10 Awful Championships WWE Doesn't Want You To Remember
2. International Tag Team Championship
Great, even more tag team gold...
This time it's the International Tag Team Championship, which existed from 1969 to 1972 as a way for WWE to have another set of titles in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. You've got to wonder if there was more WWE belts in Japan than any other company around this time.
Unlike other titles on this list, that were clearly introduced to spread the WWE name around the world, these belts were won by The Rising Suns in Japan, then only changed hands in the United States after that; some big names held them too.
Bruno Sammartino was the catalyst for these belts coming back to America. He was co-owner of Spectator Sports, which had cut ties with the NWA to link up with WWE instead. The McMahons had sweetened the deal by letting Sammartino defend his WWE Championship at the Pittsburgh promotion throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
You can see where this is going...
Eventually, Spectator Sports closed and the International Tag Team straps were abandoned. Another company was adsorbed into WWE, with another flurry of title retirements following. There wasn't even a tournament in Japan; these titles started with a lie just like so many others before them.
There was at least one match in Japan for these belts though. Long after they were retired, WWE brought them back in 1985 for the IWGP and WWF Championship Series. Kengo Kimura and Tatsumi Fujinami were the winners, but WWE pulled the plug on their NJPW partnership and put the straps on the scrapheap one last time.