Unified GFW World Heavyweight Championship

Unified GFW World Heavyweight Championship

A black leather strap decorated with gold and silver plaques

Unified GFW World Heavyweight Championship belt
(March 14, 2011 – present)
Details
Promotion Global Force Wrestling
Date established May 13, 2007[1]
Current champion(s) Alberto El Patrón
Date won July 2, 2017
Past design(s)
Other name(s)
  • TNA World Heavyweight Championship
    (2007–2017)
  • Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship
    (2017)
  • Unified GFW World Heavyweight Championship
    (2017-present)

The Unified GFW World Heavyweight Championship[3] is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned and promoted by Global Force Wrestling (GFW). It is the principle championship of GFW.[4] It was unveiled on May 14, 2007 at the taping of then-TNA's primary television program, Impact!, which aired on May 17, 2007.[1] The inaugural champion was Kurt Angle (who also holds the record for the most reigns at six) and the current champion is Alberto El Patrón in his first reign.

Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won via the result of a predetermined match. Before the TNA World Heavyweight Championship was created, TNA controlled the NWA World Heavyweight Championship via an agreement with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). In 2007, the agreement between TNA and the NWA ended, leading to the creation of the then-TNA World Heavyweight Championship.

When TNA changed its name and became Impact Wrestling in March 2017, the title was renamed soon after to reflect the change. It assumed its current name when it was unified with the GFW Global Championship at Slammiversary XV.

History

Global Force Wrestling was formed as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in May 2002.[5] Later that same year, TNA was granted control over the NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championships by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) governing body; subsequently becoming an official NWA territory as NWA-TNA.[6] On June 19, 2002, NWA-TNA held its first show; a weekly pay-per-view event.[7] The main event of the telecast was a twenty-man Gauntlet for the Gold match in which twenty men trying to throw each other over the top rope and down to the floor in order to eliminate them, until there were two men left who wrestle a standard match to become the first ever TNA-era NWA World Heavyweight Champion.[7] Ken Shamrock defeated Malice to win the vacant championship with Ricky Steamboat as the special guest referee at the event.[7]

Creation

Kurt Angle was the first TNA World Heavyweight Champion

The NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championships were contested for in TNA until the morning of May 13, 2007.[6] On that day, NWA's Executive Director Robert Trobich announced that the NWA were ending their five-year agreement with TNA, which had allowed them full control over both titles.[6] Trobich went on to state that effective that morning, then-NWA World Heavyweight Champion Christian Cage and then-NWA World Tag Team Champions Team 3D were stripped of their respective championships.[6] The alleged motivation behind these actions was because Cage refused to defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against wrestlers from NWA territories.[6] That same day, TNA were scheduled to produce their Sacrifice event, in which both Cage and Team 3D were to defend their respective championships.[8] On the card, Cage was scheduled to defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Kurt Angle and Sting in a match involving three competitors, also known as a three-way match.[8]

That night, the onscreen graphic used to refer to the champions and their respective championships credited both Cage and Team 3D as still being NWA champions.[9] However, the ring announcers for the encounters proclaimed the matches as being strictly for the "World Heavyweight Championship" and the "World Tag Team Championship".[9] Angle defeated Cage and Sting to win the World Heavyweight Championship.[10]

TNA held a set of tapings for the next two episodes of Impact! on May 14, with the episodes set to air on tape delay on May 17 and May 24.[11] At the first taping, Angle came to the ring with the new TNA World Heavyweight Championship belt and announced that he was the "new TNA World Heavyweight Champion".[1] TNA commentator Mike Tenay announced when Angle made his way to the ring that Management Director Jim Cornette, TNA's on-screen authority figure at the time, "made the decision that due to TNA's growing worldwide exposure, the company needed to have its own TNA title belts"; thereby not acknowledging the NWA ending their agreement with TNA and giving a storyline explanation as to why the championship was created.[1] Later on during the broadcast, Cornette stripped Angle of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship due to a controversial finish to the match at Sacrifice.[1][12] Cornette then announced the championship would be contested for at TNA's Slammiversary on June 17, 2007 in a King of the Mountain match—a match which involves five participants racing to gain a pinfall or submission to become eligible to hang a championship belt to win.[1] On May 15, 2007, Jeremy Borash unveiled the TNA World Heavyweight Championship belt on that day's edition of TNA's online podcast TNA Today.[13]

