. Lee Johnson -Four Corner Survival: Willow Nightingale vs. Diamante vs. Trish Adora vs. Kiera Hogan -Tag Team Four Corner Survival: Iron Savages vs. The Workhorsemen vs. The Infantry vs. The West Coast Wrecking Crew

It was announced last Thursday night during ROH ON HONOR CLUB that, following Samoa Joe vacating the ROH World Television Championship, a new champion would be crowned at FINAL BATTLE 2023. To determine the new champion, AEW/ROH President Tony Khan dipped into the rich, nigh on twenty-two year, history of Ring of Honor and landed on the Survival of the Fittest tournament as the method by which the 31 World Television Champion would be crowned! It's a tournament format that hasn't been tapped since 2021, and while has always seen the winner earn a shot at the ROH World Championship, has never before been used as a championship match itself. But what is Survival of the Fittest? Here's a bit of a history lesson for those either unfamiliar with the format, or simply need a refresher course after a couple years without a SOTF taking place. Born on June 24, 2004 at the Ramada Inn in Essington, PA, the Survival of the Fittest tournament was inspired by Maryland Championship Wrestling's Shane Shamrock Cup, a tournament so-named in honor of the late Shane Shamrock (Brian Howser) who died on August 18, 1998. The initial idea for the tournament finals was an Elimination Match featuring six competitors who each had to qualify via victory in six singles matches. That original intent faded fairly quickly as the inaugural SOTF Tournament actually featured fourteen men looking to qualify for the finals due to one bout morphing from a singles bout into a tag team format: -Austin Aries -Roderick Strong -Samoa Joe -Homicide -John Walters -Mark Briscoe -Jay Briscoe -Bryan Danielson -Alex Shelley -Colt Cabana -Trent Acid -John Walters -Jack Evans -Matt Stryker Of those 14 men, the finals would come down to Aries, Cabana, Homicide, Mark Briscoe, Samoa Joe, and Bryan Danielson, the last of whom would actually win the 43 minute fight, leading to his failed challenge against Samoa Joe for the ROH World Title four months later at MIDNIGHT EXPRESS REUNION. The success of that original Survival of the Fittest Tournament would make it a part of the ROH calendar nearly every year prior to the dawn of the new era of honor, all but 2008 and 2013 as a matter of fact, with past winners of the tournament including Roderick Strong(2005), Chris Hero(2007), Tyler Black(2009), Eddie Edwards(2010), Jay Lethal(2012), Adam Cole(2014), and Bandido(2021). All of those men, save Hero who was a record-setting World Tag Champion, held the ROH World Championship at one point, several of them directly due to their victory in the SOTF tournament, and all are certifiable ROH Hall of Famers. The importance of Survival of the Fittest to their careers can not be understated, and with its return in the closing month of 2023, it is now set to change the course of another individuals career. Only this time and for the very first time, instead of a future ROH World Championship opportunity at stake, the winner of the tournament will be crowned the new ROH World Television Champion! Who will follow in the footsteps of Samoa Joe, Matt Taven, Adam Cole, Shane Taylor, and Dalton Castle to create their own enduring legacy as World TV Champion? The qualifying matches kick off shortly exclusively on future episodes of ROH ON HONOR CLUB, with the final Six Way Elimination bout taking place at FINAL BATTLE 2023 which will be available exclusively on Honor Club for subscribers! Not only will the ROH faithful get the traditional year-end extravaganza, but they will also have access to previous the ROH PPV's in the new Era of Honor, classic ROH content dating back to 2002, and so much more featuring the greatest professional wrestlers of the 21st Century!

It's official! Samoa Joe will now team up with AEW World Champion MJF to defend the Ring of Honor World Tag Team Titles against The Gunns at AEW Full Gear ZERO HOUR!

The Ring of Honor World Championship will be on the line when Jay Lethal challenges the Champ Eddie Kingston LIVE at AEW FullGear ZERO HOUR!

