The AWA World Light Heavyweight Championship was a title in the American Wrestling Association (AWA) from 1981 until it closed in 1991. In 1989, the Japan-based Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) promotion began billing Florida Championship Wrestling/Professional Wrestling Federation champion Jim Backlund as the AWA champion, something not acknowledged by the AWA; the title became FMW's lower weight division title. From 1988 through the closure of the AWA in 1991, there were two separate lineages, with the FMW version of the championship being sometimes referred to as the FMW World Light Heavyweight Championship. In 1992, FMW renamed the title to the WWA World Martial Arts Junior Heavyweight Championship before retiring it in 1993.[1]
| AWA World Light Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Details | |||||||||||
| Promotion | American Wrestling Association Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling | ||||||||||
| Date established | June 1981 | ||||||||||
| Date retired | 1993 | ||||||||||
| Other name(s) | |||||||||||
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Title history
edit| No. | Overall reign number |
|---|---|
| Reign | Reign number for the specific champion |
| Days | Number of days held |
| No. | Champion | Championship change | Reign statistics | Notes | Ref. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Event | Location | Reign | Days | ||||||
| American Wrestling Association (AWA) | ||||||||||
| 1 | Mike Graham | June 1981 | House show | [Note 1] | 1 | [Note 2] | Graham was awarded the title. | [1] | ||
| 2 | Buck Zumhofe | June 19, 1983 | House show | Hamburg, Minnesota | 1 | 280 | [1] | |||
| 3 | Steve Regal | March 25, 1984 | House show | Saint Paul, Minnesota | 1 | 613 | [1] | |||
| 4 | Buck Zumhofe | November 28, 1985 | House show | Saint Paul, Minnesota | 2 | [Note 3] | [1] | |||
| — | Vacated | July 1986 | — | — | — | — | The title was vacated when Zumhofe was sent to prison. | [1] | ||
| 5 | Mike Graham | December 13, 1988 | House show | Chicago, Illinois | 2 | [Note 4] | Records are unclear on how Graham won the championship. | [1] | ||
| Championship history is unrecorded from December 13, 1988 to August 11, 1990. | ||||||||||
| † | Buck Zumhofe | August 11, 1990 | House show | Rochester, Minnesota | 3 | [Note 5] | Defeated Jonnie Stewart to win the title in AWA. AWA goes out of business on January 12, 1991. |
[1][2] | ||
| Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) | ||||||||||
| 6 | Jim Backlund | December 10, 1988 | House show | Tampa, Florida | 1 | 477 | Backlund defeated Tyree Pride for the FCW Light Heavyweight Championship; because of this victory Backlund is recognized as the sixth AWA champion by FMW in Japan during 1989 but not by the AWA itself. | [1] | ||
| 7 | Lee Gak-soo | April 1, 1990 | House show | Tokyo, Japan | 1 | [Note 6] | [1] | |||
| — | Vacated | September 1990 | — | — | — | — | Title vacated after Lee left FMW. | [1] | ||
| 8 | Katsuji Ueda | September 25, 1990 | Battle Field | Nagoya, Japan | 1 | 41 | Defeated Jim Backlund in a "Different Style Match" tournament final. | [1] | ||
| 9 | Jim Backlund | November 5, 1990 | FMW 1st Anniversary Show | Tokyo, Japan | 2 | 205 | [1] | |||
| 10 | Ricky Fuji | May 29, 1991 | House show | Tokyo, Japan | 1 | 87 | [1] | |||
| 11 | Mark Starr | August 24, 1991 | House show | Tokyo, Japan | 1 | 7 | [1] | |||
| 12 | Katsuji Ueda | August 31, 1991 | House show | Chiba, Japan | 2 | 205 | [1] | |||
| 13 | Dr. Luther | March 23, 1992 | House show | Saitama, Japan | 1 | 197 | The title is renamed to the WWA World Martial Arts Junior Heavyweight Championship in April 1992. | [1] | ||
| 14 | Katsuji Ueda | September 7, 1992 | House show | Saitama, Japan | 3 | [Note 7] | [1] | |||
| — | Deactivated | 1993 | — | — | — | — | The title is retired and replaced with the Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship. | [1] | ||
Footnotes
edit- ^ The location of the title change is not documented.
- ^ The date the title is changed is not documented making the championship reign too uncertain to calculate.
- ^ The exact date the championship was vacated is unknown, which means that the reign lasted between 215 and 244 days.
- ^ The length Graham's reign has not been verified by documentation, making the length of the actual reign too uncertain to calculate.
- ^ The exact date the AWA stops promoting on a regular basis is unknown making the length of the reign too uncertain to calculate.
- ^ The exact date the championship was vacated which means that the reign lasted between 518 and 542 days.
- ^ The date the title is abandoned is not documented making the championship reign too uncertain to calculate.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s "American Wrestling Association World Light Heavyweight Title". Wrestling-titles.com. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
- ^ Hoops, Brian (August 11, 2015). "On this day in pro wrestling history (August 11): Verne Gagne vs. Lou Thesz for AWA title, first ever G1 final". Wrestling Observer Figure Four Online. Retrieved February 18, 2017.