The IWGP Heavyweight Championship Was Wrestling's Most Prestigious Title
What makes a title seem prestigious? Does it come down to the wrestlers that have held it? The longevity of the title lineage? The match quality that has been associated with it? The answer is not so easy to pinpoint. The NWA World Heavyweight Championship, for example, always felt extremely important when around the waist of a Lou Thesz, Harley Race, or Ric Flair, but since the mid-90s it has largely faded into irrelevancy. The same fate will not happen to the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, its lineage will remain intact as long as it remains retired (a particularly contentious decision when factoring in the IWGP Intercontinental Championship). The belt represented the pinnacle of Professional Wrestling from 1987 to 2021 and while there have been some very distinct periods of lower quality, the belt felt important more often than not. With a combination of some of the very best holding the belt, decades of history, and an unrelenting match quality associated with it, there may well never be another wrestling championship like it.
NJPW Introduced The Title During Its Peak
One of the most distinctive features of the IWGP Heavyweight title is that its debut in 1987 came 15 years after the company had started. Antonio Inoki first used the NWF Championship as the premier championship and then used an early tournament-based version of the IWGP Heavyweight from 1983 to 1987 - in which the championship was defended against the winner of the G1 Climax. Finally, by 1987, New Japan was ready to introduce the Championship that fans are familiar with today.
RELATED: 10 Shortest Reigns In IWGP Heavyweight Championship History
By being the prize of the 1987 G1 Climax, the new IWGP Heavyweight was immediately aligned with an incredibly prestigious tournament event. The fact that Antonio Inoki won the belt (as if there was any doubt Inoki would not put himself over) also solidified the belt as the title in Japan. Inoki, for all his faults, was the biggest sports star in Japan and any title associated with him immediately becomes the top title in the country. The fact that Inoki introduced the title towards the latter stages of his career meant that a long year spanning run with the belt seemed improbable, and unlike other wrestling companies in which there was an early standard-bearer (Thesz with the NWA, Sammartino with the WWE, and Gagne with the AWA) Inoki only held the belt once for less than a year. It is worth pointing out that Inoki vacated the belt due to injury, but he never did book himself to win the top title again.
While New Japan Struggled The Title Remained, Mostly, In Good Hands
Throughout the 90s, the title developed a reputation for being important in and out of Japan, Hogan's famous promo calling the WWE belt a toy in comparison to the IWGP belt certainly resonated with the hardcore fans in America as well as the mainstream Japanese audience. In the late 90s and early 2000s, NJPW underwent the most dramatic change of its entire existence becoming much more focused on MMA style bouts. Although the company became a truly difficult watch, the IWGP Heavyweight Champion was still a figure of respect within Japanese wrestling, even the likes of Bob Sapp, who is not a good professional wrestler, carried an aura with him that made him compelling and maintained the legitimacy of the belt.
RELATED: NJPW: The 10 Longest-Reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champions
Coming out of the dark days of New Japan, which ended with Brock Lesnar holding the company hostage and being forced to drop a version of the title in the Inoki Genome Federation, Hiroshi Tanahashi cemented the belt's legacy as the prize to be defended within professional wrestling.
Tanahashi's contribution to the belt cannot be overstated, Okada, Naito, Styles, and Omega may have given the belt more international recognition, but without Tanahashi, the belt would largely be meaningless. The IWGP Heavyweight became synonymous with Tanahashi in a way that no other wrestler before could compete with. It wasn't because Tanahashi was the best or the flashiest to hold the belt it was because he was The Ace, the one who took the challenge to reassert the championship as the top title within professional wrestling, without Tanahashi's reigns from 2007 to 2011, there would be nothing for those who came after to compete over. New Japan has had a tumultuous history, but the IWGP Heavyweight had always remained a crucial part of the company. The loss of the title is one that may well be a huge mistake for the company.
