GHC Heavyweight Championship

GHC Heavyweight Championship
Kensuke Sasaki wearing the GHC Heavyweight Championship belt in September 2008.
Details
Promotion	Pro Wrestling Noah
Date established	April 15, 2001
Current champion(s)	Katsuhiko Nakajima
Date won	October 23, 2016
Statistics First champion(s) Mitsuharu Misawa Most reigns Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama, Takeshi Morishima, Naomichi Marufuji, Go Shiozaki and Takashi Sugiura (3) Longest reign Kenta Kobashi (735 days) Shortest reign Yoshihiro Takayama (16 days) Heaviest champion Takeshi Morishima (115 kg) Lightest champion Kenta (82 kg)

The Global Honored Crown (GHC) Heavyweight Championship is the top professional wrestling title in Japanese promotion Pro Wrestling Noah. It was created on April 15, 2001 when Mitsuharu Misawa defeated Yoshihiro Takayama in a 16-man tournament final.^[1] Though its name implies a particular weight class, it has been periodically held by junior heavyweights, including Yoshinari Ogawa, Kenta, Naomichi Marufuji and incumbent Katsuhiko Nakajima. There have been a total of 16 recognized champions, who have had a combined 28 official reigns.

Tournament

NOAH held a 16-man tournament to crown the first champion, held over its month-long, 18-event Navigation for the Victory GHC tour. The tour was held from March 18 through April 15, 2001.^[1]

First round

Second round

Semifinals

Finals

Mar. 18

Mitsuharu Misawa

Pin

Tokyo

Akitoshi Saito

12:26

Apr. 4

Mitsuharu Misawa

Pin

Okayama

Yoshinari Ogawa

19:44

Mar. 21

Masao Inoue

Pin

Sagamihara

Yoshinari Ogawa

14:18

Apr. 11

Mitsuharu Misawa

Pin

Hiroshima

Jun Akiyama

15:05†

Apr. 1

Jun Akiyama

Pin

Fukuoka

Takao Omori

22:49

Apr. 8

Jun Akiyama

Pin

Tokyo

Takeshi Rikio

4:02

Apr. 2

Takeshi Morishima

Pin

Beppu

Takeshi Rikio

14:33

Apr. 15

Mitsuharu Misawa

Pin

Tokyo

Yoshihiro Takayama

21:12

Mar. 22

Jun Izumida

Pin

Tokyo

Yoshihiro Takayama

8:22

Apr. 3

Yoshihiro Takayama

Pin

Uwajima

Kentaro Shiga

7:16

Mar. 30

Scorpio

Pin

Kumamoto

Kentaro Shiga

13:06

Apr. 12

Yoshihiro Takayama

DQ

Osaka

Vader

9:24

Mar. 25

Akira Taue

Pin

Kyoto

Vader

10:40

Apr. 6

Vader

Pin

Ishikawa

Daisuke Ikeda

7:15

Mar. 29

Tamon Honda

Pin

Kagoshima

Daisuke Ikeda

15:16

† Akiyama and Misawa were both counted out, but the match was restarted.

