TNA World Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||||||||||
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Impact World Heavyweight Championship belt
(March 14, 2011 – present) |
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Details | |||||||||||||||||||
Promotion | Impact Wrestling | ||||||||||||||||||
Date established | May 13, 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||
Current champion(s) | Alberto El Patron | ||||||||||||||||||
Date won | March 9, 2017 | ||||||||||||||||||
Past design(s) |
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Statistics | |
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First champion(s) | Kurt Angle |
Most reigns | Kurt Angle (6 reigns) |
Longest reign | Bobby Roode (256 days) |
Shortest reign | Kurt Angle (1 day) |
Oldest winner | Sting (52 years) |
Youngest winner | Magnus (26 years) |
Heaviest champion | Samoa Joe (290 Ibs) |
Lightest champion | A.J. Styles and Chris Sabin (210 Ibs) |
The TNA World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned by Impact Wrestling. It is currently the highest ranked championship in Impact Wrestling and is primarily defended in Impact's heavyweight division. It was unveiled on May 14, 2007 at the taping of then-TNA's primary television program, Impact!, which aired on May 17, 2007. The inaugural champion was Kurt Angle.
Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won via the result of a scripted 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 TNA World Heavyweight Championship.
The Total Nonstop Action Wrestling promotion formed in May 2002. 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. On June 19, 2002, NWA-TNA held its first show; a weekly pay-per-view event. 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.Ken Shamrock defeated Malice to win the championship with Ricky Steamboat as Special Guest Referee at the event.