Over the course of the last 23 years, Ring of Honor has presented events from 39 different states across the USA, as well as traveled to Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Tonight, the most influential wrestling promotion of the 21st century adds Brisbane, Australia to the list of amazing locations that have hosted ROH over the years, and with this debut Down Under comes the return of GLOBAL WARS! It's been five and a half years since the last GLOBAL WARS, and though many things have changed, Ring of Honor is still home to some of the greatest professional wrestling on the planet! That will be showcased this evening with this Monday night special presentation featuring three championship matches, as well as the ROH World Champion in action, and more!
ROH World Champion Chris Jericho and his Learning Tree will kick off the action with a trios battle against former ROH World Champion Bandido and The Outrunners, and the action only gets more intense from there! Red-hot ROH Pure Champion Lee Moriarty will defend his title against Australia's own Robbie Eagles, ROH World Tag Team Champions The Sons of Texas face the challenge of MxM Collection, and ROH Women's World Champion Athena puts her title up against the top-shelf challenge of Alex Windsor! The action for this GLOBAL WARS 2025 special kicks off at 7 p.m./6 p.m. CT tonight only on HONOR CLUB! Then join us Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET right back on Honor Club for ROH's weekly presentation featuring more of the world's best wrestlers!
TRIOS BATTLE...
The Learning Tree (ROH World Champion Chris Jericho, Big Bill, & Bryan Keith) vs. Bandido & The Outrunners (Truth Magnum & Turbo Floyd)
Bandido first inserted himself into the lives of The Learning Tree at FINAL BATTLE 2024 at the end of last year, coming to the aid of “The Complete” Matt Cardona after his ROH World Championship loss to Chris Jericho inside the Hammerstein Ballroom. Bandido reappeared in AEW shortly thereafter, again in response to Jericho and his branches perpetrating an after-match assault on their foes, this time on The Outrunners Truth Magnum and Turbo Floyd:
For Bandido the issue with Jericho dates back to their 9/28/22 DYNAMITE clash for the ROH World Title during The Nueve's first run with the championship, but it was reignited by the despicable behavior Jericho has displayed since beating Mark Briscoe in Ladder War back at the 10/23/24 DYNAMITE. Whereas Jericho was a shockingly honorable champion during his first reign, fighting as if he had a point to prove, this time around he's been exactly the kind of champ he was during his AEW World Title reign. He's been a sneak, a cheat, and used the minions around him as a shield as much as possible. Bryan Keith and Big Bill have been there at every turn to protect “The Nueve”, just as they will be at his side tonight in this trios battle.
However, instead of protecting Jericho and his title from the outside, tonight “The Redwood” and “Bad Apple” will be fighting at his side against Bandido and The Outrunners! Can “The Most Wanted” Bandido, Truth Magnum, and Turbo Floyd make this first-ever trip to Australia a victorious excursion or will The Learning Tree and its branches prove an invasive species?
ROH PURE CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH...
Lee Moriarty(c) vs. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Champion Robbie Eagles
Claiming the ROH Pure Championship from Wheeler Yuta was the culmination of a dream for Lee Moriarty, a dream that he never thought would be possible. See in August 2006, when Lee was just a few months shy of his 12th birthday, the Pure Championship was unified with the ROH World Title when Bryan Danielson defeated Nigel McGuinness at the appropriately named UNIFIED. That event took place more than nine years before Lee even began his own pro wrestling journey, but the beauty of technology made it possible for #Taigastyle to see what that Pure Title, and the wrestlers who embodied that style, were all about. He watched Nigel, he watched Samoa Joe, he watched Jay Lethal, and he watched what each brought to the table as Pure Champions, and he began to create his own style inspired by how they each took to this specialized form of competition.
Then something happened in September 2020; in the midst of a global pandemic, Ring of Honor began a tournament to crown a new Pure Champion and with the possibility that Lee could actually hold that crown, his inspirations once did opened up. So inspired by this was Lee that he even fought in a Pure Rules match on an independent show July of 2021, but it wasn't until HONOR CLUB #10 that he had the chance to fight under the ROH banner in a match contested with Pure Rules. That night he tested himself against Rocky Romero, and though he came up short, Lee wasn't done with chasing the dream. His first chance at achieving it came weeks later in a Pure Championship fight with Katsuyori Shibata on RAMPAGE: CHAMPIONSHIP FRIDAY on 6/2/23. In what was essentially a #1 Contender's bout, Moriarty fell to Yuta during HONOR CLUB #39, and had to watch Yuta parlay that victory into his third ROH Pure Title reign just two days later.
That just meant Moriarty had to grind harder to get back to where he wanted to be, part of that was aligning with Shane Taylor Promotions, and part of that was getting back in the ring with Yuta during HONOR CLUB #71 in a Pure Rules Proving Ground bout, just the second-ever for that particular title. Moriarty took Yuta to the ten-minute time limit that night in Allentown, PA, and just a few weeks later at DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR 2024 in Texas, bested Wheeler to finally take the prize he'd watched with fascination years prior. Moriarty made a promise to be a fighting champion, to elevate the standing of the Pure Title, and in the seven months since he's done just that, scoring wins over Angelico and Preston Vance as well as ROH Grand Slam winner Matt Taven, and capped off by a victory over Nigel McGuinness at FINAL BATTLE 2024 inside the historic Hammerstein Ballroom.
