My Thoughts on the Ring Of Honor's Pure Rules

Professional wrestling has a lot of styles that can be enticing to anyone like its a massive buffet. We have technical wrestling, old school wrestling, lucha libre, strong style, etc. Since modern wrestling has had a criticism of all of it being the same type of matches, and there is a lot of fair merit alongside a lot of unfair merit to those criticism. So many companies tried to have matches that are synonymous with the wrestling company itself. The obvious examples are the Royal Rumble matches for WWE, which it is a countdown elimination battle royal where 30 people compete for an opportunity at two of top titles in both divisions of a company. Another example is AEW's Casino bouts with their most popular being the Casino Gauntlet match. The match is essentially a reverse Royal Rumble with a unique twist as a wrestler has to win via pinfall or submission and it can only happen once. Which means that the earlier you are, the better your chances. TNA have a multitude of synonymous bouts whether for the better or for the worse. One I can name is the Ultimate X match where the X-Division Title is hanged high on four part cable that form into an X. And you have to climb on the cables to reach the title belt for the victory. It is as gnarly as it sounds and Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels nearly died in this bout. 

Now we shift our focus on... Ring Of Honor. Much like TNA with less of the TNA-ness, Ring Of Honor have left a remarkable permanent stain on professional wrestling. Especially leaning into the indie aspect and focus on pure in-ring wrestling during the early years. To make pure wrestling feel evident, they introduced ROH Pure Wrestling Championship (now the ROH Pure Championship) in 2004. Bobby Cruise still announces it as the ROH Pure Wrestling Championship which is a nice callback (and I definitely wish that the AEW announcers, Arkaby Aura and especially Justin Roberts would say it). This title has a very unique match system which makes for an synonymous division for Ring Of Honor. The title deactivated in 2006 and reactivated in 2020 and now even introduced the ROH Women's Pure Championship or as Bobby Cruise says it, the ROH Women's Pure Wrestling Championship. Now I am gonna talk about my views on Ring Of Honor and it's Pure Division. And how I think of it differently. 

My Thoughts On The Pure Rules Match Itself:

Before I give my thoughts on Pure Rules matches, I have to tell you how does a Pure Rules match even work. Well my friends, let me explain to you. A Pure Rules match is contests under "Pure Wrestling Rules" works like this:

1. Each wrestler has three rope breaks to stop submission holds and pinfalls.
2. After a wrestler exhausts his/her rope breaks, submission and pin attempts on or under the ropes by his/her 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 count out.
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.

You got that? Yeah, me too. These Pure Rules bouts really make me have to pay attention to what they do in the ring, which leads me to the people who have held this title and what it has represented in its presentation over the past few years especially when Tony Khan bought Ring Of Honor and the feud between Wheeler Yuta and Daniel Garcia. People like Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, Wheeler Yuta, etc. What do those wrestlers have in common? Technical wrestling. This really gave that title the straight up wrestling approach and seemed more of a belt that fits to technical wrestlers. Or that's what I see whenever I see someone talk about Ring Of Honor.

This is just my opinion and you don't have to agree with me. But I never saw the Pure Rules as a straight up wrestling approach to the Core of ROH. I see it as more of assignment or an IQ test. I see it as how the wrestler are able to adapt to their new unfamiliar surroundings and see if they can mold their current style into something far deeper than it is to match their opponent. Because given the rules itself, it all depends on how long or how experienced you are in your craft. This exact opinion is showcased very well in the short feud between ROH Pure Champion Lee Moriarty and Komander. This was part of the theme where Lee Moriarty was facing a multitude of Luchadors. If that was clear on how I view the Pure Rules, just look at the Ring Of Honor Women's Pure Wrestling Championship Tournament. The participants in this most recent tourney were: Queen Aminata, Taya Valkyrie, Deonna Purrazzo, Trish Adora, Olympia, Billie Starkz, Serena Deeb and Yuka Sakazaki. Now keep in mind, only two of these wrestlers are more established in technical wrestling than the rest. 

I can talk about the ROH Women's Pure Championship and the whole Deonna Purrazzo situation a completely different time. But that is all of I have to say on this topic. As much as I have a gripe of Tony Khan as a booker more than I see Taro Okada in the fraud allegations, this was a really good way to lay this out and I'm thinking of being more journalist or novelist or whatever.

Hope you have good heart into the stratosphere and pass it onto the Cutest In The World... AYA SAKURA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kind Regards.

ZERO (or Archer)