greatest ROH World Champion

[neilybob]

CM Punk

[Hegemony]

Aug 10, 2011 14:05:07 GMT -5 neilybob said:

CM Punk

Punk would get my vote for most fun ROH Title reign, as the 2005 Summer of Punk was epic in so many ways.

[jasonjaconetti]

While still don't like the question, I went with Joe because he is the reason that I started watching ROH. Our first ROH show was Joe vs. Kobashi. Yeah, Danielson was awesome and I think Nigel had a great run, Joe drew us in. I must say that my wife would say Nigel, because he may be her favorite ROH wrestler period.

[BDS]

Bryan Danielson scarred my brother-in-law by throwing another man at him four rows deep. He wins.

[Deleted]

Had to go JOE! Maybe not now but in 2002 he was down right scary as ROH champion. JOE'S GONNA KILL YOU!!........

[stu]

Very tough call for me, between Joe and Danielson. I gave it to Danielson by a nose, just because he was such a great "old school" heel champ when the situation called for it. But, Joe put the title on the map in terms of really making it mean something, and that's what made it a tough call, for me at least.

[TTX]

I almost went with Danielson but in the end, Aries just nosed him out for it IMO.

[pikemojo]

I chose Danielson, Joe would have been my second choice. I do think my vision of Joe has been tarnished somewhat because of his recent stuff. I don't know if it is the shortened matches, TNA in general, injuries or what but he just doesn't have that same fire anymore. I would disagree that he was just a stiff worker. I could get into the no-nonsense character that he had. It was very similar to Taz in ECW, I think. He worked in TNA for a while but then TNA seemed to try to make him more Samoan and then tried to make him into a pseudo MMA fighter instead of just letting him work.

Anyway, I chose Danielson not Joe. Danielson was such a great classic heel champion. I saw him against Nigel live and it was just an awesome match to see live. He played extremely well to the crowd in that match. Not sure how well that transferred to DVD but he has done well so far in WWE so his talent sure did transfer to the big stage and to live tv.

[jrgoldman]

No love for Takeshi Morishima? I feel that his run gets slept on alot. i basically feel that his run was basically Joe part II, but he didn't have the same level of talent around him that Joe did (please note I am not saying that Joe got carried through his run). I was a really big ROH fan during his run, and I think that it had something that other ROH championship reigns did not: Morishima clearly looked better than a lot of his opponents. I love Danielson, but it got kind of old when he would give Jimmy Rave 25 minutes of offense, or was having hour long draws with Colt Cabana. When Morishima wrestled BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Rave, he would basically destroy them, so for me it meant more when he would have back and forth matches with other guys. These longer, back and forth matches were used to really elevate Brent Albright and Claudio Castagnoli, and resulted in what many consider one of the best ROH matches of all time with Bryan Danielson at Manhattan Mayhem II. I think that is also speaks to Morishima's ability that he was not well recieved at all initially as champion, but by the end of his run, there was outrage and backlash when Nigel beat him for the belt.

The way I look at it is this: Joe's run put ROH on the map, and Danielson's run carried ROH through a time where other companies might have struggled (losing a lot of top stars at once). Both are bigger names than Morishima, but I think objectively his run had high quality and believable matches and a great overarching storyline that really made the title and the chase for it seem important.