IWGP Heavyweight Championship (IGF)
| IWGP Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||
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Kurt Angle with the TNA World Heavyweight Championship belt [left] and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt [right]
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| Details | |||||||||||
| Promotion |
Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) |
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| Date established | June 29, 2007 | ||||||||||
| Other name(s) | |||||||||||
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IWGP Third Belt Championship (NJPW)
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| Statistics | |
|---|---|
| First champion(s) | Brock Lesnar |
| Most reigns | Brock Lesnar (1 reign); Kurt Angle (1 reign); Shinsuke Nakamura (1 reign) |
| Longest reign | Brock Lesnar (629 days) |
| Shortest reign | Shinsuke Nakamura (<1 day) |
The IWGP Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling heavyweight championship used by the Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) promotion. The title shares its name with New Japan Pro Wrestling's (NJPW) IWGP Heavyweight Championship, from which it split due to a decision made by IGF and NJPW founder Antonio Inoki. "IWGP" is the abbreviation of NJPW's fictional governing body, the International Wrestling Grand Prix.
During the title's history, IGF recognized it as the official IWGP Heavyweight Championship, continuing the history of the title after an error made by NJPW in Inoki's eyes. NJPW recognized the title as the IWGP Third Belt Championship, a championship that was merely represented by a previous version of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship's title belt. The title was briefly used in the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion, which recognized it as the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
As a professional wrestling championship, the title was won via a scripted ending to a match or awarded to a wrestler because of a storyline. The inaugural champion was Brock Lesnar, who was the reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion before being stripped of the title due to issues with NJPW. IGF recognized him as the official IWGP Heavyweight Champion afterwards. All title changes occurred at IGF or NJPW-promoted events. There were a total of three reigns among three wrestlers during the title's brief history before being unified with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
On October 8, 2005, at New Japan Pro Wrestling's (NJPW) Toukon Souzou New Chapter event in Tokyo, Japan, Brock Lesnar defeated Kazuyuki Fujita and Masahiro Chono in a Three Way match for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. He held the title for 280 days, having three successful defenses, until he failed to show up for a scheduled title defense. NJPW thus stripped Lesnar of the championship on July 15, 2006. Lesnar cited visa issues along with NJPW owing him compensation for his reasons at failing to appear at the planned title defense. After this series of events, NJPW founder Antonio Inoki left NJPW and created a new promotion, the Inoki Genome Federation (IGF). Inoki then recognized Lesnar as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion due to Lesnar never having lost the championship in a match and Lesnar still maintaining physical possession of the title belt. NJPW recognized Lesnar as the IWGP Third Belt Champion and not the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, maintaining their stance on having stripped him of the title in 2006.
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