Last week during ROH ON HONOR CLUB, we witnessed Athena and Mercedes Martinez go to war over the ROH Women's World Championship, and thanks to a little help from her M.I.T. Billie Starkz, “The Fallen Goddess” made history repeat itself. This week the championship focus shifts to the ROH World Championship held by Eddie Kingston as he faces a new challenger, the fifth of his reign and for the second straight week, in the form of former ROH World Champion Dalton Castle! In addition, Athena will be in tag action alongside Starkz, Leyla Hirsch and Rachael Ellering united against The Renegades, Emi Sakura is back in the house, and the AAA all-star duo of Komander and Vikingo take on former ROH Tag Team Champions Matt Sydal and Christopher Daniels! The night begins at 7pm ET/6pm CT only on Honor Club, your exclusive home for FINAL BATTLE 2023, as well as more than 20 years of rich ROH history featuring women such as Mickie James, Sara Del Rey, Lacey, Daizee Haze, Allison Danger, Sumie Sakai, Madison Rayne, MsChif, and more!! ROH World Championship Match... Eddie Kingston(c) vs. Dalton Castle A Triple Crown champion in the annals of Ring of Honor history, Dalton Castle has stood atop the Television Title division, the Six-Man Division, and for 197 days atop the whole of ROH. After defeating Cody Rhodes at FINAL BATTLE 2017, Castle would successfully defend his crown on seven occasions before Jay Lethal ended the run on ROH WRESTLING #357 in a Four Corner Survival that also featured Cody and Matt Taven. In the years since, Castle has had multiple opportunities to reclaim the crown, including a bout with Chris Jericho in AEW, and a singles clash with Jay Lethal at HONOR REIGNS SUPREME 2019, but he's been unable to return to the throne. Perhaps that is why Dalton Castle seems so unhinged despite having won seven of his last eight matches here in Ring of Honor, with four of those being one-on-one bouts. Perhaps it's that Castler, as so many others have before him, look down upon Eddie Kingston and deem him unworthy of his hard-earned status as champion. If the latter is the case, then “The Peacock” is in for a rude awakening in this first-ever meeting with “The Mad King”! Just like Shibata, Minoru Suzuki, and Claudio Castagnoli before him, and just as Angelico learned last week, if people thought Kingston was a dangerous man before, then imagine what he has become when someone is looking to take either of his titles. The ROH faithful are in for one heck of a championship fight this Thursday night on Honor Club, one worthy of a championship whose legacy is as rich as the ROH World Title, between two men who are willing to lay it all on the line inside that squared circle to be recognized as they best at what they do! TAG TEAM TUSSLE... AAA Mega Champion El Hijo Del Vikingo & AAA Cruiserweight Champion Komander vs. “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels & Matt Sydal With Adam Cole on the shelf, MJF essentially stands as the ROH World Tag Team Champions all by himself, unwilling to relinquish the titles as he intends to do whatever it takes to keep them ready for Cole's eventual return. Now this Saturday night during the FULL GEAR 2023: ZERO HOUR (https://www.youtube.com/@AEW/videos) that may all change as MJF heads into a title defense against The Gunns seemingly without a partner. Suffice to say there will be a great many eyes on that particular contest as numerous teams in Ring of Honor want a shot at the gold, including former champions Matt Sydal and Christopher Daniels, as well as the AAA All-Star duo of El Hijo del Vikingo and Komander! While the OG ROH team reigned as champions for 91 days between November 2006 and February 2007, they have been unable to build that same momentum as a team to get into a championship situation. As for their foes, the AAA Mega Champion and AAA Cruiserweight Champion though they've only had limited experience together as a team, three matches all told, they did get an opportunity to challenge Aussie Open for the ROH World Tag Titles at DYNAMITE #200, but were clearly unsuccessful in that bid. What it did accomplish though was making them hungry to continue a pursuit of the titles, and that brings both these teams to this clash on Thursday night's edition of ROH ON HONOR CLUB! Who will be the next team to rise up to contention, and will it by MJF or The Gunns who come out of FULL GEAR 2023 as the defending champs? TAG TEAM FIGHT... “Legit” Leyla Hirsch & Rachael Ellering vs. The Renegades (Charlette & Robyn) It took some time, but finally Maria Kanellis-Bennett pulled Leyla Hirsch into her orbit, and had “Legit” pursuing her for guidance rather than Maria chasing Leyla as a client. Similarly, though Rachael Ellering's help wasn't wanted by Hirsch last week after her victory over Charlette Renegade, Leyla did return the favor following Rachel's loss to Billie Starkz, and that balancing of her ledger has essentially created the situation Leyla finds herself in this Thursday night. Perhaps it's Maria's way of repaying Leyla for refusing her services only to come running back for help when the chips were down, but Kanellis-Bennett is certainly making Hirsch jump through hoops to get her guidance. The latest hoop means Hirsch has to team up with Ellering for Maria to consider actually helping out Leyla, thus the two women will square off with Charlette and Robyn this Thursday on Honor Club! If this ends in victory, will it mean Hirsch gets what she's been requesting from Maria Kanellis-Bennett or will further roadblocks follow? Will there be more hoops to jump? THE WORLD TV CHAMPIONSHIP... ALSO FEATURING: -ROH Women's World Champion Athena & Billie Starkz in tag competition! -Trent Beretta vs. Peter Avalon -“The Problem” Marina Shafir in action! -Emi Sakura returns to ROH! -The Bollywood Boyz vs. The Boys! -The Outrunners of Truth Magnum & Turbo Floyd step into the ring!

