List Of Early World Heavyweight Champions In Professional Wrestling
The World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship was the first recognized professional wrestling world heavyweight championship created in 1905 to identify the best catch as catch can professional wrestler in the world. The first recognized World Heavyweight Champion was George Hackenschmidt, who officially won the championship on May 4, 1905 by defeating Tom Jenkins in New York City, New York, The championship remained active for the next 51 years with the last recognized reign beginning on November 9, 1956.
Several of the championship reigns are also recognized by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) under the NWA World Heavyweight Championship's lineage. World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) current two World Heavyweight Championships (the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship) lineages can also be traced back to the World Heavyweight Championship.
The WWE Championship's origin can be traced back to the NWA Championship after an incident in which the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) at the time left the NWA after refusing to recognize Lou Thesz as NWA Champion after he beat Buddy Rogers in a one fall match — The NWA World Title matches usually followed a best-of-three fall format — Vincent J. McMahon, the WWWF's owner created the WWWF Championship and awarded Rogers the belt proclaiming he won it in a (apocryphal) tournament in Brazil. The WWE's World Heavyweight Championship was subsequently created after then-WWE Champion Brock Lesnar became exclusive to the SmackDown Brand.
WWE's World Heavyweight Championship is a successor to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship as well as being spun-off from the WWE Championship.
The now defunct World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) were also home to World Heavyweight Championships with origins that can also be traced back to the World Heavyweight Championship. In WCW, the WCW World Heavyweight Championships origin is traced back to a match which took place on January 11, 1991 where Ric Flair defeated Sting for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, when WCW pulled out of the NWA in early 1991 Flair was recognized as the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion.
The WCW International World Heavyweight Championship can be traced back to an incident in WCW's final split with the NWA in 1993, Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship reign was continued to be recognized with the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship.
In ECW, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship's origin is attributed to a tournament which was held to crown a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion in 1994 in NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling although its inaugural champion was Jimmy Snuka who won it two years prior. On August 27, 1994 Shane Douglas participated and won the tournament and discarded the NWA World Heavyweight Championship proclaiming himself the new Extreme Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion despite having won the Championship five months prior, because of this event ECW withdrew from the NWA and renamed itself Extreme Championship Wrestling. The championship was also competed for on the ECW brand of WWE.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's (TNA) World Heavyweight Championship (the TNA World Heavyweight Championship) can also be traced back to the World Heavyweight Championship. TNA formed in May 2002 and formed a partnership with the NWA, allowing TNA control of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Tag Team Championship. On June 19, 2002 TNA crowned the first NWA World Heavyweight Champion under their banner, after Ken Shamrock won a Gauntlet for the Gold match at TNA's first Weekly Pay-per-view. On May 13, 2007 NWA severed ties with TNA after the then-current NWA World Heavyweight Champion Christian Cage and the then-current NWA World Tag Team Champions Team 3D (Brother Ray and Brother Devon) after Christian Cage refused to defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against wrestlers from the NWA territories. The TNA World Heavyweight Championship was first won by Kurt Angle who won it at TNA Sacrifice by defeating Christian Cage and Sting.
Read more about List Of Early World Heavyweight Champions In Professional Wrestling: Title History
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, early, world, champions, professional and/or wrestling:
“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (18411935)
“Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the nativesfrom Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenangowith a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists stage.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A birds cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.”
—Wallace Stevens (18791955)
“Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.”
—Blaise Pascal (16231662)
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most mens reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of the rat race is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“... all professional ideologies are high-minded. Hunters, for instance, would not dream of calling themselves the butchers of the woods.”
—Robert Musil (18801942)
“We laugh at him who steps out of his room at the very moment when the sun steps out, and says: I will the sun to rise; and at him who cannot stop the wheel, and says: I will it to roll; and at him who is taken down in a wrestling match, and says: I lie here, but I will that I lie here! And yet, all laughter aside, do we ever do anything other than one of these three things when we use the expression, I will?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)