JWP Junior Championship

JWP Junior Championship
Yako Fujigasaki, the final JWP Junior Champion
Details
PromotionJWP Joshi Puroresu
Date establishedJune 16, 1995[1]
Date retiredApril 2, 2017[2]
Statistics
First champion(s)Candy Okutsu[1]
Most reignsArisa Nakajima, Candy Okutsu, Hiromi Yagi, Rabbit Miu and Rydeen Hagane (2 reigns)[1]
Longest reignKaori Yoneyama (771 days)
Shortest reignCandy Okutsu (<1 day)
Oldest championRina Yamashita (26 years, 45 days)
Youngest championRabbit Miu (16 years, 60 days)

The JWP Junior Championship was a women's professional wrestling championship owned by the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion. It was introduced on June 16, 1995, when Candy Okutsu defeated Hiromi Sugou and Hiromi Yagi in a three-way match to become the inaugural champion.[1]

On June 17, 2007, the reigning JWP Junior Champion Arisa Nakajima won the Princess of Pro-Wrestling (POP) Championship on the JDStar promotion's second to last event.[3] Though the two titles were technically not unified, they were defended together from this point onward.[4] The titles remained together in JWP for nearly a decade before it was announced on February 8, 2017, that the promotion was shutting down. As a result, the two titles would once again be separated with the JWP title remaining with the promotion's production company, while the POP title moved on to Command Bolshoi's follow-up promotion to JWP. It is currently unknown whether the JWP producers plan to stay in the professional wrestling business.[5][6]

The JWP Junior Championship was originally meant for wrestlers with less than four years of experience in professional wrestling, but in June 2010, the limit was raised to five years.[7] In May 2012, the experience limit was lowered back down to four years.[8] The title was vacated eight times; five times due to the reigning champion surpassing the experience limit.[1]

Like most professional wrestling championships, the title was won as a result of a scripted match. There were thirty-one reigns shared among twenty-six different wrestlers. The title was retired on April 2, 2017, when JWP Joshi Puroresu went out of business. That same day, Yako Fujigasaki won the final match contested for the JWP Junior Championship by making her second successful defense against Saori Anou.[2][9]

  1. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference JWPJuniorHistory was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference FinalBN was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference NakajimaPOP1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Princess of Pro-Wrestling Title". Puroresu Dojo. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  5. ^ 日本最古の女子プロ団体ＪＷＰの全選手が独立、新団体旗揚げへ. Daily Sports Online (in Japanese). Kobe Shimbun. February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  6. ^ JWPから全選手が独立し新団体を8月に旗揚げ！JWPが今後開催されるかは未定. Battle News (in Japanese). February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  7. ^ ＪＷＰ認定ジュニア＆ＰＯＰ王座キャリア制限の延長のお知らせ. JWP Joshi Puroresu (in Japanese). FC2. June 5, 2010. Archived from the original on March 21, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  8. ^ ＪＷＰ認定タイトルの規定. JWP Joshi Puroresu (in Japanese). FC2. May 22, 2010. Archived from the original on July 10, 2012. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Final was invoked but never defined (see the help page).