Awesome / Ring of Honor

• Chris Hero got one when he became the first (and only) wrestler in Survival of the Fittest history to defeat the other five wrestlers in the 2007 Finals.
• Tyler Black (c) vs. Davey Richards at Death Before Dishonor VIII for the ROH World Championship, a strong contender for match of the year. It even turned an intensely anti-Black crowd back on his side.
• Tyler Black had another one against the fans at Glory By Honor IX. After having to put up with fan hostility since he won the title, the NYC crowd still had the temerity to chant "Thank you, Tyler" before he went off to WWE. Black answered their gratitude with two middle fingers.
• Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk. 60 minutes. 3 times. For many ROHbots, the sixty-minute time-limit-draw between CM Punk and Samoa Joe was a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for both men. This is fairly warranted, as The Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave the second of such matches (there were three in the series) a five-star rating, the first match in American pro wrestling to receive such a high honor in seven years.
  • Punk's promo at Wrestlerave '03 on why he hates Raven so much, as it was this promo (and his feud with Raven in general) that really helped make him a legitimate name in Ring of Honor and really, in indy wrestling in general.
  • And then, when he finally won the ROH World Championship, he did an immediate Face–Heel Turn — he reminded the fans that "I'm still a snake, you idiots!", declared his intention to take the ROH belt to the WWE, and signed his real WWE contract on the ROH belt.
  • An earlier moment involving Punk took place at Death Before Dishonor 2003. As part of his feud with Raven, Punk has been ragging on ECW and its fans. Punk beats Raven in a dog-collar match, ties him to the ropes, and announces that he's going to send Raven back to rehab... but then the crowd EXPLODES as he gets jumped by Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer ties Punk to the ropes, releases Raven, and the two embrace, symbolically bringing an end to their long-running ECW feud. Then Dreamer does Sandman's "bash his forehead with a beer can until he bleeds" schtick, and Raven forces Punk to drink his first beer.
  • Joe, too, had really been deemed awesome long before the Joe/Punk series ever took place; for his crowning moment, odds are you're going back to his debut match against Low Ki at Glory By Honor. At that point in time Low Ki's kicks and chops were basically treated as the most lethal attcks in the promotion, so it's hard to put into words how stunning it was to watch Joe come in and not only trade strikes with Ki for the entire match, but at one point take an incredibly stiff-looking kick to the back... and barely register it beyond looking a little pissed off that he'd been kicked. Joe eventually lost the match, but it still set the tone for what a badass he would be in the years to come.
• The titular match of the Joe vs. Kobashi event; it featured ROH's Samoa Joe vs. Japanese legend Kenta Kobashi. To this day, it has no commentary voiceover (in order to maximize the "live" experience and prevent fan annoyance), and the show would be the company's top-selling DVD despite being essentially a one-match show.
• Jade Chung got a big one after the original Steel Cage Warfare when she used Jimmy Rave as her own personal footstool after Steel Cage Warfare.
• The official formation of The Age of the Fall deserves to be mentioned. Some back story: A DVD release of the PPV removed the original footage and used the infamous "blood edit", which may even be worse. The fans insisted on seeing the original footage, which was later uploaded to ROH's official YouTube account as part of their videowire. To this day, it's one of the most surreal, violent, and ultimately influential debuts by any group in any promotion: the once lovable loser Jimmy Jacobs turned into public enemy #1 inviral website starts to float around before the 161st ROH event, and the official ROH message boards swirl with confusion over what it means. At the actual show, things are relatively normal...until the tag match between The Briscoes and Kevin Steen & El Generico ends. After the match, out walks Necro Butcher, Jimmy Jacobs (who, up to that point, had only been cast as a really incompetent flunkie), and Tyler Black. All three commit an EXTREMELY VIOLENT assault on the Briscoes before stringing the barely conscious Jay Briscoe upside down, his blood LITERALLY raining down all over Jacobs. The angle had such an impact in ROH (which, while cutting-edge, was never considered an extremely bloody deathmatch-type promotion) that the official a promotion notorious for CHEERING heels and Tyler Black's career was launched in full.
