An interim championship is an alternate title that is awarded by the sanctioning bodies of professional boxing, and in other

combat sport A combat sport, or fighting sport, is a competitive contact sport that usually involves one-on-one combat. In many combat sports, a contestant wins by scoring more points than the opponent, submitting the opponent with a hold, disabling the opp ...

s such as

kickboxing Kickboxing is a combat sport focused on kicking and punching. The combat takes place in a boxing ring, normally with boxing gloves, mouthguards, shorts, and bare feet to favour the use of kicks. Kickboxing is practiced for self-defense, gen ...

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 ...

, and

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on strike (attack), striking, grappling and ground f ...

. Occasionally, the champion of a particular weight division is temporarily unable to defend his championship because of medical, legal, or other reasons beyond the competitor's control. When this case occurs, two highly ranked contenders may fight for an interim championship of the same weight division – leading to two champions existing in the same weight division simultaneously. Once the original champion can return, at the discretion of the sanctioning body or promotion concerned, they must defend their title against the interim champion - who will relinquish their interim title to fight for the full world title. If the original champion cannot return, refuses to defend their title, or transfers to a different weight division, the interim champion is promoted to full championship status. The WBC, however, has begun awarding interim titles to the winners of final eliminator fights, effectively signifying a mandatory challenger position for the full world title. Recent examples include the winners of Dillian Whyte vs. Oscar Rivas and Devin Haney vs.

Zaur Abdullaev Zaur Magomedalievich Abdullaev (russian: Заур Магомедалиевич Абдуллаев; born 23 March 1994) is a Russian professional boxer who challenged for the WBC interim lightweight title in 2019. Professional career Abdullae ...

. In the case of professional wrestling, due to the entertainment and scripted nature of the sport, an interim championship is rarely used as most reasons – while similar to the ones in combat sports that are sometimes beyond the wrestler's control – usually lead to the champion being stripped of the title and a new champion is determined. One example of an interim champion was on WWE's NXT brand, where NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin could not travel to the United States to defend the title due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

travel restrictions, rendering him only able to defend the title on NXT's UK brand at the time. Therefore, in the

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, an interim Cruiserweight Championship was created and won in a tournament by Santos Escobar. Once travel restrictions eased up, Devlin and Escobar fought in a unification match at NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver to determine the sole champion, which Escobar won. Recent examples include the winners of Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and Toni Storm vs. Britt Baker vs. Jamie Hayter vs. Hikaru Shida.

Current interim champions

References

* Jackson, Ron
"Flyweight champ wins 15th defence."
''SuperBoxing''.

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

accessed 3 August 2006. * WBA officials
World Boxing Association World Championships Regulations.
World Boxing Association. accessed 22 December 2014. {{World boxing champions Boxing rules and regulations Boxing champions

Current interim champions

See also

References