The 2023 Death Before Dishonor was the 20th Death Before Dishonor professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by American promotion Ring of Honor (ROH). It took place on July 21, 2023, at the CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton, New Jersey.
Twelve matches were contested at the event, including four on the Zero Hour pre-show. In the final match of the night, which was promoted as part of a double main event, Athena defeated Willow Nightingale to retain the ROH Women's World Championship. In the other main event, which was the penultimate match, Claudio Castagnoli defeat Pac to retain the ROH World Championship. In other prominent matches, The Dark Order (Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds and John Silver) won a Fight Without Honor against Stu Grayson and The Righteous (Vincent and Dutch), Katsuyori Shibata defeated Daniel Garcia in a Pure Wrestling Rules match to retain the ROH Pure Championship, Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis) defeated The Lucha Brothers (Rey Fénix and Penta El Zero Miedo), The Kingdom (Matt Taven and Mike Bennett) and Best Friends (Chuck Taylor and Trent Beretta) in a four-way tag team match to win the ROH World Tag Team Championship, and in the opening contest, Gravity defeated Komander.
Production
Background
Death Before Dishonor is a professional wrestling event, held annually by American promotion Ring of Honor. The first event was held in 2003, and is traditionally one of ROH's biggest signature events in the calendar year. s On the June 2, 2023, episode of AEW Rampage, it was announced that Death Before Dishonor would take place on July 21, 2023, at the CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton, New Jersey, and would air on pay-per-view.
Storylines
The event featured professional wrestling matches that involve different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portray villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Storylines will be produced on ROH's weekly series ROH Honor Club TV exclusively on their streaming service Honor Club, on television programs of sister promotion All Elite Wrestling including Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision, and via promotional videos on both the ROH and AEW YouTube channels.
On July 5, during the second night of NJPW Independence Day, Eddie Kingston defeated Kenta to win the Strong Openweight Championship. Right after winning the title, Kingston challenged Mark Briscoe to step up and go after the ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli – someone Kingston personally despises – at Death Before Dishonor, believing that the fans need Mark to become the world champion just as his late brother Jay Briscoe had been. On the July 7 episode of ROH Honor Club TV, the match between Briscoe and Castagnoli for the title at Death Before Dishonor was confirmed. However, on July 13, Tony Khan announced on Twitter that Briscoe suffered a serious knee injury that will likely require surgery, thus removing him from the event. Castagnoli's new challenger would be announced after the Blood and Guts edition of Dynamite. During the Blood and Guts match, Castagnoli and Pac would frequently butt heads with one another, to the point where Pac walked out on his team. A frustrated Castagnoli, looking for Pac backstage, challenged him to a ROH World Championship match at Death Before Dishonor, which Pac accepted and was made official by ROH president Tony Khan.
On the July 13 episode of ROH Honor Club TV, ROH began an ROH World Television Championship Eliminator Tournament, with the winner receiving an opportunity at champion Samoa Joe at Death Before Dishonor. On that episode, Dalton Castle and Shane Taylor advanced to the finals after defeating Tony Nese and Shawn Dean, respectively. The following week, Castle defeated Taylor to earn the title shot against Joe at Death Before Dishonor.
On the June 1 episode of Rampage, after Katsuyori Shibata successfully defended the ROH Pure Championship, he was later confronted by former champion Daniel Garcia, who expressed his intentions of regaining the title. On July 16, ROH officially announced that Shibata will defend the Pure Championship against Garcia at Death Before Dishonor.
On the March 9 episode of ROH Honor Club TV, Athena retained the ROH Women's World Championship against Willow Nightingale. Four months later on the July 14 episode of Rampage, the two met again in the semifinals of the Women's Owen Hart Cup Tournament. Here, Nightingale would defeat Athena, ending the latter's 49 singles match winning streak. On July 16, ROH announced a third match between Athena and Nightingale for the ROH Women's World Championship at Death Before Dishonor.