• Bryan Danielson is has been a living CMOA since day one ("The Era of Honor Begins") and shows no sign of stopping six years later (although he's been in the business for longer) or even when he got socked in the left eye so hard it detached his retina and fractured the eye socket early on in a big match. That's right, early on...
  • He later got his revenge in the Fight Without Honor that main-evented the last show of 2008, Final Battle 2008. Not a hardcore match per se, but even with the lack of a formal Code of Honor unlike the early days, it's still the feud-ending match in Ring of Honor... he won with twenty consecutive elbows wrapped in chain to the head followed by his signature Cattle Mutilation hold, but its own CMOA was how the match started... the lights went dark as usual for his entrance, but the lights came on as he charged into the ring from the opposite side, threw his opponent into the crowd, dove off the top rope onto his opponent in the crowd, all while his music was still playing... and then got up in time to point to the sky as the crowd sang, "IT'S THE FI-NAL COUNT-DOOOOOOWN!!"
  • The greatest testament to Danielson's talent is probably the fact that many, many ROH wrestlers have had their Crowning Moment Of Awesome while wrestling him. Nigel McGuinness engaging Danielson in a headbutt war while bleeding from a massive bulge on his face as his hometown London fans roared, Jimmy Rave countering and stealing Danielson's moves, Austin Aries lasting 75 minutes against him in a 2 out of 3 falls match, Homicide overcoming a cheap DQ to finally win the ROH championship, Roderick Strong making Danielson's chest bleed from chops...Danielson is an expert at making other wrestlers look every bit as awesome as he is.
• After Final Battle 2008, Paul Turner owns the Referee CMOA. A fan shoved wrestler Austin Aries almost off the entrance stage, so Aries socks him right back; the guy next to the fan either freaks out, flips out, or is about to jump the rail...at which point Turner goes from the ring to right there to restrain the guy, either calming him down or choking the guy out (depending on which version you hear) and controlling the situation until finally the senior referee, Jimmy Jacobs (whom Aries had just helped in delivering a beat down to Tyler Black), and venue security got there. Pity he looked so embarrassed about getting the biggest reaction of the whole night other than the aforementioned main event...which he had inadvertently fired up the crowd for by having his Moment of Awesome, breaking a tradition of New York City crowds being exhausted by main event time. "NEXT WORLD CHAMP" indeed!
• June 14th, 2009: Austin Aries defeats defending ROH World Champion Jerry Lynn and fellow challenger Tyler Black to become the promotion's very first two-time world champion.
• September 25th, 2009: Eddie Edwards breaks his elbow during a Street Fight with Kevin Steen. This wouldn't normally be too much of an issue - go home, heal up, rehab, the usual - except Eddie and his tag partner Davey Richards were (at the time) the ROH Tag Team Championship team The American Wolves, and they had a title defense the very next night in a ladder match against Kevin Steen and El Generico. Most other people likely would have gone home and left the company scrambling to find a solution. Eddie Edwards didn't. He walked into Glory By Honor VIII alongside Davey Richards with a broken elbow and worked the entirety of Ladder War II, making him instantly over with the crowd thanks to the balls of pure titanium it took to do that. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, he and Richards won.
  • And later that night, in their final match in the company before leaving the company, Bryan Danielson (who left for WWE) and Nigel McGuinness (who signed with TNA) squared off one last time as the end of Danielson's "Final Countdown Tour". (For the record, Danielson won.)
  • Edwards wrestled through a major injury again at Survival of the Fittest 2010. He defeated 2007 Survivor Chris Hero in a qualifier, injuring his shoulder in the process. Despite not being able to lift his arm, he eliminated Kenny King to win the Survival of the Fittest tournament.
• June 19 2010: ROH's Internet PPV Death Before Dishonor VIII featured several awesome moments and matches, including:
  • El Generico getting a jab in at WWE for their treatment of Bryan Danielson by taking a tie off of a ring announcer and choking Kevin Steen with it while beating him down during the show's intermission.
