Bandido in ROH: The Most Wanted to The World Champion
Diving into his 2019-2021 Ring of Honor run with a recap and match recommendations.
Bandido entered Ring of Honor in 2019 after a big 2018 in PWG and Dragon Gate, which included his participation in the six-man tag team main event at the first All In event. He was originally trained by Ultimo Guerrero but left the CMLL system to go out on his own.
Upon his debut in ROH in 2019, Bandido immediately got over with the live crowds, unleashing all his spectacular offense. He was positioned as one of the hottest free agents in wrestling coming off All In, and ROH landed him.
Bandido’s early showings against veterans like PJ Black, Silas Young, Rocky Romero, and Mark Haskins set him apart from anyone else in the promotion in terms of feeling like ROH had secured one of the most promising wrestlers in the world again. In every city ROH visited, even if the fans weren’t familiar with him at first, they were going nuts for him by the end of his matches.
The recap of Bandido’s ROH run continues after these match recommendations.
Top Ten Match Recommendations
I’ve linked to the matches that are up in full on ROH’s official youtube channel. The rest can be found on Honor Club.
Bandido v Jay Briscoe (Sep 6, 2019 - ROH Global Wars Espectacular). My favorite match from Bandido’s ROH run. The type of match that grabs you and hooks you right in. Jay plays the big vet that tests to see what level Bandido is really at. The results are outstanding.
Bandido v Rocky Romero (Jan 26, 2019 - ROH Road to G1 Supercard). An electric matchup as Rocky exploits injured ribs of Bandido.
Bandido & Flamita v The Briscoes (Feb 9, 2020 - ROH Free Enterprise). An absolute war breaks out between these two teams that energizes the crowd.
Bandido v Rush (Mar 15, 2019 - ROH 17th Anniversary). All out action packed match as these two steal the show.
Bandido & Rey Horus v Rush & Dragon Lee (Aug 21, 2021 - ROH Glory By Honor Night 2). A wild match as crowds are briefly back. Rush and Bandido have a great dynamic.
Bandido v Dragon Lee v Taiji Ishimori (Apr 6, 2019 - ROH G1 Supercard - MSG). A perfect cruiserweight style match where Bandido’s charisma shines through.
Bandido v Rush (Jul 11, 2021 - ROH Best in the World). A great heroic babyface showing from Bandido as he goes for the ROH World Title.
Bandido, Mark Haskins, Tracy Williams v The Briscoes & Barbaro Cavernario (Sep 8, 2019 - ROH Global Wars Espectacular). A total blast showing Bandido as part of the LifeBlood group.
Bandido v Shane Taylor (May 10, 2019 ROH TV #399). Very good match showing Bandido against a bigger man. So good that they had to run it back.
Bandido & Mark Haskins v Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham (Aug 9, 2019 - ROH Summer Supercard). Very good tag team match with a great finish.
Bandido in Ring of Honor: 2019-2021
The first big storyline Bandido was part of was the introduction of a new faction called LifeBlood. Juice Robinson looked to hit the reset button on ROH after the last few years and restore honor to the promotion. The group included Juice, Tenille Dashwood, David Finlay, Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins, and Bandido. ROH was searching for something after a major exodus of talent. Bandido found himself in a lot of tag team matches over the following months, where he performed well. The crowds at the time clearly wanted more for Bandido based on their reactions to him. Still, 2019 ROH was heavy on faction warfare, and that was where Bandido mostly stayed. Despite it being a bit of an odd pairing on paper, he had really good chemistry with Mark Haskins as a tag team.
A big breakthrough came in a singles match against Jay Briscoe in Dearborn, Michigan. Jay worked like a World Champion, and Bandido showed he was capable of wrestling at that level. It was a gritty, intense, main event-style match that Bandido won. The excitement was relatively short-lived, as Bandido went out injured later that month, cooling off his momentum. When he returned a few months later for Final Battle, he had Flamita and Rey Horus with him as MexaBlood and later MexiSquad. They lit up the crowds in early 2020, including an absolute war with The Briscoes. Still, that elusive singles run never materialized, and ROH shut down due to the pandemic.
Bandido returned to shows in 2021, still alongside MexiSquad. That didn’t last long, as Flamita turned on Bandido. Finally, the Bandido singles push began in ROH. Even when there weren’t crowds, or there were limited crowds in 2021, he had some great outings, culminating in a match against Rush for the ROH World Title at Best In The World 2021. Fans were legitimately surprised when Bandido won the World Title. Things remained slow as crowds left again, and Bandido never really got a chance to take off as World Champion. They built toward Bandido versus Jonathan Gresham at Final Battle, but the main story of the promotion focused more on Gresham’s pursuit of the gold. Bandido would miss Final Battle due to COVID and Gresham would defeat Jay Lethal for the vacant ROH World Champion. The promotion was sold to Tony Khan, owner of All Elite Wrestling and Bandido returned for one night to lose to Gresham. It took until September of 2022 for Bandido to make his debut in AEW.
Overall, Bandido’s ROH run was plagued by a lot of stop-start momentum because of injuries and the pandemic, but the makings of a breakout singles star were there. His work against The Briscoes, in particular, stood out because it showed a lot of range. Flat out, people just liked Bandido.