Wrestle-1 Championship

The Wrestle-1 Championship (WRESTLE-1チャンピオンシップ, Wrestle-1 Chanpionshippu) was a professional wrestling world championship owned by the Wrestle-1 (W-1) promotion. In Japanese the title's name includes the katakana term for "championship", Chanpionshippu (チャンピオンシップ), derived from the English language instead of the more common kanji term Ōza (王座). The title also does not feature the word "Heavyweight" or any other weight class, indicating an open-weight status de facto.[7]

Wrestle-1 Championship
The Wrestle-1 Championship belt
Details
PromotionWrestle-1
Date establishedJuly 21, 2014[1]
Date retiredApril 1, 2020

Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won as a result of a scripted match. There have been seventeen reigns shared among eleven wrestlers.

History

Championship tournament

On July 21, 2014, a full year after the start of the promotion, Wrestle-1 announced the creation of its first own title, the Wrestle-1 Championship.[1][8] Previous Wrestle-1 events had featured matches for championships owned by other promotions like All Star Wrestling (ASW), European Wrestling Promotion (EWP), Pro Wrestling Zero1 and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).[9][10] It was announced that the inaugural champion would be determined in a sixteen-man single-elimination tournament taking place between September 21 and October 8. Wrestle-1's founder Keiji Mutoh quickly announced that he would not be taking part in the tournament.[8][11] The tournament brackets were revealed on August 8, with the exception of two participants, who would be determined in qualifying matches on August 31.[7][12] In the qualifying matches, Jiro Kuroshio defeated Andy Wu and Daiki Inaba defeated Koji Doi.[13] The tournament featured only wrestlers officially signed to Wrestle-1 and none of the freelancers or outside wrestlers working regularly for the promotion.[7] Pro Wrestling Zero1's reigning World Heavyweight Champion Masakatsu Funaki announced he was looking to defend his title throughout the tournament and unifying it with the Wrestle-1 Championship.[14][15] However, just before the start of the tournament on September 19, Funaki lost the World Heavyweight Championship.[16][17] The Wrestle-1 Championship belt was unveiled at a press conference on September 17.[18][19][20] The first two rounds of the tournament were held over three shows between September 21 and 23 and saw Kai, Masakatsu Funaki, Masayuki Kono and Shuji Kondo advance to set up the two semifinal matches for October 8.[21][22][23] In the semifinals, Kai and Kono were victorious over Kondo and Funaki, respectively, setting up a final match later that same day, where Kono defeated Kai to win the tournament and become the inaugural Wrestle-1 Champion.[2][24][25]

First round
(September 21, 22)
Second round
(September 23)
Semifinals
(October 8)
Finals
(October 8)
        
Kai Pin
Manabu Soya 23:40[26]
Kai Pin
Minoru Tanaka 18:18[27]
Minoru Tanaka Pin
Daiki Inaba 12:31[28]
Kai Pin
Shuji Kondo 12:50[2]
Hiroshi Yamato Pin
Seiki Yoshioka 18:48[26]
Hiroshi Yamato Pin
Shuji Kondo 15:11[27]
Shuji Kondo Pin
Kaz Hayashi 16:35[26]
Kai Pin
Masayuki Kono 17:57[2]
Masakatsu Funaki Sub
Tajiri 03:50[26]
Masakatsu Funaki Pin
Akira 14:13[27]
Ryota Hama Pin
Akira 07:34[28]
Masakatsu Funaki Pin
Masayuki Kono 07:10[2]
Masayuki Kono Pin
Jiro Kuroshio 04:56[28]
Masayuki Kono Sub
Yusuke Kodama 09:07[27]
Yasufumi Nakanoue Pin
Yusuke Kodama 12:32[26]

Title history

Key
No. Overall reign number
Reign Reign number for the specific champion
Days Number of days held
Defenses Number of successful defenses
+ Current reign is changing daily
No. Champion Championship change Reign statistics Notes Ref.
Date Event Location Reign DaysDefenses
1 Masayuki Kono October 8, 2014 Shodai Ōja Kettei Tournament Tokyo 1 240[29] Kono defeated Kai in the finals of a sixteen-man tournament to become the inaugural champion. [2][24][25]
2 Keiji Mutoh November 1, 2014 Hold Out Tokyo 1 1272[30] [29][31][32]
3 Kai March 8, 2015 Trans Magic Tokyo 1 240[33] [30][34][35]
4 Hideki Suzuki April 1, 2015 Cherry Blossom Tokyo 1 1022[36] [33][37][38]
5 Kai July 12, 2015 Symbol Tokyo 2 710[39] [36][40][41]
6 Manabu Soya September 21, 2015 2nd Anniversary Tokyo 1 1112[42] [39][43]
7 Yuji Hino January 10, 2016 Sunrise Tokyo 1 1152[44] [42][45]
8 Kai May 4, 2016 Triumph Tokyo 3 991[46] [44]
9 Daiki Inaba August 11, 2016 Puroresu Love in Yokohama Yokohama 1 831[47] [46]
10 Masayuki Kono November 2, 2016 Autumn Bout Tokyo 2 1382[48] [47][49][50]
11 Shotaro Ashino March 20, 2017 Trans Magic Tokyo 1 3597[51] [48][52]
12 Manabu Soya March 14, 2018 Trans Magic Tokyo 2 1721
13 Shotaro Ashino September 2, 2018 Pro Wrestling Love 2018 in Yokohama Yokohama 2 1252
14 T-Hawk January 5, 2019 Sunrise Tokyo 1 2392
15 Daiki Inaba September 1, 2019 Puroresu Love in Yokohama Yokohama 2 1331
16 Katsuhiko Nakajima January 12, 2020 Sunrise Tokyo 1 631
17 Kaz Hayashi March 15, 2020 Wrestle Wars 2020 Ota City 1 170
Deactivated April 1, 2020 - - - -- Title deactivated when Wrestle-1 closed

Combined reigns

Kai, record three-time Wrestle-1 Champion
Rank Wrestler No. of
reigns
Combined
defenses
Combined
days
1 Shotaro Ashino 2 9 484
2 Manabu Soya 2 3 283
3 T-Hawk 1 2 239
4 Daiki Inaba 2 2 216
5 Kai 3 1 194
6 Masayuki Kono 2 2 162
7 Keiji Mutoh 1 2 127
8 Yuji Hino 1 2 115
9 Hideki Suzuki 1 2 102
10 Katsuhiko Nakajima 1 0 63
11 Kaz Hayashi 1 0 17

References

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