Title history

#	Wrestler	Reign	Date	Days held	Location	Event	Successful defenses	Notes	Ref.
1	Mitsuharu Misawa	1	April 15, 2001	103	Tokyo, Japan	Navigation for the Victory	1	Defeated Yoshihiro Takayama in a tournament final.	[1]
2	Jun Akiyama	1	July 27, 2001	254	Tokyo, Japan	Accomplish Our First Navigation	3		[2]
3	Yoshinari Ogawa	1	April 7, 2002	153	Tokyo, Japan	Come and Watch in Ariake	2		[3]
4	Yoshihiro Takayama	1	September 7, 2002	16	Osaka, Japan	Navigation Over the Date Line	0		[4]
5	Mitsuharu Misawa	2	September 23, 2002	159	Tokyo, Japan	Great Voyage	1		[5]
6	Kenta Kobashi	1	March 1, 2003	735	Tokyo, Japan	Navigate for Evolution	13		[6][7]
7	Takeshi Rikio	1	March 5, 2005	245	Tokyo, Japan	Navigate for Evolution	3		[6]
8	Akira Taue	1	November 5, 2005	78	Tokyo, Japan	Third Great Voyage	1		[8]
9	Jun Akiyama	2	January 22, 2006	230	Tokyo, Japan	First Navigation	2		[9]
10	Naomichi Marufuji	1	September 9, 2006	92	Tokyo, Japan	Great Voyage	2		[10]
11	Mitsuharu Misawa	3	December 10, 2006	448	Tokyo, Japan	Great Voyage	7		[11]
12	Takeshi Morishima	1	March 2, 2008	188	Tokyo, Japan	Second Navigation	2
13	Kensuke Sasaki	1	September 6, 2008	176	Tokyo, Japan	Shiny Navigation	2
14	Jun Akiyama	3	March 1, 2009	105	Tokyo, Japan	Second Navigation	1
—	Vacated	—	June 14, 2009	—	—	—	—	Vacated the title due to herniated discs in his back.
15	Go Shiozaki	1	June 14, 2009	175	Fukuoka, Japan	Southern Navigation	1	Defeated Takeshi Rikio for the vacant title.	[12]
16	Takashi Sugiura	1	December 6, 2009	581	Tokyo, Japan	Winter Navigation	14
17	Go Shiozaki	2	July 10, 2011	196	Tokyo, Japan	Great Voyage	3
18	Takeshi Morishima	2	January 22, 2012	371	Osaka, Japan	Great Voyage 2012 in Osaka	8
19	Kenta	1	January 27, 2013	343	Osaka, Japan	Great Voyage 2013 in Osaka	9
20	Takeshi Morishima	3	January 5, 2014	34	Tokyo, Japan	New Year Navigation 2014	0
21	Yuji Nagata	1	February 8, 2014	147	Tokyo, Japan	The Second Navig. 2014	4
22	Naomichi Marufuji	2	July 5, 2014	253	Tokyo, Japan	Great Voyage 2014 in Tokyo Vol. 2	6
23	Minoru Suzuki	1	March 15, 2015	283	Tokyo, Japan	Great Voyage 2015 in Tokyo	4	On August 9, 2015, Suzuki successfully defended the title against Mio Shirai at a Pro Wrestling Wave event. The defense was not recognized by Noah, so officially, Suzuki successfully defended the title 4 times instead of 5.	[13]
24	Naomichi Marufuji	3	December 23, 2015	39	Tokyo, Japan	Destiny 2015	0
25	Takashi Sugiura	2	January 31, 2016	118	Yokohama, Japan	Great Voyage 2016 in Yokohama	1
26	Go Shiozaki	3	May 28, 2016	63	Osaka, Japan	Great Voyage 2016 in Osaka	1
27	Takashi Sugiura	3	July 30, 2016	85	Tokyo, Japan	10th NTV G+ Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League	2	This was a lumberjack match.
28	Katsuhiko Nakajima	1	October 23, 2016	43+	Yokohama, Japan	Great Voyage 2016 in Yokohama Vol. 2	1

Combined reigns

As of December 5, 2016.

†	Indicates the current champion

Rank	Wrestler	No. of reigns	Combined defenses	Combined days
1	Takashi Sugiura	3	17	784
2	Kenta Kobashi	1	13	735
3	Mitsuharu Misawa	3	9	710
4	Takeshi Morishima	3	10	593
5	Jun Akiyama	3	6	589
6	Go Shiozaki	3	5	434
7	Naomichi Marufuji	3	8	384
8	Kenta	1	9	343
9	Minoru Suzuki	1	4	283
10	Takeshi Rikio	1	3	245
11	Kensuke Sasaki	1	2	176
12	Yoshinari Ogawa	1	2	153
13	Yuji Nagata	1	4	147
14	Akira Taue	1	1	78
15	Katsuhiko Nakajima †	1	1	43+
16	Yoshihiro Takayama	1	0	16

See also

• GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship
• GHC Tag Team Championship
• GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
• GHC Hardcore Tag Team Championship

References

1. "NOAH Navigation for the Victory GHC tour results". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
2. "NOAH Accomplish Our First Navigation tour results". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
3. "NOAH Encountering Navigation tour results". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
4. "NOAH Navigation Over the Date Line tour results". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
5. "NOAH results, 2002". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
6. "NOAH Navigate for Evolution 2003 tour results". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
7. "We are the Champions (as of July 8)". Power Slam Magazine. Lancaster, Lancashire, England: SW Publishing LTD. August 2003. p. 15. 109.
8. "NOAH results, 2005". Green Destiny. Retrieved 2007-05-07.
9. "NOAH The First Navigation tour results". PuroLove.com (in German). Retrieved 2007-05-07.
10. "2006 Shiny Navigation tour results". PuroLove.com (in German). Retrieved 2007-05-07.
11. "2006 NOAH results". PuroLove.com (in German). Retrieved 2007-05-07.
12. Ayass, Dean (2009-06-17). "Misawa killed by spinal cord injury". The Sun. UK. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
13. みのる暴挙！美央相手に勝手にＧＨＣ戦. Tokyo Sports (in Japanese). 2015-08-10. Retrieved 2015-08-10.

External links

• GHC Heavyweight Championship official title history