Death Before Dishonor is a professional wrestling event, held annually by American promotion Ring of Honor.[2][3][4] The first event was held in 2003, and is traditionally one of ROH's biggest signature events in the calendar year. On the May 16, 2024, it was announced that Death Before Dishonor would take place on July 26, 2024, at the Esports Stadium Arlington in Arlington, Texas, and would air on pay-per-view.[5]
Queen Aminata and Red Velvet had been feuding with ROH Women's World ChampionAthena and ROH Women's World Television ChampionBillie Starkz for the past several months, starting when Starkz defeated Aminata at Supercard of Honor in March to become the inaugural ROH Women's World Television Champion. The following week, Athena and Red Velvet had a match for the ROH Women's World Championship at AEW Battle of the Belts X, where Athena was victorious thanks to the interference by Starks. After the match, Athena and Starkz jumped Velvet before Aminata came down for the save.[7][8] For the next few months, Aminata and Velvet continued to prevent Athena and Starkz from doing more damage to their opponents after their matches, with the latter two doing all they can to avoid defending their titles against the two. Athena even claimed to have an ankle injury that would take her out of action for several months.[9][10] However, on the July 4 episode of ROH Wrestling, Aminata and Velvet confronted Athena and Starkz to announce that they will respectively challenge them for the world and television titles at Death Before Dishonor.[11][12][13]
Diamanté and Leyla Hirsch had been involved in a heated rivalry over the past month, starting when the latter beat the former in a singles match on the June 20 episode of ROH Wrestling.[16] After some back and forth promos between the two, they had a rematch on July 18, this time a Lights Out match, where Diamanté would defeat Hirsch.[17] With both now at one win over each other, ROH announced a rubber match between Diamanté and Hirsch at Death Before Dishonor in a Texas Deathmatch.[18]
On the July 11 episode of ROH Wrestling, ROH Pure ChampionWheeler Yuta had a Proving Ground match against Lee Moriarty that ended in a time limit draw. Per the stipulation of a Proving Ground match, this granted Moriarty an ROH Pure Championship match.[19] On July 23, AEW president and ROH owner Tony Khan announced on X that Yuta will defend his ROH Pure Championship against Moriarty.[20][21]
At AEW Revolution, while Undisputed Kingdom member Roderick Strong celebrated with his stablemates, ROH World Tag Team ChampionsMatt Taven and Mike Bennett, after capturing the AEW International Championship from Orange Cassidy; Kyle O'Reilly, making his return to the company after a year away due to a neck injury, appeared behind them. While O'Reilly initially seemed friendly with his old friends, he refuted their offer to join the Undisputed Kingdom.[27] Since then, Strong, Taven, and Bennett have repeatedly tried to coerce O'Reilly into joining them, even if it meant hurting him. This led to a match at AEW Dynasty the following month, Strong successfully defended the AEW International Championship against O'Reilly.[28] As the Undisputed Kingdom's attempts at recruiting O'Reilly continued, the latter formed a new stable with ROH World Champion Mark Briscoe, Orange Cassidy, and Tomohiro Ishii called "The Conglomeration." As the two stables feuded for the next several weeks, Taven and Bennett called out Tony Khan on the July 11 ROH Wrestling to give them the night off at Death Before Dishonor.[29] However, two weeks later, newly appointed ROH Board of Directors member Paul Wight informed the pair that they would instead defend the ROH World Tag Team Championship against O'Reilly and Ishii at the event.[30]
On the July 4 episode of ROH Wrestling, former WWE tag team MxM Collection (Mansoor and Mason Madden) appeared via vignette teasing their arrival in ROH.[34] After a few more video packages, ROH announced the debut of MxM Collection for the Death Before Dishonor Zero Hour pre-show.[35]
