The ROH World Championship is a professional wrestling world championship owned and copyrighted by Ring of Honor (ROH) promotion. The championship was created and debuted on July 27, 2002 at ROH's Crowning a Champion event. Originally called the ROH Championship, the title was renamed to the ROH World Heavyweight Championship in May 2003 after the title was defended outside the United States for the first time—earlier that month, then-champion Samoa Joe had defeated The Zebra Kid in London, England at the Frontiers Of Honor event co-promoted with the FWA. On August 12, 2006, the ROH World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the ROH Pure Championship after then-champion Bryan Danielson defeated ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness in Liverpool, England. The Pure Championship was deactiv