10 Times Wrestlers Unified Titles

After a painful 10 year-plus odyssey, Tetsuya Naito finally won the main event of the Tokyo Dome at the start of 2020. As the first man to hold New Japan's two top titles simultaneously, the sky appeared to be the limit for the LIJ head honcho. Sadly, Naito fans aren't allowed to have nice things with a horrendous cocktail of KENTA, COVID and Gedo's booking destroying what should've been Mr Tranquilo's signature run.

Kota Ibushi completed his own odyssey this year, defeating both Naito and Jay White at the Tokyo Dome to finally reach the pinnacle of puroresu. The seemingly ageless Ibushi then announced his interest in retiring the IC title. In a depressing epilogue to the Naito story, the Ungovernable One unsuccessfully challenged Ibushi exclusively for the white belt in a bid to save it from unification. Now defeated by Ibushi for the hundredth odd time, Naito's loss has ensured that the new IWGP World Heavyweight Championship is here to stay.

This unified title's arrival bids farewell to the long and storied history of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship (guess we can say goodbye to that awesome champions' roll call they do before title matches too). It's also means goodbye for the Intercontinental belt that WWE defector Shinsuke Nakamura so successfully turned into a main event level accolade.

It's a nice accomplishment for The Golden Star, but a debatable decision for the promotion as a whole.