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.
I know you posted this many, many years ago - but I came across this when trying to do some sort of database/listing of all World Championships.
ReplyDeleteI am playing a bit loose and fast with a few rules - namely that once a championship is considered a World Championship in my realm, then that championship is ALWAYS considered a World Championship (retroactively and in the future), so this means the full NWA Championship lineage would be included.
Thank you for the comment and checking out the old post. I do lean to agree with your assessment, because the AWA World Championship will always be a World Championship to me. Same with the NWA World Championship.
DeleteNo problems! I was on a work computer above - so have logged in properly this time haha.
DeleteEssentially I’ve come to this list below, and, as was the case when the AWA and WWE Championships were originally established, used the NWA Championship as the centre point.
So basically, anything else that I have considered splintered from that (and with a few other examples I’ll try to justify). Might take a couple comments (for the justifications later on) as I think there’s a character limit. But just the list:
* World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship
* NWA (National Wrestling Association) World Heavyweight Championship
* (Omaha) World Heavyweight Championship
* NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) World Heavyweight Championship
* NWA International Heavyweight Championship
* AWA World Heavyweight Championship
* WWE Championship
* PWF Heavyweight Championship
* IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
* AJPW Triple Crown Championship
* WCW World Championship
* WCW International Championship
* ECW Championship
* (WWE) World Heavyweight Championship [2002]
* TNA World Championship
* WWE Universal Championship
* AEW World Championship
* (WWE) World Heavyweight Championship [2023]
The main premise of my project is I’m trying to do a thing to count days spent as world champion, in addition to how many reigns. But that’s for another discussion.
Justifications for the non-straightforward ones:
Delete* NWA (National Wrestling Association) World Heavyweight Championship (1929-1949)
o Offshoot of the National Boxing Association (now WBA)
o Eventually unified in 1949 with the NWA (Alliance) World Championship.
* World Heavyweight Championship [Omaha]
o This was a splinter of the NWA Championship in 1957 following Edouard Carpentier's disputed victory over Lou Thesz.
o Following it's creation, it was often contested alongside the similarly splintered AWA World Championship, and was eventually unified with that in 1963. Justification to include, is including other splinters that were re-unified in other championships such as the WCW and WCW International, and the IWGP and IGF IWGP Championships.
* IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
o The IWGP Heavyweight Championship was originally awarded to the winner of the annual G1 climax during the early 1980's. Whilst the practice had ended by this point, the 1992 G1 Climax winner was awarded the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Prior to this, there had also been unification matches that unified (and subsequently split) the championships during the late 80s and early 90s.
* AJPW Triple Crown
unification of 3 sepate championships in 1989: PWF World Championship, NWA United National Championship, and NWA International Heavyweight Championship. (Reasoning all 3 unified titles below)
* NWA International Heavyweight Championship was initially a splinter of the NWA World Championship during Lou Thesz reign in the 1950's. Thesz later lost a match to a Japanese wrestler, Rikidozan, in LA, though continued to claim that the match was not for the championship until he regained the actual NWA Championship. The splinter title was then brought to Japan by Rikidozan.
* PWF Heavyweight Championship - created by Giant Baba, owner of All Japan Pro Wrestling, who claimed himself as champion after winning a series of 10 matches in 1973 against Bruno Sammartino, Terry Funk, Abdullah the Butcher, The Destroyer, Wilbur Snyder, Don Leo Jonathan, Pat O'Connor and Bobo Brazil.
* NWA United National Championship - was unified into the Triple Crown, but not considered a World Championship before this point, and thus this lineage not included as per the other two.