ROH Pure Championship
The first design of the belt (used from years 2004–2006; 2020–2023)
Details
Promotion	Ring of Honor (ROH) All Elite Wrestling (AEW)
Date established	February 14, 2004
Current champion	Lee Moriarty
Date won	July 26, 2024
Other names
ROH Pure Wrestling Championship (2004) ROH Pure Championship (2004–2006, 2020–present) ROH World Championship (2006)
Statistics First champion A.J. Styles Most reigns Wheeler Yuta (3 reigns) Longest reign Lee Moriarty (481+ days) Shortest reign Bryan Danielson (<1 day) Oldest champion Katsuyori Shibata (43 years, 134 days) Youngest champion Jay Lethal (19 years, 345 days) Heaviest champion Samoa Joe (290 lb (130 kg)) Lightest champion Jonathan Gresham (161 lb (73 kg))

TheROH Pure Championship is aprofessional wrestling championship contested for in the Americanprofessional wrestling promotionRing of Honor (ROH). The reigning champion isLee Moriarty in his first reign, which is the longest reign in the championship's history.

The title was originally named the ROH Pure Wrestling Championship andA.J. Styles defeatedCM Punk in the final of an eight-man, one night tournament to crown the first champion. The tournament took place at theSecond Anniversary Show and also featuredJohn Walters,Chris Sabin,Doug Williams,Matt Stryker, Josh Daniels andJimmy Rave.^[1]

Styles was forced to vacate the Pure Wrestling title in the wake of the Rob Feinstein controversy that resulted inTotal Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) abruptly ending its talent-sharing agreement with ROH (pulling all of its contracted performers, including Styles, from all ROH shows). However, for almost ten years ROH considered the Pure Wrestling Championship and the Pure Championship two distinct titles—not a single title that was merely renamed/re-branded. There was no mention of Styles on ROH's website as having held the Pure Championship, and it was seldom, if ever, acknowledged in commentary that Styles held the previous version of the title or that it even existed until in January 2014, when ROH released a DVD about Styles, describing him as the first ROH Pure Champion.^[2]Doug Williams would win the vacant title after he defeatedAlex Shelley in the final of a one night mini-tournament atReborn: Completion on July 17, 2004.^[3]

On April 29, 2006,Weekend of Champions: Night Two saw the first ever title vs. title match in Ring of Honor asROH World ChampionBryan Danielson took on ROH Pure ChampionNigel McGuinness. The match was contested under Pure title rules, but both the World and Pure titles were on the line. McGuinness won the bout by countout, but since only the Pure title could change hands on a countout, he did not win the ROH World Championship. The two faced each other again on August 12, 2006 inLiverpool,England, with Danielson defeating McGuinness tounify the ROH Pure Championship with the ROH World Championship. Having the title put on the line in theUnited Kingdom while.^[4] Danielson and McGuinness competed in a rematch for the ROH World Championship later that month, wrestling to a one-hour draw. After the match, Danielson announced that the ROH Pure Championship had been officially retired, and gave the title belt back to McGuinness to keep.^[5]

On January 30, 2020, nearly 14 years after it was retired, Ring of Honor announced they were reinstating the ROH Pure Championship, with a tournament to crown a new champion beginning in 2020.^[6] Following ROH taking a five-month hiatus due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, a 16-man tournament was conducted in August 2020 to crown the new champion, which ultimately becameJonathan Gresham.^[7]

• Matches for the ROH Pure Championship are conducted under "Pure Wrestling Rules." As of 2023,^[8] the rules are as follows:

1. Each wrestler has three rope breaks to stop submission holds and pinfalls.
2. After a wrestler exhausts his rope breaks, submission and pin attempts on or under the ropes by his opponent are considered legal.
3. No closed-fist punches to the face permitted.
4. Open-handed slaps or chops to the face are permitted.
5. Punches to the rest of the body are allowed, excluding low blows.
6. The first use of a closed fist to the face receives a warning.
7. The second use of a closed fist to the face results in disqualification.
8. The title can change hands via disqualification and countout.
9. Outside interference will result in automatic termination from the roster for the wrestler that interferes.
10. If a title match reaches its time limit without a winner being declared, the winner is decided by a panel of three judges.

Belt design used from 2004 to 2006 and 2020 to 2023.

The Original ROH Pure title design (2004–2006; 2020–2023) is similar to the first design of theROH World Championship from years 2002 to 2004 was with different wording in the middle center plate and slightly different middle and side plats with different shaping, wording and designs that are also slightly different from the first ROH World title design from 2002 to 2004 as well.^[10]

On March 31, 2023, a new design of the championship belt debuted onSupercard of Honor, making it the second design in the title’s history.^[11] The main plate is silver with the top saying "RING OF HONOR," a red text in the middle saying the word "PURE," and text on the bottom saying "WRESTLING CHAMPION." The side plates are also silver with the current Ring of Honor logo.^[12]

Overall, there have been 15championship reigns between 13 different champions. The title has been vacated once.A.J. Styles was the inaugural champion, whileJonathan Gresham was the first champion upon the title's revival.Wheeler Yuta is the only champion to have more than one reign with the title, with a total of three reigns. Current championLee Moriarty has the longest reign, eclipsingNigel McGuinness at 351 days and counting with 6 title defenses.Bryan Danielson had the shortest reign at less than a day since the title was decommissioned after being unified with the ROH World Championship.

Lee Moriarty is the reigning champion in his first reign. He defeated Wheeler Yuta atDeath Before Dishonor on July 26, 2024, inArlington, Texas.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toWrestlers as the ROH Pure Champion.

• ROH Pure Championship title history at Cagematch.net

• World professional wrestling championships
• Ring of Honor championships

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