ROH World Championship

Promotion
 Date established
 Current champion(s)
 Date won

 Most reigns
 Longest reign
 Shortest reign
 Oldest winner
 Youngest winner
 Heaviest champion
 Lightest champion

The **ROH World Championship** is a professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by Ring of Honor (ROH). It is considered the most prestigious title in the promotion. The current champion is Eddie Kingston, who is in his first reign. The title is currently defended on All Elite Wrestling's television programs (AEW being co-owned by ROH owner Tony Khan), as well as ROH pay-per-view events.

## History

Low Ki defeated Spanky, Christopher Daniels, and Doug Williams in a 60-minute Iron Man match to become the inaugural ROH Champion at Crowning a Champion on July 27, 2002 after holding its first tournament to crown the inaugural champion on June 22, 2002.

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. 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 the ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness lost to the ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson in Liverpool, England in a title unification match. 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 Championship belts, was redesigned. 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.

In December 2012, a new design was introduced at the Final Battle iPPV.
On July 3, 2013, the ROH World Championship has declared vacant for the first time since its inception, when ROH Match Maker Nigel McGuinness stripped then-champion Jay Briscoe of the title after he was sidelined with a storyline injury and would be unable to compete for the foreseeable future.

In December 2017, ROH unveiled another new design for the title belt, which debuted at Final Battle.
In late 2021, ROH announced it would go on hiatus following Final Battle. Then-ROH World Champion Bandido was supposed to wrestle Jonathan Gresham in a championship match at Final Battle until December 9 when it was announced that Bandido had tested positive for COVID-19, thus ending his participation in the scheduled match. Jay Lethal took Bandido’s place against Gresham at Final Battle where Gresham defeated Lethal and won the vacated ROH World Championship, now represented by the original title belt. However, during ROH’s hiatus after Final Battle, Gresham and Bandido would appear in different promotions defending their respective championships; Gresham with the original belt and Bandido with the most recently designed belt. The championship was defended on cards promoted by other companies such as longtime ROH national rival Impact Wrestling, Game Changer Wrestling (GCW), the UK-based Progress Wrestling, and All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Both men even defended their respective titles with Gresham's new promotion, TERMINUS.

On January 20, 2022, it was announced that Bandido and Gresham would face each other in a championship unification match at Supercard of Honor XV, the first ROH event after the hiatus. At the event, Gresham defeated Bandido to unify the ROH World Championship. Afterwards, Gresham continued to carry the original belt while the belt carried by Bandido was shelved.

## Reigns

*Main article: List of ROH World Champions*