    Dave Prazak: HE SHOULD BE FIRED!
  • Christopher Daniels vs. Kenny Omega, which stole the show - until...
  • Tyler Black defending the ROH World Title against Davey Richards, the show's main event and easily the best match on a show with a lot of good matches. It's also easily a Match of the Year contender, for both ROH and the entire industry.
• Moose dropkicking Mark Briscoe at ROH 13th Anniversary. For some context, Briscoe was sitting on the top rope and Moose is 6'5 and 300 pounds.
• At one point during the eight-man tag match between the House of Truth and the Briscoes, ODB and Roddy Strong, ODB was in the centre of the ring, surrounded by the House of Truth. Undaunted, she simply swigged some of whatever's in her flask and took on all four members of the House of Truth at once.
• Dalton Castle. Just... just Dalton Castle.
• Ladder Wars in general are fountains of awesome moments in pro wrestling, but the participants of Ladder War VI seemed determined to top them all. Before it even began, Christopher Daniels cut an emotional promo that declared that the Ring of Honor tag team title would likely be the last belt that he held in his long and illustrious career. He fought and clawed to keep it, bleeding heavily after taking a ladder shot early in the match and being dropped onto a makeshift table made out of three crowd barricades. In the end, the combined efforts of the Young Bucks and Motor City Machine Guns proved to be too much as the Bucks hit an IndyTaker spiked tombstone on Frankie Kazarian, through a table and off of a ladder (Nick had a chance to win the match right there but decided that adding one more high spot to the match would be more appropriate). Both of their foes out, the Bucks climbed the ladder and won their second ROH Tag Title (and leaving the show with three major tag titles around their waists.)
• "Broken" Matt Hardy challenging the Young Bucks to a tag team match during Final Battle 2016 qualifies as one CMOA. Plus, he's not coming alone for this one, he's bringing in Brother Nero aka Jeff Hardy! In an essence,the act would unofficially begin a new relationship between ROH and TNA for the first time in nearly a decade.
  • Except not, as it turns out that TNA are blocking them from using the 'Broken' gimmick (due to an ongoing lawsuit between TNA and the Hardys as to who owns said gimmick after the Hardys leaving TNA), preventing commentary for saying the words 'broken' or 'Brother Nero' during their matches.
  • Before that challenge, the Bucks beat the Briscoes after hitting the Brothers with twenty-eight superkicks.
• At "Manhattan Mayhem" 2017, the Bucks successfully defend the tag team titles...and the lights go off. When they come back on, Matt and Jeff Hardy are in the ring in full "Broken" and "Brother Nero" personas. They challenge the Bucks on the spot, the Bucks agree and an impromptu match ends with the Hardys victorious.
• At the same show, Bubba Ray Dudley makes his debut in ROH.
• At the 15th Anniversary Show, Christopher Daniels, at long last, wins the ROH World Title.
• Glacier appearing as #20 in the 2017 Honor Rumble. EVERYONE freaked out, from the audience to the commentators, and even ROH World Champion Cody Rhodes went nuts. The other wrestlers in the ring also stopped cold and watched as he made his way to the ring.
• In mid 2018, ROH along with NJPW announced that it would hold a G1 Supercard event inside Madison Square Garden. Yes THAT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN! It would go head-to-head with WWE's NXT Takeover event at the same night. The ticket sales is a success in which it became a sellout.
• Final Battle 2022 lives up to its reputation even if the company is under new management. Of particular note is the double dog collar match between the Briscoes and FTR for the ROH World Tag Titles. In a very brutal match that even had the ref bleeding after he took a chain shot to the head, the Briscoes win and become 13-time ROH tag champions.
• On March 3, 2023, the weekly Ring of Honor Wrestling program returns in full force as a streaming show on Honor Club, with two hours filled with big stake matches featuring talents of the past and present. Reception of the show is positive, and the Honor Nation is expected to see more of the product.

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