| Championshipname: | WEW Heavyweight Championship |
| Currentholder: | Dylan James |
| Won: | October 23, 2022 |
| Created: | September 24, 1999 |
| Mostreigns: | Kintaro Kanemura (6 reigns) |
| Firstchamp: | Kodo Fuyuki |
| Longestreign: | Tomohiro Ishii (959 days) |
| Shortestreign: | Kintaro Kanemura (2 days) |
| Oldest: | Kim Duk |
| Youngest: | Masato Tanaka |
| Heaviest: | Arashi |
| Lightest: | Koji Kanemoto |
| Pastnames: |
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The was a professional wrestling championship, originally created in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) as the, later being renamed as the WEW World Heavyweight Championship.[1] [2] After FMW closed in 2002, the title became the WEW Heavyweight Championship in the World Entertainment Wrestling promotion, although carrying a new lineage.
In May 1995, Atsushi Onita went into retirement and sold Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling to ring announcer Shoichi Arai. Under Arai, the company underwent changes that would phase out the deathmatch style that popularized FMW in the early 90s. Arai enlisted Kodo Fuyuki to bring in a more "sports entertainment" look and feel for the promotion. In 1999, this resulted in the creation of the World Entertainment Wrestling (WEW) governing body for new championship titles. Fuyuki had originally intended to rename the entire promotion to complete the reorientation from hardcore (FMW) to entertainment wrestling (WEW), but this plan was stopped by Arai. Eventually, both sides agreed on a new set of titles to replace the old FMW titles. As a result, from 1999 until the end of FMW in 2002, the WEW Singles Championship was the promotion's main singles title.
Later, Fuyuki founded his own promotion (also called World Entertainment Wrestling) where the title was taken over, renamed WEW Heavyweight Championship and given a new lineage. The last champion for a long time was Kintaro Kanemura, who won the title in August 2002. When WEW folded in May 2003, the title was also declared vacant, before being reactivated in September 2006 at Kanemura's Apache Pro-Wrestling Army.[3]
In 2018, two years after Apache Army closed its doors, the title was revived in Pro-Wrestling A-Team, an offshoot founded by Tomohiko Hashimoto.
The "Takeover the Independent Tournament" was a sixteen-man single-elimination tournament held by Apache Army between July 25, 2012 and September 21, 2012.
As of,, between the two lineages, there have been 30 recognized reigns between 17 champions and two vacancies (there are 2 reigns that are not recognized by FMW). Kodo Fuyuki was the inaugural WEW Singles Champion; Kintaro Kanemura was the inaugural WEW Heavyweight Champion. Kanemura has the most reigns at six and has the longest combined reign at 1,331 days (1,335 days recognized by FMW). He also has the shortest reign at 2 days. Tomohiro Ishii's reign is the longest at 959 days. Kim Duk is the oldest champion when he won it at 70 years old, while Masato Tanaka is the youngest champion at 26 years old.
As of, .
| † | Indicates the current champion |
|---|
| Rank | Champion | No. of reigns | Combined days | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual | Recognized by FMW | ||||
| 1 | 6 | ||||
| 2 | 1 | 959 | |||
| 3 | 1 | 616 | |||
| 4 | 4 | 603 | |||
| 5 | 3 | 525 | |||
| 6 | 3 | 431 | |||
| 7 | † | 1 | + | ||
| 8 | 1 | 335 | |||
| 9 | 2 | 332 | |||
| 10 | 1 | 308 | |||
| 11 | 1 | 293 | |||
| 12 | 1 | 273 | |||
| 13 | 1 | 223 | |||
| 14 | 1 | 85 | 81 | ||
| 15 | 1 | 56 | |||
| Gajo | 1 | 56 | |||
| 17 | 1 | 43 | |||