The History Of Wrestling's Phantom World Champions

Wrestling

Year2026

Duration28m

Watch Now

7.5

Episode 393: Phantom World Champions Throughout wrestling's history, there have been a ton of champions. But then there are cases where those champions lose to someone else, but the one who won it's time as champion doesn't count. Phantom Champions, or unofficial champions, is where somebody's time as champion isn't recognized. Whether because the belt was given back, they lost it in a rematch & everything before is not recognized, or most common a reversal of referee's decision(aka The Dusty Finish). For the sake of this episode I'm only talking the top prize, the World Heavyweight Championship. And with this episode I talk the history of Phantom Champions; from the OG World Title days over 100 years ago, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, & the WWE Championship. From Bobo Brazil against Buddy Rogers to Antonio Inoki against Bob Backlund to Ted DiBiase buying the WWF Championship to Chris Jericho against Triple H, and everyone in between. This is the history of Phantom World Champions. 0:00 Introduction & Original World Heavyweight Championship 1:51 NWA World Heavyweight Championship 13:05 AWA World Heavyweight Championship 15:30 WCW World Heavyweight Championship 19:03 WWE Championship 27:08 Recap & Which Unrecognized Reigns Should Be Recognized #Wrestling #Champion #WWE From The Vault Episode Archive: Twitter: Instagram: Facebook: Threads: Subscribe, Like, Comment, Click The Notification Bell Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use