All that is said to illustrate just how important the Pure Championship is to Lee Moriarty, how integral it was to the development of his career before he even fought in his first ROH match at DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR 2021, and why bringing it to Australia for the first Pure Title fight outside the United States since August 12, 2006 is such an important milestone for his career.
That being said, it would be a huge moment for Australia's own Robbie Eagles to come into GLOBAL WARS 2025 tonight and dethrone Lee Moriarty in his 5th title defense. Though Eagles is originally from New South Wales some 625 miles away from Brisbane, he comes into this carrying the weight of his countrymen on his shoulders just as Buddy Matthews, Harley Cameron, and “Timeless” Toni Storm did at GRAND SLAM: AUSTRALIA this past Saturday. Of that lot, only “The Timeless One” was successful in her championship endeavors, but perhaps Eagles can strap the ROH Pure Championship around his waist along with the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Titles he shares with Kosei Fujita.
Will this be the next step in Lee Moriarty's chase to become the greatest Pure Champion of all time, or will Robbie Eagles bring Moriarty's dream to a painful end in Brisbane?
ROH World Tag Team Championship Match...
The Sons of Texas (Dustin Rhodes & Sammy Guevara)(c) vs. MxM Collection (Mansoor & Mason Madden)
MxM Collection have been on the hunt for the ROH World Tag Titles for several weeks now, going so far as to steal the championship belt from Sammy Guevara after he defeated Mansoor during HONOR CLUB #102. To their credit, the last few weeks have been a perfect time for MxM to set their sights on Guevara given that “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes has been focused on Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Now that the match with the former AEW World Champion is behind Dustin, he's ready to return to Australia for the first time since 2017 and show MxM Collection how to really walk the Runway of Honor! It's not with spectacular looks at the camera or their tips, it's through in-ring work and wrestling with the type of undeniable passion that Rhodes still carries in his heart even after 36 years of fighting the ring wars.
If Mansoor and Mason Madden hope to claim the ROH World Tag Titles and call themselves the genuine champions of the division, they're going to have to match that kind of fire and figure out how to top what The Sons of Texas bring to the table! Will MxM Collection leave Brisbane as the 70th ROH World Tag Champions or will The Sons of Texas bring the belts back home to the States to continue their pursuit of greatness?
ROH Women’s World Championship Match...
“The Fallen Goddess” Athena(c) vs. Alex Windsor
It has been 800 days since “The Fallen Goddess” Athena dethroned Mercedes Martinez to begin her historic ROH Women's World Championship reign. To give the woman her proper credit, it's not just historic for the ROH Women's World Title, but historic for the whole of Ring of Honor. For twenty years Samoa Joe held the record as the longest reigning title holder in ROH history with his 645-day tenure as ROH World Champion. His run from NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS on 3/22/03 to FINAL BATTLE 2004 on 12/26/04 was something of legend, and featured a record-setting 29 title defenses. Though that number was surpassed shortly thereafter by Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson (each with 38), the duration of his run was never remotely in jeopardy. Then came Athena, and since December 10, 2022 she has been utterly unstoppable. She's turned away 26 challenges for her title from 23 different women, and shut down the hopes of aspiring challengers across 30 Proving Ground and and four Eliminator contests. She's 63-0 in singles ROH-related competition, and her only ROH losses came in tag matches where Billie Starkz lost the match for their team.
Athena has defended the title across the United States, in Canada, and now she brings it to Australia for the very first time against a woman who hasn't competed in ROH since HONOR CLUB #68 last May, but who made quite an impression in her lone outing. Alex Windsor, a 16-year veteran trained by the Knight family, has competed against the best throughout her wrestling career, including multiple battles with Toni Storm before All Elite Wrestling even existed, as well as fights with Riho, Miyu Yamashita, Maki Ito, and she was the woman who unified the RevPro Undisputed British Women's Championship with the Southside Wrestling Women's Title to create the two-belt championship that Mercedes Moné now proudly wears. It was a title she held for 769 days, the longest reign in the championship's history, before she was dethroned at the end of 2023. That loss actually led to one of the strongest years in Windsor's career as she fought in England and Denmark, for NJPW at WINDY CITY RIOT 2024 in Chicago, and even in a Dog Collar match to try and regain that RevPro championship. She took on Thunder Rosa in the States, made her AEW debut and brought that rivalry with Toni Storm to RAMPAGE, made her ROH debut, and even traveled to CMLL in October. She's been an extraordinarily busy competitor, even facing Toni Storm on the 2025 Jericho Cruise just a few weeks ago!
So suffice to say she's more than prepared to step into the ring with “The Forever Champion” Athena tonight at GLOBAL WARS 2025! Alex Windsor is ready to make an indelible mark on Ring of Honor with our first-ever Australian event, and shatter the unbelievable winning streak that Athena has been on for four-plus years!
ALSO FEATURING:
-The Don Callis Family's Mark Davis in action!
-And More!
AEW/ROH GLOBAL WARS 2025 gets underway tonight at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT only on HONOR CLUB with three championship matches for the ROH faithful! Then be right back here on Honor Club Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT for ROH's weekly presentation featuring more action from world's best wrestlers!