Short-Lived Wrestling Titles Fans Barely Remember

Championships, in professional wrestling, are as overabundant in the modern age as Internet complaints about the influx of Superkicks and Canadian Destroyers happening every five seconds in a match. WWE, for instance, operates nineteen active championships across RAW, SmackDown, NXT, and its social media exclusive Speed series: they will soon introduce men’s and women’s WWE ID Championships, too, marking the 20th and 21st titles.

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While some titles carry a great level of prestige and acclaim, thus guaranteeing them a lengthy lifespan, the same cannot be said for others, whose shelf lives were cut drastically short, leaving fans without even a memory of their existence.

WWF World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship

Years In Use: 1978-1989

Awarded by Vincent J. McMahon to the iconic Antonio Inoki upon his arrival on American soil in 1978, WWE’s World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship was defended under legitimate MMA rules, with its two title swaps transpiring via knockout and submission, respectively. Both pro wrestlers and mixed martial artists contested the strap.

Retired in 1989 when Inoki presented it to Shota Chochishvili, the only other man to hold the championship, the physical belt would represent New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Greatest 18 Club Championship between 1990 and 1992.

WWF Women’s Tag Team Championships

Years In Use: 1983-1989

Though WWE currently operates a modernistic set of Women’s Tag Team Championships

that have been plagued with bad creative since day one
, these weren’t the company’s original female doubles titles. In 1983, the then-World Wrestling Federation introduced a set of Women’s Tag Team Championships after buying the rights to the NWA World Women’s Tag Team Championships from The Fabulous Moolah.

This came as the defending champions, Princess Victoria and Velvet McIntyre, jumped to the fledgling sports entertainment empire in the early eighties. Other tandems to hold the titles during their six-year existence include The Glamour Girls and The Jumping Bomb Angels.

WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Championship

Years In Use: 1997-1998

World Championship Wrestling failed to make appropriate use of its female talent pool, which, in turn,

ruined the credibility of their two women’s titles
. The Women’s Cruiserweight Championship suffered terribly more than the standard Women’s Championship, given that its maiden champion was crowned on WCW Main Event, a C-level show at best, and was never mentioned on ‘mainstream’ programming.

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The title was a coalition between the Ted Turner-helmed group and Japan’s GAEA group, but after its inauguration, it became the exclusive property of the latter. It was sunset in 1998, for the best.

ROH Top Of The Class Trophy

Years In Use: 2005-2008

Designed to award its grapplers-in-training, Ring of Honor’s Top of the Class trophy was a rare case of a championship being represented not by a belt, but by, as the name suggests, a trophy. It was traded between several top prospects of the time, including Mitch Franklin, Ernie Osiris, and Shane Hagadorn, who had the trophy’s longest reign at 315 days.

Rhett Titus was the final champion and, indeed, the only holder of the trophy who will be remembered from its lineage. He would become a one-time World Television and two-time World Tag Team Champion after moving up the ROH card.

IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship

Years In Use: 2003-2006

Before they became megastars in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura swapped the company’s short-lived U-30 Openweight Championship between them, with ‘The Ace’ managing one reign more than ‘The King of Strong Style’.

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Retired in 2006 so that then-champion Tanahashi could focus on the uber-prestigious IWGP Heavyweight Championship, the U-30 title is a rare instance of a championship going dormant too soon. It would fit seamlessly into a current-day New Japan landscape, allowing the company’s Young Lions a clearer path to superstardom.

WWF Intercontinental Tag Team Championships

Years In Use: 1991

In operation for seven months in 1991, the WWF Intercontinental Tag Team Championships were held by only one duo: Gran Hamada and Perro Aguayo. They were determined to be the inaugural champions on account of them holding the UWA World Tag Team Championships, too, as the Intercontinental doubles titles were a joint effort between the WWF and the Universal Lucha Libre Japan promotion.

The titles were abandoned in the summer of ’91 on account of the two promotions severing their working relationship.

ECW Maryland And Pennsylvania Championships

Years In Use: 1993-1994

Before ECW was extreme, it was Eastern Championship Wrestling,

hence why the company briefly hosted two titles named after easterly states
: the Maryland and Pennsylvania Championships. The former of those was held only once, by JT Smith, who rendered the belt retired after he captured the ECW World Television Championship.

As for the Pennsylvania title, both Tommy Cairo and Tony Stetson held it, with its abandonment coming suddenly in 1994.

WWF Canadian Championship

Years In Use: 1985-1986

The WWF Canadian Championship was less of a significant title than it was a notion of Bravo’s Canadian roots. He was the title’s only holder during its mercifully short life, between August 1985 and January 1986, and he wouldn’t be referred to as the Canadian Champion everywhere he wrestled: it was only acknowledged in particular regions of ‘The Great White North’.

Dino Bravo leaving the World Wrestling Federation in 1986 spelled the end of the title.

WWF North American Heavyweight Championship

Years In Use: 1979-1981

Not to be confused with the 2018-debuted NXT North American Championship, the WWF North American Heavyweight Championship was held by three icons of the seventies and eighties: the late WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson, ‘The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase, and the fierce black belt judoka fighter Seiji Sakaguchi.

Bookmarked by the reigns of DiBiase and Sakaguchi, the North American title is also part of the fictitious tale of

Pat Patterson becoming the inaugural Intercontinental Champion
following his infamous Rio de Janeiro tournament victory.

IMPACT Grand Championship

Years In Use: 2016-2018

In classic 2010s TNA fashion, the promotion introduced the Grand Championship in the summer of 2016 with grand rules modeled on the British Rounds system. Matches would have three three-minute rounds – three five-minute rounds for ‘special events’ – with victory occurring by either pinfall, submission, or, failing a win in the allotted time, the judge’s decision, who voted each performer on the grounds of physicality, aggressiveness, and controlling the action.

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These rules were null and void after less than two years, naturally, as a title bout between Matt Sydal and champion EC3 became the first traditional defense of the title. It was unsurprisingly retired that year, being merged into Austin Aries’ World Championship.