Background

In December 2010, ROH announced during Final Battle that their next pay-per-view would be taking place in February and would be live on internet pay-per-view through GoFightLive. It was later finalized that the show would be their ninth anniversary event in Chicago with a triple main event announced at the same time.^[1]

Storylines

Final Battle featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from existing, scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains or heroes, or more ambiguous characters in scripted contests that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match on the pay-per-view.

The World Championship rivalry going into the 9th Anniversary Show was between reigning champion Roderick Strong and returning ROH veteran Homicide. At the Glory By Honor IX PPV in September 2010 Roderick Strong won the ROH World Championship from Tyler Black, however while he was celebrating the lights in the building blacked out and when they resumed Homicide returned to ROH after a two-year absence, having a verbal confrontation with Strong.^[2] Homicide, who had appeared in ROH regularly from their first event The Era of Honor Begins until April 2007, then went on a two-month winning streak,^[3] culminating in a match at December's Final Battle 2010 PPV where he defeated fellow returning ROH legend Christopher Daniels, who was also in the hunt for the World Championship.^[4] As a result of this and previous wins, ROH announced on 3 January that Homicide would face the ROH World Champion at the 9th Anniversary Show, with the title being defended twice during January against El Generico and Jay Briscoe and the winner facing Homicide.^[5] In the weeks building up to the event, ROH's weekly television show Ring of Honor Wrestling played up the past tension between ROH authority figure Jim Cornette and Homicide during both their previous time in ROH. Cornette tried to Homicide peace, but Homicide maintained his only focus was on winning the championship.^[6]

The second rivalry going into the event was also for an ROH championship, specifically the ROH World Tag Team Championship, between reigning champions The Kings of Wrestling and The All Night Express team of Rhett Titus and Kenny King. The match was booked after The All Night Express won a contendership match in November 2010's Fate of An Angel II against Colt Cabana and El Generico.^[3] This title defence is the first to come after the Kings of Wrestling achieved the honour of holding the ROH World Tag Team Championship longer than any other team in a single reign, reaching 276 days on 4 January 2011.^[7]

The third main event initially announced for the event marked the first match between Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin) and the Briscoe Brothers (Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe).^[1] The Briscoes have been a mainstay of ROH since the founding of the promotion nine years previously,^[3] while Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team achieved success outside of ROH, most notably in World Wrestling Entertainment, and entered ROH the previous September at Glory By Honor IX.^[2] This led to an eight-man tag team match on Ring of Honor Wrestling which saw the Briscoes and Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team team together, but end in a no contest after the two teams, despite being on the same side, began to brawl against each other.^[1]

A third championship match was added to the card in early February. In December, Christopher Daniels beat ROH World Television Champion Eddie Edwards at the tapings of Ring of Honor Wrestling. Their rematch was subsequently booked for this pay-per-view and owing to Daniels having two victories over Edwards (one in a non-title match) the stipulation was added to make it a Two out of Three Falls match to make a decisive winner.^[8]