ROH Announces First Participants For Pure Title And Women's World Title Tournaments

By Marc Middleton

The first two participants have been announced for the ROH Pure Title tournament and the ROH Women's World Title tournament.

Ring of Honor announced today that Jonathan Gresham and Doug Williams will be competing in the 16-man tournament to crown a new ROH Pure Champion.

As noted before, ROH is bringing the Pure Title back and the new champion will be crowned with the tournament that kicks off at ROH Pure Excellence night one in Columbus, OH on Friday, April 10. Night two will take place on Saturday, April 11 in Pittsburgh, PA, and the quarterfinals will be held at ROH Battlestarr 2020 in New York City on Thursday, April 23. There's no word yet on when the semifinals and the finals will take place.

ROH previously retired the Pure Title back in 2006 after first introducing it in 2004. Pure Rules matches are bouts where closed-fist punches are illegal, and each competitor is allowed three rope breaks to stop submission holds and pinfalls during the match, and after that, pinfalls and submissions on or under the ropes would be legal.

Williams was the second Pure Champion, holding the title for just over 40 days in 2004. On a related note, Gresham vs. Williams was previously announced for the ROH Past vs. Present event in Las Vegas on Saturday, March 14.

In other ROH tournament news, Kellyanne and Sumie Sakai have been announced as the first competitors in the 16-woman tournament to crown the inaugural ROH Women's World Champion.

The tournament will begin with eight first-round matches on Friday, April 24 in Philadelphia, PA at the ROH Quest For Gold event.

Below are the Twitter announcements on Gresham, Williams, Sakai and Kellyanne:

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