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When Chris Jericho became the first-ever AEW World Champion last year, he brought instant credibility to the upstart promotion. 'Le Champion' may have lost the gold, but he is still going strong at the top of the card. Whether it be fighting The Elite in pay per view main events or feuding with the likes of Orange Cassidy to create new stars, Jericho is one of the major reasons for the promotion's continued popularity.
Choosing who becomes the first ever World Champion in a wrestling promotion is extremely important as it sets the tone for how the promotion wants to be viewed by the public. The original ECW had Jimmy Snuka as their first World Champion. While it was appropriate for the 'Eastern Championship Wrestling' version of ECW, the extreme history of the promotion did not begin until Shane Douglas decided to take his newly won NWA ECW title and put it in the trash.
Douglas became the flag-bearer of the 'Extreme Championship Wrestling' version of ECW, heralding the arrival of an edgier product. Similarly, Ric Flair becoming the inaugural WCW Champion was exactly what the Georgia based promotion needed to stay true to its southern roots, while also legitimising its claim as a 'World' promotion.
This list takes a look at five of the major promotions in the world today (other than AEW which, you know, we just mentioned) and their inaugural World Champions.
#5 ROH World Championship - Low Ki
In the early 2000s, tape trading was still in demand and Rob Feinstein's RF Videos had turned a tidy profit distributing ECW videos. When Paul Heyman's promotion went under, it created a void for Feinstein's company and, after negotiations with other regional promotions failed, Feinstein decided to start his own wrestling company solely for the purpose of distributing wrestling videos. The promotion was named Ring of Honor.
While new promotions like TNA chose to highlight former WWE and WCW superstars, Feinstein's company focused on creating new superstars, especially young, athletic wrestlers who could have great matches. The likes of AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan and Amazing Red were all featured and soon a tournament was set up to crown the first ROH Champion.
After a set of tournament matches, the finals would come down to Daniels, Kendrick, Douglas Williams and Low Ki in a 60-minute iron man match. Low Ki won the fatal four-way by pinning Daniels to become the inaugural champion. He would go on to have classic matches defending the title against multiple wrestlers in ROH, establishing the upstart promotion as the place to be.
Over the years, many future WWE superstars would hold the ROH title, including Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Samoa Joe and Adam Cole.
#4. NWA Worlds Championship - Orville Brown
The National Wrestling Alliance has had a number of ups and downs over the years. Once the most prominent wrestling promotion in the world, the NWA brought various regional promotions under their umbrella, ensuring that each territory would have only one promoter holding shows. Wrestlers would work in a territory for some time, before moving on to a new one to have fresh feuds.
The advent of national television crippled the business, with fans being fed the results of multiple territories at the same time. Vince McMahon's WWF opted to go national, buying out many regional promoters and further weakening NWA's territorial system.
All of this however, cannot downgrade the great history of the NWA. The concept of a wrestling alliance was introduced by promoter Paul George, who wanted to combine multiple regional wrestling promotions in to recognising a first ever 'World' Champion. Orville Brown - a wrestler and promoter - who operated the Kansas territory became the first NWA World Champion.
Brown would begin NWA's project of unifying various championship across the territories with the NWA world title. He held the title for 501 days before an automobile accident forced him to vacate the title. He would be succeeded by Lou Thesz who would continue Brown's work, holding the title for well over 2000 days!
#3. NWA TNA World Championship - Ken Shamrock
2002 was a strange time in professional wrestling. Both WCW and ECW had gone out of business, leaving the WWE as the only major wrestling promotion in the United States. Jeff Jarrett, who had no chance of joining the WWE due to prior disgreements with Vince McMahon, decided to start his own promotion to compete with him - the beginning of Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling (TNA).
Trying to differentiate themselves from the WWE by holding weekly PPVs, TNA decided to hold a 'Gauntlet for Gold' match to crown their first world champion. The match was very similar to WWE's Royal Rumble match, the only difference being that once it came down to two wrestlers, the match would change to a traditional 1-on-1 match.
In a match that included the likes of Jarrett, Scott Hall, R-Truth, Konnan and Rick Steiner, the final two were Malice - the former Wall in WCW, and Ken Shamrock. Shamrock would go on to beat Malice in the 1-on-1 match and become the champion. He was presented with the NWA World Championship, with TNA deciding to affiliate themselves with the NWA during this early run.
Shamrock would have a very short reign, losing the title to R-Truth before departing the company soon after. This would later influence Jarrett to build the company around himself, having multiple world title reigns which ensured that the champion stayed loyal to the promotion.
#2. IWGP World Championship - Antonio Inoki
The IWGP World Championship was introduced in 1987 with a 14-man tournament set up to crown the first champion. The tournament consisted of two blocks of seven wrestlers each with the winners from each block advancing to the title match. This tournament would later develop to become what is now known as the NJPW G1 Climax.
The competitors of the 1987 edition included the likes of Scott Hall and the Barbarian, but was won by Japanese legend, Antonio Inoki. Inoki won block A and went on to meet Masa Saito in the final match. The match lasted nearly 15 minutes and had Inoki go over via pin.
Both Inoki and Saito were prominent stars in Japan, with Inoki beating Bob Backlund in 1979 for the WWF Championship - a title change that WWE does not recognise. Saito would have success in the States, becoming an AWA World Heavyweight Champion, though he never captured the IWGP title belt.
Inoki would hold the World Championship for 325 days before relinquishing the title due to a foot injury. With Inoki also being the owner of NJPW, it was hardly surprising that he booked himself to become the biggest star in Japan.
#1. WWE Championship - Buddy Rogers
WWE recognises Buddy Rogers as their first world champion, having (supposedly) won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro to capture the title in 1963. What really happened was that WWE owners Vince McMahon Sr. and Toots Mondt cut their ties with the NWA, of which the WWE was a part of.
Rogers was actually the NWA Champion, but the NWA booking committee had decided to have him drop the title to Lou Thesz. McMahon opposed the decision, feeling that Thesz would not draw in New York, the primary WWE territory. When it became clear that the NWA wasn't going to budge, McMahon decided not to recognise the title change and had the WWE leave the NWA.
Rogers was presented with the World Wide Wrestling Federation (pre-WWE) title at a house show in Washington. He would hold on to the title for just a month, before losing to Bruno Sammartino. Sammartino brought prestige to the championship, defending the belt for a ridiculous 2803 days.
In hindsight, it seems a mistake that Sammartino wasn't the original champion, but Rogers was supposed to have a longer run with the belt. However, he started having health issues and McMahon decided to put the title on the 28-year-old Sammartino, who beat Rogers in 48 seconds at a New York house show.
