A former IWGP Heavyweight Champion is looking to add the ROH Pure Title to his already impressive list of career accomplishments.
Ring of Honor announced that Yuji Nagata will compete in the tournament to crown a new ROH Pure Champion, adding to a field that already includes the likes of Marty Scurll, Matt Taven, Fred Yehi and more. This will be Nagata's first match at an ROH show since the 2019 ROH/NJPW War of the Worlds tour.
Former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Yuji Nagata enters the Pure Championship Tournament looking to add to his already-lengthy Hall of Fame resume! ?Blue Justice? has won just about every major accolade in professional wrestling but has specialized in tournament victories. He is the only man to have won New Japan's G1 Climax, All Japan?s Champion Carnival, and Pro Wrestling Noah's Global League and he has also twice won the New Japan Cup.
With nearly 30 years of experience, Nagata?s technical prowess has led him to defeat everyone from The Keiji Mutoh and Masa Chono to Tomohiro Ishii and Hiroshi Tanahashi, remaining one of the best in the world through all three decades of his career.
But one thing that has alluded Nagata is gold in the United States. Can Nagata do something he has done so well throughout his career; can this man, built for tournaments and endurance, win one more and capture the Pure Championship?
ROH would also announce that Alex Gracia has been added to the tournament field that will see the winner become the new ROH Women's World Champion. The likes of Sumie Sakai, Kellyanne, Angelina Love, Tasha Steelz and others are also competing in the tournament.
The colors pink and gold have always gone well together, so does that mean ?The Pink Dream? Alex Gracia?s quest for gold is destined to end with her as the new Ring of Honor Women?s World Champion?
Gracia is one of 16 competitors in the tournament to crown a new women?s champion in ROH. The tournament kicks off with eight first-round matches at Quest For Gold in Philadelphia on April 24.
Although Gracia has only been wrestling since 2018, she?s already made an impact both domestically and internationally.
A graduate of the Texas Wrestling Academy -- which was formerly run by Shawn Michaels and has produced stars such as Bryan Danielson, Brian Kendrick and Paul London -- Garcia has competed for Stardom in Japan and for several promotions in Mexico, including CMLL. She?s a former holder of the women?s championship in Reality of Wrestling, the Texas-based independent promotion owned by Booker T.
Will ?The Pink Dream? be able to make her title aspirations in ROH a reality?