Last night, at the Ring of Honor 19th Anniversary Show, Brody King brought the brutality at the end of the show, unleashing a new stable on members of both La Faccion and The Foundation. Led by the monstrous Brody King, the new unit also includes former ROH World Champion Homicide, plus two longtime warriors of Game Changer Wrestling (GCW), in Chris Dickinson and Tony Deppen. Deppen has been working with ROH since last fall’s Pure Championship Tournament, while Dickinson made his ROH debut.
Dickinson is also part of New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW)‘s NJPW USA show NJPW STRONG, where he’s part of “Filthy” Tom Lawlor‘s Team Filthy squad that also includes JR Kratos and AEW’s Danny Limelight (not to be confused Lawlor’s Team Filthy in Major League Wrestling (MLW) that features King Mo, Kit Osbourne, and Violence is Forever (Dominic Garrini & Kevin Ku)). Did you get all that? After the event, Brody King revealed that his new four-man unit was called VLNCE UNLTD (pronounced Violence Unlimited). But while VLNCE UNLTD is a sweet name for a stable, it’s not just a random new name that Brody King has created for this – it’s actually a faction almost 13 years in the making that King himself has very close ties with. And it all started in 2008.
Welcome… #ROH19 pic.twitter.com/1uw2xn9970
— Big Bad Brody King (@Brodyxking) March 27, 2021
Violence Unlimited 1.0
In 2008, on the West Coast, in Santa Ana, California’s EPIC Pro Wrestling WAR (EPWW) promotion, a new tag team promotion featuring two wrestlers, Las Vegas’ Funny Bone and Oklahoma’s Tyler Bateman, united together as Violence Unlimited. They won the EPWW Tag Team titles in the process. In 2010, they would capture tag team gold again in Insane Wrestling League (IWL), cementing themselves as a top tag team before disbanding in 2012.
Violence Unlimited 2.0
By 2015, Tyler Bateman had become a veteran of the West Coast independents. That October, he would first encounter Brody King, then a young recruit training at Santino Brothers Wrestling. While Bateman’s team beat King’s in their first encounter, it won Bateman over. By the spring of 2016, the two had formed a new tag team built on twisted cruelty and pure rage. The team went through different names, such as The Devil’s Carnival and Freakshow, but by the spring of 2018, just in time for their tag team debut with Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), Bateman brought out a name from his past, christening himself and Brody as the next incarnation of Violence Unlimited. The two became a force on the West Coast scene, challenging for the PWG and DEFY World Tag Team titles. Just as the tandem was making headway, Brody King left the independent scene, signing with Ring of Honor in 2018.
Villain Enterprises
Upon arriving in ROH, Brody King jumped into a new faction, Villain Enterprises. With another new recruit, PCO, he became one of the enforcers for Marty Scurll. Together with PCO, King won the ROH World Tag Team Titles and NWA World Tag Team Titles, as well as the NWA Crockett Cup 2019 and ROH Tag Wars 2019. They also won the ROH W0rld Six-Man Tag Team Titles, which they held for over 300 days. However, during the pandemic shut down of ROH, Villain Enterprises dissolved, leaving Brody King without a family.
Bateman Gets Righteous
In the fall of 2019, Tyler Bateman joined ROH, picking up three straight wins over Jake Atlas, PJ Black, and “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams. By the turn of the year, he found a new tag team partner in Vincent, dubbed The Horror Kings. By February, the duo had renamed themselves as Righteous, determined to bring a new horror to Ring of Honor. When ROH restarted in late 2020, after the pandemic break, Righteous entered a feud with Matt Taven, whom Vincent had a past relationship with together in The Kingdom. At ROH Final Battle 2020, Righteous would face off against Taven and a former Kingdom member in Mike Bennett.
Brody King’s Return to Greatness
In August of 2020, Brody King made his return to the ring, but it wasn’t with ROH. Instead, he debuted for NJPW USA on NJPW STRONG. Brody King had worked with New Japan before, working in Japan occasionally in 2019, but last summer, he made his debut with the New Japan USA brand. He would briefly reunite with former Villain Enterprise teammate Flip Gordon, but when he returned to ROH in November of last year, he was on his own.
King would defeat Shane Taylor to become the #1 contender for the ROH World Title, but lost to Rush at ROH Final Battle 2020, thanks to the numbers game that Rush’s La Faccion brought to the table. In January of 2021, Bateman would also join New Japan USA, and this past March 19, Bateman would face off against his former partner in Violence Unlimited in a New Japan Cup USA qualifier, with Brody King picking up the win to advance.
The 19th Anniversary
A week later, Brody King would reveal his master plan to face the larger factions that ultimately controlled the main event, by establishing his own band of warriors to help even the odds. Righteous also added a new member to the fold; during a no-holds-barred match between Vincent and Matt Taven, the debuting Dutch (former indie star Bill Carr) added a huge presence to Righteous’s brutality. Now that Brody King has named his new faction with the same name as Tyler Bateman’s original stable – that he brought Brody King into as a young wrestler – will Bateman find more fury to the fact his former protege just knocked him out of a spot in the New Japan Cup USA? While VLNCE UNLTD is most likely going to be engaging in warfare against La Faccion and The Authority out of the gate, don’t be too surprised if Bateman turns Righteous’ path of horror at Brody King and his new family.
HOMICIDE IS HERE!!!
BRODY KING!!!
CHRIS DICKINSON!!!
TONY DEPPEN!!! 😳😳😳
ATTACKING LFI!! Whaaaaaatttt🤯#ROH19 pic.twitter.com/0897ppzAnJ— ROH – Ring of Honor Wrestling (@ringofhonor) March 27, 2021
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