A Tweet from April 3, 2020 Pro Wrestling Illustrated currently recognizes four World Championships WWE World Championship, the WWE Universal Championship, the AEW World Heavyweight Championship, and the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.
For PWI the criteria is that it's actively defended around the world against high quality opponents. Which makes sense. At the same time though with a championship like the NWA World Championship has an internet show that is available around the world and is accessible to everyone. During this current title run aside from the United States, Aldis has defended the championship in the UK multiple times and Canada. Shouldn't it still be considered a World Championship?
Historically PWI recognized:
NWA World Heavyweight Championship
July 14, 1948 - January 11, 1991
May 8, 2006 - May 13, 2007
AWA World Heavyweight Championship
August 16, 1960 - December 12, 1990
WCW World Heavyweight Championship
January 11, 1991 - December 9, 2001
ECW World Heavyweight Championship
July 6, 1999 - April 11, 2001
June 13, 2006 - February 16, 2010
World Heavyweight Championship WWE Big Gold
September 2, 2002 - December 15, 2013
TNA World Heavyweight Championship
May 13, 2007 - August 1, 2015
I haven't always agreed with PWI when it came to it's World Championship recognition. For instance the ECW World Championship, they didn't give it recognition until six months into Taz's title reign. The company had, had PPV's for years by then and had a national syndicated show and rabid fan base.
Other promotions call their title a World Heavyweight Championship including PWG, Progress, CZW, even my home promotion Limitless Wrestling calls their championship a World Championship.
Limitless Wrestling has a huge following on YouTube with 685 Thousand subscribers. Their video of Kris Statlander vs. Christian Casanova has 41 million views, they have 28 other videos that have anywhere from 1 million to 32 millions views each. MJF, their first champion, defended it in the United Kingdom. Is this sufficient criteria?
With all this being said I'm still looking for the answer to the question. What is the criteria that qualifies a title to be considered as a World Heavyweight Championship?
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PWI recognized the WWE's big Gold as a World Championship at the same time they did the WWE Championships as well.
ReplyDeleteImpact doesn't surprise me honestly, but Ring of Honor does.