| ECW FTW Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||||||
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Chris Chetti with the first version of the ECW FTW Heavyweight Championship |
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| Details | |||||||||||||||
| Promotion | ECW | ||||||||||||||
| Date established | May 14, 1998 | ||||||||||||||
| Date retired | March 21, 1999 | ||||||||||||||
| Other name(s) | Brooklyn World Championship | ||||||||||||||
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The Extreme Championship Wrestling FTW (Fuck the World) Heavyweight Championship (also referred to as the Brooklyn World Championship) was an alternate World Heavyweight Championship in the professional wrestling promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling. This was similar to the Million Dollar Championship in the World Wrestling Federation in that it was not an officially sanctioned championship.
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Taz announced the creation of the FTW Heavyweight Championship on May 14, 1998. Frustrated by his inability to challenge for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship due to Champion Shane Douglas' injury and refusal to face him, Taz created and defended his own World title, billing himself as the "real" World champion.
Taz lost the title only once. This was an intentional loss, when he pulled an unconscious Sabu over himself on December 19, 1998 (he was confident that he would defeat Shane Douglas in an upcoming title bout, and thus no longer needed the FTW Heavyweight Championship). Taz regained the title at Living Dangerously on March 21, 1999, where he unified the FTW Heavyweight Championship with the ECW World Heavyweight Championship (which he then held) by defeating Sabu in a title versus title match. Taz then began using only the ECW World Heavyweight Championship belt, being the sole World Heavyweight Champion in the promotion.
When the title was first created, the FTW belt was a duplicate ECW Television Championship belt, with its strap spray-painted orange, and "FTW" stickers placed over the ECW logos. A few months later, that belt design was abandoned and a new, original FTW belt was introduced, with a "TAZ" logo engraved in the belt's centerplate.
According to Taz on the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD, when he lost the new belt in a match against Sabu, Sabu was legitimately upset backstage over Taz's name being permanently displayed on the belt. From then on, whenever Sabu had the belt with him, he would cover the Taz logo with athletic tape and write "SABU" on it in magic marker. The Championship is owned now by the WWE, but they have not chosen to revive it.
| # | Wrestlers | Reign | Date | Days held |
Location | Event | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taz | 1 | May 14, 1998 | 219 | Queens, New York | Live event | Taz introduced the championship during a storyline. |
| 2 | Sabu | 1 | December 19, 1998 | 92 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Live event | |
| 3 | Taz | 2 | March 21, 1999 | 0 | Asbury Park, New Jersey | Living Dangerously (1999) | The championship was unified with the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. |
| — | Retired | — | March 21, 1999 | — | Asbury Park, New Jersey | Living Dangerously (1999) |
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