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Details You Missed On The July 20th Episode Of AEW Dynamite

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FTW title

I watched AEW Dynamite last night, and I noticed a few little details that needed to be fleshed out. There were two moments and two titles that revolved around title lore built in previous promotions. So let’s take a brief trip down wrestling memory lane. 

Here are two things you missed. 

The Rules Of ROH’s “Pure” Wrestling Champion.

Wheeler Yuta is the current Ring of Honor “Pure” wrestling champion, and he will defend that title against Daniel Gracia at Ring Of Honor’s “Death Before Dishonor” PPV.

This will be the first PPV for Ring of Honor since Tony Khan bought the floundering promotion.

And honestly, the build has been lackluster. It is hard for AEW to give their 84* titles equal attention, much less a whole new promotion. Anyway, what are the rules for the Pure Title? I’m glad you asked. 

The Pure title is designed to showcase old-school catch-as-catch-can wrestling. The style has long been out of mainstream favor but found a home on the indies thanks partly to Ring of Honor resurrecting it. The rules are as follows.

  1. Each wrestler has three rope breaks to stop submission holds and pinfalls.
  2. After a wrestler exhausts his rope breaks, submission and pin attempts on or under the ropes by his opponent are considered legal.
  3. No closed-fist punches to the face are permitted.
  4. Open-handed slaps or chops to the face are permitted.
  5. Punches to the rest of the body are allowed, excluding low blows.
  6. The first use of a closed fist to the face receives a warning.
  7. The second use of a closed fist to the face results in disqualification.
  8. The title can change hands via disqualification and countout.
  9. Outside interference will result in automatic termination from the roster for the wrestler who interferes.

As with any match with many rules, there are always shenanigans and questionable calls, so it is far from “pure wrestling” most of the time, but the matches do tend to focus more on holds. 

A great example of a Pure match is when AJ Styles faced off against CM Punk at the ROH 2nd Anniversary show. 

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The History of the FTW Championship

Ricky Starks is the current FTW champion in AEW. For those of you too young to remember, the FTW title was created by Taz back in ECW. The stated purpose of the title was that Taz was upset that he couldn’t challenge injured ECW champion Shane Douglas for his title. As such, the renegade Taz created his own belt as a middle finger to ECW management. 

There have only been Four FTW title holders. In ECW, Taz and Sabu held the titles before Taz united the FTW belt with the ECW title. Then the championship laid dormant for over 20 years before Taz resurrected it for his stable in AEW. The first new holder of the title was Brian Cage. Cage would hold it for a year before Starks won it in 2021. Starks defended it for the first time in a year against a no-name indie guy. Starks won so convincingly that he issued an open challenge. That’s when this happened. 

Danhausen has grown on me a lot, but I don’t think he needs a 3rd tier title in order to connect with the crowd

Overall, Dynamite was a fun show. The main event was pretty good, if not a bit overbooked, with too many run-ins. 

Did you watch AEW? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

By Hunter Patterson

Hunter Patterson is a writer based in Los Angeles. He loves writing about pop culture, popcorn, and pro wrestling.... More about Hunter Patterson

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