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Finals
Bryan Danielson vs Samoa Joe: It's interesting that it comes down to these two because this is the finals I would have wanted if I was fantasy booking this thing. Taking this outside the realm of actual deciding criteria for a moment, I think that who you personally like better is a matter of preference based on when you started following ROH. If you were there from the beginning, or close to the beginning, Samoa Joe was basically the guy leading the way for most of the first three years, and he headlined through some pretty volatile times. If you didn't get into ROH until after Joe lost the title (as I did), then Bryan Danielson's probably your guy because you got to see so many great technical matches and he was on top during big deals like the working agreements with Pro Wrestling NOAH and Dragon Gate, the CZW feud, and Homicide's road to the title. I think if you were just stating your pick as a matter of personal preference, you'd have a solid case either way.
But this isn't personal preference, we're trying to determine who the best is and I'll be damned, but this is a tough, tough choice. If you're looking at quality of competition, I have to give Danielson the edge because Joe's only really competitive challengers were Homicide, CM Punk, and MAYBE Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles. Danielson had very competitive matches with Roderick Strong, KENTA, Colt Cabana, Nigel McGuinness, Joe, and Austin Aries, and since Danielson comes off as more "beatable" than Joe, there was always more drama to his matches because there were more guys who came along whom you thought could beat him. Danielson also faced more name opponents from outside ROH like Marufuji, KENTA, AJ Styles, Chris Sabin, Sonjay Dutt, and Lance Storm, while Joe mostly fielded challenges from regular members of the ROH roster.
ROH also ran many more shows during Danielson's reign than Joe's, and even though Joe's reign was six months longer than Danielson's, Danielson had nine more successful title defenses than Joe, and you can bump that number to 12 if you throw out the defenses on non-ROH shows where you knew there was no chance of the title changing.
On the flipside, the ROH World Title became so respected because of how it was treated when Joe was the champion. Joe made it a wrestling title that was the single goal every wrestler in ROH wanted to attain. His title reign was taken very seriously, and in fact the way Xavier had often done whatever he could to snake out of defending the title regularly was played into Joe's reign, as he said he wasn't going to duck anyone or be a sports entertainment champion.
Joe was also the one carrying the title when ROH expanded its boundaries beyond the Philadelphia-Boston corridor, and his title defenses helped make the Midwest, and Chicago Ridge in particular, ROH strongholds. He was the first one to take the title outside the United States and lend credibility to the "World Title" designation.
Perhaps most importantly, many fans thought for a long time that Samoa Joe WAS Ring of Honor, and they got so used to him holding the title for those 21 months that they had a hard time accepting some of the guys who came later on. With all due respect to Low Ki and Xavier (and Danielson for that matter, since he main evented the first ROH show), Joe made that title what it is, and his title loss to Austin Aries was one of the biggest shockers to ever happen in ROH at that time.
Okay, enough procrastinating. I have to pick one of them, so after taking all these factors into account, I declare...
Winner, and scientifically proven Greatest ROH Champion Ever (Maybe): Samoa Joe
Even though I personally prefer Danielson, I can't ignore what Samoa Joe did as the champion and what he meant to the company overall. As I said at the top, you can make a cogent argument for either guy, but Joe's title reign reallly did go above and beyond Danielson's in terms of the overall picture, and because of that, he gets the trophy.
Okay, with that monster out of the way, I'll be back tomorrow with some lighter reading as I look at my picks for the top ten shows in ROH history.
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