This week during ROH ON HONOR CLUB, with FINAL BATTLE 2023 just over a month away, there will be a ROH World Championship match Eddie Kingston against a man who has been angling for his shot for several weeks, The Spanish Announce Project's Angelico! Plus, ROH Women's World Champion Athena will welcome a potential challenger onto the Proving Ground while her M.I.T Billie Starkz is in action against Rachael Ellering! And that's not all, The Iron Savages will take on Maria Kannelis-Bennett's baby boys, Josh Woods will be in action, Leyla Hirsch fights Charlette Renegade, and so much more including the ramifications of Samoa Joe's actions on Wednesday night! The fights get started at 7pm ET/6pm CT exclusively on Honor Club, your home for more than 20 years of of ROH's history including the evolution of the ROH World Championship that has been held by Christopher Daniels, Kevin Steen, twice by Jay Briscoe, Matt Taven, Xavier, the only 3-Time champion Adam Cole, and the longest-reigning World Champion in history at 645 days, the ROH Legend Samoa Joe! ROH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH... Eddie Kingston(c) vs. Angelico As seen in the video above, Angelico is coming for the ROH World Championship as much because he wants it for himself as in defense of what went down when Eddie Kingston welcomed Serpentico onto the Proving Ground several weeks ago. Now coming into this fight on a four match win streak, including last week's Four Corner Survival victory over Gringo Loco, Metalik, and Slim J, the master of the Llave Style wants to earn his first ROH World Championship in his first-ever ROH championship match. Now Kingston and Angelico have a decent enough relationship behind the curtain, but in front of it this is the first time they've ever squared off in singles competition. The duo of Kingston and Penta El Zero Miedo do hold a victory over Angelico and Jack Evans from June 2021, but that's the only time these two competitors have shared the squared circle prior to this Thursday. Kingston, as both the ROH World Champion and NJPW STRONG Openweight Champion, has been keeping quite a busy schedule since topping Claudio Castagnoli at GRAND SLAM 2023. He defeated Rocky Romero with the NJPW STRONG championship at stake, topped Katsuyori Shibata at WRESTLEDREAM with both championships on the line, and beat Komander for the ROH World Title. Then he followed it up with a double title match against Minoru Suzuki, traveled to the UK for NJPW ROYAL QUEST III, lost to Jeff Jarrett in a non-title Memphis Street Fight thanks to that gang of miscreants, and finally toppled HENARE at Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2023 with the NJPW STRONG Openweight Championship on the line. Oh, and he now has a NJPW STRONG Title fight with Satoshi Kojima on the horizon for NJPW LONESTAR SHOOTOUT on November 10th! But before he gets there, Kingston has to get through Angelico and his unique approach to professional wrestling this Thursday night on Honor Club! If Eddie can do that, who will be the next man to step up to fight Kingston for ROH gold? VACANT?!? After 574 days and 18 title defenses, this past Wednesday on DYNAMITE Samoa Joe relinquished the ROH World Television Championship following his victory over “Limitless” Keith Lee. Joe left no question about why he made that choice, he wanted to turn his complete focus to the goal of becoming the next AEW World Champion. So for the first time in nearly 600 days, really for the first time in its near 14-year existence, the ROH World Television Championship stands vacant. The question now is what will happen to the championship moving forward? Will there be a tournament to crown a new champion? Will two men be chosen to fight over the right to be called the new champion? Could it be a Four Corner Survival or Gauntlet or maybe even the return of the Honor Rumble? Hopefully we will all find out soon because there are undoubtedly a score of ROH competitors who would love to be the next man called champion! ONE-ON-ONE... Rachael Ellering vs. Billie Starkz Last week Billie Starkz proved utterly crucial to Athena's defense of the ROH Women's World Championship against Mercedes Martinez, finally showing the grit and willingness to do what it takes, and help Athena continue her historic reign as champion. This week on Ring of Honor, Billie will have to step into the ring to go one-on-one with Rachael Ellering, a woman looking to extend herself into a three match win streak in ROH, and someone who just had her efforts to help Leyla Hirsch rebuked. Can Starkz follow-up her moment last week with a victory here, or will Ellering get over Hirsch's treatment last week to score her fourth consecutive win in Ring of Honor? ALSO FEATURING: -Proving Ground: ROH Women's World Champion Athena vs. Heidi Howitzer -“The Technical Beast” Josh Woods in action! -“Legit” Leyla Hirsch vs. Charlette Renegade -Iron Savages (Bronson & Boulder w/ Jacked Jameson) vs. Cole Karter & Griff Garrison (w/ Maria Kanellis-Bennett) -And more!!!

Samoa Joe vacated the Ring of Honor World Television Championship on AEW Dynamite. Watch ROH on HonorClub TOMORROW for more details.