Between three different brands in WWE and two in AEW, we are long past the days of the federations with only three major championships to compete for. In reality, there has always been more than important gold to hold. Superstars at all levels of the card need something to fight for other than the occasional personal issue.
No matter the promotion, over the years there have been some offbeat fighting titles to fight for. While these have been mostly lost to time, many of the matches can be found if you search hard enough and want to see them.
9 martial arts degree
One of the mid-’70s titles that WWE tried to make work also helped open The Forbidden Door between WWE and New Japan. To mark the arrival of Antonio Inoki, not only to the United States but to WWE, Vincent J. McMahon awarded the legend the WWE Martial Arts Championship. Ideally, this was supposedly a “shooter fight” title. Despite all this talk about Roman Reigns reaching 1000 days, Inoki held this title for 3700 days before losing it for about a month, winning it back, and also becoming the final gold champion.
8 Brass Knuckles Championship
While there have been various promotions to feature a Brass Knuckles title over the years, it would be at Global where the belt gained a bit of notoriety thanks to GWF being on ESPN.
During intense matches in GWF, Brass Knuckles were not only legal, but they were also rooted for with The Brass Knuckles Championship.
7 TNA Beer Drinking Championship
When naysayers love to laugh at TNA and how terrible it was, this is the kind of thing they can point to. During a feud between Eric Young and James Storm, TNA introduced the Beer Drinking Championship. The title was contested under – what else? – beer drinking contests and a ladder match. The title was eventually destroyed by the final ECW Champion, Rhyno.
6 Jack Brisco 15
With the exception of the Universal title, when a new title has been introduced in recent memory, more often than not it’s Seth Rollins who gets the honor of bringing it up for the first time. In FCW, in addition to being the brand’s first champion, he was also the first to lift the Jack Brisco 15 medal over his head. The medal was contested multiple times, taking place between four different superstars in a series of 15-minute Iron Man matches.
5 gift of the gods
Coming straight out of Lucha Underground is The Gift Of The Gods Championship. This title is an odd mix of WWE’s Money In The Bank and Marvel’s concept of the Infinity Gauntlet: the title holder must collect seven medallions over the course of several matches.
Once they have them all, they become The Gift Of The Gods champions and can compete for The Lucha Underground championship, as long as they give a week’s notice. The medallions are then once again distributed throughout the Lucha Underground roster.
4 Big Impact Championship
When Billy Corgan arrived to try to save TNA, one of the action items he put in place was to remove King of the Mountain and replace him with the Grand Championship. Like NXT UK’s Heritage Cup, The Grand Championship was inspired by matches in the British Territories: three timed rounds with judges and points systems. The title eventually became a standard rule before being incorporated into the Impact World Title.
If you ever really want to annoy purist fans and wrestling personalities like Jim Cornette, just show them footage from the Japan-based comedy promotion, DDT. Maybe someone in WWE was watching DDT when they came up with the idea for the 24/7 title. The now-defunct comedy gold is very similar to DDT’s Iron Man Heavy Metalweight title. The title has been won by men, women, inanimate objects (yes, like the inflatable doll and a ladder), and even an invisible wrestler.
2 DDT king of darkness
King Of The Dark sounds like a great name for a title and kind of a wild hardcore party. However, once you realize that the title belongs to the DDT federation, it’s not as cool as it seems.
The King Of The Dark title is the DDT’a Dark Match championship where the belt holder is forced to compete in Dark Matches alone and the loser of each match is actually the one with the gold.
1 NWA World Midget Title
Few titles are more shrouded in mystery and lost to time than the nearly fifty-year run of the NWA World Midget Championship. While there aren’t many records when it comes to the title, notable little wrestlers like Lord Littlebrook, Sky Low Low, and Little Tokyo have all had runs with the gold. Octagoncito was the last recognized champion before the title changed to the PWR World Mini’s Championship.