ROH World Championship

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.

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.[1] 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.[2] 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 was 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.[3][4]

In December 2017, ROH unveiled another new design for the title belt, which debuted at Final Battle.[5]

On June 22, 2002, Ring of Honor held an ROH Championship tournament to crown the inaugural ROH Champion.[6] The Finals of the tournament was a four way iron man match that took place July 27, 2002.

Overall, there have been 32 ROH World Championship reigns and 27 total champions. The title has been vacated only once. The inaugural champion was Low Ki, who defeated Christopher Daniels, Spanky, and Doug Williams in a Four Way 60-minute Iron Man match at the Crowning A Champion event on July 27, 2002, to become champion. Kyle O'Reilly has the shortest reign at 33 days.

Rush is the current champion in his second reign. He won the title by defeating previous champion PCO at Gateway to Honor on February 29, 2020 in St. Charles, Missouri.

• Ring of Honor's official title history page