10 Best Wrestlers Who Never Held The ROH World Title

by John Bills

1. AJ Styles

AJ Styles
WWE.com

AJ Styles may well be the best wrestler in the world in 2017, but in 2002 he was another talented independent performer looking to establish themselves in the post-Monday Night Wars world. Styles appeared on Ring of Honor's third ever show and quickly became an integral part of the top tier of the company, but was never able to win the big prize. Styles won pretty much else in the company except the ROH World Championship.

What is arguably more surprising is that Styles only ever had three one-on-one opportunities to win the championship despite being one of the biggest names in the company during both of his stints in ROH. Styles first challenged Samoa Joe for the title at War of the Wire in November 2003, but it was be another year before Joe relinquished the belt to Austin Aries.

Styles next championship opportunity came against Bryan Danielson at Dissension in January 2006 after Danielson hand-picked Styles as challenger, but The Phenomenal One again came up short. Almost a decade passed before Styles' third and final singles shot at the title, an unsuccessful run at Jay Lethal at Final Battle 2015.

If AJ Styles hadn't finally signed with WWE in 2016 then it is likely he would have eventually won the ROH World Championship. Some things just aren't meant to be.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.