The five participants for the King of the Mountain match were determined in a series of standard wrestling matches that took place on Impact! leading up to the event, with Angle defeating Rhino in the first bout to gain entry on the May 17 episode of Impact!.[1][14] On the May 24 episode of Impact!, Samoa Joe defeated Sting to become the second participant.[15] The third qualification match was held on the May 31 episode of Impact! between A.J. Styles and Tomko, which Styles won.[16] The next bout pitted Chris Harris against James Storm on the June 7 episode Impact!, which ended in a double disqualification, therefore neither man advanced to the King of the Mountain match.[17] The final qualification match was won by Christian Cage over Abyss on the June 14 episode of Impact!.[18] Angle ended up winning the King of the Mountain match at Slammiversary over Joe, Cage, Styles and Harris, who was a mystery participant chosen by Cornette, to become the "undisputed TNA World Heavyweight Champion".[19][20]

In early 2017 After TNA rebranded as Impact Wrestling, the name of its flagship show, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship changed its name to the Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship to reflect the name changes of the company.

At Slammiversary XV, GFW Global Champion Alberto El Patron defeated Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Bobby Lashley to unify the titles, with the GFW Global Championship being dropped and the Impact World Heavyweight Championship changing its name to the Unified GFW World Championship, as Impact Wrestling began rebranding once again as GFW.

Championship belt design

During the championship's history it has had three designs, with the original title belt (which was unveiled in May 2007) having on its center plate an imprint of an eagle with its wings extended. The word "World" was placed above the eagle's head on a ribbon. The ribbon was wrapped around the bird's wings and body. Five stars were engraved on the ribbon when it passed over each of the bird's wings and the word "Champion" as it passed over the bird's talons. The words "Heavyweight Wrestling" were printed across the bird's chest. At the top of the center plate there was TNA logo. Four smaller side plates had an imprint of a globe centered with TNA's logo at the top and bottom of each. At each end of the title belt there was a small plate that covered the championship belt snaps with TNA's logo engraved on each.

At the November 8, 2010 tapings of the November 11 episode of Impact!, TNA introduced a new design for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship belt, which the champion Jeff Hardy dubbed the "Immortal Championship", as part of the Immortal storyline.[21] The new design consisted of a purple strap with a silver center plate depicting a masked head (designed to resemble Hardy's face with face paint), the TNA logo on the forehead and blue lines along the mask. There were four irregular dodecagonal side plates on the title belt, shaped like stars with rounded edges on two of the sides of these plates.[22]

The Immortal title belt was replaced by the third design of the championship belt at the March 14, 2011 tapings of the March 17 episode of Impact!, introduced by the reigning champion at the time, Sting.[23][24] The new and current design features seven gold plates over a black leather strap. The largest plate is the center plate with faux diamonds aligned along its multiple rounded edges, similar to that of the Big Gold Belt. Over the center plate there is a large TNA Wrestling logo and below it the words "Heavyweight Champion" are engraved in silver. On each side of the center plate there is a group of three smaller plates, one with a TNA logo engraved while the other two feature separate corresponding halves of a globe, on either side of the TNA logo side plate.[25]

Since Slammiversary 2017, the championship has been carried with the GFW Global Championship since the unification of both titles, with the lineage of the Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship continuing on.

Reigns

Overall, there have been 40 reigns shared among 21 wrestlers. The inaugural champion was Kurt Angle, who won the championship by defeating Christian Cage and Sting in a three-way match on May 13, 2007 at TNA's Sacrifice event. Angle's first reign also holds the record for shortest reign in the title's history at 1 day. Angle also holds the record for the most reigns at six.[20] At 256 days, Bobby Roode's first reign is the longest in the title's history. The title has been vacated four different times.

Alberto El Patrón is the current champion in his first reign. He defeated Lashley in an unification match for the Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight and GFW Global Championships to become the Unified World Heavyweight Champion in Orlando, Florida at Slammiversary XV on July 2, 2017.

