Seven Championship Belts, and TK doesn’t want me to care.
Seven.
There are SEVEN championship belts on Ring of Honor.
None of these titles have mattered more to me than the Ring of Honor Pure Championship, but the way things have been booked the last 7 months, Tony Khan wants you to forget this championship exists.
To be fair, Tony Khan has really booked Ring of Honor to make you forget any champion exists.
I have had my issues with Ring of Honor booked as an afterthought. Week after week, I tune in on Thursdays hoping the prestigious Ring of Honor I’ve known would bear its former glory.
Each week, I’m continuously let down.
It’s not to say that Ring of Honor is a BAD show or not worth your time. I believe this show has potential, but the booking just… doesn’t make sense week after week. However, the quarterly Pay-Per-Views are out of this world. Dream matches are built out of thin air. The missing champions who frequent AEW television entertain us well.
Whether it’s Death Before Dishonor, Final Battle or Supercard of Honor, these Pay-Per-Views can be found on the Honor Club subscription on top of the library and weekly shows. They constantly are praised. They are always worth the time, but the path to the show itself doesn’t connect as it should.
This isn’t an article trying to convince you to spend $10 per month on a wrestling streaming service. You should spend your money how you’d like. As long as you’re buying soap and showering regularly, who cares? I can’t convince you how to spend your money.
What I am going to do is tell you what Tony Khan has taught me since taking ownership of Ring of Honor: championships do not matter and you are not rewarded for watching weekly television.
That sounds harsh. I know. I reread that multiple times and still want to convince myself that it’s not that bad. I do watch this week after week. Heck, I even co-host a podcast on Our Local Establishment Youtube with Kyle Sparks called “Honor Ramble” where we dive into the weekly matches and storylines.
When I signed on for this podcast, I came for one HUGE reason: The Ring of Honor Pure Championship. And if I had known how Tony Khan does not CARE about this championship or any of his championships, I wouldn’t waste my time.
Dang. Harsh again… But, let me explain.
Photo credit: Ring of Honor
In 2004, I was a middle school student looking for wrestling outside of WWE. While I liked mainstream product as it was easily accessible, I felt the loom of the over produced PG era… and was disinterested.
My neighbor usually hosted wrestling watch parties as my parents did not encourage tv shows with violence. This neighbor and I used to trade VHS and DVDs of wrestling, mostly copies of copies. We would also share limewire downloaded matches, long before streaming existed. (And risked putting viruses on our family computers.)
One day, he traded me a Ring of Honor DVD completion where I got to see the Ring of Honor 2nd Anniversary Show. This show revolved around the new Pure Wrestling Championship tournament. I think I watched that show 10 times before I gave it back.
See, the Pure Wrestling Championship wasn’t just ANY wrestling title. It featured pure wrestling rules on top of wrestling a match. These stipulations not only singled out the best of the best wrestlers but the ones who could wrestle inside the confines of these rules AND WIN. Not only would you be crowned CHAMPION, you would be the top caliber wrestling champion.
The first Pure Wrestling Rules match took place at The Battle Lines Are Drawn where Matt Stryker defeated Alex Shelley. In Wilmington, Ohio, 500 people witnessed history made on January 10, 2004. These men wrestled for 14 minutes and 29 seconds… and the crowd never seemed lost or confused.. That was the wrestling show booked for me.
The crowd during this show chanted “we want rope breaks!” They showed they knew the rules.
I wouldn’t watch that first Pure Rules match until much later. However, 2nd Anniversary show that crowned the FIRST Ring of Honor Pure Champion, AJ Styles… stole my heart.
The main event featured AJ Styles and CM Punk. I had never heard of either of these wrestlers before, but watching this DVD, I felt like I knew everything about them. The card had multiple tournament matches leading up to the main event, however, by the time you get to the main event, you know the story. AJ seemed to be wrestling on an injured knee but was the quick crowd favorite. CM Punk was the aggressive rookie who took advantage earlier in another match.
This main event meant everything to me. And it still does.
Every DVD I could rent about Ring of Honor from the library or borrow from my neighbor, I always sought out those Pure Championship matches. I knew that the stipulation only made the matches more prestigious. Winning a wrestling match made you a good wrestler. But, if you could win a wrestling match with stipulations, like the Pure Rules Championship, you were the BEST wrestler.
In those early days, I remember watching so many Samoa Joe Pure Championship matches. I hated when he lost to Nigel McGuinness. I cried happy tears when Bryan Danielson finally won the Ring of Honor Pure Championship… and then it was just unified with the Ring of Honor World Championship. That was it. That was the end of the stipulation… that was the end of the test of the best of the best wrestler.
And then I started watching TNA and went to college. I moved on. I kept the respect and honor for the Pure Championship in my heart… I carried those matches from borrowed DVDs with me. I referenced Samoa Joe vs. Nigel McGuinness Pure Rules Match in one of my English thesis papers. I compared the war of challenges inside ourselves that breed growth unlike anything we’ve seen before. Sometimes we don’t like what we see in the aftermath, but it’s real and raw.
That’s what I’ve always loved about the art of wrestling: the ability to test yourself, your skill, your body, to achieve something while changing yourself. It’s the dance of war within yourself that makes you better, even in times of anguish. “No man is an Island, entire of it self;” (Ernest Hemmingway)
This is what Tony Khan wants me to forget.
He wants you to forget it as well.
The current Ring of Honor Pure Champion is Wheeler Yuta. The last time the Pure Championship has been defended on weekly television was December 5, 2023. He successfully defended the title at Final Battle on December 15, 2023.
And then Yuta got hurt and there hasn’t been any mention on the title since. Although Yuta had a proving ground match on the July 4, 2024 episode of Honor Club, the Pure Championship has yet to be DEFENDED on Ring of Honor weekly since December 2023.
I am glad Wheeler Yuta is healing. I am glad he has returned.
However, the commentary team has not mentioned the title… It has just sat on a shelf collecting dust. What makes you believe I want to see a wrestler fight over a forgotten title?
This title has been forgotten… many of the Ring of Honor titles have been forgotten. We have seen them more on AEW television than on Ring of Honor, which is so strange.
So what do these matches mean? What will they mean moving forward? It is not worth mentioning, honoring, or challenging. It’s not worth my time or my concern.
While Tony Khan books his shows with toy props, I’m dreaming of days where the Ring of Honor Pure Championship meant more than ANYTHING. I’m dreaming of days where the prize was the test of strength, the test to achieve something within yourself that would refine who you are now for the better. These tests make a man better, they make opponents better.
And Tony Khan wants you to forget about that. He wants me to enjoy squash matches or proving ground matches for no honor, no glory, no championship matches.
I crave the struggle of a man pushing himself to lengths beyond JUST a wrestling match.
But I’m sick of watching titles that meant something to the best wrestlers in the world go to wasted opportunities.
Tony Khan doesn’t care. But f*ck, I do.
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