The third entrant of the ROH Pure Championship tournament is Alex Shelley.
Despite his long tenure with the promotion, Alex Shelley has yet to win a singles championship. Shelley has been with the company since 2003 and the former ROH World Tag Team Champion has been in memorable battles with talents such as CM Punk, Austin Aries, and Bryan Danielson.
While the 37-year-old has surely been through wars in his career, Shelley’s main drive for returning to ROH last year was to finally win a big singles championship. Now, the ROH star has a chance to do so as he’ll join Jonathan Gresham and Doug Williams to become the next ROH Pure Champion.
The 16-man tournament will begin at Pure Excellence on Friday, April 10 in Columbus and Saturday, April 11 in Pittsburgh. Here are the rules for a Pure Championship match: closed-fist punches were illegal and each competitor was allowed three rope breaks to stop submission holds and pinfalls during the match; after that, pinfalls and submission holds on or under the ropes would be legal.