The legendary ROH Pure Championship run of Jonathan Gresham recently came to an end at hands of the “Technical Beast” Josh Woods.
Woods defeated Gresham at the recent Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view in a fun match. This marks the first title that Woods has held in the company, and it’s well deserved.
Gresham’s 317 day title reign only featured nine championship defenses, which is a tad disappointing. The run was looked at as a success largely in part to the creation of a top group in the promotion – The Foundation.
The Foundation took shape shortly after Gresham bulldozed his way through the Pure Tournament. After defeating Tracy Williams in the finals, the two decided to join forces, along with Jay Lethal, all for the common goal of making Pure Wrestling important and notable again. Rhett Titus would join the group in the weeks following.
The Foundation succeeded at making Pure Wrestling important again. ROH goes out of its way to host special Pure-themed episodes of ROH as well as hosting a Pure Wrestling gauntlet every few months as well. It’s a special part of programming and the company does a fantastic job treating it as such.
Although he’s very good in his own right, I feel like Josh Woods joining The Foundation would only yield positive results for the bright star. Woods has plenty of positives about him as an overall performer, but the group could provide him two things that are missing – superstar presence and mic skills.
When given time, all four members of The Foundation can provide a passionate, inspired and thoughtful promo that could inject life into any match that needs it. The group also provides a very important superstar quality to them that Woods could use to elevate himself to the next level. As a weekly viewer of the program, whenever The Foundation is on screen I make sure to pay attention.
Woods joining the faction could also provide a few different routes for storylines down the road.
An idea I’ve had in my head is that Woods could join the group now, and Gresham could use that to buddy up to him, study his strategies more and eventually re-take the title in a heel-like manner. Then, you could branch that out into a storyline of whether The Foundation chooses Woods or Gresham as their leader.
Woods could also benefit from this in a matchup aspect. The Foundation is in a long standing faction war with La Faccion Ingobernable and VLNCE UNLTD. This has allowed guys like Tracy Williams and Rhett Titus to mix up with the titans of ROH like Rush, Dragon Lee, Brody King, etc. Despite already being a great wrestler, Woods would only benefit from working with these guys.
The Foundation has teased adding new members in the past such as Fred Yehi, Wheeler Yuta and Joe Keys, but none of them have ever came to fruition.
Overall, I don’t see any negatives to Josh Woods joining the ranks of The Foundation. I believe the group would help Woods elevate himself to that top-tier level of the company, something that the Pure Championship alone can’t do with the fan-less state of the company.
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