Evolution Schematic 08.15.07: ROH Pure (Wrestling) Championship

Before we begin, a plug. No, not for Tiger Flash Games, although they are very good and you should visit. No, not for the other columnists and news reports here on 411 in all the various and wondrous sections, although they are damm fine and you should read all of them. No, this time round I’m plugging a site not related to 411, hence I have to type this softly.

Stablewars Play Per View is now automated, so you don’t have to sign up to the message board or send some guy an email. Now, by merely clicking on some drop down menus, you can test your booking prediction qualities against people from all over the world, including yours truly. Such luminaries as Scott Keith and Dave Meltzer have played, so why not give it a go? Our next comp is for Summerslam, so next week (Don’t Worry, I’ll remind you) go to http://www.stablewars.com/playperview, next week, and enter and see if you can outwit me. Thank you.

Overview

Ring Of Honor. Three simple words to send shivers up your spine. Be they shivers of joy, as you think about the best company in North America today. Or shivers of disgust at the thought of this net fan pandering bunch of wannabe gymnasts. Regardless of your personal attitude to the company, one has to admit that it’s focused on the ring. There is no spilt coffee, no burnt funeral parlors, no old tall guys acting like shrinks, the company revolves around the in ring product.

Even if it does this by having someone pour Drano down the other guy’s throat.

The company was founded on this concept, on focusing on in ring talent, on being the best Wrestling company in a world that seems to have lost that focus, fat with it’s conquests or trying to survive by parroting the fat cat and/or reverting to an older style southern wrassling company.

So, despite the company being two years old at it’s debut (at the Second Anniversary show), the ROH Pure (Wrestling) Championship is a perfect symbol of this. A belt designed to be contested under Pure Wrestling rules, a modern harkening to the respect, traditions and indeed honor of the industry, old school mentality, new school style. In it’s two years of existence (two and a half if you want to include the first run), it was held by a phenomenal athlete (if you include the first few months), an anarchist Brit, a hurricane, a protégé, the protégé’s mentor, the Brit who redefined the words ‘Working The System’ and finally, a World Champion. It didn’t change the world, but it did leave it better than it found it. After all, before the Pure Title, we didn’t know just how deadly an iron could be.

Premise- Three simple rules…well four if you count the changing hands part.

The Pure title was contested under the three simple ‘Pure Rules’.

Pure Rule #1: Each wrestler has three rope breaks to stop holds, pinfalls and so on during the match. Once these three breaks are used up, submission and pin attempts under the ropes by the opponent are considered legal. Ric Flair and Tajiri must have loved this idea.

Pure Rule #2: No closed-fist punches to the face are allowed, only open-handed slaps or chops to the face are allowed. Punches to other parts of the body (save for low-blows) are all right. The first use of a closed fist will get a warning from the ref, and the second will cause the wrestler to be penalized a rope break. If he is already out of rope breaks, he will be disqualified. So Rick Martel and Shawn Michaels are pleased.

Pure Rule #3: A wrestler is subject to a twenty count by the referee if the wrestler goes to the floor. This sounds normal, until you remembered/were told most ROH matches had no count outs, you could fight around the ring for as long as you damm well pleased.

There was also the 4th rule which didn’t qualify as a rule in of itself, in that any win was a title win. Ergo, you were champ and got DQed or counted out, you lost the belt. Hence every match was one you had to win.

Debut- A short test run, followed by the tournament.

A month before the one night tournament that officially began the unofficial first reign for the ROH Pure Wrestling Championship, a sort of dry run was held. At ‘The Battle Lines Are Drawn’ in Ohio, (someone should tell ROH to try fewer words in their titles), a Pure Rules match was held as the show’s opener. In that match, Matt Stryker made Alex Shelly tap. Later that night, Chris Sabin qualified for the one night tournament to crown the new champ by beating Jimmy Jacobs.

At the next major show, ‘The Last Stand’, John Walters qualified over Chad Collyer. Not having enough time to have qualifier matches, the rest of the entrants were chosen. Doug Williams, the British Anarchist was selected due to his pure submission style. As was Josh Daniels, his style being deemed suitable to what they were trying to achieve. Jimmy Rave, as The Crown Jewel of the Embassy, was given a spot. AJ Styles was entered to give the tournament some real grunt, and finally Bobby Heenan, who was trying to mold and adapt ROH at this time got to choose a representative to enter.

On that fateful night, the Second Anniversary Show, February 14th, 2004, the show opened with Heenan’s representative heading to the ring. Dressed like Christopher Daniels, wearing his clothes, it was… CM Punk, who defeated John Walters. Doug Williams took care of Chris Sabin, Stryker’s experience proved too much for Josh Daniels, and in the battle of the Clashes, Styles beat Rave.

