The MLW World Heavyweight Championship is a world heavyweight championship owned and promoted by

Major League Wrestling Major League Wrestling (MLW), is an American professional wrestling promotion based in New Rochelle, New York. The promotion was founded in 2002 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by former WWE writer Court Bauer. The promotion markets its product as ...

(MLW). It is the promotion's principal championship. The championship was established on September 26, 2002 during the MLW Reload event and was active until February 10, 2004 after the promotion stopped hosting events. AHammerstoneMLW2019

History

On June 15, 2002,

held an eight-man

single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

to crown the first MLW Champion at its inaugural Genesis event.

Jerry Lynn Jeremy Lynn (born June 12, 1963), better known by the ring name Jerry Lynn, is an American retired professional wrestler currently signed with All Elite Wrestling as a producer and coach. He has worked for promotions such as World Championship ...

Shane Douglas Troy Allan Martin (born November 21, 1964) is an American professional wrestler and promoter, better known by his ring name Shane Douglas. He is best known for his tenures in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), World Championship Wrestling (W ...

Vampiro Ian Richard Hodgkinson (born May 31, 1967), better known by his ring name Vampiro, is a Canadian semi-retired professional wrestler who most recently served as director of talent for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA). He also worked for Lucha Unde ...

and Taiyo Kea advanced to the semifinals. Douglas defeated Lynn to advance to the finals, and caused the match between Vampiro and Kea to be declared a no contest. As a result, both wrestlers advanced to the finals for a three-way dance. Douglas defeated both Kea and Vampiro to become the first champion. Afterwards, Douglas threw the title down, like he did with the

NWA World Heavyweight Championship The NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship is a world heavyweight professional wrestling championship owned and promoted by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), an American professional wrestling promotion. The current champion is Tyrus, who is in ...

. Referee John Finnegan threatened that Douglas would be banned from wrestling in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, if he didn't defend the title. MLW went on hiatus for three months. Upon the company's return,

Satoshi Kojima is a Japanese professional wrestler signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling, but makes appearances for Pro Wrestling Noah. Considered to be one of the greatest Japanese professional wrestlers of the 21st century and of all-time, he was the first wrest ...

defeated

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

at MLW Reload on September 26 for the vacant MLW World Heavyweight Championship. Court Bauer would later confirm that this title lineage and belt design was a separate championship from the MLW Championship won by Shane Douglas in June 2002. As such, Kojima was recognised as the first MLW World Heavyweight Champion. Kojima defended the title in his home promotion

All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW/AJP) or simply All Japan is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established on October 21, 1972 when Giant Baba split away from the Japanese Wrestling Association and created his own promotion. Many wrestlers had left with Baba, ...

(AJPW), with the defenses airing on both MLW ''Underground TV'' and AJPW broadcasts in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Kojima lost the title at Hybrid Hell on June 20, 2003 to

Mike Awesome Michael Lee Alfonso (January 24, 1965 – February 17, 2007) was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his appearances with the American professional wrestling promotions Extreme Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestl ...

. Afterwards, Awesome lost the title to

Steve Corino Steven Eugene "Steve" Corino (born May 29, 1973) is a Canadian semi-retired professional wrestler currently signed with WWE as a trainer and producer for their developmental territory NXT. He is best known for his tenure with Extreme Championship ...

, as Corino exercised Awesome's promise for a title shot. It was later reported that Kojima's employers, AJPW would not allow him to drop the title to an employee of a rival company

Pro Wrestling Zero1 (stylized as Pro Wrestling ZERO1), formerly known as Pro Wrestling Zero-One and Pro Wrestling Zero1-Max (stylised in all capital letters) and often referred to simply as Zero1, is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded in 2001. I ...

, which was Steve Corino. Corino remained champion until the promotion closed on February 10, 2004. MLW resumed wrestling operations in July 2017. In January 2018, MLW announced its Road to the World Championship, an eight-man single-elimination tournament to crown a new champion. During the tournament,

A. C. H. Albert Christian Hardie Jr. (born December 7, 1987), is an American Professional wrestling, professional wrestler, currently known by his ring name A. C. H. He has wrestled for several American promotions, like Ring of Honor, Ring of Honor Wrestl ...

replaced

Tom Lawlor Thomas Joseph Lawlor (born May 15, 1983) is an American professional wrestler, retired mixed martial artist and podcast host. He is best known for his time in Major League Wrestling (MLW), where he was a former one-time MLW World Heavyweight Cham ...

in the semi-finals, after he suffered an injury. On April 12,

Shane Strickland Stephon Strickland (born September 30, 1990) is an American professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he performs under the ring name Swerve Strickland and is a former AEW World Tag Team Champion (with Keith Lee). ...

defeated

Matt Riddle Matthew Fredrick Riddle (born January 14, 1986, in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand, but is currently inactive due t ...

in The World Championship Finals.

Low Ki Brandon Silvestry (born September 6, 1979) is an American professional wrestler of Italian and Puerto Rican descent, better known by his ring name Low Ki. He is known for his time with Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor and Major League Wrestlin ...

made the first international title defense since 2003 in Claremont, Australia, as he defeated Jonah Rock on November 30 in a New Horizon Pro Wrestling event. Starting in July 2019, MLW would begin playing a Championship Lineage video (similar to New Japan Pro Wrestling) highlighting all previous MLW World Heavyweight Champions before sanctioned Championship matches. This lineage package would once again confirm Shane Douglas as not recognised as part of the MLW World Heavyweight Championship History.

Championship Tournaments

Inaugural MLW World Championship Tournament (2002)

Road to the Championship tournament (2018)

Reigns

As of February 13, 2022, there have been nine reigns and one vacancy shared between nine different champions.

was the inaugural champion, defeating Taiyo Kea and

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

on June 15, 2002, to become the inaugural champion.

Jacob Fatu Jacob Fatu is an American professional wrestler currently signed to Major League Wrestling. He is a former one-time MLW World Heavyweight Champion and his reign is the longest in the title's history at 819 days. He also performs on the independen ...

's reign is the longest at 819 days, while

's reign is the shortest at 10 minutes.

is the oldest champion when he won it at 39 years old, while

is the youngest champion at 28 years old.

Alexander Hammerstone Alex Rohde (born January 17, 1991), better known by his ring names Alexander Hammerstone or simply Hammerstone is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to Major League Wrestling, where he is the current MLW World Heavyweight ...

is the current champion in his first reign. He defeated

in a

Winner Takes All match Many types of wrestling matches, sometimes called "concept" or "gimmick matches" in the jargon of the business, are performed in professional wrestling. Some gimmick matches are more common than others and are often used to advance or conclude a ...

where Hammerstone's

MLW National Openweight Championship The MLW National Openweight Championship is a professional wrestling championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion Major League Wrestling (MLW). The title was unveiled on April 18, 2019. The title's openweig ...

was also on the line at

Fightland Fightland is a website covering mixed martial arts (MMA). Launched in September 2012, it is part of Vice Media, Inc. network channels. Vice Media states that ''Fightland'' is a joint venture with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). ''The Ne ...

on October 2, 2021, in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Combined reigns

As of , . JacobFatuMLW2019

References

External links

* at Cagematch.net * at Wrestling-Titles.com {{MLW World Heavyweight Championship

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

World heavyweight wrestling championships World professional wrestling championships