List of IWGP Heavyweight Champions
| IWGP Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Four-time and current champion Kazuchika Okada with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt
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| Details | |||||||||||||||
| Promotion | New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) | ||||||||||||||
| Date established | June 12, 1987 | ||||||||||||||
| Current champion(s) | Kazuchika Okada | ||||||||||||||
| Date won | June 19, 2016 | ||||||||||||||
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| Statistics | |
|---|---|
| First champion(s) | Antonio Inoki |
| Most reigns | Hiroshi Tanahashi (7 reigns) |
| Longest reign | Shinya Hashimoto (Third reign, 489 days) |
| Shortest reign | Kensuke Sasaki (Fourth reign, 16 days) |
| Oldest winner | Genichiro Tenryu (49 years, 10 months) |
| Youngest winner | Shinsuke Nakamura (23 years, 9 months) |
The IWGP Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling heavyweight championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the International Wrestling Grand Prix. The title was introduced on June 12, 1987, in the finals of a IWGP tournament. Being a professional wrestling championship, the title is won as a result of a predetermined outcome.
Throughout the history of the championship, several wrestlers have been forced to relinquish the title due to an inability to participate in title defenses. When a wrestler has been injured or unable to compete for other reasons, tournaments have been held to determine the new champion.
In 2006, Brock Lesnar was stripped of the title for being unable to defend it; however, Lesnar claims he was owed money by NJPW and kept the physical belt. He signed with Antonio Inoki's Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) in 2007, and lost the championship to Kurt Angle on the inaugural broadcast. Angle later lost the belt in a unification match to the NJPW-recognized champion Shinsuke Nakamura in 2008. The title forms what has unofficially been called the "New Japan Triple Crown" (新日本トリプルクラウン Shin Nihon Toripuru Kuraun?) along with the IWGP Intercontinental and NEVER Openweight Championships.
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