The following round saw Punk defeat Williams, thanks perhaps to Heenan’s brilliance, while Styles defeated the Stryker man. And thus, in the final match in the tournament, the main event, AJ Styles defeated CM Punk to become the first ROH Pure Wrestling Champion.

Phase 2- ROH doesn’t recognize this period. I do. Deal with it.

So, AJ was now the default #2 guy in the company. Of course, while he looked forward to many title defenses, he first had to deal with CM Punk, who was none too pleased about not winning the title. The rematch of the tournament final at ‘At Our Best’ did not go Punk’s way, thanks solely to Ricky Steamboat being the special guest ref, at least in Punk’s eyes. Punk swore AJ submitted, Ricky disagreed, then when Punk jumped him he retaliated and beat CM up. Punk then declared that he would get his revenge on Styles AND Steamboat.

He didn’t get the chance, as some vigilante website caught Rob Feinstein out. Badly.

Phase 3- ROH Pure Wrestling Title? What’s that?

After Robgate occurred, all TNA contracted wrestlers were pulled from ROH. This meant AJ could no longer defend the belt, and on April 23rd 2004, my 22nd birthday for those who give a damm (all 5 of you), AJ Styles was stripped of the belt.

The belt remained dormant while the company readjusted itself. Pure Wrestling matches were occasionally held, to keep it in everyone’s mind, but the belt was not on the line. Eventually, a few months later, a ‘brand new’ title was brought in, the ROH Pure Title. The rules were reinforced, and it was decided to start afresh, with the Pure Wrestling era, such as it was, ignored.

So another one night tournament was held at ‘Reborn: Completion’, with two 4 Corners Pure matches held, the winners then meeting in a singles Pure match later on that night to crown the new ROH Pure Champion, the lack of Wrestling in it’s name the distinguisher. In the first match, Doug Williams defeated Jay Lethal, Nigel McGuinness and John Walters to advance, then in the other one Alex Shelly beat Austin Aries, Matt Stryker and CM Punk , thanks to Shelly and Punk getting simultaneous roll ups but only Shelly’s being counted by the ref, thus ‘screwing’ Punk yet again.

Later that night, Doug Williams did England proud, out-wrestling Alex Shelly to win the title, causing Shelly to toss the British flag down as a sign of disrespect and anger.

Phase 4- Doug In Deep.

So, Doug became the ‘first’ champion, and held the belt with pride, giving Shelly a rematch and beating him again, this time with a Chaos Theory (a bridging German suplex variation, not the complex mathematical field). The following night at ‘Death Before Dishonor Night 2′ he made Austin Aries tap to once again retain the belt. Doug then (after defending and retaining the belt against Claudio Castagnoli in his home country at a non-ROH event), prepared for John Walters, who defeated Nigel McGuinness to get a shot at the belt. The two fought at ‘Scramble Cage Melee’, and after listing to Samoa Joe bad mouth the belt in comparison to his world title, Doug then lost it, Walters somehow pulling the win out.

Phase 5- Stand Back! There’s A Hurricane Putting a Wrist Lock On You!

The Hurricane John Walters, as he was known by some, was a solid, if unspectacular champion. He racked up some impressive title retentions, defeating such names as McGuinness, Alex Shelly, Homicide (albeit by DQ, followed by a Rottweilers beat down), Jimmy Rave… Ah yes, Rave.

Phase 5b- Stand Back! There’s A Much Richer Champion Coming Through!

Rave’s first shot at the belt ended by Count Out. So, at Final Battle 2004, Jimmy got a rematch, a rematch he would lose by submission. After the match, Prince Nana and Rave offered him a big cash bribe to join the Embassy. Surprisingly, he took it, and became a loyal member overnight. Prince Nana helped him retain the belt over Jay Lethal, things were looking up for the young man. And then it all went to hell.

The Monday before the ROH ‘Trios Tournament’ show, where he was set to defend his belt once again against Jay Lethal, he got a once in a life time shot, a match on WWE’s Raw. Unfortunately it was against Chris Masters, a guy he had never wrestled before, a style he was unaccustomed to. So he got dismantled and beaten in short order. This CLEARLY rattled him, and when it came time to defend his belt, he lost his nerve, and Jay Lethal pinned him to win the title.

Phase 6- Like Student Like Teacher… Teacher Likes Belt.

Lethal at the time was Samoa Joe’s protégé, and thus at first he didn’t defend his belt much, as he was tagging with Joe. The night of his first major title defense (having defended it against Kevin Dunn the week before at a non-ROH event which didn’t really count), Joe sorta won a match to get a Pure title shot, pinning Colt Cabana to earn the shot while eliminating both of them from the 4 way match they were in, Alex Shelly then pinning Nigel McGuinness to finish the match and thus earn a ROH World Title match. So given Lethal beat Spanky to retain the belt earlier that night, Student V Teacher was thus fixed.

