Ring of Honor has a pay-per-view SummerSlam weekend

Ring of Honor (ROH), at various times in the past year a company some argued was actually the number two wrestling promotion in the United States, has a pay-per-view (PPV) coming up in a couple weeks.

Apologies for the lack of coverage, but frankly, with a deluge of other quality, interesting product coming out from WWE, New Japan, EVOLVE, Lucha Underground and even our fandom’s perennial whipping boy/laughing stock TNA, I and the rest of the staff here have kind of forgotten about them.

Which, when you consider ROH is the promotion that’s basically the model for the U.S. independent scene after Vince McMahon bought up the territories & beat WCW, and played a big role in making Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Samoa Joe & many others, is both amazing and sad.

Both Vidence and I have written about what we think the issues are which led us to drift away from a promotion we used to love. Hopefully, they can make a comeback - not for my nostalgic attachment to their brand, but for the many talented men (and, increasingly, women) who work for ROH.

But their model seems to be working to make money for parent company Sinclair Broadcasting, even as it’s not working for me and many of their fans, so...

Yes, Death Before Dishonor XIV is coming our way on Aug. 19 from Las Vegas. It will feature a pretty stacked card of not just ROH talent but major names from New Japan, including IWGP Heavyweight champ Kazuchika Okada and, in his first appearance for the company, one of the best wrestlers in the world, Katsuyori Shibata.

And there’s a good chance it will be lost at sea among EVOLVE 66 - 67, NXT TakeOver: Back to Brooklyn and SummerSlam.

Here’s the line-up (so far) which will try to make sure that doesn’t happen:

- Jay Lethal (c) vs. Adam Cole for the ROH World Title

- Bobby Fish (c) vs. Mark Briscoe for the ROH TV Title

- The Addiction (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito & Evil vs. Michael Elgin & Hiroshi Tanahashi for the ROH Tag Team championship

- Kazuchika Okada vs. Dalton Castle (non-title)

- Katsuyori Shibata vs. Silas Young (non-title)

- CHAOS (Romero, Barreta and Yano) vs. Bullet Club (Takahashi, Tonga, Loa)

- Hangman Adam Page vs. Jay Briscoe

Tickets are still available here; PPV information is here.