10 Weirdest Ways To Create A Wrestling Championship

2. The PWF World Heavyweight Championship

The Pacific Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship was created by Japanese wrestling legend Giant Baba on the 27th February 1973 after he'd done very well in late 1972 and 1973, winning a series of ten matches against high profile foreign opponents. Don't get too hung up on the 'PWF' part of that name: the 'Pacific Wrestling Federation' was Baba's name for the governing body that (kayfabe) made all the decisions regarding booking, as the International Wrestling Grand Prix ('IWGP') does for New Japan. This was to be All Japan Pro Wrestling's top title. There was just one thing: this wasn€™t in a tournament, or a series designed to declare a winner. No, Baba retroactively determined that the victories had meaning over and above what they initially meant€ and the matches themselves were days, if not weeks apart. Between October 1972 and that final match on 27th February 1973, Giant Baba faced Bruno Sammartino (twice, with one win and one draw), Terry Funk, Abdullah The Butcher, The Destroyer, Wilbur Snyder (twice, also with one victory and one time limit draw), Don Leo Jonathan, Pat O€™Connor and Bobo Brazil, all in singles competition. Over that period, he wrestled plenty of other matches as well, in both tag and singles competition. But come the conclusion of his bout with Brazil at the end of February, he awarded himself the PWF World Heavyweight Championship, as a way of congratulating himself for being so awesome. That takes a lot of nerve...