Tag: IWGP Intercontinental Title

NJPW to reveal IWGP World Heavyweight title belt on March 30

Posted on by Bryan Rose

New Japan Pro Wrestling will reveal the IWGP World Heavyweight championship belt prior to the new title’s first defense at Sakura Genesis.

The company announced this morning that the new championship will be revealed at Korakuen Hall on March 30 during the Road to Sakura Genesis event. The championship will be defended by Kota Ibushi for the first time at Sakura Genesis on April 4, when he faces Will Ospreay.

It was announced earlier this month that the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles would be merged into a new championship, the IWGP World Heavyweight championship. Ibushi’s win over Desperado at the 49th Anniversary show on March 4 marked the final defense of both titles.

This effectively ends the lineage of both titles. The IWGP Heavyweight title dates back to 1987, when Antonio Inoki won the championship in a tournament final, defeating Masa Saito. The Intercontinental title was established in 2011 when MVP defeated Toru Yano in a eight-man tournament final in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jericho pitched IC champion vs. IC champion match for SummerSlam

Posted on by Bryan Rose

Chris Jericho recently revealed that he had pitched an idea that would have pitted him, the IWGP Intercontinental champion, against the WWE Intercontinental champion at the time, Seth Rollins.

Jericho mentioned in the latest episode of Talk is Jericho that he recently pitched the idea to “a certain head of a certain wrestling company”. 

“I’ve got something for you,” he recalled when pitching the idea. “Boffo box office. I said what do you think about Intercontinental champion vs. Intercontinental champion: Jericho vs. Rollins?”

Jericho continued, saying that the match would wind up ending in a disqualification, with Rollins’ next challenger coming in and attacking. He also would have had time to come in and set up the angle on the Raw go-home show.  He later went on to say that while it got a decent response, he never heard back from the company. Rollins is also no longer the Intercontinental champion, as he lost the title to Dolph Ziggler back on June 18.

Chris Jericho has been IWGP Intercontinental champion since June 9, when he defeated Tetsuya Naito at Dominion. He hasn’t appeared on New Japan programing since, though in his last appearance seemed to set up an angle between him and EVIL.