Recap Of Honor - ROH Wrestling #304

In a week that saw Ring of Honor announce a huge collaborative deal with three of the world’s hottest promotions, things seem to be looking up for America’s third biggest wrestling company (or second, depending on who you ask) as we head into the latter half of 2017.

After a tumultuous year of suspect booking, top talent departures and widespread rumours of a WWE buyout, ROH seem to be back on track, teaming up with New Japan Pro Wrestling, Mexico’s CMLL and the UK’s Revolution Pro as part of the huge War of the Worlds event taking place on SummerSlam weekend.

Having switched the ROH World Championship five times in less than 12 months (the most in company history), ROH seem to have found their man in Cody Rhodes. Cody has been almost universally praised by his peers as the right man to hold the gold and, having signed an undisclosed deal in April, also seems set to stick around despite proclaiming his status as a “free agent” on ROH TV - a reassuring fact for ROH.

With so much momentum behind them, Ring of Honor had a lot of steam going into this week’s edition of ROH Wrestling. The Bullet Club are arguably the hottest act in the wrestling in 2017 and this week's episode wasted little time putting that fact to good use. Placing Cody in the opening segment and the always enjoyable Young Bucks in the main event made for fantastic book-ends to the show.

Starting on a high note, the show opened with a textbook promo from reigning ROH Champ, Cody, who was clearly still riding high from his championship victory over Christopher Daniels at June's Best in the World iPPV.

With a noticeably positive reception from the ROH faithful, the son of a son of a plumber made the most of the positive crowd reaction by channelling the crowd’s energy towards his absent foe. With both barrels loaded, “The American Nightmare” got the show off with a bang, taking aim squarely at the former ROH Champ.

Focusing in on Daniels alleged bitterness at losing the ROH Title, Cody went on to brand his fallen opponent with the dreaded “boo-boo face” moniker - a term associated with unprofessional workers not happy with doing the honours. The smart fans in attendance would react in kind, kicking off a “boo-boo face” chant of their own and confirming the perception that the fans themselves had turned their back on Christopher Daniels.

Taking it even further, Cody then compared Daniels sour sportsmanship to that of Shawn Michaels “losing his smile” in 1997, which in itself has some pretty extreme negative connotations. The pro-Cody crowd ate up every word, capped off by the champ ultimately laying out the challenge to Daniels for “2 Out of 3 Falls” title rematch.

With Cody already set to defend the ROH Title at War of the Worlds against Sanada of New Japan’s Los Ingobernables de Japon stable, it looks like it’ll be a busy few weeks for the Ring of Honor Champ. In an era of ROH where the company looks set to prove itself, the ROH Champ himself seems to be leading by example and looking to prove his worth to the indie wrestling world.