The next ROH show, ‘Manhattan Mayhem’, saw Joe beat Lethal to win the belt, then both men get attacked by the Rottweilers, then challenged to a tag match by Homicide and the returned Low Ki later that night, and thus Lethal getting stretchered out of the building with a badly hurt neck. Thus Joe was in the clear to defend his new belt.

Phase 7- A belt’s a belt.

So Joe then found he was getting easier matches, given he was Pure Champion and thus not in the World Title hunt. So he made life more interesting for himself, putting the Pure title up for grabs in a 4 way non-title match with Delirious, Jack Evans and Ebetaro (a.k.a Ebassan), provided someone pin him, they would win the belt. Evans pinned Delirious and thus Joe kept his belt.

Nigel then earned the #1 Contendership by beating Colt Cabana at Nowhere To Run. Nigel however kept his shot on hold, letting Joe ‘sweat’ a bit. Joe didn’t care, he just defended his belt against someone who would fight him, James Gibson. So Nigel then cashed in his shot, and lost at ‘The Future Is Now’.

Joe then beat Colt Cabana to keep his belt, then joined in on the ‘Get the ROH World Title Off Punk’ chorus, trying to make Punk do the right thing. He defended his belt against Austin Aries, then helped force Punk to accept James Gibson’s challenge. Then he defeated Jimmy Rave and watched as Jade Chung tried to turn her back on the Embassy, although it didn’t last thanks to Nana’s air-tight contract. Joe then took part in the match that cost Punk the ROH Title, eliminating Christopher Daniels then being eliminated by Punk, Punk then losing to Gibson.

After making Christopher Daniels submit in the ropes, since both men had lost all 3 breaks at ‘Night Of The Grudges II’, Joe seemed to be on a role, having gotten to grips with the unusual rules by focusing on winning matches quickly.

Enter Nigel McGuinness. Nigel had been studying Joe, and realised his weakness. He wasn’t wrestling to the rules, he was just wrestling. So Nigel took advantage, and at ‘Dragon’s Gate Invasion’, Nigel manipulated the ref and Joe, taking full advantage of the rules to win the match and the belt.

He would hold it for almost a year.

Phase 8- The Defining Era

When most people think about the Pure Title, it’s Nigel’s reign they really think of. More than any other man, Nigel used the rules to his full advantage, manipulating people into wasting rope breaks, nailing people with the iron, making the refs dance like puppets… A who’s who of ROH alumni fell to Nigel’s reign. Roderick Strong, BJ Whitmer, Jay Lethal, Samoa Joe, Claudio Castagnoli (whom Nigel had some problems with, Claudio getting non-title Pure Match wins, forcing Nigel to defend his belt when he really didn’t want to, Nigel having to ‘Pull An Eddie’ to keep his belt the first time round, then having to take an iron shot from Claudio in their final, 2 refs to ensure a winner, match), Tony Mamaluke, Austin Aries, Christopher Daniels, Bryan Danielson, Conrad Kennedy III (No, I don’t know who that is either), Homicide, Colt Cabana, Delirious. All failed to win the belt off Nigel, be it because they were DQed, they used their rope breaks, they were counted out, they got hit in the head by an iron, Nigel used the rules, and the rules made sure he kept the belt.

But the Danielson match was the start of the end. Taking place at ‘Weekend of Champions 2′, it was title vs. title, under Pure Rules. Thus, when Danielson dived, and Nigel brained him with a chair, and then rolled back in as the ref counted 20 for a KOed Danielson, Nigel had kept his belt but failed to win the World Title. But any sort of loss did not sit well with the American Dragon. And Nigel wanted the ROH World title. So Nigel starting ripping off Danielson’s way of talking to refs.

Never a smart move.

Nigel was given a World Title match, but was rolled up by Bryan. Thus, Danielson was able to force Nigel into a simple proposition.

You want another shot? Then put your belt up too.

And thus it happened, on August 12th, 2006, at the named for obvious reasons ‘Unified’ show, Bryan Danielson defeated Nigel McGuinness by knockout to win the ROH Pure Championship and unify the belts.

Today- Technically gone, but not forgotten.

The Pure Championship, while no longer existing, is still in people’s minds. The rules occasionally get dusted off for a McGuinness match, and now, in an era where ROH seems under attack, perhaps a second trophy, one that symbolizes tradition, might not be such a bad idea to bring back…

Conclusion

So, what does the ROH Pure Championship teach us? The being adequate doesn’t get you ahead? That you shouldn’t fight your teachers? That an iron is really hard?

Well, yes, all of these are true, but a deeper, underlying lesson should be learnt. Tradition and evolution are not enemies, or at least they don’t have to be. You can respect the past while bringing out the new. Nigel McGuinness was living up to the finest traditions of Flair, Race, Piper, Funk, all the Legends who bent the rules. But he did it in a new, exciting way.

The ROH Pure Championship was and is a bridge. And in an industry on the verge of losing it’s way, we really need more of them.