| ROH World Championship | |||||||||||||||||||
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ROH World Championship belt (2010 – Present) |
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| Details | |||||||||||||||||||
| Current champion(s) | Davey Richards | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date won | June 26, 2011[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Promotion | Ring of Honor | ||||||||||||||||||
| Date established | July 27, 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Other name(s) | ROH Championship | ||||||||||||||||||
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The Ring of Honor (ROH) World Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in Ring of Honor. The championship has also been through other companies in cooperation with ROH through the Global Professional Wrestling Alliance (GPWA), the governing body of many independent wrestling promotions throughout the United States and Japan. The current Ring of Honor World championship belt was designed and crafted by All Star Championship Belts.[2]
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Low Ki defeated Spanky, Christopher Daniels, and Doug Williams in a 60 Minute Iron Man match to become the first ROH Champion at Crowning a Champion on July 27, 2002.[3]
Samoa Joe had the longest title reign to date when he held the belt for 21 months and four days. During his reign, ROH held a cross-promotional show with Frontier Wrestling Alliance in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2003 called Frontiers of Honor[4]. At that show, Joe turned the title into the ROH World Championship when he defended it against The Zebra Kid. Since then the title has been defended in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Mexico, Japan, Ireland, Italy, and Spain.
On August 12, 2006, the ROH Pure Championship was unified with the ROH World Championship after ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness lost to ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson in Liverpool, England in a title unification match[5]. The match was contested under pure wrestling rules, with the stipulation that both championships could be lost by disqualification or count out.
In 2010 the title belt, along with the ROH World Tag Team Championships, was redesigned.[6] The new belt has an eagle with its wings spread over a picture of the world with an ROH logo on the top. This design also includes various flags on different countries.
The inaugural champion was Low Ki, who defeated Christopher Daniels, Spanky, and Doug Williams in a Four Way 60-minute Iron Man match on July 27, 2002 to become champion. Samoa Joe has the longest reign as champion with his only reign, from March 22, 2003 to December 26, 2004, lasting 645 days and gave the title World status when he defended it in the UK. James Gibson currently has the shortest reign at 36 days.[7][8] Austin Aries holds the record for the most reigns, two, winning his second championship after defeating Jerry Lynn and Tyler Black in a three-way elimination match on June 13, 2009 at ROH's Manhattan Mayhem III event. The current champion is Davey Richards, who defeated Eddie Edwards on June 26, 2011 at Best in the World 2011.[1] Overall, there have been 16 ROH World Championship reigns and 15 total Champions.
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