The FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship was a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

world heavyweight championship contested in

Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded on July 28, 1989, by Atsushi Onita as (FMW). The promotion specializes in hardcore wrestling involving weapons such as barbed wire and fire. They held their ...

(FMW). It was one of the top two titles in the company, along with the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship. The title belt was created for

Atsushi Onita is a Japanese actor, politician, and semi-retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) and is credited with introducing Japan to the deathmatch style of professional wrestling. He founded ...

to use in his retirement match at 6th Anniversary Show in 1995 but could not be shipped to FMW at that time and the title was finally shipped to FMW in 1996 and FMW used it as the alternative top title to the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship. Both titles were unified later that year and were collectively referred to as "FMW Double Championship". The titles were separated in 1999 and deactivated later that year in favor of the new WEW Single Championship.

History

FMW requested a new customized FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship belt for

to defend it against

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C fo ...

in the former's

retirement match Many types of wrestling matches, sometimes called "concept" or "gimmick matches" in the jargon of the business, are performed in professional wrestling. Some gimmick matches are more common than others and are often used to advance or conclude a ...

at 6th Anniversary Show on May 5, 1995 but the title could not be created at that time. The title was shipped a year later to FMW in 1996 when Onita had already retired from in-ring competition and FMW would have two Brass Knuckles Championship belts. FMW used the second title belt as a new alternative world heavyweight championship naming it the "FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship" and an eight-man single-elimination tournament was conducted to determine the inaugural champion and the tournament took place during a period of three months.

W*ING Kanemura ( ko, 김행호 ''Kim Hyeong-ho'') (born August 9, 1970) is a Zainichi-Korean retired professional wrestler, better known by the ring name . He is also known as W*ING Kanemura or . He is best known for his death matches in Apache Army, Big Jap ...

defeated

Masato Tanaka is a Japanese professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in Japan where he was a one-time FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Champion and a one-time WEW World Heavyweight Champion and in Ex ...

in the finals of the tournament to become the inaugural champion at Summer Spectacular on August 1, 1996. The title would then be unified with the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship after Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Champion The Gladiator defeated the Independent Heavyweight Champion W*ING Kanemura in a title unification match at Year End Spectacular on December 11. Both titles would then be defended collectively as the "Double Titles Championship" or simply the "Double Championship" for the next two and a half years. On May 18, 1999, the FMW Commissioner Kodo Fuyuki vacated and split the Double Championship and split the Indepdendent Heavyweight Championship from the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship as separate titles, awarding the Independent Heavyweight Championship to

Mr. Gannosuke is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) under the ring name . Honda was quickly pushed as "Mr. Gannosuke" due to his resemblance to the actor Ashiya Gannosuke and he be ...

, making him the first two-time champion. During this time, Fuyuki decided to change the promotion's name from FMW to World Entertainment Wrestling (WEW) but FMW President Shoichi Arai rejected the request and allowed him to change the name of the FMW titles to WEW titles instead. On August 25, the Independent Heavyweight Championship and the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship were retired at the Goodbye Hayabusa II: Last Match event, where both titles were defended for the final time. Champion

defeated

Yukihiro Kanemura ( ko, 김행호 ''Kim Hyeong-ho'') (born August 9, 1970) is a Zainichi-Korean retired professional wrestler, better known by the ring name . He is also known as W*ING Kanemura or . He is best known for his death matches in Apache Army, Big Jap ...

at the event to retain the title in the final defense of the Independent Heavyweight Championship to become the final Independent Heavyweight Champion. The title belts were auctioned and a new WEW World Heavyweight Championship was created instead as the sole world championship of FMW.

Inaugural tournament

Title history

Names

Reigns

Combined reigns

References

External links

FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship official title history
at FMW Wrestling
FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship title history at Wrestling-titles.com
{{FMW Championships Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling championships Heavyweight wrestling championships Hardcore wrestling championships