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ECW World Heavyweight Championship

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ECW World Heavyweight Championship
Vince McMahon with the current ECW Championship belt (June 13,2006 – Present)
Tournament information

The Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) Championship is a professional wrestling championship in World Wrestling Entertainment. It was originally the highest ranked title of the Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion. Currently, it is the only championship on the ECW brand.

History

The ECW Championship was originally a National Wrestling Alliance endorsed title, officially known as the Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) Heavyweight Championship.[1] However, on August 27 1994, ECW Heavyweight Champion, Shane Douglas, participated in a tournament for the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship. He defeated 2 Cold Scorpio in the tournament final to win the title, but immediately relinquished it and instead proclaimed himself the new ECW World Heavyweight Champion.[2][3] Days later, Eastern Championship Wrestling left the National Wrestling Alliance and the name of the promotion was changed to Extreme Championship Wrestling, thus the title became known as the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) World Heavyweight Championship. The title was officially designated "World" status by Pro Wrestling Illustrated on July 6 1999[4] and remained active until April 11 2001 when Extreme Championship Wrestling folded and World Wrestling Entertainment subsequently purchased its assets.

In June 2006, World Wrestling Entertainment revived Extreme Championship Wrestling as a third brand and reactivated the championship to be it's primary title. It should be noted that the WWE incarnation of the ECW Championship has yet to be given World Title status by PWI. On June 13, Paul Heyman awarded the ECW World Heavyweight Championship to Rob Van Dam as a result of his winning the WWE Championship at One Night Stand. He'd originally stated that the WWE Championship would "become" the ECW World Heavyweight Championship if Rob Van Dam became the WWE Champion at the event.[5] However, Rob Van Dam later declared that he would hold both titles simultaneously instead.[6].

In July 2006, the ECW World Heavyweight title belt was replaced with a belt that features an updated ECW logo on its plates. Following this, the title became known as the ECW World Championship.[7] However, in August 2007, the title began to be referred to as simply the ECW Championship.[8]

Current champion

The current champion is John Morrison, who is in his first reign. He defeated CM Punk for the vacant title at Vengeance on June 24 2007 in Houston, Texas under the ring name "Johnny Nitro". On the July 17 edition of ECW on Sci Fi, his name was changed to "John Morrison".

See also

References

  1. ^ "ECW World Heavyweight Title". Wrestling-Titles. Retrieved 2007-06-13.
  2. ^ "NWA World Title Tournament
    August 27, 1994 in Philadelphia, PA"    . Pro Wrestling History. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
  3. ^ "History of the ECW World Title". WWE.com. Retrieved 2007-06-13.
  4. ^ "Wrestling History". Pro Wresting Illustrated. Retrieved 2007-06-15. July 6 [1999]: PWI grants world title status to ECW following the promotion's deal with The Nashville Network to begin airing weekly programs on August 27.
  5. ^ "WWE RAW results - June 5, 2006". Online World of Wresting. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
  6. ^ "ECW on Sci Fi results - June 13, 2006". Online World of Wresting. Retrieved 2007-06-13.
  7. ^ "ECW on Sci Fi results - July 11, 2006". Online World of Wresting. Retrieved 2007-06-13.
  8. ^ "ECW Championship". WWE.com. Retrieved 2007-08-07.
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