There’s one championship reign that’s flying under the radar, but Tony Khan put a highlight on it this past week for ROH.
This past week fans were buzzing about the debut of AEW Collision, but before the new show fired off on TNT, AEW President and ROH Chairman Tony Khan gave a palate-cleanser for Ring Of Honor fans. Alongside Jerry Lynn and an over-eager Stokely Hathaway, Khan presented a brand new ROH Television Championship to Samoa Joe. The champ was a man of few words, but did accept the new hardware with a little bit of fake modesty before claiming he was gonna smash CM Punk’s face in during the triple tag match that was taking place later on that evening.
“I have to admit, it’s a big surprise, but well-deserved.”
ONE YEAR OF DOMINANCE!
The #ROH Chairman @TonyKhan & the #ROH Board of Directors present @SamoaJoe with a new #ROH World TV title.
Watch #ROH#HonorClub on https://t.co/c45XmmE6blpic.twitter.com/kswK0EZqgZ— ROH – Ring of Honor Wrestling (@ringofhonor) June 22, 2023
Although Joe didn’t win the match or smash his old rival’s face in, he did have CM Punk nearly dead to rights when he caught him in the Kokina Clutch, but that all the more furthers the point to Joe’s very significant run with the TV Title.
Samoa Joe Helps Legitimize ROH For Tony Khan
As of this writing, Samoa Joe has held the ROH TV Championship for 435 days after defeating Minoru Suzuki for the title in the main event of AEW Dynamite on April 13, 2022, just a week after debuting with the company. That puts him just one day ahead of his rival Punk’s memorable WWE Championship over ten years ago. Since his stronghold on the title, Joe has successfully defended his gold against otheer memorable names of ROH including Christopher Daniels, Mark Briscoe and Juice Robinson.