The tremendous success of Seth Rollins in WWE may not have come without his Ring of Honor run as Tyler Black. ROH was known as the place for the best in-ring workers in the world to create a reputation with the diehard fans. Names like CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and a few others landed in WWE to show the progression to the biggest promotions.
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Rollins always had hopes of making it in WWE and main event a WrestleMania. Those dreams would come true, but the ROH tenure helped set him up for a brighter future. Rollins proved he could more than hold his own against the top technical wrestlers in the world. The following moments from his time Tyler deserves another look from the ROH days.
10 Main Evented ROH's First Live PPV
Ring of Honor experimented with taped PPVs, but it just never worked out due to the shows being spoiled months in advance. A pivot towards live IPPVs saw the shows airing live on the internet in the early stages like streaming events.
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Final Battle 2009 was the first event with Tyler Black challenging Austin Aries for the ROH World Championship. The match ended in a sixty-minute time limit draw with mixed results in what wasn’t the intended for a first PPV.
9 Reunited WSX Tag Team With Jimmy Jacobs
Seth Rollins debuted in Ring of Honor as Tyler Black by becoming part of the new Age of the Fall faction. Black joined ROH mainstay Jimmy Jacobs with Lacey and Necro Butcher as the original members of the popular heel stable.
Jacobs and Black worked together years prior in Wrestling Society X. Most fans would remember WSX as the MTV hardcore promotion trying to get a new wrestling show established. The Age of the Fall worked out better with Black and Jacobs thriving together.
8 Lost Tag Titles To Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
Ring of Honor trusted Jimmy Jacobs and Tyler Black enough to become the ROH Tag Team Champions within a few months of their debut. The Age of the Fall duo held the prestigious tag titles twice as the top heel team in the division.
Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn was having their best era of tagging as Kevin Steen and El Generico around this time. ROH pulled the trigger of having Steen and Generico finally winning the ROH Tag Team Championship by defeating Black and Jacobs was an emotional moment to establish them as the premiere duo in the company.
7 Made Fans Believe In His Upset Title Shot
The Take No Prisoners taped PPV special from Ring of Honor was used as a night to make Tyler Black a star years before he was Seth Rollins. Black opened the show winning a fatal four-way match with a ROH World Championship title shot on the line.
Nigel McGuinness was in the midst of his legendary title reign when facing with the young Tyler in his first singles main event. Black was outstanding in this match with the false finishes and close attempts to winning the big one seeing the audience believing in him before suffering defeat.
6 Won Survival Of The Fittest Tournament
Ring of Honor rarely had annual themed shows, but the Survival of the Fittest tournament was one of the bigger ones. Wrestlers competed in singles matches with the winning wrestlers making it to the elimination main event.
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The winner of that main event became the Survival of the Fittest winner each year. Tyler Black was the fourth wrestler to win the tournament and show his push taking off. The 2009 event featured Black outlasting Claudio Castagnoli, Colt Cabana, Roderick Strong, Chris Hero and Delirious in the finals for the win.
5 Fans Turning On Him As World Champion
The history of wrestling fans turning on face champions is nothing new. Shawn Michaels, John Cena and Roman Reigns have all shown this in the main event picture of WWE, but it has happened in any promotion with vocal audiences.
Ring of Honor witnessed Tyler Black losing his crowd support right when he won the ROH World Championship. Black falling short too many times to champs Nigel McGuinness, Jerry Lynn and Austin Aries made his title reign feel too late to a solid percentage of the audience. The polarizing crowd reactions became the story of his time as ROH World Champion.
4 Terry Funk Played Role In His Final Match
Tyler Black had his final match at Glory by Honor 9 in New York City against Roderick Strong. The ROH World Championship reign of Black ended this night to pay off a lengthy feud with Strong over the title that eluded him for many years.
Terry Funk made a special appearance as the guest enforcer of this match to make sure it was a fair fight. Strong’s manager Truth Martini was attacked by Funk, but Strong still persevered to end Black’s time as the ROH World Champion.
3 Double Turn With Austin Aries
Ring of Honor introducing Tyler Black as a heel in the Age of the Fall faction made him start off in the easier role of a bad guy in a group. However, the ROH audience organically started to cheer him due to his great matches against the top stars.
Final Battle 2008 featured a major match between Black and Aries during their feud. Aries used an unfair advantage to win, and Jimmy Jacobs attacked Black after the match. The double turn saw ROH making Black a full-fledged face and turned Aries into a heel to revamp his character.
2 Jim Cornette Talked Him Out Of Leaving For TNA
Jim Cornette joined Ring of Honor in both management and on-screen positions after leaving TNA. The presence of Cornette helped ROH land their television deal with Sinclair Broadcasting. Unfortunately, Tyler Black chose to leave the promotion right before the big changes took place.
The ROH contract ending led to Black receiving an offer from TNA. Most of the signings made by TNA were former WWE stars, so it would have been huge to add a new young rising star. Cornette talked him out of signing the deal and instead gave him WWE connections to at least move upward if leaving ROH.
1 Kevin Owens Tried To Turn Him To Dark Side
Kevin Owens was one of the most versatile Ring of Honor performers as Kevin Steen. ROH witnessed Steen and his former partner El Generico aka Sami Zayn having a tremendous blood feud lasting a full year after the tag run ended.
One of the underrated parts of that year featured Steen having a feud with Tyler Black for the ROH World Championship. Steen tried to talk Black into embracing the dark side when the audience started to turn on him. The layers of reality in the angle made fans want more, but Tyler planning to leave for WWE ended it abruptly.
