From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The J-Crown (also known as J-Crown Championship) was formed originally by New Japan Pro Wrestling as a way of unifying eight non-heavyweight titles from several different organizations. The J-Crown tournament was held over four nights, from August 2nd to August 5th 1996.
[edit] Championships
[edit] The J-Crown Tournament
[edit] Title history
[edit] End of the J-Crown
The J-Crown was defended for just over a year. When Jushin Liger was champion, he ended up losing the International Junior Heavyweight Championship to Yuuji Yasuraoka. However, Liger continued to defend the J-Crown with seven titles instead of eight.
Five months later, as the WWF was getting ready to introduce a new Light Heavyweight title, they became aware that the original Light Heavyweight Championship belt was no longer in their possession. (The physical belt had long since been used in New Japan Pro Wrestling for one of their titles.) WWF demanded that Shinjiro Otani, the current J-Crown Holder, return the belt to them immediately. He did so on October 5, 1997. On the same day, he also vacated all of the remaining titles, except for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, effectively ending the J-Crown.
[edit] Trivia
- The longest J-Crown reign was Jushin Liger, at 6 months, 2 days.
- Every J-Crown title holder was part of the original 8 tournament participants.
- Despite being called the NWA Welterweight title, it was actually governed by Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre. Along the same line, the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title was, at the time, being governed by Wrestle Dream Factory.
- The British Commonwealth title, WWF World Light Heavyweight and UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight titles were all being used by New Japan Pro Wrestling.
