The WEW Heavyweight Championship (Japanese: WEWヘビー級王座, Hepburn: WEW Hebī-kyū Ōza) was a professional wrestlingchampionship, originally created in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) as the WEW Singles Championship (WEWシングル王座, WEW Shinguru Ōza), later being renamed as the WEW World Heavyweight Championship.[1][2] After FMW closed in 2002, the title became the WEW Heavyweight Championship in the World Entertainment Wrestling promotion, although carrying a new lineage.
History
In May 1995, Atsushi Onita went into retirement and sold Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling to ring announcer Shoichi Arai. Under Arai, the company underwent changes that would phase out the deathmatch style that popularized FMW in the early 90s. Arai enlisted Kodo Fuyuki to bring in a more "sports entertainment" look and feel for the promotion. In 1999, this resulted in the creation of the World Entertainment Wrestling (WEW) governing body for new championship titles. Fuyuki had originally intended to rename the entire promotion to complete the reorientation from hardcore (FMW) to entertainment wrestling (WEW), but this plan was stopped by Arai. Eventually, both sides agreed on a new set of titles to replace the old FMW titles. As a result, from 1999 until the end of FMW in 2002, the WEW Singles Championship was the promotion's main singles title.
Later, Fuyuki founded his own promotion (also called World Entertainment Wrestling) where the title was taken over, renamed WEW Heavyweight Championship and given a new lineage. The last champion for a long time was Kintaro Kanemura, who won the title in August 2002. When WEW folded in May 2003, the title was also declared vacant, before being reactivated in September 2006 at Kanemura's Apache Pro-Wrestling Army.[3]
In 2018, two years after Apache Army closed its doors, the title was revived in Pro-Wrestling A-Team, an offshoot founded by Tomohiko Hashimoto.
As of December 21, 2024, between the two lineages, there have been 30 recognized reigns between 17 champions and two vacancies (there are 2 reigns that are not recognized by FMW). Kodo Fuyuki was the inaugural WEW Singles Champion; Kintaro Kanemura was the inaugural WEW Heavyweight Champion. Kanemura has the most reigns at six and has the longest combined reign at 1,331 days (1,335 days recognized by FMW). He also has the shortest reign at 2 days. Tomohiro Ishii's reign is the longest at 959 days. Kim Duk is the oldest champion when he won it at 70 years old, while Masato Tanaka is the youngest champion at 26 years old.
WEW Singles Championship
Key
No.
Overall reign number
Reign
Reign number for the specific champion
Days
Number of days held
Days recog.
Number of days held recognized by the promotion
†
Championship change is unrecognized by the promotion
On March 27, 2000, at Winning Road, Kuroda's second title defense against Kodo Fuyuki ended in a no contest decision after an intervention by Masato Tanaka and ECW. Dissatisfied with the decision, Kuroda decided to vacate the title on May 1.
Defeated Kintaro Kanemura, but FMW President Yoshida awarded the title back to Kanemura four days later, claiming Hayabusa used an illegal move to win.
Defeated Tetsuhiro Kuroda to revive the title as the WEW Heavyweight Championship. WEW and all subsequent promotions to feature the title consider this reign to be the first of a new lineage.
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