Professional wrestling championship
Championship reigns are determined by professional wrestling matches, in which competitors are involved in predetermined rivalries.
These narratives create feuds between the various competitors, which cast them as villains and heroes (heels and faces respectively).
The bookers in a company will place the title on the most accomplished performer, or whom they believe will generate fan interest in terms of event attendance and television viewership.
Lower ranked titles may also be used on the performers who show potential, thus allowing them greater exposure to the audience.
A wrestler's championship accomplishments can be central to their career, becoming a measure of their performance ability and drawing power.
American wrestler Ric Flair has had multiple world heavyweight championship reigns spanning over three decades.
They are made of elaborately designed plates of gold or other precious metals, usually bearing the name of the title and the wrestling promotion, and is on a leather strap.
Others (such as Stone Cold Steve Austin's Smoking Skull Belt, Edge's Rated-R Spinner, Daniel Bryan's eco-friendly belt, and The Fiend Bray Wyatt's Universal title with his face on it) were not used after their respective title reign.
In November 2015, Seth Rollins vacated the WWE World Heavyweight Championship due to a knee injury that required surgery.
An example of this happened in November 2022, when it was announced that then-lineal AEW Women's World Champion, Thunder Rosa relinquished the title due to a back injury she suffered in August.
In Mexico, this situation still occurs, but in Japan, it is becoming increasingly rare as champions are needed to be present in regular tours even when titles are not defended.
Professional wrestling championships are often split up into various different classifications, each of which designate varying levels of importance to the belts.
Some promotions may even recognize multiple world championships, such as is the case with WWE, as due to the large size of its roster, the promotion splits its roster into what they call brands where talent exclusively perform and their two main brands (Raw and SmackDown) each have their own world championship.
Mountevans' committee (a governing body that instilled rules for professional wrestling in the UK) created seven formal weight divisions: Classifying championships into weight classes is also common practice in the lucha libre promotions of Mexico.
Each weight class has an official upper limit, but examples of wrestlers who are technically too heavy to hold their title can be found.
Due to professional wrestling being a male dominated sport, only women's titles are given official gender classifications.
Andy Kaufman once used gender classifications to his advantage, turning inter-gender competitions into a unique wrestling side-show.
A common variation is the "hardcore championship", a title often defended in weapons-filled and bloody competitions with fewer rules (count outs and disqualifications are not usually allowed).
Examples of this include the NXT Heritage Cup (which is specifically contested under "British Round Rules") in WWE's NXT brand, and the ROH Pure Championship in Ring of Honor (which is contested under "Pure Wrestling Rules").
A variation that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s and made a return in the 2020s is a "television championship" or "iron man championship", which involves more frequent title defenses as well as the stipulations that the belt can only change hands on television (as opposed to non-televised house shows) with title matches having a short, TV-friendly time limit, usually 10 or 15 minutes.
Examples of this include the TNA Digital Media Championship, which was created in 2021 to reflect TNA's online platforms or WWE's Speed Championship which is named after the X (Twitter) exclusive streaming show WWE Speed.