See also

References

General
Specific
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Caldwell, James (2007-05-18). "Caldwell's TNA Impact report 5/17: Angle-Rhino, Daniels-Raven, blood, Gore, and Stomper". PW Torch.com. Retrieved 2009-05-20. The fans chanted for Christian and Angle said he is the new TNA champion.
  2. 1 2 Westcott, Brian; Oliver, Earl. "TNA World Heavyweight Title history". solie.org. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1VBH16otI
  4. ↑ "Current Champions List at TNAWrestling.com". Total Nonstop Action. TNA Wrestling.com. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  5. ↑ Total Nonstop Action. TNA Wrestling: Year One. TNA Home Video.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "NWA/Trobich strips TNA/Cage/Team 3D of NWA branded Championships". National Wrestling Alliance. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  7. 1 2 3 Martin, Adam. "Full NWA-TNA pay per view results - 6/19/02". WrestleView.com. Retrieved 2009-06-12.
  8. 1 2 Martin, Adam (2007-05-13). "Complete match order for tonight's TNA Sacrifice PPV in Orlando, Florida". WrestleView.com. Retrieved 2009-07-08.
  9. 1 2 "Total Nonstop Action Wrestling presents: Sacrifice (2007)". TNA Sacrifice. 2007-05-13. In Demand.
  10. ↑ Sokol, Chris (2007-05-14). "World title picture muddied after good Sacrifice". Slam Sports: Wrestling. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  11. ↑ Martin, Adam (2007-05-14). "TNA TV tapings tonight in Orlando, FL, Steiner Brothers + Sacrifice video". WrestleView.com. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  12. ↑ "Angle Stripped Of The TNA World Title". web.archive.org. 2007-05-20. Archived from the original on 2007-05-20. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  13. ↑ The 5/15 "TNA Today" - New World Title revealed!. Total Nonstop Action. YouTube. 15 May 2007. Event occurs at 0:30 –3:15. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
  14. ↑ TNA Wrestling (2007-05-17). TNA: Kurt Angle Advances To King Of The Mountain. Total Nonstop Action. YouTube. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  15. ↑ Martin, Adam (2007-05-24). "iMPACT! Results - 5/24/07 (Samoa Joe advances in the 'KOTM Tourny')". Total Nonstop Action. WrestleView.com. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  16. ↑ Martin, Adam (2007-05-31). "iMPACT! Results - 5/31/07 (AJ Styles advances in KOTM Tourny, more)". Total Nonstop Action. WrestleView.com. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  17. ↑ "Keller's TNA Impact report 6/7: Storm vs. Harris in big brawl, Christian-Tomko". PWTorch.com. 2007-06-08. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  18. ↑ Martin, Adam (2007-06-14). "iMPACT! Results - 6/14/07 (Final KOTM Qualifier, Slammiversary PPV)". Total Nonstop Action. WrestleView.com. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  19. ↑ Caldwell, James (2007-06-17). "Caldwell's Slammiversary PPV report 6/17: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of live PPV". PW Torch.com. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  20. 1 2 "History Of The TNA World Championships (as of September 2008)". TNA Wrestling.com. Archived from the original on 2010-03-07. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
  21. ↑ Caldwell, James (2010-11-08). "TNA News: Impact TV taping spoiler - TNA to introduce new title belt on Thursday's Impact (w/pic)". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
  22. ↑ Justice, Jesse (2010-11-12). "Jeff Hardy’s Immortal Champion Title". Top Rope Belts. Retrieved 2010-11-13.
  23. ↑ Gerweck, Steve (2011-03-15). "Spoilers: TNA Impact for March 17th". WrestleView. Archived from the original on 2011-03-18. Retrieved 2011-03-15.
  24. ↑ Bishop, Matt (2011-03-18). "Impact: Title picture still a mess". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2011-03-18.
  25. ↑ "TNA Impact Wrestling Heavyweight Championship Belt is now available for purchase!". Wildcat Championship Belts. Retrieved 2011-08-01.

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