Every Major Wrestling World Title - Ranked From Least To Most Prestigious
1. IWGP Heavyweight Championship (NJPW)
Ahead of every IWGP Heavyweight Championship defence, NJPW screens a montage of its former champions backed by an irresistibly triumphant orchestral arrangement.
In just minutes, years of incredible history are planted in the minds of the audience, who are conditioned to expect something momentous, and the performers, challenged to create something momentous. New Japan puts over the prestige of the Championship before its holder even wears it to the ring. Inside that ring, greatness occurs. Invariably.
The promotion's current Golden Age was largely forged through Hiroshi Tanahashi, whose savvy, fiery babyface sensation of an act restored what it meant to be a World Champion in the eyes of Japanese fans disenfranchised by Inokism. The Ace also redefined the pro wrestling art form with his awesome, trademark, much-imitated reversal-crammed finishing sequences. The man who supplanted him, Kazuchika Okada, excelled through his aloof, God-like mastery of the art.
The man who supplanted him, Kenny Omega, is an entirely new breed of pro wrestling athlete, able to hold the attention of audiences with incredible marathon performances that in turn portray his newly-won prize as something for which only an impossible standard is conceivable to secure it. The IWGP Heavyweight Championship is protected through its impenetrability.
The IWGP Heavyweight Championship isn't merely the prize for which the world's elite compete; it is now the prize for which the greatest of all time compete in a glorious present.